Bad Apple

 

Goose at Trent Park Animal Sanctuary

 

Cassettes

I have several enormous stashes of cassettes that flat around the house in wobbly piles that invite themselves to be knocked over.

I actually had a listening session last week, because curiosity got the better of me. There were rehearsal tapes, which I only gave a cursory listen to. There was a cassette of trombone parts (sometimes I used to sing the separate parts on to cassettes and give them to the Horns to learn). There were two cassettes with children's musicals, one for the ILEA Youth Theatre, which had a huge cast of probably thirty children. we actually sat in the orchestra pit for that one: me, Tom (Lester Square), the twins Nick and Simon Smith, John Parratt on drums and a French Horn and Oboe player from the ILEA children's orchestra. Anotehr one was from when I was the PRS Composer in Residence at a group of South London feeder Primary Schools and Sedgehill Secondary: a Pop Nativity conceived by their head of music. the funding ran out halfway through and I ended up programming the orchestrations and sending them to the schools. Funnily enough, the naughtiest children were the best singers; it was their playground shouting voices tuned to jolly songs with melodies and lyrics that were easy to remember. It was so interesting doing these projects, and they were a reminder that there are many different ways to be a teacher, and many different ways to be a child, too.

What else? 

I have a tape labelled 'Shriekback', because I was invited by David Allen (who died recently, which was very sad to hear because he was such a nice person) to sing over one of their backing tracks. I went to the little EMI basement studio in Denmark Street, but singing over a flat groove was very difficult to do at the time. I'd thought my vocal was on the tape but it's just the instrumental. I may sing the original melody over it at some time. Also there was a tape from when Alannah Currie asked me to sing/rap an Edith Sitwell poem over one of the tracks. She'd heard an item (ahem) on BBC Radio 4 about a drawing I'd done for an exhibition called Famous Women Eating Breakfast. Mine was Edith Sitwell eating a canary. But again, the tape is only of me reciting the poem, not the complete thing. My friend Rocker suggested putting the Sitwell poem on the Shriekback track. I wonder if that would work? I do know that Debbie Harry was involved in the Sitwell project, but I don't think it ever saw the light of day.

What else?

Dr Devito at The Venue in Victoria, a rumble tumble of a recording if ever there was one. The Monochrome Set were asked to play there for some reason but were not permitted to say it was them. So the band dressed in choir habits from Lester Square's dad's church (he was the Vicar of Fulham), and Bid sang the Holy Bible, or as much of it as he could fit into the allotted time. My job was to play the fiddle, which I'd been given as a birthday present by the girls in the shared house in Willesden about a week before. I'd managed to work out how to play Oh Susannah!, despite all the cats in the house coming into my bedsit and pleading with me not to. Every so often the thundering music stops, and the squeaky strains of the violin can be heard before it all starts off again. A fiddle-playing friend, Simon Walker, picked it up one day and said 'Some of these cheap violins can sound really good...', he played it for a couple of seconds, '... but this one doesn't!'.

Oh, and there's a tape of The Chefs playing in Basildon. I mostly remember chips in newsprint-printed waxed paper cones from that one. the one below is from when me and Carl went to Wales and recorded in a country cottage with friends of our agent, on a Portastudio. I had to programme the Roland Drumatix. My friend Mike said it sounds like someone throwing a drumkit downstairs, and it does. But Pioneer Town became a Helen and the Horns song which was later covered by an acapella choir in San Francisco. The adventures of a song!

A bunch of party tapes went into the bin, and a bunch of compilations went to the local Oxfam shop, which is managed by a music buff. He might enjoy them.

There are millions more: demos, Peel session copies, God only knows what else. I have nothing in the coffers, no swimming pool, no music awards or gold discs, but I have had a bloody interesting musical life, and I continue to do so!

Jeremy Deller Straw Face Mask

 

Bandcamp Friday Coming Up!

Bandcamp Friday this week!

That gives you all week to save up for the Pop-Up Chefs limited edition 7" EP. Four songs originally recorded by The Chefs re-worked for 2 guitars & vocals by me & my brother James McCallum, one of the original guitarists.

