Bow

I think I'm gonna make me a wee eight minute long documentary about Bowli, my relationship with Bowli. Just a video for YouTube, a testimonial maybe, video clips of where and when.

Well, pretty boring if its just videos of a computer screen, I don't even have half the computer screens. But I can get Manchester and Glasgow and some of the people too...

It started in the summer of '96, sure other folk will disagree, but hey, for me it started in Leigh in '96 in a friends house. We were starting a band, and needed inspiration, my friend Craig played us some CDs Mogwai and Belle and Sebastian, I wasn't paying too much attention, I wanted more of a Britpop direction.

Time passed and I went to university in Glasgow, sometime in the middle of 2000 I found myself chatting to a friend from school who lived in Glasgow and wa better at staying in touch with folk from school. She said that Craig had been making friends with Belle and Sebastian fans on the internet.

It didn't take long before I was signed up to the Jeepster messageboard, Jeepster were like Belle and Sebastian's record label and I'd found Craig. I remember stilling in a computer room at university, in the Engineering building, logged on to the Jeepster messageboard reading a thread about dreams. It was pretty fey stuff, and quite boring.

Months passed before I logged in again, I'd broken up with some girl, she dumped me, and wanted me back the next day, I wanted to get in touch with old friends and make new ones.

The first Jeepster meetup was in the cafe in Borders, some time in March '01. I was drunk and had woken up in a strange house in Pollockshields. We had little idea what anyone else looked like, or how we were to meet. Just folk in a crowded cafe. Two people made eye-contact and suddenly a crowd formed. Pixie Princess, Crimson Star, the youngster, LadybugLiz, Dave in the Dumps and me...