The Ginger Line

 

Rachel Love and the Loveables at the Betsey Trotwood

If there has to be a last gig of the season, yesterday's could not have been better. Held in the bar of The Betsey Trotwood, with the ever-brilliant Joao doing sound and under the watchful eye of Razz the owner, as the winter blustered, drizzled and thumped outside, the warmth generated by the venue and its audience fought back valiantly.

There is something about these little gigs in stormy weather that intensifies the whole experience, I think for the people listening as much as for the performers. It was pretty full but not uncomfortably so; Debsey and Hester (the other Dollymixtures) were there (and so was Hester's lovely sister Roz, who was a librarian at the University of Westminster when I worked there). My nephew and niece (with her partner) came, and Offsprog Two and her partner. Little Bruv came. The Would-Be-Goods came, Dave came, and various other London stars put in a twinkling appearance.

It was quite an emotional afternoon on many fronts. I was very worried about it, but need not have been. Everyone listened 100% to my songs, every word and every chord. I don't care about any of the past slights, unfairnesses, double-crosses, jealous behaviour, none of that. To have this amount of respect for my songs at this stage of my life makes me the richest person in the world. Who would want to be an empty-hearted billionaire and miss out on this degree of intimacy? 

And as for Rachel and the Loveables, having supported them for three gigs in quick succession, this was a comfortable triumph for them. The sound was perfect; you could hear every single note of their arrangements and such is Rachels' onstage persona, everyone felt as though they, too, were in the band. 

I have to say that The Dollymixture were one of the most under-rated bands of the 1980s. They took the whole girl-group ethos and processed it through an English DIY lens in a direction that a lot of of the punk-inspired bands could not see or hear at all- and the rock critics definitely couldn't. The tightrope that they walked between amplifying and celebrating their nuanced friendship (which has endured for decades), rock-solid song writing, and subtly parodying the way people saw them was astonishing. Always, always, they were underestimated because they were feminine. Did people not clock the fact that they did a cover version of the song Femme Fatale by Lou Reed? Or that they supported The Undertones on tour? The underestimation of their skills and intelligence lies firmly in the laps of the idiots who thought they could manipulate the group, or who didn't understand what they were doing. Some of these people were women journalists, too. It's called internalised misogyny, I believe. Shame on them!

That was quite a big rant for a Sunday morning. Let's return to yesterday afternoon, where Rachels's band the Loveables did her songs proud with spot-on harmonies, fabulous and relaxed playing, and a commitment to doing their absolute musical best for their song-writing legend bandleader. Every song creates a mini-world of its own, and there are a lot of unexpected twists and turns both in the music and the lyrics. Every second is thought through yet performed in such a way that it all seems spontaneous. I know the songs well now, and I was singing along very loudly in my head; it was all I could do not to leap up on stage and join them, but I'd had my turn. Instead, my heart swelled with pride and love for the defiance of a woman who has had her fair share of life's setbacks, but can turn out a performance to rival the best of anything. As the set progressed, the band grew more and more confident and by the encore they gave us a blast of sheer joy. The gig ended with a huge roar of appreciation.

The audience were with them the whole way through, and I bet they were as glad that they had been there as I was. We all went home with rosy cheeks and a sparkle in our eyes. 

Damn the cold and the wind: Vitamin Rachel sorted the day out!

Interview On WTSQ Radio

This interview was done with the wonderful ally of independent artists, Josh Gaffin, a couple of weeks ago. To my knowledge, it's only the second time Thrush has been played on the radio; the other time was secretly on a Birmingham radio station in the 1980s!

https://www.mixcloud.com/starshapes/helen-mccookerybook-on-wtsq-881-fm/

Boxer Travelling On Tube

 

Give Me That Pastel De Nata, Porto

 

London and Bristol

 I went back to Steven Appleby's exhibition with my friend Joan last Wednesday. It's such a funny and subversive collection of work. I was just admiring the quality of the lines when he appeared with a couple of colleagues. The conversation turned to people who had criticised his drawing skills in the past, and I rather clumsily told him about Billy Childish's comment when he visited some song writing students that I was teaching: 'I'm going to show you how to play guitar very badly, very well'. I'm not sure if the meaning of that transmitted as well as I meant it to: but 'very good drawing' is often very boring drawing. There is so much more to it all than accuracy and photorealism. Steve's drawings are beautifully light and airy, with a contracting earthiness about the subject matter and humour, far beyond the land of Good Drawing.

Joan had disappeared round the back to the reading area. We sat and read for a bit; I read the story of the cat's nine lives. The security guard made us both a cup of tea.

That's what a Wednesday should be all about, I think. 

Friday's adventure was the gig in Bristol, preceded by the recording of four tracks off the new album round at Rocker's house for his Dandelion Radio show. Twice round each one, then a cup of tea, then off to The Thunderbolt for sound check. 

The Big However were first on, a band with not only a trumpet but also a cell in their line-up. They were a proper good time Friday night band!

