Leonard Smalls

For me, and I realise I'm in a muso-snob minority, it's the actual music that counts most... After all, I can go to many places at pub chucking-out time and see people jumping about stupidly. But I'd prefer to see Jonas Hellborg and his band concentrating their little heads off in an almost motionless way apart from the blur of fingers, hands and toes than to see some very average musician posturing using every rock cliché. However, Jonas would be even better if he had his foot on the monitor, leapt from the drum riser, did the devil's horns after every crazy bass-run, then bit the head off a bat...

This is full of chromatic bass runs! And lots of other stuff... Though I didn't realise he'd changed his name again to Jamaad-Len!

But if nobody went to see new bands there'd be no new music... Folks round here will cross the country to watch some blokes kick a football about. But a few years ago I booked Wilko Johnson to play at our village hall - it was barely 1/2 full. And conversely, I booked the Wurzels fir another gig - it sold out in 2 days! So maybe it's just rocknroll our Bordrs dont like!

The kids in Japan do metal as well as we do!

I think so long as the tune was something the punters knew, and wasn't being completely mangled, they wouldn't notice who was playing it! However, if it's world class musicians playing something unknown your average punter would just leave! In December I saw a notice at my local pub saying a Dutch band were playing there. So I went, and this band were playing, just in the tiny bar; they were most certainly world class musicians, but they were playing proggy originals: I was awe struck for the 1.5 hours they played. Sound was perfect, at a reasonable level - most certainly not too loud and most definitely a head-and-shoulders above what you'd normally hear in Knighton. Especially as it was free! However, a steady stream of locals walked in, ordered drinks, didn't even glance at the band, didn't even pause in their loud shouty conversations, and just left to go and have more shouty conversations just like they did every single other Friday and Saturday night. One even asked me what the band were like - I said they were excellent musicians and well worth listening too; he said "don't know the song" and promptly went outside. It just makes me think that the majority of folks don't actually like music as a thing, especially if there's any complexity. Don't know why - laziness perhaps? But judging by how music is treated in schools, and by our broadcasters - where music will only appear at prime time as X Factor, or in that weird stuff they do for Strictly where a tango has to be done to something by Madonna just in case folks feel a bit challenged - it's not surprising. However, it appals me that a majority of the population are missing out on so much creative endeavour cos they don't realise that the effort you put into properly listening is repaid in spades!

I think some English folks are rather too hung up on things being rubbish if they're not in English, cos foreigners are obviously stupid and need to be spoken to more loudly, and obviously patronised heavily...😉 However, there's a whole world out there that's not English - it'd be daft to just confine yourself to one bit of what's available! After all, it's the music that counts - singers have been conning us all for years that they're the most important!

Not necessarily! Some folks just want the joy of making music, without having to perform. I was listening to Desert Island Discs the other day, with Tracey Thorne; she said she sang for the 1st time with a band from inside a cupboard as she was so shy. As a result she doesn't appear live much at all, just does recording.

Indeed - though less so for bass players... I bought a very nice Parker bass there a few years ago, but they reckon bass players don't buy as much gear as guitarists. I pointed out that they do, if you've got stuff they want! Though they've currently got a very nice EBS 660 at about £200 off, plus cabs to match, and a few Phil Jones amps. And for those that like that sort of thing, a Bongo 6er! And I missed out on a lovely Thumb bass by dithering...

Just checked - it's a 200... https://www.knightonmusiccentre.com/product/hi-tech-pedals/guitar-fx/mooer/mooer-ge200-guitar-multi-effects-processor/ Could be a lot more tempted by a 300,what with synths and filters...

I put up a thread a few weeks back asking if anyone had tried the Mooer... It's £299 in my local music shop - when I have a spare moment I'll go and have a go. Not sure how well it'd work for me though; my current sound-of-choice has 3 mixed FX loops - 1. a 3Leaf envelope filter going into a Darkglass microtubes into a Digitech Bass Whammy, 2. a DOD envelope filter, 3 a Fwonk Beta envelope filter going into a Boss bass synth. I'd be surprised if I could get that same Bootsy-on-keyboards-that still-sounds-like-a-Wal sound out of any of 'em.

