Blog
Artist of the Moment: Louise
Written by Jimmy
Our artist of the moment is Louise or Lou. She’s the label’s resident actress, singer/song-writer and Website Administrator. She claims she values the jobs in that order, but we find she gets a bit too much joy out of changing passwords and correcting typos in blogs. Beyond her fetish for typos, there are four things you need to know about Lou.
First, you need to know how she ended up with us. Lou arrived in the band the same way Gus did, but a year earlier — through Morgan. It goes like this. Morgan is Jimmy’s youngest daughter and she goes to school with Ceci, Lou’s (little) middle sister. Through Ceci, Jimmy met Anthony, Lou’s father, who played piano and did Bvox on Occasional Touch, a song that is yet to be completed. While singing, he pointed out that if we wanted a good singer we should ask his oldest daughter Louise to join us. Lou was then told to come by our house to see what we were up to. We think she was told to ‘check us out.’ What we heard was that Lou was going to come by to sing Bvox for Sat Out the 15th. So poor Lou arrives for 30 minutes, having rushed between acting school and a baby sitting job to meet Andy and Jimmy. We open the door, say fast hello’s, and then throw her into the studio with instructions to sing the phrase ‘He would have sat out the 15th’ like ‘Big Gig in the Sky.’ She was too polite to walk out, but later confessed she had every intention to do so. But, of course, we fell immediately in love with her and her voice. She learned to tolerate us.
Second, you need to know we love her voice and song-writing, although we raise eyebrows at her production rate. She raises eyebrows that we use words like production rate. On the first album, everyone’s favourite song is No Poetry – a Lou song. We were desperate to have more of her songs, but she announced quite clearly that they come in due time, at a rate of about one a year. On the second album everyone loves Immovable Thing – sung by Lou. But there’s also country Lou, with Chamberlain in Munich and Jazz Hands Lou with Bvox to She Knows. On the third album, she will kick of the album with No Bells, which is Lou at her best. That album will be filled with Lou vocals, so watch this space. Now, the rest of us have almost gotten used to everyone liking Lou’s songs best. But not really. Andy and Jimmy argue that folks really just like the mixing. Rob points out that it must be his bass. We can pretend…
The fact is, her voice is amazing and on the right song, its magic. This is what she thinks of as her influences.
Third, you need to know that she’s well… kind of… well, how to say it, ummmm… (treading carefully here), … hmmmm opinionated. Oh and quite vocal in making her opinions known. So LOTS of stuff is rubbish — most of what Jimmy suggests, and 48.2% of what everyone else suggests. We swear she keeps track — if 51.8% of her comments are ‘brilliant’ and ‘whoop’ she figures than she can get away with 48.2% of stuff being rated as crap and rubbish. This somehow seems to work okay (except for poor Jimmy), because it keeps ego’s in check and does raise the quality standards a bit. Of the 48.2% of things she deems are rubbish, our analysis suggests she’s right about 29.7% of the time. But it means she’s become the soul of the place, mysteriously enough, driving us to quality and perfection. It’s painful but good for us. She’s now taken this rubbish meter into her role as ‘Website Administrator’ – a self-titled job with a very long list of things that it means she will do and an equally long list of things that she won’t do in the role. So any typoS in Bolgs can be blamed now solely on Lou. She’s the only thing standing between our ineptitude and our fans — the thin blue line protecting all of you from our rubbish. So, from now on, if it is rubbish, you know who to blame.
Fourth and finally, the sad truth is that we’re a very tiny second fiddle to Lou’s real love, acting. And it makes us sad, because we know that the more successful she is, the less we see of her. So she was a major part of Six Months of Saturdays, both musically and in her role running the label. Then she goes and becomes all successful, with a role at The Old Vic in The Real Thing. And she disappears from us. That’s why you barely hear her on Misery Marmalade and Other Spanish Jams. She’s back again for a while now, but we know she’ll go and get some major part and be gone again. Oh, the sadness of Abubilla. Still, I guess we enjoy her success and we’ll certainly announce her next big role.
That’s it. Enjoy our artist of the moment, Lou.