After my set (why did I forget to play Three Cheers for Toytown?) Rachel and the Loveables played a set just as good as the one they did last weekend at The Prince Albert in Brighton, and if anything the sound was even better here because the sound engineer took all the levels down so we could hear Rachel's singing clearly. I'm looking forward to seeing them again this Saturday afternoon.

Last Gig Of The Year: The Betsey Trotwood, Supporting Rachel Love and the Loveables

A support slot next Saturday afternoon 23rd November at The Betsey Trotwood: this will be my last gig of the year.
Tickets here: https://wegottickets.com/event/640220

Tonight At The Thunderbolt, Bristol

Hooray! Bristol tonight supporting Rachel Love and the Loveables, and with additonal support from The Big However

Tickets here: https://helenmcc.bandcamp.com/album/showtunes-from-the-shadows

Playing some songs from this album (pre-order and preview here:) https://helenmcc.bandcamp.com/album/showtunes-from-the-shadows

Busker, Whitby

 

Dec Hickey, New Order, And The Blokes

I originally titled this post 'Bring Back Blokes', but got so immersed in miserable reasons about why that was necessary that I had to stop writing and begin again. Instead, I'll jump straight in and write about last night's book launch at Rough Trade East for Dec Hickey's book on New Order, From Heaven to Heaven.

The four men on the panel sat in a line a bit like a girl pop group, but not pop singers and not girls. It was a formation for the delivery of anecdotes and personal histories instead of songs, lubricated by a pint or two beforehand in the local boozer (I did imagine emptying out the microphones after the panel discussion, and finding at least half a pint of ale accumulated between the four of them). This was a chance for a band's greatest fans to take to the stage many years later, and tell the story of that band from another perspective.

The chair of the panel was Guardian journalist Dave Simpson, who came out with nuggets of focused information at just the right times in the discussion; he had the ability to put everything in context, just when that needed to happen. The others were Jon Marsh from The Beloved (I used to do their press for a very short while), and John Wozencroft.

The four dedicated archivists revealed a lot about the tenacity fandom through the lens of their New Order gig-going. There was no one-upmanship but instead, the sharing of a joint narrative between ardent enthusiasts and an audience perched on the most uncomfortable seats in the universe. We heard about those missed last trains after gigs, the hitchhiking split into risky groups, the gig dates, the venues, the information about PA systems: name-checking Rob Gretton a lot. The bravery of the group after Ian Curtis died as they started rehearsing without knowing which  members of the group might be the lead vocalist (even Rob had a go, they said). Gillian Gilbert joining the band on keyboards, without being a keyboard player, because they needed an extra member who got on with everyone.

And the cassettes! Recordings of sound checks passed on to the band so they could remember how to play the songs later that night. Trading, and not trading of bootleg recordings (each man has a stash of cassettes that they wouldn't share under any circumstances). Why did they make so many recordings? Because the songs changed all the time, sometimes instrumentals acquiring vocals before disappearing, sometimes songs only being played once or twice before being dropped. It was the rawness of the live recordings that they loved: the commercial recordings came nowhere near to the gig recordings with their atmosphere of liveness, the sound of the venue and the sound of the crowd. The audience laughed when the panel described their dismay when the band's set got longer than one side of a cassette, leading to the 'cassette-flip moment' of rapidly turning the cassette over during a gap in the set. Dec described recording the sound check at the end of side two, to prevent inadvertently taping over the set proper when he flipped sides!

This was much more than just listening in to a conversation in a pub: it was an insight into a world of engagement with a band that has lasted for decades and given an extra stratum of meaning to the lives of four blokes. No toxicity here, no misogyny, no anti-woke rhetoric: there was no need. There was something utterly graceful about the whole thing.

Book here: https://shop.damagedgoods.co.uk/pro.../from-heaven-to-heaven

Supporting Rachel Love and the Lovables, Prince Albert, Brighton

Life can be both brutal and incredibly beautiful, often delivering servings of both in nanoseconds of time.

Steve Sound Engineer was a fixture in the Prince Albert, and it was very odd to walk in and find that someone else was doing it. Steve died suddenly last year and took a lot of musicians off-guard: he was an absolute dude. But I knew the new guy- from gigs at the Con Club in Lewes, and he was very good at his job too. The dial of life has turned one turn, and the machine still works...

Oddly, I'd invited Steph-The-Saturday-Girl from Gallery 57 along, but she couldn't come because she was travelling back from India. Who should be on the train to Brighton but a very tired and jet-lagged Steph! 

What a coincidence!

Asides aside, when we got to the pub, Rachel and her boys were just finishing their sound check (see pic). Even informally, they have their own bubble of reality that makes them transcend just songs and guitars'n'things. I love Rachel's songwriting, whether there is an audience there to love it with or not. They live up to their name, in more ways than one.

After a nice dressing room catch-up with Caryne, Dave, and Mark from Asbo Derek, it was time for me to get on stage. Argh- dark! I couldn't see my guitar neck. I played three songs from the new album and had some bar chord near-misses (sorry for the guitar player jargon), but was delighted by the reception, especially because I could hear someone laughing at the funny bits in Three Cheers For Toytown (mainly because I'd forgotten they were funny). Remembering lyrics is such a trial- a bit like Maths homework, and that laugh was a welcome reminder of why I wrote the song. 

