Leonard Smalls

I done one... My "piece" (I hesitate to call it a song!!!) is an impression of who is in the mirror, and what happens when he's summoned. Basses are fretless Lightwave, plus Wal doing guitar emulations and weird noises. Keys are Ableton's own grand piano sound, drums programmed through EZ Drummer using Clyde Stubblefield's Phased Funk kit, saxes edited and resampled heavily from Loopmasters loops.

If your laptop has only 4Gb of RAM, you might find difficulty running any DAW with more than a few tracks! Personally I wouldn't use less than 16Gb...

Here's a live online stream from 7 months ago!

As far as we knew, The Jam were at the head of the mod revival. When we were being abused and chased down the street it was usually by blokes with short sensible hair wearing parkas with "the Jam" written on top of a target!

As a young punker in Chester we had no money, and no access to any fancy punk clothes shops (though one of our tiny band had a rich dad, so he had tartan bondage kecks and a leather jacket). So we used to make our own clothes; me and Swamp hit on the idea of Sh!t/Fwck tshirts - black t from tesco, spatter bleach on it so it'd also go holey, then write the immortal words in big top and bottom. Then we made our own bum flaps - mine was from greenish curtain material and had "Slits" written in orange day-glo paint. My trews were an old pair of flared jeans I made into drain pipes, then spattered a bit of bleach and paint on 'em, dyed them puke green and cut some slashes in to insert flourescent zips. Jacket was an old RAF blouson with more paint, and shoes Major Domo doc martens rip-offs held together with orange string. Hair was spiked with soap and sugar water, dyed with cochineal. We looked a proper state!

My blue/green tartan isn't yer common or garden Black Watch!

While most Official Punx™ are Royal Stewart, there is a dispensation from Punk Central® for western branches to use a more scenery-blending greeneyblue with black tartan... And punk guitarists are allowed scruffy flat caps and beards if they're from Mansfield.

Can't imagine our local church doing this!

Bass Direct have 'em...

We're a sort of punk band, and there's definitely some slap in this!

Sticking with the groove!

When I was a youth the way to get into a band was to turn up with beers and start rolling fat ones. As soon as everybody was suitably refreshed you'd get going with a make-it-up-as-you-go-along jam session, each groove lasting a minimum of 25 minutes.

I suspect I will to... Perhaps I should start apologising early! For I have Made Music (*), and Doug will be pleased to hear it's not constrained by the bourgeois concepts of melody, time and key... Watch this space (preferably with industrial ear defenders on). *or at least something related to music, perhaps a closer relation than a shovel of dog do, though not as close as steel nails on a blackboard

When I audition someone for our band I'm looking for musical input and creativity... But if the original bassline was amazing, keep it. Add to it if you can. Or best of all, make it better!

I used to live in a house with Dave! Nice bloke... Though I remember him coming down to my room to play his 1st single, which I hated, not being a fan of yer IndieJangle, but told him it was great 😃

Beginnings of High NRG!

Always hated it! Felt that it nicked from much better stuff like this -this always filled the floor at Oliver's Nite Spot in Chester:

You'd want to go behind the door, cos that's where the gents is!

They do very fine pints of Butty Bach and Three Tuns XXX!

I always feel that if you've got a bass player who plays nowt but un-syncopated straightforward root/fifth type stuff it's best to use them for feel in the background somewhere. But if you've got a seriously good bass player you might as well let 'em shine as they'll invariably add something good to the band. I feel that far too many bass players have a serious downer on bassists who are a bit virtuoso; those good players are the ones who advance the instrument, those playing naught but derderderder single eighth notes not so much!

I'm still with Live 9!

They'll still be givin' it "obladee obladah" though, no doubt!

I've made the mistake before of playing originals in an ordinary boozer... On one memorable gig our metal guitarist was just starting his extended solo as a hen and a stag party walked in. He was widdling away happily, eyes closed,fingers tapping merrily when a drunken girl staggered over to him wearing a skirt I'd barely class as a belt - she shouted "can you play "'Summer of 69'?". To his credit he stopped his solo there and then, shouted the key (I'd never played the song) and we did a quick chorus, then straight back into widdly metal. Punters barely noticed as they were so busy sniffing round one another! So now we only play dedicated music venues and festivals, cos folks there come specifically for the music...