Leonard Smalls

For me it's about playing music I want to play with people I want to play it with. So I have to get on well with them - at least be able to not throttle them after a few hours in their company. And I have to enjoy both the way, and what, they play; imagination is more important to me than outright ability though I prefer someone who can play a bit! Not really worried about money - it's primarily about the music for me. Which means very few, if any, covers, and then they're done as an interpretation rather than outright copy. I was speaking to a free-improvisational jazz drummer the other day about pleasing the audience and he said "f*%* 'em! It's about the music - It's inside of me and has to come out! If the audience enjoys it, great, but if not they know what they can do." I sort of think that too - for him it's possibly easier as he's seriously good and has played with all sorts of jazz luminaries - jazzers actually want what's inside of him! Gig-wise - no more than 1, possibly 2, a month (though my current band have broken that already!). I'd prefer to do 3 or 4 gigs then do some heavy rehearsing/jamming to make existing songs better and produce more new material. I gave up thinking I could make a living out of music 20 years ago...

Our own songs? All of them - probably 30 songs over 2 bands. Anybody else's songs? Probably none.

Lawks! I might suggest that to our drummist, though whether he wants to spend nearly £300 is a different matter! Does it mean you can actually turn everything down just a touch so as not to induce tinnitus in every audience member?

This is much more impressive hand music...

To be fair, she'd already been in Derek Jarman's "Jubilee" with Adam Ant, so her luvvie credentials were already established. I remember bringing my copy of "Sheep Farming" to the school disco and getting the DJ to play "Neon Womb". Me and Swamp and Sgav jumped around on our own while the rest of the kidz stared and probably sniggered from inside their voluminous trousers

Not too bad a gig in a bar in Presteigne... Most mistakes were from the guitarist - who'd also turned up a lot after soundchecking so it took most of the gig for me to make enough tiny adjustments until I was at the right volume.. Punters probably didn't notice - there was even about 10 of them headbanging at the front even though we're not in any way heavy! But in common with most pub/bar gigs about 1/2 the audience don't want a loud band so they go somewhere quieter - perhaps we should get the drummer to use his e-kit so we're just that bit less noisy?

I saw an awesome percussion solo - mainly on the triangle - by Mino Cinelu with Herbie Hancock's Headhunters in 1989 at the Town and Country Club. For further percussion brilliance, check out Daniel Sadownick with the Screaming Headless Torsos:

Bootsy Collins. Because with him, everything is funky. Even going to the toilet. Derek Bailey. He showed how music could be so much more than nice little tunes - anything can be music. Even going to the toilet.

We've got plenty coming up! 27th April - No.46 Presteigne 11th May - Paradiddles music bar, Worcester 19th May - Royal Bedding benefit at The Grapes, Hereford 27th May - Clun Music Festival @ The White Horse, Clun 21st June - Shakespeare Inn, Newport, Shropshire 27th June - Albert's Shed, Shrewsbury http://www.facebook.com/sixteenchokestart/

Newest band I'm in is called 16 Choke Start - our first band "discussion" came after jamming a new song and trying to decide whether to start it with 16 or 8 cymbal chokes. My other band is called Dredd and the Badass Weeds - on our first jam together (in 1983!) someone said we sounded dreadful, mainly because we'd all been smoking too much weed... And I was also in a band called Barf Roco. We were originally called Barf; one of the band members decided it was wise to spray some graffiti to get our name known (I know, Jack Daniels etc). He thought "Barf Rocks" would convey the message but due to drunken misspelling he wrote "Barf Roco".

Indeed! Our main circuit was Mean Fiddler, Subterrania, Powerhaus, Kings Head, Dome, Underworld, Opera on the Green... It was from so long ago that there's a MySpace page! https://myspace.com/barfroco

Barf Roco.

Back in about 1990 we were playing the Powerhaus in Islington. So we soundchecked, everything was excellent so we thought we'd go for some food. There was an Indian restaurant round the corner which had an all-you-can-eat buffet. Being relatively skint we thought this would sort us for the night and probably for a big chunk of the next day. So we ate all we could, then a bit more, then a bit more to make sure. It was very tasty, but we were definitely sated. In fact we were the past-participle-future-pluperfect of sated, Satan! We were so stuffed it took us about 10 minutes to wobble the 200m back to the venue. Then we sat there very quietly... When it came time to go on stage we all took chairs, played very gently and moved as little as possible in the hope that none of us would cover the stage and audience in part digested Rogan Josh and mango lassi. Funnily enough, the audience seemed to enjoy it; we were quite a raucous punk-funk band, known for wearing daft costumes or being painted as we played so they probably thought it was our latest stage gimmick! Needless to say, we didn't do an all you can eat buffet again before a gig...

Aye! We all expected her to turn up with star signs costumes... In fact we kind of hoped she would, as we'd have probably worn them!

We were late 20s. It all ended ok because an excellent funk drummer I'd played with years before suddenly became available. Which was nice!

Back in the early 90s I was in a punk-funk band. We thought we were going places, had headlined the Marquee, supported Carter USM and Gaye Bykers on a number of occasions, when our drummer left. So we advertised for one; we had a number of assorted chancers who couldn't play, or didn't have their own gear and expected us to buy it for them, then a Dutch guy turned up... He had long hair, denim, was obviously from the 70s (!) and didn't really fit in with us (mohicans etc) but wasn't a bad drummer. His only problem was a tendency to put the "EastEnders"/Phil Collins drum bit into everything, but we felt we could perhaps funk him up a bit. He turned up for the 1st rehearsal with his girlfriend. Who was called Janine (you know where this is going!). We started teaching him our songs, and she kept stopping us to say things like "I fink the guitarist should do a little peggio there", or "what this song needs Is a flutey sound on the keyboard". We politely declined all her suggestions, then she said she'd do a better job than Mikey, our manager (and m8 of many years), and she could get us a great gig in her local pub... We managed to struggle through 1 gig with him before he left to (as she said) "join a proper rock band".

Aye - that's why I blend a big chunk of its tone into the fx to produce something (relatively) new and different...

One man's "best" is another man's "deeply dull" - taste is a many splendoured thing! I blend the sound of my Wal with envelope filtered tube distortion, envelope filtered bass whammy and bass synth to produce a meaty funk tone that cuts through, and doesn't sound like any other bass this side of a Spacebass... Each to their own!

Just bass into tuner into amp for me too. However, there's 6 pedals making 3 loops plus clean hanging off a Wounded Paw blender attached to the FX loop