Brian And His Owner

 

Brighton x 2

Even the afternoon of Thursday's exhibition was nice. Gaye Black's friend Eric had bought all the paraphernalia for hanging the pictures in advance, and there was no scrapping about who hung what picture where. with a pair of ladders and a lot of good will, we got six pictures each up on the wall. It was lovely to see Dominic Warwick of Rebellion Literary Festival fame sitting at a table when we got there, too.

After a fish supper on the seafront, we went back to the Pelirocco and people started filtering in, including Pauline Murray and her daughter, and Tracy Preston from The Smartees. Caryne and Dave had driven all the way over from Frome, en route (sort of) to a Loft concert in Newcastle. Pete Chrisp and Lisa came, Neil from Oldfield Youth Club and his partner, and Steve Clements. It was well busy, as they say. Ably aided by Del Strangefish on sound, I played a short set of songs, followed by Charlie Harper, who brought the house down with his versions of Streets of London and Wild Rover.

It's such a nice hotel- small, perfectly formed and eccentric: a great place to start performing again after  along break.

Next day, we met Pauline and Grace for a late lunch. I spent the rest of the afternoon rehearsing the Asbo Derek songs that I was playing on that night. It's impossible to describe the Tribute Night for Bob Grover. There were members of The Ammonites, Midnight and the Lemon Boys, Theatre of Hate, The Objekts, The Lillettes, The Golinski Brothers and many more in the audience. Nick Linazasoro\s review here gives a bit of an insight: https://sussexonlinenews.co.uk/2025/03/30/boring-bob-grover-of-the-piranhas-gets-a-wonderful-send-off/

And here I am guesting with Asbo Derek. Ric Blow took over for the rest of the set. It was really good fun, but also very sad.

I had a great chat with the Piranha's bagpiper, who hailed from Oban. Zoot had flown over from New York for the night and there were other long distance travellers. The Prince Albert was packed. I didn't last the night because it's going to take a while to get match-fit again, but jumping in at the deep end like this was a bloody good way to start gigging again.

Tonight In Brighton

 

Wagtail On Embankment Footbridge

 

Person Carrying Tuba

 

IMC's Cover Version of 'A Good Life With A Bad Apple'

Listen here, and buy it for the Missus (or the Mister):

https://stickyfrogrecords.bandcamp.com/track/a-good-life-with-a-bad-apple

Busyness

I haven't written a posting for what seems like ages. It's been a busy time- I had prints made of six of my drawings for the exhibition at The Pelirocco in Brighton that I'm having with Gaye Black and Charlie Harper. They have come out very well. Then I had to go and buy frames, and I'll be framing them tomorrow.

I've been contributing ideas to one of Gina's songs, which is turning out really well. Every time we work on it, it gets better, and that's really fulfilling. I'm also supposed to learn three Asbo Derek songs on guitar before next Friday. They are very short and not hard to play at all, even though they are thrashers and not finger-pickers, but at the moment I can't tell which song is which! I'm supposed to learn a Piranhas song to sing but they haven't sent the lyrics yet so that may be impossible, because I'm learning my own songs for the album launch in April.

Naturally, my fingernails have all snapped. They can never be relied on to support me, the little buggers.

I've drawn some illustrations for Robert Halcrow to use for one of his songs. I did four of them, but I'm not going to post them here until he has filmed them for the video. He's done a cover version of A Good Life With A Bad Apple in a genre that I described as 'wobbly lounge', on which he's playing sax. It's very different to my song, but it's very good. Or maybe that's why it's good! Ha!

It's possible I'm going to sing some backing vocals on Kenji's solo album, but I'm not sure if they can wait until after my launch. Robert has written the songs, I think; but I've had to wait to see if I could still sing after quite a drastic operation at the end of last year. I hope they wait. It would be such an honour to contribute to that.

