Ed Lowe

Message from Andy Hodge Katy Setterfield's husband about Katy's tour

2008-07-22T10:37:00.000-07:00

Hi Ed

Just briefly here are some details about the band members for the tour.

Andy Hodge - Bass Guitar and BVs. First go as MD. I've been around! Spent far too long in 'That'll be the day' - almost 10 years. Revitalising my previous life as a busy freelance and session player

Al Vosper - Guitars, vocals and backing vocals. Al has done EVERYTHING over a very busy and successful session-musician career. Currently working with Chris de Burgh internationally. Well-worth googling!

Sam Edwards - Piano/keyboards. Very much in demand player and arranger based in Essex. I worked with Sam on Brotherhood of Man gigs in the 90s. Current gigs include The Real Thing and various Motown, Funk and Jazz shows and much more...

Barry Cook - Drums. A high-profile West End player currently depping on several shows. We worked together on Lorna Luft tours many years ago.

Brent Keefe - Drums when Barry is elsewhere: they're sharing the gig from the outset. Brent is on the new Dusty CD Katy's recording on her return. We know each other from Everly Brothers and Simon & Garfunkel tribute tours in the past.

Darren Reeves - Keyboards 2, guitar and BVs. Great player all round. Currently MD-ing 'The Heat is On' in Bournemouth.

Julie Maguire - BVs. Lovely girl, long CV of live and session work, and good friend of Katy & I. She was in 'Katy's Komet' (the band we met in) when Katy had a recording contract some years ago.

Zoe Xenofontos - BVs. Fabulous singer, new to me but any friend of Julie is a friend of ours. Has some writing/recording situations to keep her busy between sessions.

Andy

please book your tickets now!!

www.katysetterfield.com

ANNIE OTHEN

2008-07-15T08:53:00.000-07:00

Interview with Annie Othen. 29^th May 2007

My guest today, if you tune into BBC Coventry and Warwickshire between 10 and 1, this lady certainly makes your morning feel good. I am delighted to say that Annie Othen is with us. Annie, great to see you.

Well, that’s certainly a very nice introduction. Thank you very much indeed.

How did you get started within the radio industry?

It’s a question I get asked quite often and it’s actually quite a long time ago. The very simple answer is I was asked. I was very, very fortunate to be asked to join a radio station, but prior to that I had done some work on hospital radio. Not a huge amount, but I’d done some. I’d gone round the wards and I’d asked for requests and gone back to the studio and pulled the records out and tried to make something of a programme. I was working in press and PR anyway, and I offered my services to a radio station for free, which is pretty unusual to do anything for free these days. But I thought, if you do it for free they might help out and they did. I went along to help on OBs, on outside broadcasts and it was the archetypal one day someone didn’t turn up and I got the microphone thrust into my hand and I did a piece on air. Within a week I had a phone call from the station manager saying did I want a job.

Would you say it’s a lot about persistence?

Yes, there’s all sorts of things. There has to be persistence, there has to be determination, there has to be a degree of self-belief that you can do it, and I teach some students about radio and I say to them: If you want to do it, then go for it and do it. If you don’t do it, somebody else will go and do it, and you’ll sit back and think: Hang on a minute, I could have done that. So, yes, there has to be a lot of hard work. In those days, and that makes me sound like an old crusty, I suppose, there were very few women in radio as well. I can clearly remember going into the first radio station, and I was the only female presenter and one of the blokes turning around and saying: I suppose I’d better not swear now. My reply to him was something I can’t broadcast now. There was that determination to do it not as well but even better, to work not hard but even harder, to prove the point.

I noticed from reading your profile on bbc.co.uk/coventry…

Crikey, thanks for the plug!

…it said that you worked on Radio 2. What did you do there?

I did either late nights or early mornings. So I either did midnight till three

Which now Janice Long does

Which now Janice Long does, or I did a slot for Alex Lester. So when Alex Lester used to go off to do stuff in the day time

For Sarah Kennedy or Ken Bruce

I would sit in for him as well, and I thoroughly enjoyed it and I did it for a year or two and I had a great time and I did it out of the Radio Two studios in Pebble Mill.

