Leonard Smalls

Funny you should say that... Here's my song for this month:

I sort of regret that time 30-odd years ago when there were a number of record company scouts coming to see us at the Bull and Gate, and we thought that if we got completely off our faces we'd play much better. We couldn't... And worse, we thought we'd played really well! However, it probably did me a favour in the long run.

Today it's a touch of compressed Ampeg model in one Helix path, the other path with tube overdrive, plate reverb and Wah. Yesterday it was a Royal Blood sort of thing with bass in one path and autowah screaming guitar in the other. Before that with an actual pedalboard it was whatever craziness I could conjure from Qtron and bass-synth. Tomorrow, who knows?

I'm not quite as flamboyant as I used to be... Then (me in beautiful wedding dress) With the Weeds And more recently, Captain Square in sparkley leggings

Favourite jazz bass player? Always liked Jamaaladeen Tacuma for his harmolodic grooves. And loved Melvin Gibbs power in both Avant jazz and rock - I've seen him with Bill Frisell, Sonny Sharrock, Defunct and Rollins Band so proper versatile. Though neither specifically play a jazz . I've seen Jamalaadeen with a Rick, a Kubicki in pink, a Steinberger cricket bat and some weird cross between a Barbie doll and a Les Paul!

I suspect many will agree! My first thought was it was just random noises, but I actually ended up listening to the whole thing and found it rather haunting and hypnotic... I'm not normally one for ambient backgroundy stuff but liked this!

I'm quite happy with my main rig - DBX rack compressor, BBE pre-amp and Crown 2 channel power amp bridged to give 1500W into a Markbass 2x10 and Markbass 4x10. So I can take either or both cabs depending on the gig. It's also almost impossible to get any sort of distortion or overdrive out of the rig - max gain on the pre results in a little bit of thickening. Which in my book is excellent, as any distortion or FX come from my Helix meaning my on-stage sound is similar to front of house (assuming soundperson thinks bass definition is something they need to worry themselves about).

Local Hereford crew...

Nice bit of early Simple Minds. Reminds me of RoxyBowie Nite at Angels Nite Spot in Chester back in 1982! (they couldn't spell in them days...)

I keep mine in the shed next to the shovel, spades and mattock.

This is my favourite!

From my mum's side we got anything up to Rachmaninov, then she started doing her LRAM and we got right up to date with a touch of Shostakovich. And from my dad's side we got really modern, with Sidney Bechet, Chris Barber and Acker Bilk. My dad's reaction to popular music on TOTP was usually "Do they want to go to the toilet?", and my mum would say "what a disgusting noise!". As a result I like to make as much of a racket as I can!

It wouldn't let me buy 2!

Think I just bought the last set! No delivery till 11th December though?

Dreary and rather dull. A bit of a dirge. Not quite dire, but definitely distinctly disappointing.

Bit of forgotten 70s fusion featuring the flute stylings of Jeremy Steig with (wait for it!) Anthony Jackson on bass, Alphonse Mouzon on drums and bizarrely, Johny Winters of guitars!

Heavying up the fusion a bit...

Own up... Who voted for me? I thought I'd managed to make my entry so unpleasant that folks wouldn't be able to listen to it! What does a guy have to do to get nul points round here? Just wait till next month...

Slightly crazed Zorn and Frisell...

Tiny snippet of audience reaction from last night! ChokedPlough.mp4

We did a fundraiser for Multiple Sclerosis at a large pub in Hereford yesterday... Turned out the pub's PA was knacked, so we took our own - which doesn't half add to the effort needed especially as we took a 24 channel desk, plus monitors, subs etc all for 3 mics and one on the bass drum! Still, it was good practice for setting up for larger gigs. But it was nice to be in charge of sound - we didn't overdo it and as a result everything was very clear. Anyway, support was Hereford boys The Deadbeats; they were excellent, did punk/new wave covers and got the reasonable crowd nicely lubricated for us... And we'd thought it might be a 2 bass/no guitar gig, but somehow he got his act together and we were a 5 piece. Not only that, but we played very well indeed - usual pink torpedo ups by drummer; one song has a bass intro which is straight 4:4, somehow he always has to do a fill when I'm 2 beats from the end of the intro, and that fill always lasts 4 beats and interrupts the flow. Next time I shall bring a baseball bat... We even did 2 covers - Rage's "Bullet to the Head" and Penetration's "Don't Dictate" (or own mashed up version with "Word Up"!), and had to do a song we hadn't played in a year after more encores were demanded. We managed to raise a few hundred notes for MS and got expenses paid (which we weren't expecting, we'd agreed a freebie for new pub music venture and good charitable cause), one bloke said we sounded like Faith No More (his favourite band!), and another staggered over and said we were like The Prodigy (!), then asked if we had any ketamine... (We didn't). Used my Sandberg for the first time in ages (and realised why I'd bought it), into Helix, BBE pre and DBX rack compressor, Crown bridged power amp and Markbass 4x10. As there was so little room on stage Helix sat on top of the amp case, which meant I couldn't do my squealy lead guitar octave stuff but probably nobody noticed.

Possibly with just 2 basses,vox and drums - no guitar!!!

This Saturday, in Hereford...

Listen to just about any funk! Bass is the place etc... Or Big Bad Bob and the Infectious Boys always have bass proper up-front.

Apart from, everybody expected the Spanish Inquisition... Firstly Pope Lucious 111 declared the first inquisition in 1184, nearly 300 years before the actual Spanish one started, so they had time to get ready. And if 300 years notice wasn't enough, the Inquisition actually gave thirty days' notice. This was a thirty-day grace period during which heretics could voluntarily confess and avoid serious punishment. And these "Edicts of Grace" were read publicly after Sunday mass, so everybody expected the Spanish Inquisition. However, with time, these edicts were phased out, anonymous denunciations became more common, and more people were detained without warning, in a more Python-esque manner. Of course, by that time, the Inquisition had become of the most powerful, infamous, and universally known forces in Spanish life, so I'm not sure it could truly be said to be unexpected then either. But nobody expects the Death Metal Comparison!