LPs by legendary bass players are sometimes less than legendary. Lamentable perhaps, but we cannot avoid this difficult truth. John Entwistle (The Who), Bill Wyman (Rolling Stones), John Paul Jones (Led Zeppelin); they rarely bothered the ‘Best Album of the Decade’ lists. Or ‘Record of the Month’. Or even ‘this week’s also-rans’. Who could forget John Deacon of Queen, whose Alligators Don’t Live Under The Bed was an unjustly over-looked classic from 2003? It comes as no surprise, then, that the solo project from Spinal Tap’s Derek Smalls flew so low under the radar that it took me six years to discover its existence.

Those with long memories may recall that the mighty Tap—torchbearers of metal so heavy there is no periodic table element to compare them to—have graced these pages before. If you are in need of the back story (and who isn’t?) you can find it here in a piece entitled A Much Needed Void. Suffice to say that Derek Smalls (who masquerades as Harry Shearer in another life) was the low frequency foundation upon which Tap’s entire Stonehenge like edifice was built. 

Even in the early days of Spinal Tap, Smalls knew he was in the company of greatness. As he told filmmaker Marty Di Bergi, his colleagues Nigel Tufnell and David St Hubbins were, and I quote, “two totally distinct types of visionaries.” They were, Smalls continued, “Like fire and ice.” His own role was to be the connecting fluid between these electric poles, a conduit of creativity. “I feel my role in the band is to be in the middle of that, kind of like lukewarm water.”

So approaching the solo album by Derek Smalls requires no cautiousness at all. You can immerse yourself in tepid H²O with confidence, knowing that you’ll neither burn nor freeze. In fact you might not feel anything at all.

And what, you may be wondering, prompted this Brobdingnagian bass player to shake off the torpor of late middle age and steer his walking frame into the studio? Why, late middle age, of course. Welcome, my friends, to Smalls Change (Meditations upon Ageing) by Derek Smalls (and friends).

After a brief philosophical “Openture”, this long and often torturous opus kicks off with “Rock and Roll Transplant”, wherein Mr Smalls lays it out in the first verse.

Breath getting short, life getting long

You’re hanging on by a thread and a thong

Steve “Toto” Lukather’s guitar is as energetic as you’d expect from someone celebrating receiving their pension card, while Jim Keltner drums with his usual aplomb. Other songs reflect on the challenges of the modern world (like, how to use your mobile phone, in “Butt Call”) and glance backwards with scarcely contained affection (“Smalls Change”)… Lukewarm water still has to flow… while life on the road continues to exert its tedious magic in “It Don’t Get Old”. That the man with the foil-wrapped cucumber should still be obsessed with his tackle comes as no surprise. What is astonishing is Steely Dan co-founder Donald Fagen’s appearance in “Memo To Willie”, delivering a delightful punchline to a song whose printed intro explains it as AN URGENT MISSIVE TO THE HONOURABLE MEMBER: CONTINUED TUMESCENCE IF YOU PLEASE. But Fagen, with Larry Carlton and Jeff Baxter on guitars and the Snarky Puppy horn section? It’s almost a Steely Dan reunion!

Those who miss Spinal Tap’s relentlessly puerile smuttiness will not be disappointed by Smalls Change. Is”Gumming’ the Gash” an update/sequel/gender reversal of “Lick My Love Pump”? What about “She Puts the Bitch in Obituary”? Has the woman finally graduated from “Bitch School”? But there is in fact no point at all in bitching about Tap-esque lyrics. Smalls’ musings are as offensive and adolescent as anything in the metal idiom and that’s the way it is. Personally, I found reading the credits much more entertaining than the music. Steve Vai, Richard Thompson, Waddy Wachtel, Dweezil Zappa, Rick Wakeman… old bastards were queuing up to help Derek out. 

There is no doubt that this record was a labour of love. Perhaps even a vanity project. Maybe a last will and testament. It certainly takes strength of will and considerable labour to get through an entire hour of the bass player’s throaty growl. But against your will you still smile, and you will desperately want a t-shirt like the one Derek is wearing, stylishly reminding us that “You can’t dust for vomit”. That is the glory of Tap.

CLOSETURE

I was dismayed to find that this was a double album until I realised, with some relief, that the fourth side is blank. That, or it’s Smalls’ Metal Machine Music. Either way, don’t play it.

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