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The lowstar lowdown 7 - monday 19th june

Hello there! How are you all? We hope you are all well and enjoying your surfing of the internet. We’re very pleased you could spend some time having a look at our site and we hope you enjoy it. Welcome to our latest update! While you’re reading through this long and winding ramble through all the things we have and maybe sometimes things we haven’t done, if any questions should occur to you please send us an email, we’d love to hear from you. Hey and why stop there. Should you just have thoughts on general stuff that you don’t think anyone would be bothered about hearing, send that in too. It’s what we do in these updates and it would be wrong of us to turn such thoughts away. For example, this week we have been thinking that when you think about it, the Queen is only the Queen cos, ages and ages and ages ago, one of her relatives beat up one of our relatives and if she’s up for a rematch would she fight clean or dirty? See? We don’t care, whatever you’ve been thinking we won’t judge, send it in. talking of fights, anyone else think the bbc world cup team could take the itv world cup team with chains and clubs, but, in a bar room fight with broken bottles and that, itv would win?

Anyway, onto lowstar and what we’ve been doing. As you’ve probably gathered from the last few updates, this week we have been in the recording studio recording 3 tracks from our live set. We went to a place called perry vale studios, so called because it’s a studio on perry vale in forest hill. We had a brilliant time and the tracks have come out really well. We’re really pleased. A huge thanks has to go to the engineer, pat collier, who was fantastic. We’re not entirely sure what we’re going to do with the recording yet, but you know where to find out first. And no it’s not the sun or heat magazine. The recording session lasted 2 days and timed so as to allow us all a little lie in in the mornings. Which was much appreciated and taken advantage of. The first day covered the rhythm tracks, with good drum and bass takes nailed down, we went to work on the guitars. Magic and keith were very restrained, limiting the number of guitar tracks in some cases to single figures! Rob and ian spent this time in the control room with pat rolling their eyes and tutting. Much tea was consumed, some of it green and this all aided the singing, which again went very smoothly. Finally, the last few hours were spent mixing, arguing over when certain backing vocal lines should appear and disappear and trying to tone down the amount of feedback and white noise keith wanted to add on the top. Fortunately, magic, ian and rob were able to have a quiet word with pat while keith was on a bathroom break and the final mix sounds great as a result.

So who was the lowstar woestar of the recording session. It’s really tough actually, because the final mix sounds so good it would be very harsh to single anyone out. Rob the throb for example lays down some metronomic bass and there are some brilliant bits where you can hear the picking of the string. His backing vocals are also top drawer. Ian’s drumming is simply awesome. The groove he gets into on the first two tracks is infectious and some of the fills towards the end of the last two tracks just make you smile. And as for magic, well his vocals are great, really emotive and the guitar tracks add something to each track, the one he played with a key ring and a flange is out of this world. Even keith rose to the challenge and didn’t suck like normal. Sure he took more takes than anyone else, never really got control of his feedback, and often made noises that would be more at home in an episode of dr who, or some other sci-fi show a kind of lowstar trek if you will. But he got there in the end and you’ve got to give him credit for that after the past few weeks. It would be a harsh updater not to include him in the woestar award this week. Can you see where it’s going? Yeah, you’ve guessed it, you can’t have 4 winners of the woestar, it’s wrong, you can get away with 3 but not 4. so I’m declaring it null and void this week. Or maybe I’ll give it to pat, he was pretty awesome too. Anyway, I do hope you all get to hear it soon, magic has disappeared to the Dominican republic this week, but when he returns we’ll have a chat about what we’re going to do with the tracks next. I would imagine that little snippets will appear online though soon though.

On a connected point, it has come to my attention that magic rather kindly offered to put keith up for a couple of nights while they recorded. rumours that spending 48 hours with the no-woestar-awarded guitarist had resulted in a hastily arranged holiday break to the other side of the world can neither be confirmed or denied. In fact, it’s entirely possible he hasn’t left the country at all and is sitting at home with his xbox, a crate of beer and imaginary alan, who has in the past gone to similar lengths.

Rob had had enough before the mixing began and beat a hasty retreat to the depths of surrey. Rob’s day job is as park ranger in jellysone park and yogi and boo-boo are said to be having a whale of a time in his absence. Pickernick baskets have gone missing and everything. Ian, meanwhile, has not been heard from since leaving the studio muttering about the tone of his high-hats and keith has fled to Norfolk to join the protestors outside alan woodbine’s chip shop. They’ve set up barriers of mash that the authorities are attempting to destroy with armoured vehicles and high velocity ketchup hoses. But rest assured, the star will reconvene at the earliest opportunity. However, next week’s update may instead be devoted to the adventures of imaginary alan, as keith has assured me that imaginary alan does not mind his story being told. I’m sure you’re all very relieved to hear that.

News on the ikea trolley is also good. The ikea trolley at the rehearsal studio is till there and there appears to be no swing to the left or right as yet.

Just a few thoughts from the studio then and that’ll be it for this week....

- has anyone played a weirder looking mismatch of a drum kit and got it to sound so good? Perhaps only top cat’s drummer who played dustbins but managed to sound like buddy rich
- how in the name of all that is holy and pure did mojo magazine put the beatles’ revolution 9 nine places higher than day tripper in their beatles top 101?
- Does one-take ranger rob the throb (to give him his full name) ever make a mistake?
- Even if science could find a way of splicing the dna of fred astaire, ginger rodgers, gene kelly and ernie wise, would their weirdly wonderful offspring be able to match magic’s footwork as he created noise mayhem with his rainbow of rock?
- How would science do that? Would it invite them all to a party, supply the drinks and hope for the best?
- How typically keith was it to break a string half way through recording his very first take!
- How many photos are there of ian behind his weird and wonderful drums and what does he plan to do with them all? This updater believes they should be put into bottles and cast adrift on the ocean, a kind of message in a bottle in reverse, castways could receive one and get over their initial disappointment at not being sent instructions on how to make a raft out of sand and seawater by pinning the photo on their palm tree cabin.
- And on a similar note, the recording session has taught us that should the unthinkable happen and lowstar were to be swept away to sea from their rehearsal studio in elephant and castle (stranger things have happened don’t mock) and find themselves on a desert island, ian would lay the foundations for the shelter and it would be so good they could build it 20 stories high, rob would hold it all together with none of your cowboy mistakes and he’d do it right first time too magic would paint it and make it look pretty maybe with some stencilling and some matching curtains and keith would do the washing up.

Right that’s it from us. Write and let us know stuff or ask us stuff and that. We’ll be back soon, until then 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