Leonard Smalls

My mum was a piano teacher, so from about the age of 6 I played piano... Then I heard "Hit me With Your Rhythm Stick"... And a bit later I went to my first proper "big" gig, Ian Dury and the Blockheads closely followed by The Clash on the London Calling tour and realised that bass was cool. Then in 6th form we got a band together (me on keys) with our RE teacher to play some Barclay James Harvest and Dylan stuff as a pre-amble to a school showing of "The War Game" and Mike played on his brother's violin bass (it's your fault, @lurksalot!), which was the 1st bass I got to play. I gave up the piano, went to uni and got into The Funk; my flatmate had an old acoustic guitar with the two top strings broken so I used it to jam along to Bootsy and Parliament. As soon as I could play something vaguely funky I got together with the boys from Chestnut Avenue and we formed A Band - Dredd and the Badass Weeds and within a week we were gigging, me having borrowed a short-scale Gibson off Jez (later of MDMA then The Utah Saints). And the rest is history! They went off and had lots of musical success, while I moved to London and formed a bizarre punkfunk band who liked to dress funny.

Haven't got any photos of early Weeds with borrowed Gibson short scale... But I do have Barf Roco stuff from around 1987-8. I no longer own the babydoll nightie as that was forcibly removed during the gig by singer and guitarist. luckily I had a codpiece on. Then a couple of weeks ago at Rebellion:

The drummer in our band gave us notice that he wanted to leave because we weren't making any money; he had previously played in covers bands and made a few quid every gig... So we got in touch with an old mate who was between bands, he was very happy to be asked to join, so we told old drummer who was pleased, and we agreed that our next gig would be his last. On the night of that gig, while we were on stage actually, we got an email saying we'd been accepted for Rebellion. And old drummer threw his toys out of the pram - accused us of knowing in advance and forcing him out, then stormed off and immediately unfriended us all on FB as did his wife and daughter. He's recently re-friended me, wants to know how everything is going with the band, possibly in the hope that everything's worse without him. Which it isn't - different but not in a bad way, in fact better in some ways, and slightly worse in others... Still, life's too short for ridiculous grudges!

Murderer - Barrington Levy

21st Century Schizoid Man - King Crimson

Yes... Bear in mind that Liszt (and Paganini) was a showman, playing things others thought impossible and some thought was just musical pyrotechnics that had little bearing on actual music... His concerts caused mass fainting fits among women in the audience, he had a "piano battle" with Sigismond Thalberg in Paris (see Davie 504 vs Berthoud), he was the first musical superstar. And while I wouldn't necessarily compare the talent of 200bpm bassman to the awesome skillz of Liszt (😁), the showing off part is deeply rooted in Liszt's legacy.

The Vinyl Countdown - Europe

Just listening to a demo of one of the new tracks we've written for our extremely rare gig in October... https://weeds2.bandcamp.com/track/penny-arcade-demo

There is among some on BC a tendency to think of anything that's not root'n'fifth (or at most, on the mellow side of McCartney) to be showing off and not proper bass playing. So most of jazz, anything with slap'n'tap or excess widdle gets dismissed as "unmusical showboating" - which completely ignores the fact that you have to have a hint of show-offery just to get on stage and play any music, never mind the classical concept of the cadenza or solos in jazz or even (God forbid!) in rock! BTW, not saying that's you - I agree with what you're saying...

It wasn't me who pronounced the alleged "showboating" as unmusical... Just because something doesn't float your boat doesn't make it "Unmusical", though the dictionary definition of unmusical is also deeply unhelpful: 1. not musical; deficient in melody, harmony, rhythm, or tone. 2. acoustically and aesthetically harsh on the ear; strident; dissonant; cacophonous. 3. not fond of or skilled in music. According to my mother, a piano teacher, just about all rock and pop music is unmusical. Many folks would find most free or improvisational jazz "acoustically and aesthetically harsh on the ear", but this fails to say which ear. If it's mine, that's not true. Many others would disagree, but that's taste - one man's beautiful music is another's nails on a blackboard. So as a result I wouldn't say something I didn't like, whether it's showey-offey or just plain old Black Lace, was unmusical - but perhaps not to my taste. Or after a couple of beers, a steamy pile'o'sh!te...

Aye... Playing anything complicated or difficult shouldn't be allowed! Just because they're using a musical instrument to produce sound doesn't mean it's music, it's just about inflating their own ego. They should just stick to straightforward and easy tunes, so for keyboards, no harder than Chopsticks, and for bass players, stick to the root and throw in the occasional fifth if you really must. I blame that Paganini and Liszt.

Careful with that axe, Eugene - Pink Floyd

Here's my entry for this month's BC compo compo... In order to be as authentic as poss I should have bought an old Fender through a big valve amp, then mixed everything using tape delays and valve mixing desks and whatever else. However, as I have none of that stuff, just a Sandberg bass, a Helix, an Impulse keyboard and battered Squier Strat plus Ableton on a PC and a host of VSTs and plug-ins. But I did play the bassline in 1 with no further overdubs so that might be a touch authentic!

You're So Vein - Carly Simon

When someone says Yellowstone I immediately think of El Capitan, which rises majestically out of Tuolumne Meadows, a mere 811 miles and two states away in Yosemite. So here we have a bit of dub, perfect for watching the sunset from your Portaledge halfway up El Cap's most famous route, The Nose. Bass is Sandberg, guitar a Strat, keys - various from Ableton, Iris, Kontakt, Ujam and EZ keys. Drums programmed using Ableton packs and Loopmasters sounds. Delays/reverbs etc Raum, Objeq, Dubstation 2, Kilohearts plus Phasis phaser. All rolled in Neutron 3 and Ozone 9.

It's actually a final chorus, after 3 verse and chorus combos before. It's a semi-respectable 1'54", so not really Napalm Death length!

Ta! It's only mobile phone footage but worked ok...

Here's a little blast of us being all punky at Rebellion recently...

Carwash -Rose Royce

Let's Start The Dance! -Hamilton Bohannon

Shut Up! - Black Eyed Peas

S'an instrumental piece of music. Or a song without words. Or simply, a ditty.

Some stuff I heard at Rebellion last week:

Mister Bojangles - Sammy Davis Jr.

Fkin A!