More gig info...16th December

Ha ha, beginning to get really excited about Christmas, as always. Playing at Mike's Christmas version of Offline at Jamm in Brixton Road on Friday 16th December. It only costs 3 quid to get in and it goes on from 8 p.m. all night, and there are some fantastic bands playing- e.g Tiger Force, and the fabulous Actionettes will be dancing their fabulous dances and I will be trying to copy them and failing. Then more recording next week- I hope Anja who plays with the Irrepressibles will be coming to play accordion on a new song. This picture is really for one of my songs (called London) but I couldn't get it to upload to replace one I have on Myspace already, so it's here instead, because I like it.

Song Club!

Me and my friend Dan run Song Club in a tiny primary school in Barnet on Wednesday afternoons.
We choose a different subject and write original songs with the children. Once we worked with Barnet Football Club and sang the songs at a match on the pitch at half-time. Once we went to London Zoo to learn about the animals with the children, and returned there to sing songs about cleaning the cages with 9 orange plastic buckets. We've just done a recycling project (and 3 cheers to Gary at the recycling depot for finding 3 huge umbrellas to keep us dry) which the children sang wearing newspaper suits to the Mayor of Barnet early one morning. Stuff the music biz, stuff the X-Factor!!!!!!! Long live ideas, spontanaiety, singing, creativity, and fizzzzzz!!!!!!

Gigs, gigs, gigs

Playing at Barnet Church on Sunday 4th December, and at The Bull theatre afterwards, with Paul Davey (the Horns sax player) on Clarinet. Unplugged!
Also at the Harrison Bar in King's Cross on Saturday 17th December, with cello player Allan Bradbury (he plays for the Irrepressibles). Other artists confirmed include Elle Osborne, and The Valley, plus poets and DJ Johnny Brown. I'll be playing there at the end of January, and also with the Horns at the end of February.
I have just finished mixing some Helen and the Horns tracks with Tom Greenwood and will put at least one of them on Myspace this weekend, and shift some Myspace stuff to Isound (you can put more tracks on Isound). I'll find out how to put downloadable tracks on this blog too.

Ham

The Chefs went to play at an agricultural college in Shropshire. On the way there we drove past loads of pig farms. When we arrived, they gave us a huge plate of ham sandwiches.

Joke

The God of War strode into a childrens' party.
"I'm Thor!!!" he bellowed.
"Tho what, I'm five!" said a little girl.

Crybaby

This is the photo I'm going to use for my sad songs. Actually, they are nearly all miserable although they have very happy melodies. But this is for the ultra-miserable ones. I just have to cheer myself up by checking out fun sites...
Thinking of giving nothing for Christmas? try http://www.utrophia.net/utrophia%20site/site/public/try-nothing-shop.html
Thinking of playing games? try realruffstuff
Thinking of being jealous of a good artist? try good artist
(Sorry Jacob- it's all in the name of art!)

The Chefs, Slugs and Fleas

Russell Greenwood, The Chefs drummer, had a mouse that ran around his room at night and kept him awake. He bought a mousetrap and was really excited when it snapped shut one night very late. When he put his light on, he discovered he'd caught a huge slug, which had exploded very messily all over his room.
There were 3 cats in that house, all of which had millions of fleas. When you put a cup of tea down on the floor, masses of fleas jumped into it, attracted by the heat. Russ got some Old Spice aftershave for Christmas, and we discovered that the fleas loved the smell of it. We poured it into lots of glasses and left them lying around- then when we were bored, the five of us had competitions to count how many fleas we could find in the nearest glass- the record was 103.
Next irrelevant posting might be about The Chefs manager running himself over, or possibly John Peel's breakfast visit wearing Dave Lee Travis's underpants on his head to keep his ears warm on his bicycle.
(I originally wrote that Russ had a muse that ran round his room at night- that would have been quite a poetic thing, wouldn't it?)

At the Komedia in the summer....

Had a great gig last summer at the Komedia in Brighton with Helen and the Horns. Everett True DJayed and played an amazing set including music from Byron Lee's Allstars (I thought I was the only person in the world who had that record in my collection). Check out his blog on
www.planbmag.com/blogs/everett
Another interesting site is Caroline Coon's- she did the most fantastic interview when I was researching female instrumentalists in punk bands (I'm writing a book about them). Caroline was a journalist on Melody Maker at the time and now is a brilliant artist and has been politically active ever since setting up Release in the 1970s. www.carolinecoon.com
And 3 cheers for Mike Slocombe for finding my lost blog- it disappeared yesterday and it's my new best friend- he found it!
I'm going to Offline on Thursday 24th next week to see one of my favourite bands Mon Fio- go to see them, they have great songs!
www.urban75.com

Swedish music website

Check out this Swedish site for lots of interesting stuff!

