Leonard Smalls

While he may be able to hit a note, I'd prefer the sound of a screaming baby with an airhorn scraping a metal gauntlet down a 100 foot blackboard to that Yes geezer!

Not unless they got a decent singer!

Many artists have made gear popular. Frinstance Bob Marley and ganja, Grateful Dead and acid and Doctor Feellgood and amphetamines...

I like to play with myself, and I also like to play with the band... But you can't beat a good gig, with a roaring crowd and groupies that are recognisably animal, vegetable and mineral queueing outside the enormous dressing room waiting to have a go on our extensive rider. Then there's the press adulation - HERE'S an example from 1991...

Don't listen to all this sensible jibber-jabber! I take it we're talking rock'n'roll of some sort here? In that case all you need is to look like you're The Band - get some great trousers and shoes, work on The Stare, practice walkin' the walk and standin' the stance. Soon old ladies and young mums will be crossing the road to avoid you, young children will stare in awe and youths will finally understand what a role model is. Then you'll be ready! And get a big amp with at least 500W and the biggest speakers (not just 1!!!) you can find (*) cos rock'n'roll ain't noise pollution... (**) *make it class D and neo speakers - you've got to take care of your back ** don't forget those ear defenders - you don't want white noise to drown them all chanting your name!

Indeed… Folks like what they know and they know what they like! It seems, at least in the rural areas I currently inhabit, that there's no appetite at all for any new music, or for anything that's at all leftfield. If the Wurzels came to town (and they did once - I booked 'em!) the place would be absolutely rammed. But if Idles played, or Deliluh, or (lawd'elpus!) some free jazz, there'd be a tiny audience. It wasn't always so - back in the early 2000s before they were big, Pendulum played to a full community centre. There used to be a thriving free jazz scene. But now there's no interest at all in music, unless they already know all the words. Could it be because there's no more TOTP? Or that music coverage in general is limited to Glasto and the same old stuff on the short Jools series?

Some places just don't seem to have an audience! Mate of mine tried to set up some gigs in our local community centre with varied selections of bands. After he'd paid for PA, security (comm insisted he needed 2 security guards at £250!), insurance and hall hire it worked out £4 entry to break even. And maximum audience was 50, so he made a loss of £400 each night! Folks said it was far too expensive even though all the bands were excellent. And recently my local, completely out of the blue, decided to have a band on in the bar; they were a Dutch prog band called Sky Architect - the quality of their musicianship and music was by far the best that had been seen/heard in the town for years. It was free, on a Friday night, not very loud (you could talk to the person next to you!), but there were about 8 of us in the bar. Young Farmer types would come in for beer every now and then - one even asked me if the band were any good (why didn't he just listen!!!). But they all stayed out in the courtyard,ignoring this amazing band and shouting at each other in exactly the same way as they did every other Friday. However, nip down to Hereford (an hour down the road) and there's a ready audience for new music!

I 2nd the recommendation that you try and convince the guitar players to lose some of their bottom end. In my last band the guitar was that big crunchy rock tone coming out of 2 Marshall 4x12s. It was all very nice, but he was covering all the frequencies that a bass would be heard at; this would have been fine if all I played was straight ahead root/fifth. However, as our music was very funk bass driven with wah and synth blended into slappy Wal tone, you just couldn't hear me. So I made the point that if there was no point in having a bass player playing complex stuff who who couldn't be heard - after much argument he cut the bass out of his tone (I pointed him in the direction of Larry Lalonde from Primus and the Chilli's guitar sound). And all of a sudden we were much better! But still not better enough; the drummer thought that if you weren't hitting it harder than John Bonham you were doing it wrong. I tried to get him to check those groovy jazzyfunky blokes you see on TinyDeskConcerts, but he couldn't understand their lack of violence. The answer was much more headroom. So I bought a Crown xls1502, put into into bridged mode (1500W into 4ohms - get the 2502 if you want more!) and shoved that into a Precision Devices 15" and Markbass 2x10. Now it goes loud enough to completely drown out drums and guitar without distorting at all - it just about flickers onto the 2nd LED at this volume - which means all my sound is produced by a combination of FX, compression and pre-amp - sending post DI to the desk gives me control of much of the FOH bass sound. And I can hear octave down fx on stage! Funnily enough, the best sound I got on stage was by borrowing a Mesa Diesel 2x15 plus the Markbass 2x10 - immense,and scared the guitarist enough to have nightmares. BTW, I've been using hearing protection since the early 90s - first Etymotics and recently custom ACS. Guitarist foolishly doesn't, and complains about ringing. To paraphrase, there's no so deaf as those who will not hear!