Funny, isn't it? I left my lecturing job and felt very upset by that. I felt as though I was living a lie: the University was not abiding by its own Equal Opportunities manifesto, and by working there I was helping them to be dishonest. Plus, I was effectively working full-time and being paid as a part-time worker. As a consequence, I have a tiny pension, so instead of going round the world on a wonderful holiday like many of my contemporaries, I've had to just have a holiday in my head, and get on with art and music.

Part of that wonderful holiday would have involved visiting Vermont, San Francisco, and New York again. Naturally, I can't even do that in my head. The situation in the USA is the stuff of nightmares: wannabe Roman Emperors in their new clothes, strutting about celebrating their own vanity. What horrible specimens of humanity, or rather inhumanity, they are.

Maybe I'll get to Cuba and listen to some wonderful music! A day in Paris wouldn't go amiss, either.

Until then, I'm art-ing and musicking like mad. The Pop-Up Chefs EP will be coming out in about a month's time (I hope). It's just being manufactured. I hope to get my brother James's music up on Bandcamp shortly too. Let's have a bit of Chefs energy out there in the mix!

Chefs First Badge Design Proof From Better Badges

 

Being A Clue In The NME Crossword, 1990

 

Coming Up In June In London

 

Tickets: https://dice.fm/partner/loud-women/event/k6bdp9-chlu-helen-mccookerybook-juju-kat-five-14th-jun-the-hope-and-anchor-london-tickets?

From Theater Am Spittelberg, 2023

 

Next Gig: Birmingham, Thursday 3rd April

This will be my first proper gig for almost 5 months. I'll be playing songs from my new album, as well as some older ones.

It's about 10 years since I last played there- and of course many more years that that since Helen and the Horns appeared on Pebble Mill at One!
Thursday 3rd April, tickets here:
https://www.skiddle.com/whats-on/Birmingham/Rock-And-Roll-Brewhouse/Helen-McCookery-Book/40471794/

Busker With A Lot Of Drums

 

Donkey And Man, Soho, Last Week

 

Pelirocco Art Exhibition Private View, 27th March

 

Betsey Trotwood Matinée, Saturday 5th April, Now Sold Out

Coming up 5th of April, a matinee gig at The Betsey celebrating my album 'Showtunes from the Shadows' on Tiny Global

Guest musicians Robert Rotifer, Ruth Tidmarsh, Karina Townsend, Terry Edwards and Jack Hayter will be joining me to play songs from the album. The Wouldbegoods Three (Jessica Griffin, Peter Momtichoff and Andy Warren) will be playing too!

Only seven tickets left: https://wegottickets.com/event/646434

Only three tickets left now

Two...

Sold out!

Bar Italia, Soho, Friday

 

Pelicans, St. James's Park, London

 

Man With Working Newfoundland, Blackpool

 

The Rock & Roll Library, Farsight Gallery, 4 Flitcroft Street, London WC1

When I first heard about it, I couldn't imagine what it would all be about; Mick Jones's collection of personal ephemera? How could that be more interesting than my own?

Well, there was something very uplifting about this walk-through two room exhibition. Three huge frames hold collages: red, yellow and blue, of cuttings, ads, and (yes) coloured vinyl records, mixed together in an impression of 1960s childhood that was oddly moving. There are scary plastic-headed glove puppets, old media tech (TVs, film cameras, still cameras), strips of coloured film on lightboxes, zines, a booth with old comics (Hotspur, Beano, The Dandy) amongst other things. There are old Clash posters; there are armchairs and rugs and lamps.

 There's a notable absence of guitars (possibly far too risky security-wise). When we got there, Sean McClusky the gallery owner (and ex-JoBoxer) was just opening up. He told us there's a 28-year lease on the place and he's going to open a music venue in the basement. Yay! That's just what we need- a positive thought amongst the 'live music in small venues is dying' narrative.

On the way out we bumped into the DJ Steve Proctor and his friend, the Walthamstow Rock and Roll Book Club man, who is also a tube driver apparently. We chatted for ages.

