Leonard Smalls

In my occasional series of updated covers, here's my take on Rihanna's "Umbrella" reworked for a Noisecore audience.

New Trouble Funk single!

We once played a gig to a cardboard cutout of Marc Bolan... The sound man had gone into the bar next door, which is where the barpeeps were. To be fair, the other band came in about 1/2 way through which added 4. But that's what happens on a rainy winter night in Abertillary!

Back in the early 90s our band was doing pretty well - we were headlining the Marquee and all the Mean Fiddler venues, we were touring with Carter USM and Gaye Bykers, we'd had bands like Bolt thrower supporting us... So our keys and guitar player decided our fame was imminent and jacked in their jobs. the rest of us felt it best to hold onto our employment for just a bit longer. As it turns out we were right! We just drifted along until we could no longer be bothered.

We've got two coming up: Saturday 7th October at The Foundry, Brecon Thursday 12th October with a multiband lineup (we're about1930, with 1st band on at 1730 iirc) with headliners punk legends, 999. If anyone fancies that we've got early-bird tickets at £10 - it's £16 on the door!

Pah! My Crown class D power amp is 1500W rms bridged into 4 ohms 😁 And weighs around 4 kgs... Do we have a large trousers emoji? 🐎😄

I agree! But as it is, it's only my thing... More's the pity - I'll keep trying to persuade 'em but I'm afraid punky types can be incredibly square. Mebbe they'll one day take notice of my tshirt.

Last night was Going Feral For Mental Health at Gwatkin Cider in darkest Herefordshire. We played there last year as well, but have moved up the bill a bit, we were at 2010, just before @cheddatom's Headsticks, who as usual were excellent (though I had to sneak off early...). As Tom said, it's a slightly odd crowd - more people seem to sit outside on the benches, but we even had a dancing dog - though it's possible he was trying to get my sporran (oh yes...) and we only made a couple of minor mistakes (drummer keeps insisting on putting a 4 beat fill in where it should be 2) but nobody noticed enough to start throwing tomatoes. Otherwise, all fine - sound is great even on stage! I even had a chap afterwards very interested in my bass and how it made all those weird squealy noises... My Mrs took a photo when I got home, after driving through a serious lightshow followed by torrential rain...

I'm aiming for something that challenges each listener to actually get to the end, and makes most of my previous offerings appear to be like The Carpenters...

Indeed! My introduction to jazz (apart from my dad being into Chris Barber et all) was going into Jumbo Records In Leeds one day to browse. I used to go in weekly to find new funk stuff to play at either the Uni weekly discos, or the Phono or the Warehouse. There was nobody to ask for recommendations (unless I wanted goth stuff!) so I'd browse the imports until I found something funky-looking. There was no way to try-before-you-buy, so I'd look for PFunky art, afros, whatever shouted "funky!". Invariably these same records would have in the credits "thanks to God, and my mom" so when I found Jamaaladeen's "Showstopper" I thought I had the grail; funky suit, cool dude with amazing looking bass shaped like a cricket bat, special thanx to Mom and God - I'd found Tyrone Brunson's "The Smurf" in much the same way. However, I soon realised that the Thursday funk disco couldn't cope with Mr. Tacuma... But I was hooked, soon joined the library and discovered their jazz section which contained "Man with the Horn". Which was nice! And a bit of a slippery slope... I listen to Ornette Coleman for light thrills now and the Company albums for a bit of a boogie!

Next gig tomorrow, at this excellent little festival, just before @cheddatom 's Headsticks...

Which leads me to this:

Talking of widdley jazz, this chap died recently... He even played with the Rollins Band!

I also remember getting into electric jazz, so it's likely one of my Maxwell UDXL2 cassettes would have had Jamaladeen Tacuma's "Showstopper" and Miles Davis' "Man with the Horn" on it...

Proper! I loves a bit of Hiromi... Especially the Sonic Bloom stuff but tis all glorious.

Chilli Peppers "Freakey Styley" on one side, with the excellent "GoGo - the Sound of Washington DC" compilation on the other.

The cradle of Goth! I briefly DJed with Marc Almond there, as well as living downstairs from Dave Gedge for a year, and was a member of the band which spawned Utah Saints, New Fast Automatic Daffodils, Snapdragons, Cassandra Complex as well as having a member who went on to be guitar in The Rollins Band and another member who made a living eating food and writing about it, as well as having a famous agony aunt mum. In fact I was the only member who never found any sort of fame...

More guitar and drums... Also kickin'... Contains rude words...

Huge fan of Rob Trujillo, and his previous band(s). But not Metallica!

To be fair, I always liked Limp Bizkit's "Faith"...

A mobile phone snippet from the back garden of the Beauchamp Arms, Dymock... Minor glitch where drummer counts 8 beat rest instead of the 6 it should have been! ChokedKissThisDymock.mp4

Support to xSLF (IE Henry of stuff little fingers) at a pub near Gloucester... We played very well, only one mistake where drummer miscounted a 6 beat rest as eight. Luckily I was watching him! We supplied the pa which was added grief and made it a much later night but at least we got paid! Highlight was when the singer from the other support took his shoes and socks off and ran into the crowd - this was in the pub garden. Unfortunately, unlike me with currently seven dogs, he didn't have the turd eye. When he got back to the stage he complained about a terrible smell, checked his bare feet and noticed the smeared dog egg 🤣

Just been watching TOTP 1984.... Why would Rod Stewart do such an embarrassing version of "some guys have all the luck"? Any more examples of incredibly poor judgement?

Funnily enough we're supplying PA and lights and allegedly getting paid for it... But that's because the venue was let down by their PA guy and the gig was due to be cancelled until we said we could supply our Yammy rehearsal PA - luckily we have lights to. As for backline, I know they're not using my bass amp which is what counts It's only needed for vox (and vox monitor) anyway with perhaps a touch of kick.