Leonard Smalls

you sure you want everyone to know your address and email? 😎😁

Loving this! However, contains language many might find offensive... But you can't argue with the sentiment!

I'm not a believer in sacrificing owt... After all, one man's "barely competent" is another man's "wow that's amazing",and yet another man's "s'not bad considering he/she's tone deaf and can't play a note". Even if it sounds really bad to you it's possible to smother it in reverb and call it jazz. Somebody will no doubt agree - after all I always get at least 1 (and sometimes as many as 3!) vote in the monthly Composition Challenge no matter how terrible experimental it might be.

Read "Attack Surface" by Corey Doctorow to find out how easily They (oh yes) can steal your precious, precious songs!

Not necessarily I keep all my good stuff on a 256 bit encrypted drive that's only every connected to computer via a packet level firewall USB filter, and then only if the computer is offline, brand new and with newly installed one-use software on it. Obviously no mobiles are allowed in the room, which is off-grid and lined with copper mesh. Wouldn't want Doug nicking it

Was wondering where my 3rd vote had gone 😁 Either way, make sure you're well enough for the next one as I'm looking for an excuse to ditch any semblance of melody...

We haven't had any Zapp for a while!

Craig Charles just reminded me of this enormous pile of funk!

Likes a bit of Electric Masada!

Me too! Funnily enough was listening to this only this morning - very jazzy but you can hear the roots!

Some stuff from when I were nowt but a nipper *! (* not yet old enough to vote)

No excuse for that! Not the slap bit,but Alright Now! If you have to,at least do it differently...

😁 Don't worry, it was quite shouty and also a bit faster - perhaps frantic slap-disco-punk-funk-wtf!

I used to do a slap disco version of this! 😅

Indeed... Even though it was music produced, written and performed by me I'm sure PRS would still want a cut of it! It gets an admin or collection fee for every royalty varying from 10.5% for stuff played on BBC iPlayer up to about 23% for "other recorded" music playback and concerts. I can understand why there would be a collection fee for the PRS to collect royalties on behalf of one of its members, but what I don't understand is why would somewhere that is playing original music produced by a non-PRS member (with their consent) would have to pay a fee to the PRS? Even the BBC don't charge you a licence fee if you have a TV that isn't capable of receiving broadcasts!

This does seem a bit weird...Why should a venue have to pay a %age of box office to the PRS in order that the PRS then pay royalties to a band for playing in a venue that has already paid them a fee? After all, if a band are getting paid to play their material why should the PRS get a cut? Sounds like tax! And perhaps I should just play music by non-PRS members in my shop? Or perhaps my own music (though that would no doubt result in fewer customers, and those we did get would be generally odd)? No doubt I'd still be required to pay under some obscure loophole...

I had a long spat with the PRS a while ago about the 2 licences we have to pay for - 1 for our public area and 1 because music can also be heard in staff-only areas like the store room. They were adamant we needed 2 licences. After getting nowhere arguing about this I asked how the royalty money was distributed - they said it was shared among its members. I pointed out that our playlist was highly eclectic, and if I had to pay royalties I'd like to ensure that those whose music I was playing actually got the money. They said it wasn't possible to work that out; so I offered to give them a print-out of our playlist to make sure it wasn't just the already highest-grossing artists were getting other folks' legitimate royalties. They couldn't work with that, but assured me royalties would be properly shared out - they had no answer when I asked "how do you know what we've played?" So it's yet another tax... And I also discovered recently that I have to pay £40 a year to the information commisioner's office because I have CCTV!

Time for Betty!

I learned how to get a bit funky by playing along to Bootsy records, starting with this one: While it's easy to work out the notes it's the feel that counts - especially when it gets to the dirty groove at 2 mins...

It's possible to negotiate good rates for both credit and debit card sales just by some shopping around... AmEx is always expensive though! I'm always amazed when I hear of businesses paying 2-3% for visa/mastercard transactions - just means they've stuck with an old and over-priced merchant-services provider... (Saying that, there's some to avoid due to both high fees and horrific contracts)

Gary Willis keeping it relatively simple!

I'm about 40 minutes from there. And I've got a slightly battered (by me, over the last 30odd years!) Custom - if you're in the area you can have a go! And just to make you really sick I bought it from Allbang and Strummit (RIP!) in Covent Garden for £500 in about 1989...

To be fair, I wouldn't class many of my late 70s/early 80s singles or even indie albums as hifi in any way,as it was likely the mastertape was also just as lofi. A "Porky Prime Cut" usually meant it was a step up, soundwise,but still not a guarantee of hifidom. But absolute sound quality wasn't really the point! However, my funk and jazz albums of the 70s, 80s, 90s were invariably of very good quality and playback just as well now...

I suspect that was inevitable, what with the OP being about how the Government turned down visa-free touring for musicians during their Brexit negotiations!