Leonard Smalls

Love it! And (almost) everything up to, and including BSSM. Just not a fan of their more melodic outings. But then I'm not really a melody type of person, I likes it hard, and I likes it funky. I even like slow, so long as it's both hard and funky. Even better if it's Out There as well. Owt else is just that little bit wet...

That was the party I blagged into... IIRC we met GBOA there and went on to support them 5 or 6 times, last time was at Edward's no. 8.

Perhaps! Though I remember blagging my way into the party after one of the Astoria shows and having a rather toke-y conversation with Flea about the difference between Mother's Finest and Funkadelic, and how they compared with the Gang of Four and New York No Wave punkfunk movements... He was very knowledgeable and keen on the idea of funkin' and rockin' hard, both of which have kind of fallen by the wayside since Californication, though not completely. Mebbe giving up the drugs somewhat mellowed them!

I first saw the Chillis at a pub that is now Hammersmith bus station in 1987... A friend of mine had brought back the 1st album and Freakey Styley from LA the year before and I was completely blown away by their hardcore punkfunk and excellent live performance. Saw them again at the Mean Fiddler, not long before Hillel died, then at the Electric Ballroom and twice at the Astoria. Every time they rocked like muthas, though you could see little glimmers of "growing up" or as I would call it, getting old or following the money. And like most bands who discover some sort of success, they did what more punters wanted which was less hard and more nice choons. So they alienated much of their early fanbase by grooving less and allowing Antwan The Swan to sing more, which is a shame as he's a brilliant frontman and rhythmic shouter, but not such a good singer. Still, they probably don't give a toss what I think!

Here's the master of micro-tonal... His band Screaming Headless Torsos groove like muthas!

I much preferred them when George Clinton or Andy Gill were at the controls!

Funky As (relatively) Old Skool!

While on a rather fine rock climb called Outside Edge Route recently...

Some Old Skool electro (Jonzun Crew) with poppin'! I bought this 12" on spec as a student for £4 - most I'd ever spent on a single as this was 1983...

What happens if you just turn the actual bass volume down a touch? And if it's a active bass, try changing the battery - I've found distortion can be a sign of fading battery...

Funnily enough when I bought my Wal in 89ish I was playing in a punk band... As a result it's got a few dings and bashes!

I loves it... Funky as! Shame Katrina Wotsit did a p1ssp00r cover I couldn't even recognise...

They'd obviously heard my entry for this month's Basschat Composition Challenge!

No need to be sorry! 😀 I remember buying the original single (still got it!) but hadn't heard the live version before. And I quite like that too!

I'me tending more and more towards overkill... I use a dual channel DBX compressor into BBE preamp into Crown 1500w power amp. But there's also a sneaky pedalboard with 4 loops plus clean - Future Impact/FwonkBeta and Darkglass tube distortion/BassWhammy and 3Leaf Proton/EBS bass wah. By fiddling about with the Wounded Paw Blender these are attached to I can get all sorts of crazy wah distorted synthed octave sounds mixed with as much clean as I want, which I can further blend into the BBE's own tone shaping and overdrive... Me, I like knobs'n'buttons'n'complication!

I've seen things you people wouldn't believe! Staggering drunks knocked into the fire by the shoulder of Brian. I've seen I-beams rust in the dark by the Tref-y-Clawdd gate. All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain... etc

It's already behind the mirror!

I've sent the link for this thread to the pub involved... Anything for a free pint!

Despite the idea of being in a "we're proper rock'n'roll" hair metal band is,for me, one of the seven circles of hell, I have at least 2 pairs of trousers like that, plus another in faux snakeskin. If I break out my Banzai headband and grow out the mohawk perhaps they'd want me! Now all I have to do is get them to move to the Powys/Shropshire borders where I could get 'em a gig at The White Horse in Clun...

I done one... My "piece" (I hesitate to call it a song!!!) is an impression of who is in the mirror, and what happens when he's summoned. Basses are fretless Lightwave, plus Wal doing guitar emulations and weird noises. Keys are Ableton's own grand piano sound, drums programmed through EZ Drummer using Clyde Stubblefield's Phased Funk kit, saxes edited and resampled heavily from Loopmasters loops.

If your laptop has only 4Gb of RAM, you might find difficulty running any DAW with more than a few tracks! Personally I wouldn't use less than 16Gb...

Here's a live online stream from 7 months ago!

As far as we knew, The Jam were at the head of the mod revival. When we were being abused and chased down the street it was usually by blokes with short sensible hair wearing parkas with "the Jam" written on top of a target!

As a young punker in Chester we had no money, and no access to any fancy punk clothes shops (though one of our tiny band had a rich dad, so he had tartan bondage kecks and a leather jacket). So we used to make our own clothes; me and Swamp hit on the idea of Sh!t/Fwck tshirts - black t from tesco, spatter bleach on it so it'd also go holey, then write the immortal words in big top and bottom. Then we made our own bum flaps - mine was from greenish curtain material and had "Slits" written in orange day-glo paint. My trews were an old pair of flared jeans I made into drain pipes, then spattered a bit of bleach and paint on 'em, dyed them puke green and cut some slashes in to insert flourescent zips. Jacket was an old RAF blouson with more paint, and shoes Major Domo doc martens rip-offs held together with orange string. Hair was spiked with soap and sugar water, dyed with cochineal. We looked a proper state!