Which is better, out of national or local. Which do you prefer doing?

To me, radio is radio, you know. I love radio with a passion. When I was a child I used to take my Grandma’s portable radio underneath the bedclothes. There weren’t duvets in those days, and you twiddled the knobs, so to speak. There’s a thought that springs to mind, twiddling the knobs under the bedclothes, but anyway, I used to do that, and I used to love this idea of going round the world and listening to all these different languages and stations coming through. I just love radio per se, broadcasting to one person on air and it’s that personal communication. Whether I’m doing it on national radio or on local radio, the basic premise of radio is just the same. Obviously there’s a very nice connection with it being local radio. I know my patch inside out and back to front. I know a lot of my listeners so there’s a real personal connection.

You started out at BBC WM before you moved on to Coventry and Warwickshire.

I’ve been all over the place, Ed. There isn’t a station I haven’t worked on.

You did the Breakfast Show on Radio WM, and that was mainly speech-based. Do you like doing speech-based, or do you like doing speech and music?

I like doing speech; I’m a nosy animal. I find this difficult; it should be the other way round. It should be me asking the questions and probing around rather than answering them, but I like speech, but I love music as well. My first job was in commercial radio in the days but that was in the days when there was a very good balance between speech and music. I’ve done all- music stations, I’ve done all speech stations; I think the idea is that you get some good meaty material, you get some great guests, and I’ve been fortunate to interview some of the great and the good, and some of the not-so-good, over my time. You know, I’ve really met some fantastic people over the years.

Who has been the most memorable person that you have interviewed?

Oh crikey, there’s a million-dollar question. As I said, I’ve been very lucky, meeting Paul McCartney, interviewing him extensively on one of his albums. He and I sat in his dressing room backstage at the

NEC and had a long chat and I always remember while I was doing the interview the team was there. We had a very good long chat and he was very generous with his time. I remember there was a guy obviously drumming in the background, practising, and – you’ll have to bleep this bit – but suddenly a voice came from the back saying: ‘Shut the **** up!’ Paul just looked at me, and went: ‘Ah, that’ll be Linda’. Great memories. Please bleep that bit.

As I was saying to you, I’ve interviewed Paul Gambaccini, I’ve interviewed Liz Kershaw, I’ve interviewed Alex Lester, got other interviews in the pipeline with Aled Jones, and it takes a lot of persistence. Did you have to persist?

Yes, some of them. I mean, I’ve got a great production team here now, who work very hard in getting a lot of top guests together. In the past I didn’t have that privilege, you had to do it yourself. I clearly remember, I’d do a programme, I’d finish at midday and I’d have a taxi waiting sprint to the station to get an interview, come back. You know, it might be an interview with Phil Collins, or Tom Jones, Gloria Estefan or whoever it happened to be, get the tape, get it back to Birmingham, sit down after a long day, edit it and get in on air in the morning. So, you know, you’ve got to be persistent and determined, I think, sometimes.

Do you prefer producing yourself, as you put it, or do you like having a producer?

I think nowadays, you have to remember in that instance I was quoting there weren’t so many radio stations around. There was something like 64 radio stations; now you can stick a couple of noughts on the end, and, you know, include all the on-line stations. There’s a lot of competition out there, so as I say, I think it’s great to have a team. It’s good having a production team and as I say, I have got a very good one: Suzie and Claire and Marion and Andrew and so on, who work very hard on the programme to produce some really top material. Then it’s up to me on air to make the best of it and not mess it up for them.

I’ve interviewed you; you’ve interviewed me should I say, on several occasions. I have to say, whenever I’ve been interviewed by you, you’ve always know your stuff, you’re always very professional. Do you think that’s the key to your success?

