Well, there goes a year, just like that! It's quite amazing how much of one's life goes into hibernation when a tiny baby arrives at home. Happily, the little guy turns one-year-old, and Vanessa is back at work making music, and preparing "eep" for the world. The "finishing touches" and mix dates which were reported to be happening in October and December of 2004 are, in fact, happening now, in September of 2006, and your webwrangler is happy to report that the music sounds as good as ever.

Vanessa and Bug Eyed Sprite will be back at you in early 2007 with another round of distinctive, original, slightly tilted folkypop for your enjoyment, meanwhile, check the Performances section for a few upcoming shows to whet your appetite. Thanks for your patience during our new parenthood.

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22 September 2004

It is your webwrangler's bittersweet duty to report the departure of Tobias Hawkins from Bug Eyed Sprite. Toby has a new band, the Girlfriend Experience, to which he'll be devoting most of his time and creative energies - if you enjoy Tobias as a percussionist, you owe it to yourself to catch him performing as a frontman and vocalist, where his unique personality has room to shine. Thanks, Toby for the great heart and musical contributions from 2001 - 2004. Meanwhile, stay tuned for more info as Ben Freelove and Kent Sparling welcome a new drummer to Bug Eyed Sprite in the coming months.

And speaking of the future, Kent will be in the studio next week, and during October, putting the finishing touches on Vanessa's new CD, with mix dates planned for the damp days of December; watch this space for info about the next Vanessa Lowe CD, coming early in 2005.

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7 July 2004

There are new reviews of "57 Suspect Words" in Ink19 and The Big Takeover. Follow the link offsite, or read the Ink19 review here in the Info section. Look for The Big Takeover issue 54 at your fine local magazine rack.

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26 May 2004

Check out the great new "9 out of 10" review and feature on "57 Suspect Words" in the excellent magazine, No Ripcord. The review is also here in the Info section.

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2 May 2004

The 57 Suspect Words are currently seeing airplay on more than 135 college radio station across the country, and the record has charted in the top 30 on several of them - check here for details.

Meanwhile the critics have this to say:

"Spooky and wonderful... all the songs are great. This is a fantastic recording and I hope it gives Vanessa Lowe the attention she so well deserves. When I get CDs like '57 Suspect Words' (and I don’t that often) it reminds me why I do this".
–Amy Lotsberg, Collected Sounds

"Moody, thoughtful, cinematic and literary".
–East Bay Express – Critic’s Pick

Check Info for more reviews.

And in other exciting news, Vanessa and Bug Eyed Sprite were at Guerrilla Recording in Oakland once again last week, with beloved golden-eared guest Sprite Myles Boisen, completing the basic tracks for the next CD! Vanessa and the Sprites have worked up 19 songs, and will be putting finishing touches on the recordings during the summer, between a busy live schedule up and down the West Coast - check Performances for listings. We'll be sure to keep you posted here as the new CD progresses.

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4 March 2004

"57 Suspect Words" is slated to hit college radio stations across the country on March 22, 2004. If you enjoy music programming on a local college station, why not give them a call and request a little bit of Vanessa Lowe, then check back here for chart action and see how you really do make a difference! Thanks for your support!

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10 December 2003
Important Change of Date! Read on:

We're pleased to announce the (even sooner) impending release of Vanessa's new CD, "57 Suspect Words", which you've been hearing about for the past year or so.

The album will be released on February 3, 2004, with a gala CD release show at the Freight and Salvage in Berkeley, CA on Thursday, February 5, 2004. Save the date, and come join us for an evening with Vanessa Lowe and Bug Eyed Sprite with extra special guest Myles Boisen on electric guitar.

Advance tickets are available from the Freight/TicketWeb, or charge by phone at 866-468-3399, $15.50 in advance or $16.50 at the door. Vanessa and the band will perform the entire album, plus a wide range of new songs, and some of your favorites from "Barnacles of Joy". Freight and Salvage is located at 1111 Addison Street, Berkeley, CA; 510-548-1761.

In the meantime, perhaps some of these mp3 clips will whet your appetite! Enjoy!

Sounds Like
Growing a Word
Your Worried Mind
Whistling
Thin Window

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19 October 2003

SPAMBOTs be damned, our email links are back up again, in a new nifty secret-encoder version. For this we deeply love the good folk at Hive Logic, who remember when the web was a better neighborhood. Thanks be to them. Send us mail!

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22 August 2003

A message from your local webmaster:
Sadly, I have to report that the good people at vanessalowe.com and jicamasalad.net have become the latest targets of SPAMBOTS! These nasty little programs actually crawl all over the web, grabbing email address and using them for their own wicked, wicked deeds. The evil people who use these SPAMBOTS can put an innocent musician's name in the "Sent by" and "Reply to" headers of their filthy SPAM email, and make it seem as thought it were sent by the talented musican, or, for example, her webmaster, or tiny indie record company.

Please rest assured, we would never knowingly or willingly send you SPAM. We only want to keep you informed about live performances and album releases by Vanessa Lowe and Bug Eyed Sprite. Thus, for the time being, we will be removing all email links from the vanessalowe.com and jicamasalad.net websites, until clever security measures can be taken. Really, though, the damage is already done since some of you are now no longer getting our email updates about Vanessa, due to the fact that addresses from our domain are being blocked by AOL and other ISPs as SPAM.

Aren't those SPAM people evil? Look at the trouble they cause! Oh, we hates them so!

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4 August 2003

Done!