Stanley Clarke is my favourite Rotosound player - because you'd think what he does is impossible until you see him do it...

We've decided that we won't be playing any more of these! We'll only play dedicated music venues or festivals now where the audience have actually come to hear music, rather than the band being a too-loud irritant to folks trying to have a quiet pint, and who don't really like music anyway unless it's that song they got off with Sheena to when they were 18. They'll lean against you saying "like, yer knows the one, it goes 'dadadadumdedadum', it's great, yer know it, it's by that bloke, yer know the one" etc while I explain we're a punk funk originals band, and who knows why the landlord booked us to the PinkTorpedo Inn* near Arscott! We should have known by the "Sky Sports" sign. *It's actually in Hanwood, but near Arscott, and we've never played there - in fact I've never even been in but hear they do decent Wainrights beer. The name entertains me every time I drive past; they don't even do music and many other pubs are available that you wouldn't necessarily like to gig in!

Seems that the old link wouldn't un-embed without removing "s" from https, so here tis again!

Everything beats golf... Apart from a colonoscopy with a red hot poker!

Check these lot too... Playing Manchester, Birmingham and Leeds in October.

Had an afternoon free so thought I'd do a little ditty...

Wounded Paw blenders... I've got the V4. Just stick the fx on different loops and stomp on the loop switch as and when needed. https://www.woundedpawaudio.ca/fx/index.php?main_page=index&cPath=2&zenid=c58mtefd605j4k22l4ntkv9o93

😀 That's why I like 'em! And also why I don't like Sheryl - and most other bands where the musicians back a singer, as opposed to the singer being an equal part of the band (btw, I like brown sauce on my chips 😆). It probably stems from the fact that I don't really like singing as such - much prefer rhythmic shouting/rapping/chanting etc. And while I love what many of our more 70s oriented brethren might call "overplaying"(*), can't be doing with oversinging - whether it's the latest Mariah wannabe or opera... * I like jazz! including free improv!

I'm afraid that, as an equal opportunities misanthropist and probably as a serious minority, Sheryl does absolutely nowt for me. It feels lumpy, there's no groove or syncopation and it doesn't have metaphorical cojones. And funnily enough I've just been listening to this:

That would explain the daft grin 😄

I like a rehearsal where the drummer turns up in a foul mood cos he's had an argument with his Mrs, then the guitarist turns up drunk with no leads. After I've helped the drummer set up and lent Mr Guitar some leads I'm then most gratified when the drummer starts taking out his frustration by hitting every drum as hard as he can, with GuitarMan playing his best Hendrix impersonation at a different speed at absolute full volume. To be perfect, the singer should then turn up saying they can only stay for 1/2 an hour, at which point guitarist nips out for a 10 minute smoke break, coming back smelling of skunk and unable to stand. We'd have time to play 4 or 5 songs, but wouldn't get past the first one because: a) the singer thinks it should be faster b) the drummer thinks it should be slower c) the guitarist is sick on my pedalboard

I wasn't impressed by him (apart from his trousers! I've got their twin brother) - he seemed to spend much of the time gurning at the audience then playing something a bit lacklustre. Band were good though!

Best band of the festival for me was Janelle Monae... Excellent show, funky as, serious bass player.

Never liked the Killers. And can't see what the fuss is about with Foals - they haven't even got a bass player! However, enjoyed Goat Girl - I'm not usually indie-boy but they're just that bit more interesting. Sort of Monochrome Set-meet-The Roches! First band I've watched the whole set of (though with Idles this was because my Mrs complained about the racket). Janet Jackson was mildly entertaining but, as the Mrs said "what's with the Hitler moustache?" 😄 It just meant you couldn't really tell if it was her singing, or her backing vocalist or a backing track... Wanted to Like The Comet Is Coming - but found they never quite let go; sax player kept doing repetitive riffs when some Ornette-style squawking would have made it all wig-out properly. Looking forward to Fat White Family later today...

I quite enjoyed The Charlatans, despite the duff hair and terrible dancing! Also liked Idles, Michael Mawanuka and (surprisingly!) Two Door Cinema Club.

Sneaked an edit in... Is it Villa Strangiata?

Is it Rock the Casbah? edit: Bah! Put up the choon before my guess!!