Hooray for Sunday afternoons! 

All sorts of pals came along: Sally and her daughter and partner, Andy and Jane (so nice to see them after so many years!), Jonathan from Assistant (he had thought he was going to still be in tiger makeup from a children's party, but he looked normal), Lorraine Bowen (wouldn't it be nice to do a couple of gigs together? I sang the praises of Amy Rigby, same), Dorothy Max Prior and her partner Foz, Stephen Clements, and of course Mark. And Hester, who I haven't seen for ages! 

There was a baby in the audience too. 

Then it was time for Rachel. You must just listen to her songs. The harmonies are divine, the chord sequences are just so gorgeous, and the set is full of surprises, with some spiky stuff in there alongside the very poignant paeans to her late partner. No two songs are alike and the band are ultra-tight; they completely transport you away from gloomy November to somewhere light and full of dreams and imagination. Oh, we so need that right now!

Come to see the same line-up in Bristol at the Thunderbolt next Friday, or at the Betsey Trotwood on the afternoon of Saturday the 23rd, which will be my own last gig of the year.

(photo of Rachel by me, photo of me by Jane )

And Another

... with Dexter Bentley and Manu Louis at Resonance FM. I played three tracks (Three Cheers For Toytown, The Ginger Line and Almost There) live from this album, which is coming out in early December: https://helenmcc.bandcamp.com/album/showtunes-from-the-shadows

Dexter played Records and Tea, Sad Boy Style and Honcho from this album: https://damagedgoods.co.uk/discography/the-chefs-records-tea-the-best-f-the-chefs-and-lost-second-album/

We also had a good chat about music, bands and other stuff. Manu Louis was also on the show and he played an electronica set that was really great to listen to.

I'll post the link when it's up!

Radio Interviews

I love doing radio interviews and live playing on air. On the 28th of October I did one with Josh Gaffin at WTSQ 88.1 FM; it's a West Virginia station, and he played some Chefs tracks (including Thrush, because as he thought, the listeners wouldn't understand the slang!) and one from my forthcoming album. Josh said his wife has my book She's At The Controls (https://www.equinoxpub.com/home/shes-at-the-controls/), but there was so much to talk about, we never really got around to talking about that. Josh had been an assistant to Lou Reed back in the day, and we had a good old chat about that behind the scenes, and Jonathan Richman too. Big thanks to Josh- I don't think the show is online.

Yesterday, I talked to Dave Hammond at Cambridge 105 Radio. Dave is a total music enthusiast, and is always plugged into what's going on at the busy semi-underground music scene that I'm part of. He also has a fantastic dad, and regularly posts on Facebook about his father's activities and philosophy. We had a good old chinwag; he played Records and Tea from The Chefs compilation, and also three from the new album (Three Cheers For Toytown, It Wasn't Me and Send in the Detectives)

Tomorrow (Saturday) I'm off to Resonance FM to play some new songs on Dexter Bentley's show at 12.00 GMT. The link is here: http://player.resonancefm.com so do listen in if you fancy hearing me have a go at some of the new songs!

Then on Sunday I'm supporting Rachel Love and the Loveables at The Prince Albert in Brighton, a matinee that starts at 2.30. Tickets here: https://wegottickets.com/event/624910

It was touching to hear Amy Rigby's Riley and Coe session on BBC6 on Miserable Trumpday this week. Amy (also on Dave's show a couple of weeks ago) was so delighted by the welcome she has had on moving to England and by the support Gideon Coe and Mark Riley have given to her music, that she shed a tear or two. I hope we can share a gog at some point next year, because she's brilliant.

Well, I might tell you about the Hew Locke exhibition next posting.

Three Gigs With Rachel Love and The Loveables

I have the last three gigs of the year coming up, starting in Brighton at The Prince Albert this coming Sunday, a matinee show that begins at 2.30.

Tickets here: https://wegottickets.com/event/624910/

Then on Friday the 15th of November I'll be at The Thunderbolt, Bristol, with Rachel again and The Big However.

Tickets here: https://wegottickets.com/event/623834

Finally, we'll be at The Betsey Trotwood for another matinee performance on Saturday 23rd November, ticket link TBC.

Rachel and me go back a long way: The Dollymixture and The Chefs shared a lot of London stages in the 1980s and I always used to look forward to playing with them because their songs are so good and they are such fun as people (still!).

Expect sunshine pop!

Man Bearing Cross And Guitar, Leicester Square

 

Free Feminist Jingles

Help yourself, if it helps:

https://helenmccookerybook.bandcamp.com/album/feminist-jingles

Women Gardeners, Leyland Station

 

Tree Surgeons At The Station

 

Drawing On My Dreams £6.00 For Bandcamp Friday

Bandcamp Friday!
'Drawing On My Dreams' CD only £6.00, digital now £5.00
https://helenmccookerybook.bandcamp.com/album/drawing-on-my-dreams