Oh God. Er…I don’t know what my key is to any success I might have had. I’m a worker, I’m a grafter, you know. I’ve got an interview coming up later on this week actually. I’ll just lean over here, it’s a big book, Johnny Walker’s autobiography. I’ll be interviewing him in the week and I think it would be most rude and most discourteous if I said to him: So Johnny, tell me about your book, so I think it’s up to me to go away and read as much of it as I can, research it, and that way you get a better interview out of it, you know. If you have somebody who comes in for interview and they’ve slaved all year producing an album or a book and then you just say: So tell me about your book, then, or tell me about your album. A) It’s insulting to the listener B) It’s a pretty boring interview and C) It’s insulting to the poor so-and-so who’s spent all year working on their book and album. So I feel a bit of research is really important.

What would you say to anyone listening to this or reading this, who wants a career in radio?

Don’t! No, go for it if that’s what you want to do, then go for it. If you’ve got the talent and you’ve got the personality and the determination, and you’re prepared to work hard, then you’ll make it. It really is having that focus. It will not fall in your lap. It will not just happen. You might get some breaks early on, but you have to follow it through with that work, if you like.

When you’re not working, what do you do to relax?

I think I’ve probably gone through a bit of a mid-life crisis actually. Over the last eighteen months I’ve taken up tennis; I’m having professional tennis lessons and I’ve taken up skiing. I’ve had skiing lessons. I’ve taken up running and I’m running the Two Castles Run on June 10^th, which if you’d said to me a year ago I’d been doing, I would have said: ‘Don’t be ridiculous, I’m not built to run’ but I’m now running 10 kilometres. I run about 15 miles a week now, so I think I’m probably going through a bit of a crisis. So those are the sort of things I do. I’ve discovered skiing, I wish I’d learned to ski earlier in my life. I’ve got a family, I’ve got a little boy and you know he keeps me well occupied.

A taxi service

A taxi service, a laundry service, a restaurant service, schooling service, any service you could think of really, bless him. But he’s great. So yeah, I’m just a really cup-half-full sort of person. I kind of like to go for something and have fun, really. You only get one stab at it, don’t you, really?

Annie, thank you very, very much indeed.

Ed, it’s been a real pleasure. But I do find it very weird having to answer the questions instead of asking them.

2 TO GO

2008-07-15T08:51:00.001-07:00

Interview - X Factor. WITH 2 TO GO E= EMMA P=PETE

Would you say that X Factor was good for you ?

P. Yes.
E. Yes.
P. It’s given us a lot of exposure and experience. I mean, there are bits that you wish hadn’t happened, but there are great bits too. It’s a real learning curve.
E. Overall, an emotional roller coaster.
P. The way you have to look at it is that it’s a TV show, not a talent showcase, and a lot of people miss that. A lot of people go into it thinking it’s their be-all and end-all.
E. It’s made to be entertaining, you get a lot of fine judges. We had the tour, which was the best thing that we ever did.

What made you go for it ?

E. It was our Mums actually, wasn’t it ? We’d previously had an audition for Pop Idol but we didn’t turn up to it, but when X Factor gave the opportunity for groups, we went for it.
P. It had energy and more enthusiasm.
E. It seems to have got less and less about talent as it goes through.
P. The series we were on was different and new.

Would you ever go on a show like that again ?

E. If we thought it was about talent, yes, but not if it was all about reality TV.
P. If it was going to help us. People just want the drama.
E. But people just want to see someone having a go at someone on TV, because it’s fun.
P. We were lucky to get as far as we did, really. It was quite a surprise.

What are the auditions ?

E. We did two with the producers, then one with the ‘gruesome threesome’.

Did you have any celeb fans ?

E. We had a bit of a following. The ‘Independent’ said we were the only bit worth watching.. We were approached to do the ‘Amarillo’ video for Peter Kay. Tha’s one of our biggest regrets.
E. It was physically impossible to get there.
P. We thought it wouldn’t be that big. How wrong can you be ?

buses

2008-07-15T08:44:00.000-07:00

Journalism. 9/2/07

23 year old trainee journalist Ed Lowe writes :

We all have to use public transport at some point in our lives, but for people with limited mobility it is always a challenge. Ed Lowe, who lives in Willenhall, Coventry, has to use the buses on a daily basis to allow him to travel to university. Here is a typical day in the life of this trainee broadcast journalist .

