Happy New Year, 2025

 

Jimmy Carter, Peanut Farmer, Dude

 

Festive Sax Players: 'What shall we play next?'

 

Merry Christmas (again)

You know, I started playing solo for more or less the first time some time in 2005, I think. 

Officially over the hill, it was far too exciting not to do it and there has never been a reason to stop since then. 

Broken heart? No

Broken elbow? No

Walking out of job? No

I'm looking forward to gigging again in 2025, because of course I have a new album out on the 17th January. Until then, here is a track from way back then, revamped: the he-mails and she-mails in the scratch choir were recruited through a random email callout, and showed up at the studio full of beans, and ready to sing. 

It literally took them just over an hour, and don't they sound great! I'll always treasure that memory, because it gave me a lot of hope when things in my personal life were incredibly bleak and seemingly impossible to resolve. Music is indeed a great healer, a great solver of puzzles, a channel for the imagination, a comfort in hard times. It's been my companion ever since I was knee high to a grasshopper, in all its many forms and definitions. Thanks to Tom Greenwood for recording this and a lot of my earlier songs as well, and thanks of course to the he-mails and she-mails: Mary, Charlie, Gareth, Tom, Pete, Emerald, Nick, Alison, Helen and everyone else!

Time Out

I've just had a bit of time out, and very sadly missed the Pantomime Horse Race in Greenwich. It had been 'rested' during and after Covid, and this was the first year of its return. Next year, I m going to go, and I'm going to go dressed up, too. 

So there.

I missed a few good gigs- David Devant and his Spirit Wife, The Deltones, one of my own (Hastings), Scaledown, and actually tonight Asbo Derek at the Prince Albert in Brighton. Plenty of time for all that in the New Year. 

I've started to arrange gigs for next year now: some nice ones from March onwards. Meanwhile I'll be eating Pannetone and doing a bit of drawing.

Feeling Christmassy?

 

Middle-Aged Message To Tate

 

Naturally, it is now completed, and equally naturally, I shall not be posting the complete version online.

Everyone Ready For Away In A Manger?

 

Woman in Shop Window, Leicester

 

Time for Guitar Soup!

 

Woman Tailoring At Dry Cleaners

Bandcamp Friday

Another Bandcamp Friday is here!

I've been making a mini-film for this track off my forthcoming album. Do take a listen if you have a minute to spare. It is a song about mending broken friendships.

https://helenmcc.bandcamp.com/track/reaching-for-hope

Always Play Guitar

 

Lost Doll On Tube Platform Seat

 

Tourist Couple With Selfie Drone

I couldn't work out what they were doing for ages. I was sitting at a table outside a café opposite. Then I saw the drone, high up in the air on the Royal Mile. They were smiling at it affectionately, and they put their hands out to catch it as it came to land.

Playing Jedson Bass At The Buccaneer

Here I am in Joby and the Hooligans playing my first bass, a Jedson. It was very cheap but very stylish: it had a cream coloured body and a white scratch-plate. I used black flatwound strings, which made a suitably thudding sound. We played this venue regularly; it moonlighted as a boxing venue, and we went to see Shakin' Stevens there. We wore our plastic sandals (some punks rocked that look) and had to leave before the gig started via the handy back entrance (fnurr, fnurr) because the exclusively Teddy-boy audience started buzzing in a menacing way. I also go-go danced to Fan Club's Moonbeam song in the same venue about a year later (this was roughly 1978), in a home-made Edwardian striped bathing suit. Hand sewn, as I didn't have a sewing machine.