I gather many pop stars of a certain pedigree have been to visit: Vic Godard, Shanne Bradley and more. I don't blame them: this was more than an exercise in nostalgia, because it took me right back to being an art student in the 1970s and the sort of clutter we worshipped with an irony that was beyond the comprehension of our elders. We deconstructed the madness of our world and held a mirror up to it's contradictions by juxtaposing all it's silliness by reconstructing it in an utterly different way.

I particularly liked the two dogs in the yard behind the gallery, energetically play-fighting and completely oblivious to human culture.

It was sunny, it was friendly, and it was the perfect antidote to the ghastly orange man and his demented henchman. Go!

Review in Deutsche Rolling Stone

 

The footprints that Helen McCookerybook left behind in the past 40 years of UK pop history may not be large or deep. She may have lacked the ambition or the elbows for that, but record collections that lack the legacy of her early bands are deplorably incomplete. Take the delectable discs of Helen & The Horns (the singer surrounded by trumpet, trombone and sax!), the 7inch delights of the Chefs with their fruity punky pop (“Thrush”!) and, last but not least, the world's best version of “Femme Fatale” served up by Helen's sadly short-lived quartet Skat. Fast forward: Today Helen is an active academic writing books, making films, also and especially so about the beginnings of Girl Punk and its heroines. One of whom, Gina Birch, formerly of the fabulous Raincoats, can also be heard on this new LP, next to Robert Rotifer, known to readers of this magazine as an author. Helen herself sounds hardly aged since the old days, she is crooning and trilling (hard to find the right translations from German here...) delightfully, and her twelve new tunes are testament to an unstoppable temperament and an enviable joie de vivre that she has saved up for the present. Charming!

By Wolfgang Doebeling

Translated by Robert Rotifer

Bandcamp Friday

It's Bandcamp Friday!

https://helenmccookerybook.bandcamp.com/

Photo by Ruth Tidmarsh

Upside-Down Deflated Pikachu Balloon In Tree

 

Woman with Birthday Balloons

 

Gina's Gig At The Troxy

This was an amazing night. The Troxy is an incredibly well-run venue: spotless toilets backstage with cleaners on duty all the way through, really nice staff, good treatment of the engineers (they stopped the sound-checks on the dot so they could have an evening meal before the gig started), nice security people, the lot.

The sound-check was quick and relatively stress-free. Jack White's tour manager was formidable but fair: seconds after asking me to get off the low bars of the lighting rig where I was sitting, she brought me a chair to sit on. And she tuned up all the guitars for Gina, Marie and Jenny before they went on. She also allowed them to go on fifteen minutes later than originally scheduled so that the venue was nice and full.

Boy was it full! Not only that, everyone was squashed up against the barriers already, in anticipation of Gina's set. Watching from the side, I could see a few fans-already, but I could also see new people gradually realise what was going on with the music and really get into it.

They started with Digging Down, and played a storming set that included Feminist Song with an intro from Gina that even had some of the lads in the audience punching the air, I Play My Bass Loud, the three of them strutting their stuff magnificently, Causing Trouble Again, and more. Half an hour isn't a lot of time to pack a punch in, but they sure as hell did that. In a flash, it was time to get on and sing I Wanna Live Forever. It's a fabulous song, so strong and powerful. I gave it lungfuls of air; there was no lack of confidence, because these women had made me feel welcome from the second we met. They are supporters not competitors, and that's the best sort of musician to be: they melted their own musicianship into Gina's music imperceptibly from the outset, completely understanding how to contribute to her songs. They stand tall beside her in their bright colours, and give it their all.

The set ended with Lola, and almost as soon as it began, the crowd joined in at full volume. 

LOLA, L-O-L-A, LOLA!

Just beforehand, we'd all shaken hands with Jack White and his wife. Afterwards, there were photographs, even one with me in it, but I don't think that will ever see the light of day! I filmed Digging Down but the file's too big for Blogger so I may try to share it from Youtube eventually.

And then I went home: I'm still quarantining really and a big full Jack White crowd was simply too risky. But oh, how happy I was! Thank you so much for inviting me along Gina. It was utterly cathartic!