100 copies only!

https://thepop-upchefs.bandcamp.com/.../the-pop-up-chefs-ep

Squashed Diary

Well you know, the things that I haven't written about: a packed out, sweaty and exciting gig by Heavenly at the Islington Assembly Rooms. I must write about that properly in a couple of days time! I watched from the balcony with Rachel Dollymixture and Jessica Wouldbegood (it seemed like the least humid part of the venue). Gideon Coe and his wife were behind us (in on the secret of how to see without melting); Ian Damaged was there with Alison Wonderland, Caryne and Dave were there, and in the distance were apparently hundreds of people that I knew.

Over the past couple of weeks I've had a couple of brutal biopsies that have resulted in total exhaustion from a combination of terror at what was going to be done, and physical recovery. I read five dog-eared detective novels last week from the various charity shops around Barnet from the comfort of the sofa, where I sat in elegant misery. I did manage to do a tiny smidgin of recording which I'm about to revisit in a minute.

At the weekend, I met Offsprog Two to read through an essay she's been writing about Chris Steele-Perkins' photography at Holkham Hall in Norfolk; afterwards we wandered up to Trafalgar Square to see Jeremy Dellar's chaotic but very imaginative installation. There were Strong Men and Women lifting stones, women Morris Dancers from Dundee in fetching printed collage tea-towel outfits, with huge 'boulders' dancing with them, quite a feat in the heat. We met Adam and Eve nestling in hyper-green foliage in a tent, and went into a William Morris tent to look at a large bust of Sir, surrounded by his florid designs. 

I've just rescued a Beryl Cook biscuit from my bag: there was a free tea and biscuit tent, and a huge inflated Beryl Cook in the fountain. There were scary woven wicker masks, which were my favourite of the whole shebang along with the steel pan band who were really great, and who performed in front of a huge wicker canopy. It was fun, and free, and full of people having a nice time. What a fabulous use for a public space in the centre of London!

It wasn't far to wander up to Portland Place, where the Trans March was setting off.  Again, the mood was celebratory and really inclusive: there were families there and people from every culture in London and beyond. A chap wearing a a yarmulke was there with his son, and there were a lot of older trans women who circulated with sunny expressions on their faces.

I gather that later on the march met the installation, which would have been a great things to see.

The humidity became too much for me, and I headed home for Come Dine With Me and a bag of crisps.

Dexter Bentley One Minute Wonders

I contributed a specially-written track to Dexter Bentley's One Minute Wonders Show which was broadcast today, and has been uploaded to Mixcloud. Take a listen to 89 one-minute songs! 

https://www.mixcloud.com/Resonance/the-hello-goodbye-show-one-minute-wonders-2025-26th-july-2025

PLAYLIST

Tristan Burfield – AY Caramba

Dee Fry Servals – Saltchuck

Ilia & Kitsu Rogatchevski – Bleating Sheep (Yorkshire Sculpture Park)

