Leonard Smalls

Funky things to play with!

On 6music

Punk Classics: Chinese pink torpedos - Johnny Thunders God shave the Queen - Sex Pistols Babylon's Gurning - Ruts Lust for Wife - Iggy Pop I wanna be your bog - The Stooges Long Dong Garden - Siouxsie and the Banshees Nasty Pasty - 999 Farty in Paris - UK Subs I'm not a tool - Cockney Rejects

I can't cope with more than about 30 seconds of even just acoustic drums without my plugs... So I always wear 'em! And bands are still often far too loud. Frinstance, at Rebellion back in August the Introducing Stage is in a large auditorium that's well know for sounding bad - loads of hard parallel reflective surfaces etc. And the soundmixer's solution? To turn it up so loud that it's painful, even with plugs. While lots of damping might not be possible, turning it up is bound to make the situation worse! In contrast, last week we played a small pub in Birmingham which had a capacity of at very most, 150. I was a bit worried because even in this small room, everything was mic-ed up and DI-ed. However, the sound was great - crystal clear, with thwacky bass drum, audible bass and vox and still not too loud, though still rockin'. I could even take my plugs out for a minute or so without pain, which was nice!

There's not much better than A Kick In The Eye... But I'll take Bela Lugosi on mediaeval instruments 😁

Acoustic Bauhaus in the pub! I'd definitely be up for that... A pint of Butty Bach with a Kick In The Eye!

My dad's local boozer was there! They lived just up by Ladyurd Hill...

I remember doing London NW2 to Romannobridge just south of Edinburgh on my old Yamaha TR1 up the A1, then A68, in five and a half hours, with 2 stops for fuel! That was in the days long before speedcameras and gave me an average speed of just inside the motorway speedlimit. I was knacked, mind, especially as the bicycle was unfaired! I suspect nowadays you'd have to add 2 hours to that!

A snippet someone sent us from our 999 support... 388892917_699781945021895_7568735487361311918_n.mp4

I used my final test to discover that it's a mere cold or perhaps flu. Though last time I had COVID (a year ago) I was under the weather for a day, this has been going since Tuesday and still feeling duff! Perhaps COVID jabs work! Or perhaps this happened to be my nemesis ManFlu... My Mrs has it now and is showing a slight sniffle! Still, it proves you can use a Wal for punk!!!!

I didn't even stay as I felt so sh?t! And I'd never seen 'em before. But I did have a chat with them, decent blokes, carrying their own gear... Hopefully I didn't infect them - mask may have helped.

We supported Original Punks, 999 at a cosy little pub (The Victoria) in Birmingham. It's probably about 100 people max allowed in! Unfortunately, I had The Cold From Hell (first for years!) - I'd got over the aches'n'chills and was on the dribbling and feeling a tiny bit less duff stage. I even wore a mask in the car to make an attempt at protecting 2 of my bandmates who were getting a lift from me, though who knows? Anyway, deliberately arrived only half an hour before we were due to go on as it was line check only, after we finally managed to get the previous band off stage (they took forever unplugging a guitar and bass, possibly to to over-refreshment) and found a space for my Markbass 4x10 with Crown PA head (firing across the stage!), plus a little niche for me, my Wal and Helix to stand in, we could get going. And despite the venue being tiny, and everything mic-ed/DI-ed up it was not too loud (unheard of!) and sound was great both on and off-stage. Cheers Mr Soundman! I was also very pleased with a new patch I'd made with some GK drive and Ampeg sound in parallel and mixed with a spot of reverb compressed both front and back end - it cut through beautifully and I managed to get far more of The Funk into our songs than usual (normally, as the sound is an overloud unholy mess there's no point!), which was nice! Crowd were very appreciative, though being mainly Original Punx Of A Certain Age too there wasn't much dancefloor action. Still, we sold some merch, and one of the CD buyers insisted on us all signing it. Fame!!! Sneaked off immediately afterwards making sure that everyone had congratulated me for being a brave soldier, to discover that the Hagley Road was closed, meaning teh quickes way was via M6, M54 and Much Wenlock, probably 20 miles extra. But rewarded myself with a rather fine dram of Ludlow single malt whisky.