Vanessa has completed mixing on her new CD, "57 Suspect Words", and will be mastering with the goldenears of Myles Boisen in the next few weeks. The songs in the Suspects line-up include:

Sounds Like
Growing a Word
Your Worried Mind
Sandy Water
Darwinian Darts
Steady in the Draft
Carry Me Home
Whistling
The Tells
Love on Your Arm
Thin Window

Look for more info about the release date, and associated live Bug Eyed Sprite music spectacles, coming soon.

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12 June 2003

We know how many of you have been quietly waiting, wondering to yourselves, "When, oh when, will Vanessa Lowe and Bug Eyed Sprite come out with a t-shirt, one that's both charming and unnerving, just like the music I so enjoy? When will I be able to show my support, not to mention my sizable indie cred, by sporting a stylish and affordable Vanessa Lowe t-shirt?" Friends, your patience is finally rewarded: today we announce the first ever Vanessa Lowe t-shirt, replete with vaguely disturbing Sprite imagery by our talented dear friend JA Smith. Behold!

Babydoll T-Shirt	Front Sprite	Regular T-Shirt	Back Sprite

This quality clothing item can be yours by browsing the fine Jicama Salad Shop at CafePress.com. They are good people, and can be trusted. Follow this link, and enjoy!

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9 June 2003

A few new reviews have been posted for "Barnacles of Joy", and Vanessa is ready to mix her new album in the next month. Look for more info about "57 Suspect Words", including track listings, lyrics and release dates in the coming weeks, and be sure to sign the mailing list for information about CD release shows later in the summer.

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21 March 2003

Vanessa's about half finished with her new CD, and we have a tasty rough mix sample of the new sounds for your enjoyment, a beautiful song called "Growing a Word". Also, as another special treat, a remix of "30 Feet Deep", which we'll call "30 Feet Beat", from our friend d.A. Sebasstian in Seattle. Thanks so much to him for this new twist.

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26 December 2002

Check out the new review of "Barnacles of Joy" in the December 2002 edition of Ink19 magazine: "a surprisingly crafted album full of eerie and uneasy but confident songs...from a truly developed songwriter and performer."

And if you like movies, why not go see "Adaptation", the new film directed by Spike Jonze, starring Nicolas Cage and Meryl Streep. It's really quite fun, we promise - and if you hear any of the characters speaking, well that's thanks in part to Bug Eyed Sprite Kent Sparling, who mixed "Adaptation" with his friend Lora Hirschberg. Check it out!

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13 December 2002

After Vanessa's 2 hour performance at the Berkeley store in October, Hear Music has heard the music! "Barnacles of Joy" is newly featured as a Hear Music Discovery on listening stations at their stores in Palo Alto, Santa Monica and Berkeley. Here is what they have to say about the album: "Marking Lowe's deepest venture into the world of pure acoustic instrumentation, Barnacles of Joy strikes the ears with the accidental wisdom of I Ching coins, pointing the way. Recorded in the artist's living room during breaks from touring, the album shows what happens when someone is so steeped in song, it becomes an avatar for observations they might have witnessed unawares. Lowe sings solo, and with backing duo the Lowlifes, through motifs that she likens to "blending into the bark of tree, or stepping back into a dark alley as the dervish blows by."

Vanessa will be performing at both the Palo Alto and Santa Monica stores in the new year.
Thanks to Hear Music for their continuing support of indie music!

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18 November 2002

Vanessa Lowe and Bug Eyed Sprite (Ben Freelove on Bass, Tobias Hawkins on percussion, and Kent Sparling on tiny instruments) are currently recording "57 Suspect Words" at Guerrilla Recording in Oakland, CA. The sessions are being produced by Kent and engineered by the immensely talented guru of cool, Myles Boisen. We'll keep you posted on the suspects, and may even offer mp3's of kooky rough-mixes if we get inspired. Stay tuned to this space.

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27 July 2002

Vanessa is currently collaborating with the talented and prolific ambient composer Amir Baghiri. Amir is based in Germany, and he and Vanessa are swapping musical morsels transcontinentally. The result will be something totally new for both of them. In the meantime, check out Amir's music here.

Barnacles of Joy is charting in the top 25 on college radio stations all across the country, and is #1 at KUMM, University of Minnesota at Morris. Thanks KUMM! Here is a list of stations currently spinning "Barnacles" in medium or high roataion (sounds better in high.) Thanks to all of them for supporting indie music!

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10 June 2002

"Barnacles of Joy" has arrived!

We are pleased to announce the release of Vanessa's second CD, which you can purchase right away by clicking on this little shopping cart button:

You can also order from our favorite online indie record shop, CDBaby, or from the giant but very efficient Amazon.com. Finally, in the Bay Area you can get your Barnacles at the wonderful Mod Lang, Amoeba and Hear Music in Berkeley, or at Amoeba in San Francisco. Don't delay, get barnacled today! Your full range of purchasing options are reviewed on the Order page, for safety.

If you want more information about "Barnacles", or Vanessa's debut CD, "Her House of Sin", explore the Recordings section of the site, where you'll find lyrics, credits and downloadable mp3 snippets. What fun!

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Check the Performances section for the latest news about upcoming live shows.

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Vanessa is the host of "Your Indie World" on KWMR, 90.5FM in Point Reyes Station and 89.3 in Bolinas, CA. "Your Indie World" features exclusively self-released or small indie label music of all styles. Visit the Info section to find the "Your Indie World" page with playlists from recent shows, as well as contact info for Vanessa.

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To add your name to Vanessa's mailing list, just send her an .

Have fun exploring, enjoy the music, and come again soon.