Johnny Thunders & the Heartbreakers- and Joby and the Hooligans

This is a photo of Joby and the Hooligans taken in the infamous Vault in Brighton. We were among the 56 bands who rehearsed there, and Joby kept a human skull which he intended to drum on in an old filing cabinet in one of the arches. But we couldn't work out how to mic it up. I'm on the left with wire in my plaits and clothing I found on the landing of our squat, then Steve who played guitar (but not sax, that was just wishful thinking), Ricky the drummer who wore drag a lot, and Joby in his stage gear. We all loved Johnny Thunders and the Heartbreakers and when they came to play at Sussex University we took along our stuff and begged their manager to let us play on the bottom of the bill (REALLY begged). But he said no, and we were utterly miserable and went off to drown our sorrows. Because we were so disappointed, we drowned our sorrows even more than normal and were completely drunk by the time he changed his mind and said we could play after all. So we got up there- mega-lights, mega-p.a., mega-audience, and started... all at different times, Joby completely out of tune, I couldn't even see the fretboard of my bass, the guitarist seemed miles away in a world of his own playing a song we hadn't even written yet, look of complete panic on the drummer's face....they pulled the plugs on us. At the time, we never intended to live up to our title of the Worst Band in Brighton, but I think we deserved it that night (probably).

Slimer

This is a page that Bambos drew for 'Blimey! It's Slimer' in 1990. It features King Kurt and a band not unlike Helen and the Horns. The dogs won the competition.

Poster of The Chefs

This is one of many posters I drew for the Chefs- at this point we were a 3-piece band with Carl Evans on guitar and Rod Bloor on drums. We played a lot at the Alhambra and I was really upset when it burned down (like a lot of the venues that punk and post-punk bands played at). Dick Damage was the support band- everybody loved his bands- they hardly ever had the same personnel- he used to phone them beforehand and tell them the chords for the songs over the phone. Anti-Art was Glenn and Eric's band (hi Eric and Glenn!). I loved drawing these posters.

Music link

www.myspace.com/helenmccookerybook
There are 4 tracks on this site, and I will keep changing them. They can be downloaded.
Alo check out Emerald's site, www.goldtop.org

I drew how I felt one day

Ratpond

On the common at the top of Barnet there's a ratpond. It is disguised as a duckpond to lure lots of little children with their breadcrusts- when the ducks are stuffed, the rats slither out of the drainage pipe and gobble up the leftovers.
Horrible duck joke: Q. How do you turn a duck into a soul singer? A. Put it in the microwave until its Bill Withers.

Radio

I knew the radio was full of tiny people with loud voices. When my mum told me I was mistaken and went into a long explanation about radio waves and broadcasts, I kept silent because I knew she was completely wrong and I felt a bit sorry for her.

Barnet Gig 4th December, totally acoustic

I'm playing a totally acoustic gig in Barnet Church on Sunday 4th December as part of the Barnet Christmas Street Party. Paul Davey (the sax player with the Horns) is playing with me and also possibly cello. I think we're on at about 2 p.m. And there are chestnuts, footballers from the Bees, stalls, win a fluorescent giant teddy thing, and even reindeers sometimes (they are so small, I don't know how they manage to pull that big guy with the red suit and white beard all over the place)
The Story of Justin's Boots. I lived in a grungy bedsit in Willesden, in the front upstairs bedsit which was handy if I got locked out because I could climb up the front porch and into the little window at the top if I forgot my keys. In the middle of the night one night I heard yelling in the street and I looked out of the window to see Justin standing in the middle of the road, shouting. Justin was a sax player who went out with Rachel from the Dollymixture for a while; he could make pigeon noises with his sax keys). He was sort of a bit mad, but OK, so I opened the window to see what was up. He'd been locked out of his place and I told him he could sleep on my floor. Our house was always warm because our coin meters weren't fixed to the wall properly and you could put the same 10p piece in over and over again and get electricity for almost nothing, so Justin was happy with that.The next morning, I woke up to a terrible smell and I could not see Justin on the floor at all- there was a thick layer of yellowish green smoke covering the whole floor and up to the height of my bed. I heard a lot of spluttering and swearing and Justin sat up with a furious look on his face. He had fallen asleep with his feet propped on top of the electric fire, which had competely melted the soles of his Doc Martins- he'd been so drunk he hadn't felt the heat at all. Rock'n'roll, or what?

Dr McCookerybook's Wordgery

When I was little I read loads of books by an author called Cnid Blyton. I knew there was a writer called Enid Blyton and lots of people I knew seemed to have read her books, but nobody else seemed to have read anything by Cnid.