Choked - my new band have been rehearsing busily and managed to produce a set containing just 1 cover, which in true "can yer tell what it is yet?" style contains both a punk classic, a funk classic and a more deeply hidden grunge classic. And just like in all our originals, I play far too many notes. We're at: 2nd March - Reet Petite, Leominster with punks Alvin and the Angry Barrels and Terminal Rage 23rd March - Paradiddles, Worcester 10th April - Albert's Shed, Shrewsbury 26th April - Percy's, Whitchurch 26-28th July - Funk in the Forest - Berriew nr. Welshpool

My 1st gig was on keyboards with a hastily-put-together band at school 6th form in 1981. We were doing 60s/early 70s protest songs after a screening of that scary anti-nuclear weapons doc wot got banned... We weren't very good! 1st gig on bass was 3 months after I'd decided I was actually a bass player, and had worked out how to do it using an acoustic guitar. We'd had 2 rehearsals, written 6 songs, of about 10 minutes each (!) and Jez (later of the Utah Saints) lent me his Gibson short scale bass and IIRC, a Carlsboro combo. We played for around 2 hours (we did some stretching) at the Tartan Bar at Leeds Uni in 1983, and we didn't get booed off - which was rather surprising... After that we played many parties, where we'd start playing a song, any member could nip off, put a baked potato on, have a bath and we'd still be playing the same song when they came back.

RIP!

There does appear to be a lot of our members who do seem to actively hate it... And not just that unmusical dunkadunka thing often heard in said demos and music shops around the land, but the very idea of virtually any sort of bass virtuosity is instantly dismissed as showing off. For these folks Jack Bruce was about as far as anybody should go, and even he played a few too many notes! I say live and let live. If you want to slap, great. If you just want to play the root in 16ths, great. Just listen to, and more importantly, enjoy the music!

But I had some free jazz I thought you'd want to listen to!!!!

I don't understand all the hatred for slap bass; surely it's better to celebrate skill than it is to dismiss it as "showing off" or "fretw£qry"? After all, if every musician stuck to doing the absolute minimum just in case someone say "look at him, he's up himself!" we all only be playing the root and occasional 5th. There'd be no Stanley Clarke, Les Claypool, Billy Sheehan, Jonas Hellborg etc. Or for that matter, no Bach, Mozart or even Mach and his Saddest Of All Keys...

I always use black cherry nail polish with matching lippy... 🍓 doesn't suit my complexion!

You sure? My local don't stock it! https://www.nailberry.co.uk/products/laitfraise

My Wal has a 1/4" out and a balanced xlr; perhaps perhaps he's done the same and is DI-ing the bass and the other's to monitoring?

Not sure if I would! If there's a poor quality Smashy'n'Nicey disco blasting out "Heigh Ho Silver Lining" or somesuch I can just leave. But if it's a slightly duff band doing a very average version of "Mr Brightside" too loudly, and dressed like Man At C&A I still feel it's sort of my duty to support them by standing at the back, staring at the bass player and thinking "give the people what they want when they want and they wants it all the time!" (© Parliament "Supergroovalisticprosifunkstication")

Having been brought up by a piano-teaching mother I was dragged out to classical concerts from an early age... There, it was my misfortune to behold those front-row sitters with pinched faces and pursed lips who all clutched their Edition Peters version of the score. And rather than listen to and enjoy the music they'd slavishly follow the dots on the page, and they'd tut and point and give off a general air of "there's been a murder!" if what was played was just forte instead of fortissimo, or woe-betide if a different note or minor rhythm change occurred! Meanwhile, the rest of the crowd who were equally divided between those who loved music and just wanted to hear it played well, and those who liked to dress up and say "I go to classical concerts, doncha know!", sat back and enjoyed it to various degrees... So now, if I go into a pub and see a band play I think: 1. Does it groove? 2. Do I like it? 3. Do I know the song? If it's a slavish attempt to reproduce a song I don't like - frinstance most of the "popular" covers repertoire - even if it's done well I'll whinge or go somewhere else. If I like the song I'll be relatively happy. But to be really happy when someone's doing a cover I want different; I want to not quite know what it is until at least the chorus. I want to think "These guys are doing that slightly annoying Floyd song in the way it should have been done in the first place!". However, I realise that the majority of punters aren't chip-on-the-shoulder muso-snobs like me, and that the most folks just want to hear a song they already know so they can feel at one with the crowd in their shared knowledge, pointing in the air and shouting at each other's faces until they knock the PA over. And I'll be sat in the corner, bitter and nursing a pint, muttering.

This, from Hiromi's Time Control album, has a fine example of modal walking bass... Some older more stick-in-the-mud jazzers would say "it's not jazz, it's fusion" to which I say Get hip, daddy-o! Next y'all will be telling me there's an actual difference between Djent and Thrash metal 😄

This is one of my favourite bits of acoustic bass in jazz, with plenty flute smeared liberally all over it...

My Tuning-Tech does it, under the strict supervision of the Acting Assistant 2nd Bass Tech. As for the bottom-wiping thing, it depends on which of my other bass roadies are available.