I take exception to such elitist and exclusional language! Talent is a concept foisted on The Workingman by The Bourgeoisie in order to cement their position of dominance.

I've done a cover for quite a few months now! Though I have changed the lyrics, the rhythm, the melody (or often completely discarded such a bourgeois notion), the tempo, and instrumentation. Frinstance I've somewhat improved on Spandau's original this month, as I've got rid of all that funky nonsense and coherent lyrics in favour of much more meaningful ones, such as: unus septem est septem avem in manu valet duos in rubo duo septem quattuordecim numerus bestiae sescentorum sexaginta sex

I've found that it doesn't embed from a mobile phone browser, though I've only tried Chrome and DuckDuckGo on mine. On a PC/Laptop works fine with Edge, Chrome and Firefox.

Next one is tonight (12th) In Birmingham, supporting OPs 999 And then it's almost a local gig (an hour away!) at the Heart Of Anarchy Halloween Punx Party:

Back in my rockabilly rebel days we used to go to the Klub Foot too! I even saw the Chilli Peppers there when it was just the plain Clarendon...

Scott Devine's fusion band!

I dun one! I felt that the rather spooky image deserved my rather jaunty cover of Spandau Ballet's classic. Get yer dancin' shoes on! Apologies for the bad language - my Latin pronunciation is not up to scratch. Sounds using synths by Universal PolyMax, Massive and Usynth. Vocals and translations by me. All mixed in Doblys with Ozone 9.

From way back when... Old Skool!

Me slappa-da-bass! From last Saturday at the Foundry in Brecon. Proper photo by proper photographer! Cheers Barry Hill...

We travelled to a reasonably new venue last night, The Foundry in Brecon, and very nice it is too! Easy load in, helpful and very pleasant owner/soundman, decent little room (maybe 140 capacity?). First up were some crazies - Anoise who had stand-up drummer, dancey backing tracks off a laptop and bassist triggering fx and playing dubby stuff. They had a dancer dressed firstly as Mr Blobby (Mr. Bezzy!) who stomped about while the band made who knows what sort of racket, complete with costume changes. And they'd brought 90 balloons, all blown up by the band which were scattered hither and thither. Huge Fun and recommended! Then we were on, unfortunately, the guitar cab was next to our drummist so he couldn't hear many of the cues he needed but we muddled through. In fact despite me not being able to hear me (the usual "everyone needs to turn down" during soundcheck then I'm the only one that does it, but luckily I can play all our songs without hearing any of it...) there was jumping about and gentle moshing and obligatory balloon football form much of the 50-odd people there. The Anoise bass player even jumped up on stage at one point to tell me I had "amazing technique" - while he probably wasn't wrong (🤣) he was a touch inebriated. Excellent fun had, and those Brecon folks are Madferit! And I used my ACG Recurve with Helix into Marshall Jubilee and Markbass 2x10. Must turn it up a bit next Thursday for 999 support in Birmingham! Finally we had Dropping like Flies, long established South Wales punkers and a proper bunch of comedians - their between songs banter was worthy of Frankie Boyle, but a bit more risque! and they were tight as a gnat's with great sound and good bunch of songs.

It'd be nice! But we're making more money than we did a year ago... And playing to bigger audiences which hopefully means we'll build a bigger fanbase leading to more people paying to come and see us until finally, we take over the world. Unfortunately, it's a bit more difficult with originals bands and takes longer (or perhaps never!) to become profitable. Our merch has just about paid for itself, now we're in profit on that so if we get say £100 for a gig (we sometimes get more, sometimes less) we may sell tshirts, cds, mugs, keychains and assorted tat as well which makes it worthwhile.

Our nearest possible gigs are an hour away - local pubs will only have a very occasional covers band and then only the cheesiest of shoutalong song choice is popular... Our next gig is 1.25 hours away, next 2 hours, after that we've got one in Hereford (1 hour - nearest). Then we're looking at 2 that are 4 hours away - we'll lose money as we'll stay the night and not get paid enough to cover hotel; we'd need to camp! Still, we see it as a hobby and hobbies usually cost money...