Leonard Smalls

Nobody sounds like Bootsy!

We did a last-minute fill-in supporting Hereford punks Terminal Rage at a great little bar called Reet Petite in Leominster last night. The venue is, funnily enough, quite small so with 30-40 people in there it was packed. We slightly speeded up everything, ran songs together, had between songs banter only twice so squeezed everything into 39 minutes. Our brand of shouty girl with a very occasional and unexpected melody, plus Hendrix-ey guitar feedback, funky-metal drums and me on oft-slapped synth-wah bass went down very well. None of us even got stabbed by any of the spikey or Mohican-ed crowd!

Me at a recent gig...

Our guitarist was playing there on Sunday night in his other (better known!) band - The Cassandra Complex... There is talk of a Weeds mini tour of Ireland in the summer though!

Not surprised! After our usual 45-50 minute set I've sweated about 6 pints, my fingers have seized up, both knees are swollen and I've put out either mine or somebody else's back!

I finally went and had a fiddle... And was deeply underwhelmed! There were no amp sims that were at all bass-oriented; everything else seemed to be similarly aimed at guitars - some of the distortions were passable, but wah effects, choruses, phases etc were not suited to bass at all. Seemed like a well-made piece of kit but I won't be buying one. And if the GE300 is similar I won't be looking at that either...

We played Speakeasy in the Left Bank complex in Hereford on Thursday night... It's a smallish underground venue - the gig night is run by 2 very nice people who helped us bring the gear up 10 steps then down another at least 15 steps (flood defence!). Which was good - having been told it was basically a concrete box and didn't need much volume to get it pumping I felt that the full 1500w rig was needed. Though carrying 90+ pounds of bass horn in was fun! There were 2 bands on before us - local punks Dead Beats and Fika from Cardiff who were far more eclectic,almost jazzy. Both were excellent and meant we would have to work hard to keep up the standard. However, having so much power meant I could turn up the octave down pedal; coupled with Future Impact pedal on Hammond organ setting and Fwonk Beta in full Bootsy mode plus the drummer's Tama StarClassic we made a wall of rhythm for the guitarist to smear feedback on and the singer to spray paint with anti-hunting and other lefty slogans. Surprisingly it went down very well, about 1/2 the reasonable-sized crowd turned into a moshpit from the 2nd song - they were tempted in the 1st song but I put a stop to that with a bass solo (might as well start with one!) . Not only that but we were paid, and i was back home with a large glass of Woodford Reserve by 2340!

Here's a slice of history... From 1988, it's a whole gig of Barf Roco at the King's Head in Fulham. Warning, contains bad language, bad behaviour, an appalling racket and some serious clothes.

Thursday 6th June we're in Hereford...

There's lots of new rock about! Angry: Happyish and a bit glammy Gothy Guaranteed to annoy most folks, so proper rock'n'roll despite being ancient at 2 years old...

I suspect that many of the 50+ers no longer look for new music - after all it's young'uns who tend to do the more interesting and ground-breaking stuff and the oldies plough the same old comfy rut... Not only that but the kids don't know what rock is and are more interested in textickling and them vlogs about make-up. And you've got to remember that looking for new rock'n'roll is a lot of bother when your joints are aching and the nurse is telling you it's time for your cocoa dear 😜

They put on a helluva lot of shows too... I remember when we supported them on about 15-20 dates one year - they did 300 gigs altogether. But then with 2 small combos, 2 guitars and a DAT machine they all fitted easily in their manager's mini!

I preferred their earlier work...

In Apocalypse Now doesn't that Army bloke say he loves the smell of Napalm Death in the morning?

The boy'll do it till the sun goes down.

Oh yes he did!

Funnily enough, all the bands I've been in since 1983 have never really done covers. And we had no trouble getting more gigs than we actually wanted! Currently we do just one cover - it's a punk classic mashed up with a funk classic- with 10 songs of our own, and we've got gigs booked up till November. Though we are putting together a slap bass version of a Misfits song as possible 2nd encore (wishful thinking?). Admittedly we've got very little in our own small town, but then there's no venues here bar tiny pubs where you've got room for the band plus 10 punters. They put on occasional open mic nights and covers bands but we don't want to play to audiences who aren't there for the music...

Or alternatively, get someone who knows something about music to choose the song and artist, not just stick the 1st X Factor wannabe up there!

Never heard of 'em 🤩

Aw shucks! Though the best stuff on there is with the rest of 80s Leeds supergroup, The Weeds, like Bedtime, Hammer Riff, Angels 1-5 which has the joy of New Fads vocalist, Mr. Pointy, ex-Utahs Drums Party-boy Keith and the Death Twins on guitars... (though they're all live)

Here's one of our love songs...

I use a Crown xls 1502 power amp fed from a BBE pre... That puts 1550W bridged into a 4ohm load. Very clean and reasonably priced - with the 2nd LED just about flickering I can drown out guitar and drums!