I leave the suburb of Willenhall between 8 and 8.15. I try always to catch the bus No 21. Whenever I get on the bus it is usually empty, so there is no problem getting on board. Most of the drivers are only too willing to help you. They lower the bus down and then they bring out the portable ramps just the same as the ones you see on trains.

As the journey progresses, more and more people get on board the bus, and this is where sometimes the problem begins. One of the drivers’ weakest points is that they seem to allow more prams and buggies onto the bus than there is actually room for, and you also have people standing up. I sometimes feel like I am squashed inside a tin of sardines and this can get very claustrophobic.

Just before I get to my destination, which very often is Little Park Street, I make sure that I am sitting by the bus door ready and waiting so that the driver sees I am ready to vacate the bus. The majority of drivers, as I said before, are very helpful and they make sure I get off the bus as safely as I can.

Message from Katy Setterfield

2008-07-03T03:38:00.000-07:00

Hi there!

Well, at last I'm out here in Las Vegas! I started with Legends in Concert at the Imperial Palace on May 19th, and I'm here until the middle of August. I'm having a fantastic time; the cast is excellent and the show is superb! I've had lots of visitors from the UK who've come to say hello afterwards, so please make yourselves known if you're in the area.

When I get home I'll be straight into rehearsals for my UK tour; the dates and venues are available on my website. My Blog is now linked to my website, so you can find out what I'm up to more easily:

www.katysetterfield.com

Please tell your friends and I'll see you on the road somewhere soon.

Also I'm going to have to find time to record a CD of 12 Dusty songs ready for the first gigs at the end of August. And then there's the promotion of the tour too - look out for me on TV and radio, and in the papers!

Thank you for your support and help in getting me here.

Much love and every best wish,

Katy x

katyisdusty@hotmail.com

www.katysetterfield.com

_____________________________

2008-07-02T03:06:00.000-07:00

test

2008-06-24T06:44:00.000-07:00

Update

2008-06-22T03:02:00.000-07:00

Hello everyone,

Well, what have I been up to since my last blog? The most exciting news of all is that I'm going to be getting a brand, spanking new wheelchair within the next two weeks. (Look out for the old one appearing on eBay lol). My disability awareness training is going from strength to strength and I have a new laptop. I also have a profile on Facebook - please check it out www.facebook.com/ed189 Request my friendship and I'll add you.

From 24-28 July I'll be taking a well-earned break in Skegness and shall be catching up with my great friend Jane McDonald as she is performing a sell-out concert at the Embassy Centre in Skegness on 27 July. In addition Jane will be turning on the Skegness Illuminations on 26 July at the Clock Tower. For more information please visit her website www.jane-mcdonald.com

Over the coming months I have got lots of exciting projects coming up. As soon as the are all confirmed you will be the first to know. Got to go now; thank you for all your love and support.

Lots of love - Ed xxx

test

2008-06-22T02:59:00.000-07:00

test

Hello

2008-05-31T12:14:00.000-07:00

Hi everyone,

Hope everyone is well, I am fine.

Just a quick update to let you know what I have been doing. I've been busy with my work as a disability awareness trainer, unfortunately I have some very sad news, about Coventry and Warwickshire Friend, due to unforeseen circumstances, I no longer volunteer with the organisation, I would just like to take this opportunity to wish the organisation all the very best for the future.

I hope Katy is getting on well out in Las Vegas, she absolutely deserves every bit of success. I can't wait for the tour.

Also about a week and a half- two weeks ago, I decided to establish contact with my primary school teachers,LAURA JESTICO & Sylvia Green, Sylvia was my support Assistant at the first mainstream primary school which I went to a Newark in Nottinghamshire, I spent about one year there, before I moved up to secondary school, Laura was my wonderful teacher, she still is wonderful. Should they both Sylvia and Laura gave me so much encouragement to do well, I'm absolutely positive I wouldn't have got where I am today, if it wasn't for them.

Lots of love,

Edxx

Katy Setterfield tour dates.

