Leonard Smalls

Stench of Honey - Cardiacs

When I were a lad there were only two cores (apart from apple) - soft and hard. Soft was found under the Magic Porn Bush, with its pages stuck together by rain and who knows what, and hard was near-mythical - most certainly not what was shown in cinemas with titles like "Confessions of a Window Cleaner" or "Rosie Dixon - Night Nurse".

Nowadays that's not necessarily the case, as most will be freelancers specialising in whatever aspect of sound recording/mixing they're hired for... However, you definitely have a point about the past! I worked with studio sound people a lot in the days of live Top Of The Pops; their thinking was the sound must be "as is", no FX, no making it sound any better as that was cheating and not putting out exactly what was put in. This, I might add was also when these folks were exclusively recruited as engineers - there was no time for fancy frills and expression, twas purely a matter of keeping it within spec and watching the meters. Their thinking was "if the band don't sound good enough on their own it's not our job to help 'em!". As a result, most bands sounded terrible! I also had them working for me on a well known drama, and the amount of grief we had just convincing them to actually add to the plot with a spot of intelligent sound design was amazing. Not all of 'em, I might add! So I kept the best 2 or 3 and brought in sound dubbing mixers from Post Production (the others were studios) - their job was to make it sound good so that's what they attempted to do but because of studios demarcation, those mixers never got a look-in at music mixing.

Indeed! And the only time I've enjoyed Country and Western is when Hank W. did it.

Flake Of Fire - Nirvana

Chocolate City - Parliament

Just been asked to join the Samples at the Marrs bar in Worcester on 18th July... Then the week after that, we're with Brazilian HardCore-istas, AntiVirus in Hereford (26th July) Then we're at Rebellion fest early afternoon on the 10th August, and same day, at mini fest also in Blackpool at the Washington Then that's all Choked've got booked for the year!

Or originally and arguably, skatepunk 😁 Then BobbyT got really good and they became a bit more funkpunk! And Turnstile appear to have been a lot harder in the past - shame they've gone all wuss now! This is the last "hardcore" band we played with, though in the daft world of extreme categorisation they're also street punk and thrash punk/metal - Potbelly In 3 weeks we're playing with hardcore Brazilians Anti Virus, though they could be just punk... And next week, we're playing with OG punks, the Samples. They're definitely not hardcore. Or Thrash. Or Metal.

Hardcore pop-punk! They're by no means hardcore, apart from for folks who don't like or know what hardcore is! https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m002fb7q/glastonbury-turnstile-never-enough - this is softer than Green Day! See Exploited, GBH, Black Flag, Minor Threat, Rancid, Bad Religion, Bad Brains, Sick of It All... Or:

Bubble Gum (I Chewz You) - Captain Sky

Sweets For My Sweet - The Drifters

Excellent stuff! However, assuming that all the participants voted, only 2 other Basschatters scrawled their "X"... Twas ever thus!

It is... As an ex BBC sound recordist and Post Production manager I can assure you that, especially with current budget constraints, only the bare minimum number of staff (or contractors) are sent there. I never went on a beeb junket! In contrast, I remember when I was training; I did 3 months on Keeping Up Appearances in Kenilworth... We got pay, plus overtime for while we were there, plus travel allowance, meal allowance (even though there was location catering) and overnight allowance for being away from home, and hotel... I bought a motorbike with just my overnights! But it's not been like that for 30 years or so. My old department doesn't even exist anymore!

Forgot about Nova Twins (how could I?). Awesome, as usual...

Yesterday I enjoyed Cymande (what bass? ACG headless?), Black Uhuru, St Vincent, Scissor Sisters and particularly, Getdown Services with their insanely catchy "Dog Dribblin'". Here at 20'30 in... https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m002fd6s/glastonbury-sunday-evening-live And even though I didn't want to, thinking it would be annoying music-as-product girlypop-pish, I also enjoyed Olivia Rodriguez' set. Great band, great stage-craft, decent songs and great overall production. Kids nowadays, eh? And I was a little disappointed with the Amyls' set - maybe because I'd given the Osees a good go and had a bit of a headache... I gave Rod a song to entertain me, just long enough to throw a bottle of piddle, but I was bored as soon as I saw the Vegas-alike set. And my Mrs insisted we gave CMAT another go... And while they all played well, and she sang excellently I still have the feeling that it's all a bit like that sign you sometimes see hanging in offices - "You Don't Have To Be Mad To Work Here But It Helps"; trying desperately hard to be wacky, different and fun but ultimately failing completely.

Next gig I'm wearing a waistcoat and cowboy boots with a big fluffy perm...

Yesterday I watched using The Big Stereo at A Reasonable Volume... English teacher I found alternately excellent and deeply annoying. My Mrs likes 'em more than me, I feel! Loved Gary Numan - serious bass sounds! If only he'd played It Must Have Been Years... Enjoyed Fat Dog with their Klezmer-tinged punky stuff - singer very shouty and looks like James Acaster dressed up as the Man From Delmonte. Shame the bass level wasn't upped till halfway through. Briefly watched Haim for a look at The Bass Face but found it all rather too cheesey and wet. Liked The Ezras, though I prefer max rather than min funkin'! Unfortunately, missed Big Bad Bobs Vylan - nice to see the boys still causing trouble! I wonder if the Beeb will put his show up for our viewing pleasure? 😁

Jump Around - House of Pain

I'm a thumb plectrum man... Basically hit the string on both the Up- and the Down-stroke! Some times with a slap for emphasis. Then 3 fingers wiggle about doing other widdleystuff.

Having seen her on Later a while ago I'll be steering well clear. But some folks are clearly huge fans!!! It clearly takes all sorts... Shall hopefully be catching up with Bob Vylan later, then search for entertaining oddness, like the Porn Crumpets last year!

I thought they were great - excellent musicians. Though I feel their cover of "Sunshine" was ill-advised; musically they nailed it but the drummer's "singing" and constant shouts of "hey Glastonbury" would have poor old Ayers spinning in his grave!

I would say that The Electric Bass Guitar is a Whatever-You-Want-it-to-Be Instrument! Original purpose is irrelevant; after all, Viagra wasn't invented as "support instrument" either...

Up The Junction - Squeeze

We're going to Ibiza - Vengaboys