the lowstar lowdown III - return of the blog (15 may 2006)

good morning/afternoon/evening to you from the lowstar boys! i hope you are well and having fun checking the web for whatever you're online for at present. welcome to the latest edition of the lowstar lowdown, the last one before the next gig (at plan b in brixton, on tuesday - or toosdy as they say in norwich - 16th may, hopefully see you there!). so what's on the agenda today? well it's exciting news here at castle lowstar, as we have our first lowdown response. yes, it's true, someone read the first update and wrote us an email. so hello to kate and thanks for your email. as promised we discussed the issues you raised in your email at the practice and it was a rather long and involved discussion. there was a lot of disagreement about the questions but there was a general consensus over the question 'if lowstar was an animal what animal would it be?' - after much deliberation on the 'monkey' issue, magic suggested that lowstar would be 2 octopuses because we have 16 limbs. the rest of lowstar concurred. so there you go. interactive lowstar, you ask - we ponder. so please feel free to send more questions and we'll do our best to not answer them properly.

practice was good though. and all bodes well for next toosdy. there were a number of delays during practice though due to technical difficulties. initially, magic had set up too close to keith and the general feeling was that he was encroaching on his personal space, however, due to magic's enormous rainbow of noise (the great expanse of pedals that would, if laid end to end, reach all the way from alan woodbine's chip shop to the charity shop by henstead road... and that's long, for those of you not currently living in the expanding norfolk village/small town of hethersett!), it took several minutes to move. once in his new position it took magic only 3 songs to realise that he was at the intersecting point of all the amps and the drums and couldn't hear a thing. so he moved again. it may have cost us time enough for 3 or 4 songs in total - or enough time for ian to complicate two or three of his fills, whichever is shorter.

in short though, practice was loud, good and rock. and, even better, it finished late and rob doesn't have the day off so everyone was pleased, especially keith - the bitter and twisted guitarist.

so before we announce the man of the match (the lowstar woestar) and the thoughts of practice, here is a new, possibly one-time only section called 'tales from the tube'. there was a headline in the paper this morning about scientists having created a mouse that was 'part-human', now obviously, i haven't read the article, but why should that stop me pontificating about it, it didn't stop the journalist writing about it just cos he didn't understand it did it? anyway, it made me think, what part of me would i give up for a mouse? i'd like to extend the question to you, gentle reader, please write in a tell us. after much deliberation i thought i could spare my eyebrows. sure, i'd look surprised all the time, but i frequently am anyway and the mouse could put them to good use as go faster stripes down each side. i did think that it might be fairer if the mouse swapped something with me, maybe i could have its whiskers. but i haven't thought that through very well. possibly also worth mentioning that i then considered what a mouse would look like with bruce springsteen's arm as its human part. on the plus side he'd know his way round a telecaster, but he'd probably have a noticeable limp. all of which brings us back to the question of which animal would lowstar be. springsteen clearly would be moose springsteen and perhaps he could do a cover of the george michael/aretha franklin hit 'i gnu you were waiting'. there's ewe2 of course and their epic unforgettable fire track baa-d. and in a similar vein we would of course be 'slothstar', with our new mid-set rampage through 'alphabet snooze'.

anyway... the lowstar woestar last night was a really tough decision between two very different performances. magic was especially good last night in very trying circumstances, try as he might he couldn't find a position where he could hear anything but he came through with a majestic vocal performance and some terrifying guitar noises. however, as much as he deserves it, the final half an hour was a lesson in drumming insanity not seen on these shores since they let jamie oliver play on tv. so i declare it a dead heat. the lowstar woestars are the ians. ian squared as i like to call them. but rob and keith shouldn't feel bad, but they should raise their games, the slackers.

notes from the practice....
- is the speed of ian's fills last night proof that the matrix wasn't a film but a documentary and if it is, is ian the one or one of 'them'?
- which is sadder to have imaginary friends, like keith and ian, or not to be popular with the imaginary people, like magic and rob?
- if the rumours of a potential lowstar adventure game are true who will be the character who gets killed first?
- how is it that despite having almost 30 times the number of pedals that keith has, magic always packs up before him?
- is there a celebrity out there that would enter the jungle and even touch magic's practice ear plugs for food?
- just how unpleasant for other tube travellers was the journey keith followed after such a warm night in the practice rooms?
- given that the specific job title of a microphone stand is to stand up, how is it possible that so many of them can't?
- has rob discovered a mystical bowel-loosening frequency and should medical science be advised so they can investigate and put it to good use?
- given the time taken to discuss the various questions emailed in, can a time be foreseen when we don't have time to play any songs in order to fully discuss emailed questions?
- and finally in answer to one of last week's posed questions... yes, the ikea trolley was still there.

right, that's it for another week. please write and comment or raise issues that we can use to talk about in breaks in practice or we'll have to take an interest in each other's lives and i don't think any of us want that. you'd be doing us a big favour. hopefully see you all on the 16th at plan b, if not, we'll be back with an update on the ikea trolley situation next week.... until then this is 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