2008-05-18T03:51:00.000-07:00

Venue

AUGUST 2008

30 Britannia, GREAT YARMOUTH – 01493 842914

31 Assembly Hall, WORTHING

SEPTEMBER 2008

02 Customs House, SOUTH SHIELDS

03 Millfield, EDMONTON

05 Towngate, BASILDON

06 Corn Exchange, KINGS LYNN

07 Gordon Craig, STEVENAGE

09 Concert Hall, MOTHERWELL

10 Opera House, BUXTON

11 Music Hall, SHREWSBURY

12 St David's Hall, CARDIFF

13 Dome, MORECAMBE

14 Derngate, NORTHAMPTON

16 Garrick, LICHFIELD

17 Pavilion, RHYL

18 Opera House, BLACKPOOL

19 Town Hall, CHELTENHAM

23 Pacific, BIRKENHEAD

25 Pier, CROMER

26 Concert Hall, DUDLEY

27 Orchard, DARTFORD

30 Assembly Halls, DERBY

OCTOBER 2008

01 Mechanics, BURNLEY

02 Playhouse, HARLOW

04 Town Hall, FALKIRK

05 Buccleugh Center, LANGHOLM

08 Marina, LOWESTOFT

11 Plaza, STOCKPORT

12 Pavilion, GLASGOW

14 Carnegie Hall, DUNFERMLINE

16 Swan, HIGH WYCOMBE

17 St George's, BRADFORD

19 City Hall, NEWCASTLE-UPON-TYNE

23 Regent Centre, CHRISTCHURCH

24 Corn Exchange, BEDFORD

25 Prince of Wales, CANNOCK

28 Fairfield, CROYDON

29 Gaeity, ISLE-OF-MAN

NOVEMBER 2008

02 Pavilion, FELIXSTOWE

04 Albert Hall, BOLTON

06 Forum, BARROW

07 Civic Hall, GRAYS

08 Cresset, PETERBOROUGH

14 Central, CHATHAM

15 Dorking Halls, DORKING

20 Assembly, TUNBRIDGE WELLS

29 Queens, BARNSTAPLE

To book tickets please click on the links. For those without links, put the venue name into Google. Please note that wheelchair spaces cannot be booked online. You will need to ring the number given on the website.

Katy Setterfield Concerts I’m going to

2008-05-13T10:40:00.000-07:00

Dear all,

Well, I'm really excited, I have booked to see Katy on tour at six venues, all across the UK in September and October.

The venues I'm going to are listed below:

Please book your tickets now, and come and help me show Katy your support. If you can't get to any of the shows I am going to fear not, the details of all the venues, please log on to, www.katysetterfield.com please book now to avoid disappointment.

Lots of love,

Ed

xx

September

10^th Buxton Opera house

14^th Northampton Derngate

16^th Lichfield Garrick

19^th Cheltenham town Hall

October

8^th Lowestoft Marina Theatre

26th high Wycombe Swan Theatre

Katy's tour Dates

2008-05-11T11:11:00.000-07:00

For all Katy's tour dates and lots more, please visit her website: http://www.katysetterfield.com

Ed xx

Hello & welcome

2008-05-11T07:33:00.000-07:00

Dear Alll,

Hello and welcome to my brand-new blog.

This where where you will find out, what I've been up to, concert reviews television show reviews, all the Ed Lowe news you could wish for.

Please do keep in touch, my e-mail address is, ed.lowe64@yahoo.co.uk

I would like to take this opportunity to wish Katy Setterfield all the luck in the world in Las Vegas. For those of you who don't know Katy, she won the BBC show the one and only, hosted by Graham Norton on BBC1 as the one and only Dusty Springfield. Her prize was a three-month contract out in Las Vegas, can't be bad
I'm very pleased to announce that Katy will be taking to the road starting in August finishing in November, Katy Setterfield as Dusty Springfield the tour. Please to check local press and I will put the tour dates is on this blog.

Sadly my old website will be closing on the 30th May, for those who haven't seen it, please do take a look before it closes. www.edlowecoventry.com

I'd like to also welcome the torch woood star singer entertainer and just about everything else John Barrowman. I have been a fan of John for many years, I've never had the privilege and honour of meeting him yet, John pleased to get in touch if you read this blog.

I better go now.

Lots of love,

Ed xxxxx