Leonard Smalls

Runaway! - Del Shannon

I rather suspected that... But a gig at the top of Beeston Castle would be great, apart from carrying the gear up!

Excellent mix of jazz, dub, klezmer and metal!

It's funny cos Beeston is quite close to Nantwich! I used to cycle to Beeston Castle - we'd jump over the wall and attempt to find the fabled (and no doubt non-existent) secret passage to Peckforton Castle...

For me it started when I joined the UK Subs fanclub at a tender age under the name of Marton Geerblorn...

Murder on the Dancefloor - Sophie Ellis Bextor

All that she wants (is another baby) - Ace of Base

Pride and Joy - Stevie Ray Vaughan

I'm Coming Out! -Diana Ross

What a Waist - Ian Dury and the Blockheads

That Ain't A Thing, It's A Thang! - Dredd and the Badass Weeds

We'd kind of spotted that... The nearest we play to home is Hereford (nearly an hour away) where we get a decent audience. However, if you just bimble a bit further into town there's a venue called Gordon Bennetts which gets absolutely rammed. And it's full of pissed up folks singing along to "Wonderwall" and the like. Those same people wouldn't dream of going to see a band they hadn't heard of in a grassroots venue because they wouldn't hear anything they knew, without realising that those same grassroots venues are the places that gave the likes of Oasis their first gigs.

In some places it's almost impossible to find an audience for an originals band... Frinstance, round here there's no proper venues and folks don't seem want to come out - I remember seeing an awesome prog band rather weirdly playing in my local boozer (I'm not really a prog fan, but these guys were just serious quality musicians). There were 4 of us in there and maybe 50 outside completely ignoring the band - it wasn't loud so that wasn't it. One of the outside folks actually came up to me and asked what they were like rather than staying and listening for himself. As a result, any originals bands will never get a local audience because locals won't see anything they don't know already so it's a proper Catch 22. However, when "Lady DJ" comes to the same pub to play all the hits it's absolutely rammed with drunken folks singing along to all those songs I can't stand.

Aye! I found these Swiss funksters through FB...

Numan rocks!

He's Frank(enstein) - The Monochrome Set

Shiny Shiny! - Haysi Fantayzee

Fancy Sauce - Green Day

Funnily enough, it was... However, we had loads when we played the Doll's House just up the road!

They probably enjoyed it more than Marc enjoyed our performance. He didn't clap once!

A few years ago we played to the barman and a cardboard cut-out of Marc Bolan in a venue in South Wales. We actually got paid - £13! That was between us... To be fair, it was raining.

Zinc Fence City - Jah Lil

ER! https://open.spotify.com/artist/1ElFhXPfCcyE4Fjf7chk6q?si=mnUe39LhQRe087cUPeiNSA

A week after the rare Weeds gig in Chester, I'll be with Choked in Hereford with crazed rave-noisesters A-Noise and excellent old skool punks MC16... Free entry too!