David Cook – Excerpt from Avenue Moog

John Hughes & Sissy Christopoulou – In the shower

Venus In Noise – Deep End

Jimmy Andrex – My Best LIfe A One Minute Wonder

Jessica Rowland – 1 Min Binaural Singbowl

SILKess Demon – Feathers are meant to help

ART-O-MATIC – Wild Kinetic Thing

Leonor & Gashnois – Ode To The Sun

Carsten Aniksdal  – Stella

Les Bicyclettes Blanches – I don’t know why NUUT

Emma Roper Evans – Fans

The Tumbledryer Babies – Empty As A High Street

KR Seward – Wondermint

Hannya White – Dinner Time

JM Ogara – Blood Moves Through The Heart

Mika Mann – The World Of Red

Red Bedward – River Man (by Nick Drake) One Minute Wonder 2025

The Witch Of Brussels – One Slow Minute

David Pannell – It’s Good To Be Alive

Eki Shola – Madre

The Panic Room – Give Me A Minute

Der Teufel – Predators

Pete Branscombe – What Happened at Cameron House

Funkcutter – Mordern Life

Ralph Clayton & Francesca Payne – I’m OK (95% of the Time) EXCERPT

Sairie – We Wept For The Sea

Kat Five – Space Junk oneminutewonder

Sally Child – Unhinged

Lester Square – Grand Mal

VIOLET NOX – ONESIXTY

Art Terry – Lockdown

Helen McCookerybook – Voodoo Doll

Azalia Snail – Don’t F*ck With Us

Double Simien – 30 Second Blang Theme

Quantum Flirts – Deep Listening

Adrian R. Shaw – Wheat Field

Luis Cano – Done

Steve White – Free Speech

Morgan Fisher – Green and Pleasant 

gon7o – 1st Floor

Liz Bentley – Summer Is Coming

now – See Me Inside

Pete Gomes – Going

Spinmaster Plantpot – Everybody’s Got To Book A Baby Hey

Patrick Lyons – Are You Hungry?

Dye Wain Dye Ritchie – Last Legs

Nina Dellow – Music for Skating

The Family Grave – The Immigrant EXCERPT

Alexei Shishkin – I Wish I Was Guided By Voices

The Drain On The Balcony – Little Sir Jacob

Seamus Hayes – Kind

Gran-paw Frankee and the Son-of-a-Gun – Goddamnit

John Garner – Shakukatchi

Schroeder / Smith with Stuart McKay – CLAPHAM JUNCTION

Dirty Viv – Chainsaw (EXCTRACT)

Alex F-F – Chocolate Bourbon

The Camodes – George Goes a Groovin

Dull Glitter – Caving

Jack Hayter – LSD and Worms with Jacquie

Silver Tears – Tiny Trumpets

Leg Puppy 2.0 – Home

Hungry Dog Brand – X-Box King

Cleaners From Venus – The Lost Tango

Frank Lloyd Wleft – Goodnight

David John Sheppard – Snow Ritual

Dr Awkward – Overstellar Interdrive

Asbo Derek – Star Noise

Duncan Parsons – Fissures Of Men

Simon Williams – Mode 5

Billy Pilgrime & Corm O Rant – Gular Fluttering

Philip Sanderson – Boat number 23 (ft. Alan Dupuy)

Paul McCallum – Can I Just Say

Murdertits – Spit Sandwich

Irina Shtreis – Electricity

BABYMAN – Collapsing The Mirror Stage

Planetruth – Your Lines

Party In Hiroshima – Fraunhofer

Simon Kunath – Up From The West

Rita Niemba – Right Back

Graham Graham Beck – MISH MASH THRASH CRASH

Extradition Order – Thank U Tho

Cockney Street Triage Team Band – Guess What Synthesizer This Is

{AN} EeL – Liver Spots

Soloman Tump – Thorpe

d’Animal – Cycles

Alas, Macbeth – Western Avenue Breakdown

Rock Band Filming In Denmark Street, London

 

Drawing A Poster For Bandcamp Friday Next Week

 

Let's Make Up by the Pop-Up Chefs: New Video

 

Gina Birch and the Unreasonables at Rough Trade East

I pinched photos from Nicholas Blincoe and John Earls.

What a brilliant night. I'll write about it when I've recovered. Adrenaline kept me awake almost all night. Brilliant band, brilliant show, brilliant audience! Gina is a star, no doubt about it.

Review by John Earls here: https://arcana.fm/2025/07/20/gina-birch/

Unfinished Hat Display

 

Goat Wants A Scratch

 

Louis Philippe and the Night Mail

I got tickets for this gig ages ago, not knowing that James was going to die in the interim. It felt weird to go out to such a socially effervescent event so soon after his funeral, which was a definite 'the end' ceremony for us all. 

However, if any music was going to be cathartic, Louis Philippe's lovely, fluid and ethereal music would be the music I'd choose. It felt like I was walking into the Water Rats as a different person, still in a catatonic state, but seeing Jessica and Peter and chatting to them both was a real ice-breaker. We talked about art for a while, and meanwhile someone tried to show my companion their ticket, since they were standing by the door.

