the lowstar lowdown 16 - monday 18th september

hello there lowdown browsers. we hope you're all well and find all you're looking for in this edition. can't say it's very likely unless you desperately want to know more about ian's ear defenders or ike the ikea trolley. it's fair to say that if that's not what you're after, you'll end up disappointed, but we can hope. actually, talking of which, has anyone noticed that certain shops - when you approach the counter with goods to be paid for - have taken to asking if you managed to find everything you were looking for... how do you answer that? that's the email question of the day. i'm perplexed by it and so i always take a moment to think about it before saying yes. i mean 9 times out of 10 the answer is no, but it just seems like that's a can of worms you don't want to open.

- thank you sir, did you find everything you were looking for today?
- well thank you for asking, er no, since you ask. i've been looking for some sort of reason to my existence for a while now and i couldn't find it on your racks, nor could i find a strawberry cake like my nan used to make and where on earth do you display your 'good night's sleeps'? i looked under 'g' and 's' and there was nothing there.

yet another example of how the world has gone mad. admittedly, not quite in the league of poverty, war, global warming or what's going on with pete and nicki from big brother. but they asked.

now where were we? i think we'd just said hello so i guess it's time to move on to what's been going on with lowstar this week. nothing as exciting as an appearance on tv this week, the throb was a bit late for practice because of heavy traffic - although i like to think yogi let the air out of his tires and ranger rob had to teach him a lesson - magic found some old cake in his bag and keith brought all his pedals. that said, it was an excellent practice and we got a lot done. the two new songs are finally being whipped into shape and now it's the difficult business of remembering how they go and putting the finishing touches to the arrangements. it was another absorbing rehearsal and we all lost track of the time and had to be reminded to leave.

it's not entirely fair to blame this tardiness on the new songs, as it seems to be a weekly occurence that ian gets his second wind around about the 10.15 mark and from that point on becomes the new john bonham/keith moon hybrid, kind of what you'd get if a metronome was combined with an avalanche hitting a drum museum and a firework factory at once. with nice hair. it is at this point that the fabled graph of rock has to be drawn on a new axis.

having said all that, the most influential moment of the night belonged to uncle ranger rob the throb and it is to him that this week's woestar award goes. after puzzling on how to end one of the new songs, magic said we'd worked it out last week, but couldn't remember what it was, ian worked on a 12 minute solo and keith (god bless him, when will he ever learn to keep his mouth shut, it's the only way he'll ever win one of these awards) suggested 'not stopping'. rob, however, quietly, serenely, majestically, just got on with it, did it his own way regardless of what everyone else was doing and as a result nailed it. congratulations rob, why can't keith be more like you.

thoughts from practice this week...

- between them magic and keith have almost 20 pedals, while rob and ian have 1.
- mind you, they have 2 sticks and magic and keith have none.
- on the other hand magic and keith have 12 strings to rob and ian's 4
- but then again, ian and rob's average height is much greater than magic and keith's so it all evens out in the end.
- if there were teams in lowstar, which there aren't
- although there's no 'i' in lowstar either
- unless you spell it 'lowstair', but that just sounds like a weird health and safety sign. or 'lowsitar', which could be cool...
- alright, alright, you got us, there were no thoughts because we were way too busy with the new songs.

onto a new feature this week, occasionally some of us spend too long on myspace and we thought we'd share with you some great music we've found on our travels. so we'll start with some mellow swedish prog rock - jeniferever. magic reckons they're lovely, but we'll leave it to you to decide whether you can trust the taste of someone obsessed with early nineties shoegazing bands....

so anyway, it's done for another week, and look there's not even anything on ian's ear defenders or ike the ikea trolley, i feel cheated myself, so god alone knows how you feel. and nothing on imaginary alan. sheesh. at least keith got another kicking over the woestar award. some things never change. so tune in next week for another keith shoeing. probably, we don't want to pre-empt it, he may have a blinder...

see you on the 12th october!

lowstar lowstopping

blog list
recording november 2008
gig email - 20 nov 2007
gig email - 24 jul 2007
happy new year - tuesday 16 jan 2007
lowstar lowdown 17 - monday 16 oct 2006
lowstar lowdown 16 - monday 18 sep 2006
lowstar lowdown 15 - monday 11 sep 2006
lowstar lowdown 14 - monday 28 aug 2006
lowstar lowdown 13 - monday 14 aug 2006
lowstar lowdown 12 - monday 31 jul 2006
lowstar lowdown 11 - monday 24 jul 2006
lowstar lowdown 10 - monday 17 jul 2006
lowstar lowdown 9 - monday 10 jul 2006
lowstar lowdown 8 - monday 26 jun 2006
lowstar lowdown 7 - monday 19 jun 2006
lowstar lowdown 6 - monday 05 jun 2006
lowstar lowdown 5 - lowstardate 27th may.6
lowstar lowdown 4 - monday 22 may 2006
lowstar lowdown III - return of the blog (15 may 2006)
lowstar lowdown 2 - wednesday 10 may 2006
lowstar lowdown 1 - friday 28 april 2006