Leonard Smalls

Not strictly a load-in, though I still remember the Edward's no.8 experience, but I had to get my mum's piano into the house she'd just moved to. So it was up 3 steps from the road - just about fitted through the door but the previous owner had built a little interior porch, which I had to dismantle. I'd wisely hired piano movers but there were only 2 of them - one my sort of size and the other was enormous, which was most helpful for what was to come. We got into the living room, when my mum said "it needs to go upstairs" (she's a piano teacher so wanted to give lessons in the spare bedroom). Now this was no ordinary piano, it was an oak Pfieffer overstrung with oversized cast iron frame and weighed close to 400kgs... And it didn't fit the staircase, though once I'd taken the stair-rail off it did, just. Luckily, I reasoned that it wouldn't go round the right angle at the top, even if tipped on its end so I took off the banisters just in case. I put a climbing rope underneath it, we lifted and the enormous bloke got under too, while me and the other chap heaved and pulled it onto the landing. Strangely, when my mum moved house again a few years later that piano moving firm no longer existed!

I know what you mean! We've had a couple of weird check-ins on our FB page from weird S&M bondage sites! Still - we're sticking with it as we've done the logo!

Screaming Blues!

Good stuff! We should do a double bill - we're Choked! E.P. being mixed at this moment...

It's called "Buried Alive", and from what I understand is about shopping in Bury Market. Though I'm notoriously bad at completely mis-hearing and/or mis-interpreting/making-up lyrics so it could be about the Roger Corman/Ray Milland film, or some phobia or someone's first pet for all I know!

😀😎 It's also one of my favourite albums 🤩 and you'll be appalled to hear that one of our best songs is based on the main 2 riffs from this! However ours is punkfunk, and it's only the bass bits I've, erm, referenced - the rest of the band wouldn't believe me if I told 'em where it came from...

It's just a sneaky way of introducing the kids to harmolodic jazz from an early age... Here's what Jamaaladeen normally does!

😁

Our first song starts with 24 bars of solo bass, which means I can freak the rest of the band out by varying the tempo up until the very last 2 notes... So far audiences have politely indulged us for starting with a bass solo - perhaps because (unusually for us!) it's almost got a hummable melody. Almost!

What this thread shows is: a) some good bands never make it big b) some very poor bands never make it big c) some good bands make it big d) some very poor bands make it big And that one man's good band is another's pile of steaming dog doo... Talking of which, I never understood why this band never made it:

I saw an ad for bassplayer wanted to join guitar and drums to form a funk-rock band - and they were both in my little "town" (1500 people...) So we did a few gigs,then the guitarist left due to too many arguments with the drummer. We then found a singer who'd been with a number of hardcore bands in the 90s, and a guitarist who liked Hendrix. Now we're a funk-punk band... We've just recorded our first 5 track EP and I'm editing a video which should hopefully get us some decent support slots in the new year.

Becoming?

It doesn't get much better than "Christmas is 4 Ever" by Bootsy!

My 2 current bands:

Here's some publicity photos!

I've never played any of the songs mentioned, and have only ever covered a song if we can put an interesting spin on it... Currently our only cover is "Don't Dictate" by Penetration, which we've done as a sort of mash-up with "Word Up" by Cameo. And I'm currently working on a version of "Nice and Sleazy" which (mostly) keeps the iconic riff, but it's faster and has a slap-punk-funk chromatic verse at double speed. Which might be nice!

I bought a Gear4Music one that didn't work, but strangely, it did work for a set of Alessis e-drums!

It just cut through better using the supplied Ampeg 8x10 cab. It's also quite a bit lighter, is the full 2 octaves, and is possibly even easier to play. Mids aren't quite as lush but I was after more of a modern slap sound for the recording... And I will use the Wal again - shan't be leaving it to the woodworm! and the ACG is: Pickups: ACG FB Hardware: ACG/Hipshot bridge, Gotoh GB720 tuners, Dunlop Straplocks, Low Battery Indicator Pre-amp: ACG DFM 5K/AP

From the Panda support page: Future Impact patch editor - MIDI interfaces we tested Panda-Audio midiBeam - works perfectly Steinberg UR22 - works perfectly Roland UM-ONE MK2 - works perfectly RME Fireface UC - works perfectly M-Audio Fasttrack-Pro - works perfectly M-Audio Midisport 4x4 - works perfectly M-Audio Firewire 1814 - works perfectly Behringer UMC404HD - works perfectly Presonus Firepod - works perfectly Bespeco BM USB100 - works perfectly Focusrite Scarlett 8i6 - works perfectly Focusrite Scarlett 18i6 - works perfectly Audiobox USB - works perfectly RME UFX - works perfectly ESI M4U XL - works perfectly Edirol UM-1S - works in 90%, sometimes errors experienced, but useable Alesis USB MIDI cable - does not work any unbranded USB MIDI cable - does not work Akai EIE, EIE-PRO - does not work Miditech Midilink-mini - no sysex implementation at all, not useable It may well be the cable!!! I use a 2nd hand Focusrite Scarlett 8i6 (£50ish) with bog standard midi-midi cables and that works fine.

Chris was in my 1st band, Dredd and the Badass Weeds but then went and sold out with the Rollins Band 😆 And Melvin was one of my bass heroes - saw him with Arto Lindsey, Defunkt, Sonny Sharrock and Marc Ribot. Met him once while he was having lunch in the BBC canteen, of all places, with Chris and our 'Enry!

2 bass-related purchases this year: a Panda Future Impact pedal - it's now almost permanently on and freaking out my band-mates an ACG Recurve bought from BigWan- it's my main bass now, the Wal is just sitting on its stand sulking!

To ex-Badass Weed and Rollins' guitarist: https://chrishaskett.bandcamp.com/album/comprovisations-in-linear-b

Can't be doing with trite, statin'-the-bleedin'-obvious lyrics, or with endless "ooh baby" nonsense... But a clever lyric is a thing of joy; by clever I mean interesting word-play, or a previously unthought-of analogy, or a new and interesting point of view. But, no matter how clever, they need the music more than the music needs the lyric. If it's all about the lyric it's just poetry (good or bad!) with a musical accompaniment. Though good poetry with good music is most excellent! 😎

Bit of jazzprogrock from Germany...

Panda Future Impact pedal will give you double bass and 80s synth sounds, but not arpeggiator (yet!).