It was also nice to see Jane and Dave again on the door. Life has been going on, which is really comforting. Inside, it was very crowded but remarkably not too hot. 

Honestly, there's no other music like this on the planet. I started recording it, because although I have some CDs, the delicacy of sound simply isn't captured in the recording studio. There seem to be wisps of cloud emanating from the stage- not from the obligatory smoke machine, but the auditory version. It's a combination of all of the sounds of the instruments, plus the sound of Louis', voice blended into a supernatural wave of warmth and curious song trajectories.

'What made him write that, after that and after that?', I wondered again and again. I slipped to the front so I could dance. Mandy and Vic saw the gap in the crowd and slipped in too, though I had to move quite soon because I was standing behind Tall Man, the one who goes to every gig and is in front of me. Who is he? I'll never find out.

A woman violinist joined the stage for some songs; a guitarist from XTC was augmenting the sound last night. If I was a proper reviewer, I'd know their names (and I might put them in later). But there was Robert Rotifer on guitar, Ian Button on drums and Andy Lewis on bass, giving it their all without breaking a sweat; these are such complex songs and the band played perfectly, supporting the high tenor voice of Louis as he spun poetry and melody into his gorgeous songs.

I closed my eyes and floated away. Just perfect.

The Devil Wears Panda

Misread, silly.

From The Glasgow Herald, Many Moons Ago

This was written by Neil Cooper, who still writes about Scottish culture 

Newspaper Articles

While looking through piles of photos and bags of stuff for photographs of James, I've come across other things I didn't even know I had. Here are two of three articles from Newcastle papers- one from the Sunday Sun and one from The Journal. The Sun article is from a screen test that I did to be a presenter for The Tube, the Tyne Tees TV pop music show of the 1980s. Almost everyone else on 'my' day got the job, and although I felt a bit superficially miffed by that fact, you can see from what I'm wearing that I'd already got Helen and the Horns going at this point. Perhaps it would have helped the band reach dizzying heights, but I think I needed to concentrate on what we were doing. 

I remember seeing the show later and thinking 'There is no way that I could speak into a microphone while walking backwards'. I also felt that there was sometimes something forced about the 'controversial' interview techniques and I was glad not to have been part of that. Rather craftily, at the regional focus groups they'd slurped up the ideas of the participants- mine was to interview Tony Fletcher from Jamming magazine, and another young woman at the one I went to proposed doing a feature on the air guitar competitions that were being held at Camden Palace. Nice bit of free research for the production team, and not my first experience of energy vampires!

I did, however, get on really well with Muriel that day, despite what the reporter says. I think she didn't suffer fools gladly and I am not a fool. We kept in touch and she came to see the Helen and the Horns play at The Calton Studios in Edinburgh, which was a fantastic gig for us. We'd made friends with the band So You Think You're A Cowboy the night before at a gig at The Oasis in Dunfermline and they all showed up to see us, as did Muriel. After the show she bought round after round, and much fun was had by all. She also had a show on a Sunday afternoon on Radio 1 in London and we did an afternoon session for her. She popped down from the heights of wherever she was doing her bit from, to the basement where were set up, and was absolutely delightful.

The other article is from The Journal, and must have been printed after we'd signed to RCA Records (Elvis's label, aha!). I have one that was printed just before our gig at Tiffany's in Newcastle too, quite a while before this.

I have more cuttings but I won't over-post them; it's just that I've been putting stuff on my Facebook page and it's such a dodgy platform, isn't it? So I'll transfer over some of the other things too when I get a moment.

Pearlies at the Race Finish

 

Man Painting Shop Sign

 

Podcast Interview with Robert Miller

Robert's a US podcaster who talks to a lot of musicians and people in the sphere of music, and thanks to the author Christine Feldman Barrett for putting us in touch!

https://www.followyourdreampodcast.com/episodes/helen-mccookerybook-70s-uk-punk-rock-star-with-the-chefs-and-helen-and-the-horns-turned-author-the-lost-women-of-rock-music-and-shes-at-the-controls-now-solo-artist

Friendly Bear, Valencia