Leonard Smalls

Unfunky UFO - Parliament

My 80s band is in the process of releasing our first album... We lasted a couple of years in Leeds, then 2 members went on to quite big success, and another 2 went on to far larger success. But back in 1998 or so one of the large success ones was getting married and came up with the idea of a Weeds reunion. We played 5 songs in an OKish fashion then decided to occasionally do a gig, and eventually (like earlier this year!) record an album. However, as we lived in Sheffield, Shropshire, Manchester, Limerick and the South of France we recorded our bits separately, and got it mixed by A Famous DJ Type. That's coming out Feb/March and is a half hour of Funky Goodness or Unbearable Racket, depending on your taste. And last weekend, South Of France Boy and I got together to record backing, bass and guitar 1 for the Difficult Second Album, ready to send off to Ireland for vox, to Manchester for WallOfSound Guitar and to Sheffield for the BigBeats.

He's not bad, is he?

Wrecking Crew - The Meteors

Widdley and squealy stuff...

Milk and Alcohol - Dr Feelgood

Finito! Famed conductor Leo von Klein's iconoclastic punk re-working of Cage's contemplative masterwork, 4'33". Soloist (piano) - Leonardo di Piccolo. Recorded live at the church of St. Dogfan, Llanrhaeadr ym Mochnant by Mr. Leonard Smalls, BBC, PTFE, LdPE. Edit: annoyingly, Soundcloud feel that I have nicked bits of Lamento by Martin Andreas Paulus and I've had to file a claim! I'd never heard of this Paulus chap and the only resemblance seems to be that Lamento starts with some atmos and an orchestra tuning. After that, they do some music-y stuff, and I don't! Edit 2: They've reinstated it!

Leaving, in a courgette plane - John Denver

Pass The peas - The JBs

A bit of bluesey stuff

Me too! Weirdly, his band (whoever they were at the time, can't remember!) supported my band at the Cricketers in Kennington. Seemed like a decent bloke. But I have met two of my bass heroes, Bootsy and Flea, and both are excellent - they even told me I didn't need to be on my knees and there was no need to back away from them bowing all the way when leaving...

Bela Lugosi is Dead! - Bauhaus

Aqua Boogie (A Psychoalphadiscobetabioaquadoloop) - Parliament

Hole lotta love - Led Zep

Trapped - Colonel Abrams

Red Sails - David Bowie

Munchies For Your Love - Bootsy's Rubber Band

Let's Get Ready To Rumble - Ant and Dec (or Pj and Matey)

I don't usually take a handbag... But I do have special socks I always wear; they're either orange with zebras or yellow with spaniels. Pants-wise, I tend to go with black cotton trunks that helpfully say "Mr. Big" on the waistband.

no, but a quick search finds THIS As it says: They said they had been monitoring our webcams because the process of making something very innocuous and pleasant is close to making weapons of mass destruction, apparently. Their 60% offerings are pretty near to being weapons of mass destruction!

Nope... It stands for Port Charlotte - a village on Islay where the Buichladdich distillery is.

I'm much more of a fan of the heavily gated but still slightly round'n'soft reggae kick drum sound. But as many soundfolks seem to be metalheads they feel the need for it to be more like a road drill.

The PC7 is a 7 year old Islay malt that's bottled at 61% cask strength. However, I've just looked and noticed that I have its smoother, older and slightly weaker brother, the PC10 which comes in at a deeply un-manly 50%. Nice drop, mind!

We (Choked) were at the Marrs Bar in Worcester last night supporting local band Phon's album launch. Twasn't very full, perhaps 40 peoples and they all sat round the outside like cool muso types (I usually do this too). As everything was a bit late - I hadn't been able to arrive till after 7pm so no sound check - we did our short'n'sharp 30 minute set (probably a blessing to all!). However, all went fine, drummist managed to finish on 3 in "Knockout", I did my bass solos with extra widdles'n'pops and all was generally groovy. As there was a fine PA (with obligatory overloud bass drum thwack) I just took the Markbass 2x10 to be powered by the Crown amp with DBX compressor and BBE pre, all front-ended by Helix and Parker bass. Shoes were zebra striped brothel creepers. Got home by 2230 to a nice dram of PC7 cask strength...

I think that my first time on stage in a musical setting was at Chester town hall in about 1978... My mum had entered a piano competition and was playing a Mozart sonata (IIRC). But she wasn't confident enough to play without music so she roped me in as page turner. Luckily I'd heard her practicing it so much I knew it pretty well. However, another performer had her page turner drop out and my mum volunteered me! And it was a piece I'd never heard, rather complex and perhaps by Shostakovich. The lady saw I was having a little trouble following so she muttered "now" every time we approached the end of the page. Unfortunately neither my mum or the lady won - perhaps because of my punky pink hair and home-made bondage trews