Leonard Smalls

We did 3 online benefit gigs last year using programmed drums and a sequencer as our drummer was shielding (and subsequently left). We sounded a helluva lot funkier, heavier and most importantly were right on time. Which was nice, and a bit of a change!

In '85 I was buying mainly funk and dub...

Just standard skinflint plan I'm afraid! So I had to delete the original, upload the shiny new mix then delete the link from my post here and re-insert the new address. However, all it would embed was the "track not found" Soundcloud graphic - though telling it to display link instead worked... Aye! And I kept any FX off just to keep you happy - though perhaps the use of a fancy new-fangled magnetic pick-up-lessbass offended Captain Soundcloud, or more likely, the BC software. Either way, as Ms Wilcox would say, it's a mythtery.

Proper groovy funky jazz...

I've done a little one... For some reason this made me think of all the tiny wars going on in our cities - where kids feel the only way they can survive is by carrying a blade... https://soundcloud.com/leonard-smalls/something-goin-on Edited to add remixed version with added clarity and less bass mud (bass is a Lightwave fretless with no FX, only mild compression and some eq)... BTW, anyone know why it won't embed as anything but the old version? On entering the new link it only finds it as "track not found"?

It's out now, the latest Punk 4 The Homeless benefit cd and download in aid of Hope Orphanage in Sierra Leone... It's all female-fronted bands, and we're on it! https://punk4thehomeless.bandcamp.com/album/girls-are-loud-volume-2

Suspect we might get a wide variety of stuff this month! I've been watching the Rap Game on BBC3 and that inspired me to do something a bit street... Will flop it out as soon as it sounds either more or less unlistenable, depending on your perspective!

I've long since come to terms with the fact that What The People Want is very different from What I Like! Still, each to their own, vive la difference, der Teufel scheißt auf einen Haufen etc

Suicidal Tendencies and Infectious Grooves... Then all the PFunk bands had mostly the same participants (Funkadelic, Parliament, Brides of Funkenstein, Bootsy's Rubber Band, P Funk Allstars)

Both of us back on top 😎😁 It don't happen very often for me! Anyway, pic sent - though not sure how appropriate it is!

I'm now nearer to 60 than 55, and it appears we'll be playing more to punk crowds (though crowds might be an exaggeration!) even though we're not really a punk band... So that could mean they're of any age - there's young punkers being born every day!

I think this thread could easily be renamed "I don't like Funk" and we'd probably get exactly the same for and against as we have for slap! Me, I like The Funk. And I'm not enormously keen on 60s and 70s rock, therefore, I like slap! However, I don't like slap for the sake of it - in my book slap without an element of The Funk is like chips without salt and vinegar...

Somewhere between jazz, rock, funk and punk...

Cheers! Funnily enough it is a Wal through my pedalboard using a chunk of Future Impact mainly coming in on the lower frequencies, then there's a tiny bit of Bass Whammy octave all blended with clean with Wounded Paw blender, then through my BBE preamp (with a touch of compression) and into Ableton where there's a touch more compression and a waft of dub delay...

Song idea I've been working on, though may not be fast enough for the punk/funk one!

Somehow our singer convinced me that Beki B was her nan... I'm not normally Captain Gullible but it took me a year to work our this would be difficult - as despite the physical resemblance there's only about 14 years between 'em!

Nick Cave or Bryan Ferry?

I find that after the initial minute or so of sweary jazz, this is a guaranteed licence loser! (warning, very sweary!)

We've got a punk all day benefit booked for 26th September at the Dolls House in Abertillary (have a canary!)...

So music you don't like doesn't count as creative music making? Next it'll be "there's been no decent music since 19whenIwereateenager" or "kids nowadays don't know what good music is" or "it's just a racket now". Just the sort of thing old folks have said to their younglings since time immemorial! You can imagine old Granny Bach saying to Johann Sebastian "you don't want to bother with all that polyphony and harmony rubbish, what you want is some proper music like Gregorian Chants!"

Bit of mellow GoGo

There ain't nobody funkier than Mr Collins! In fact, the S.I units of both Cool and Funk are measured as fractions of a Bootsy...

The plan was to keep going in one of the middle carriages until we were arrested; we lasted a good half hour of banging away on acoustics, with lots of jumping around and gymnastics on the various poles and bars, before we were warned by a Transport policeman that this wasn;'t allowed... So like good boys we rather gratefully sneaked off with no arrests, and barely even the threat of it. But we could have been if it hadn't been for those pesky kids etc!

My band at the time were pretty busy - we even lived together! This is our gig list for 90-91: