Stella Vine

Had my photo taken for the Guardian Women's page yesterday afternoon, so I reckon they will definitely print the article about the book and the musicians. The photographer was nice and had been at Glastonbury. I gave him a copy of Suburban Pastoral to listen to.

I'm going to Gina's now to learn her songs; she's been asked to play for Stella Vine's exhibition in Oxford next Tuesday and has asked me to accompany her. So I'm going to be playing thrashy solid-body guitar all day, wahey wahey!

And finally, L A Strings made such a good job of filing the frets of the Green Goddess that it's almost like having a new guitar. I am completely delighted with it and I suspect new songs will float out of it. I've already written the first Christmas song, so I hope the compilation happens.

Actually, what I have written in this posting sounds completely pretentious. I've even deleted some of it, two days later.
I promise I am still a perfectly normal human being who hates hoovering, never irons, likes cooking, eats too much chocolate, gets miserable half the time, worries about everything all the time, and can't do a cartwheel.

If I could do a cartlwheel, then everything would be all right.

Spelling

Sorriest of all about my spelling. I've been kidding myself for a long time that it's my lack of typing skills, but actually, I can not see the mistakes, they hide from me, and i think it must be dyslexia.

A hole load of sorrow

In the doctor's surgery this morning there were three elderly nuns who had obviously all decided to get ill at once. They looked fierce and unbending; one pushed in the queue in front of me, but the receptionist saw what happened and I didn't miss my turn. I dodn't even look at the nun to see if she was glaring at me, because I could guess that she was.
There was also a young woman telling off her old dad very loudly. It was difficult not to intervene; it was the sort of family argument that normally happens behind closed doors. First she was wrong; then old dad was wrong, then she was again. Hopeless, unless they both decided to compromise. Could the nuns not have intervened? I sat and read a scandal mag that was not fit to wipe the devil's bot upon.

I'm still bowled over by the trip to the uke shop; it was a lovely surprise.
Ah yes, her is the link to Paul Chong's photos from Birkenhead: http://myweb.tiscali.co.uk/thechongs/album/band%20pictures/index.html
I kept forgetting to do this (sorry Paul) and there are lots of other things I keep forgetting to do too. Sorry everybody.
Sorry
Sorry
Sorry
Sorry
I'm
falling
down
a
hole
of
Sorries

More about Ukeleles, and the Song Club Show

As always, the Song Club children sang in tissue-whispers, whereas at the workshops they'd been bellowing like charging camels. Never mind- they were all as proud as punch, grinning away at the end, with the whole school looking on trying to put the frighteners on them, evils galore.
Later, I went with a friend to the Duke of Ukes to look at the Ukeleles. What a lovely little shop, tucked away just off Brick Lane. We nearly got sucked into a few Indian restaurants on the way but found it, with its window display of orange and pink fluorescent ukeleles with matching bags. There were some really beautiful instruments there including some vintage banjos, and a real mixed clientele- two business men buying serious uke-cases, and a guy with a Basement Jaxx t-shirt; "I used to have a ukelele but it broke'. It's a nice scruffy shop with very friendly staff in it. I am going to save up and get a nice ukelele in September, and write songs about autumn in a Hawaiian style.


Food Poem

It's time to chop onions and cry
My sadness will end when they fry

(attributed to H McC, 2007)

Boor

To the loudmouth songwriter who tried to spoil everybody's sets at the Cross Kings last night by yakking to his mates at full volume: you are not big and you are not clever, and the ladies in the corner had much better manners than you and better music too.
So there!
Sorry to be so gruff, but these things happen and could spoil your day if you were not a cheery optimist.
Ha ha!
It's the Song Club show tomorrow, assembly with the mummies. Have to learn the words of the songs tonight whan I've got me guitar back from the luthiers (LA Strings in Barnet, brilliant). The scratch plate of the Hofner fell off and they're fixing it on again. I reckon I like these little shows 'cos of being brought up in a village, where the Wylam Community Week show was the hightlight of the year- the primary school teacher conducting the choir in a Very Short Skirt Indeed so when she lifted her arms with the conductor's baton the daddies all went faint with lust; Mrs Hibbert with her thick pink lipstick, practical metal-rimmed spectacles and her velvet hat upon steel grey permed curls: 'I've got a bonnet, trimmed with BLOO, do you wear it? Yess I DOO!', Little Bruv playing the trumpet and missing his cue every time in spite of poring over the sheet music all the way through with his friend Robert, the Rock Band (one number), the Girl Guides (oops, me) singing in fairy voices, melting no butter in our mouths in spite of some of us (not me) being famous in the Tyne Valley as glad-to-have-its (ahem). Ah happy days! Well, weird days at least.
Toodle-oo for now. The car needs new tyres to pass its MOT so no charity shop forays, walnut whips or Amazon-grazing for me this month.
Bah.
And Craig... the reason we didn't play any songs together in Gateshead was my almost 6-hour journey form London because of the rainstorms, which resulted in Martin's guitar being in the boot of his car at Newcastle airport instead of being at the gig. So only one guitar (mine). Definitely next time.
Guess what- I'm going to make a Christmas CD! What fun! I spent the morning dreaming up ideas for gruesome and peculiar Christmas songs to write for it.

Gig tonight and a suddenly remembrance

I have a gig tonight at
at the Cross Kings
126 York Way, King's Cross, London and South East N10AX
Cost : Free

Last night I suddenly remembered the decimalisation jingles that the Scaffold made up; they were broadcast as public information films on the BBC to tell us all how to cope with the changeover. We didn't need them- everything got a bit more expensive for a while as the dastardly shopkeepers swindled us, but apart from that paying for things is just about counting, however you do it. But the jingles were brilliant- they must have been, cos i can still recall them:

Decimalisation, decimalise
Decimalisation, decimal five

One pound is a hundred new pennies, a hundred new pence to the pound

Use yer old pennies in sixpenny lots, use yer old pennies in sixpenny lots

See? I can even remember th melodies and if you ask me at the gig tonight I shall sing them to you.
Ha!

Ukeleles and painted faces

I just did an interview with Leonie Cooper for the Guardian Womens' page about the Lost Women. We sat in the sun in the courtyard of the Mitre (sun? who's that?). Apparently she plays ukelele and she's recommended the Duke of Uke shop in the east end, so I will have to go there and check it out. She says you can get a beginners ukelele for about 20 quid.
My uncle had a great little piece of film of a George Formby Club. A large group of solemn men sat in rows watching a projection of George Formby singing 'When I'm Cleaning Windows', each playing along on a litte ukelele, completely absorbed in what they were doing.
Extraordinary.

Here's another funny thing. I have face-painted Alistair Darlings' childrens faces. I can't remember what I painted on their faces, but I do remember that they didn't have fair hair and black eyebrows.

Fridaysfishnchipsisevrybody'appyyerbetyerlifeweare

Well, I was running out of titles! Do you remember that song? I can hardly remember it at all but I can remember that bit.
Song Club went very well yesterday- one little boy was really cross at the beginning of term because he didn't want to come but his mum said he had to- and yesterday although he'd been off school with a broken arm, he asked his mum to bring him along after school so he could join in.
The latest song has a definite psychedelic feel to it, mostly due to the children's lyrics. Instead of writing songs about bomber squadrons and heroic British fighter pilots singing God Save the Queen as they plunge to their deaths through the fog, their lyrics ara all about saying what you like when you're in the air all alone, looking at whales down below in the sea, clouds like pillows and lots of other dreamy things.
Much better.
This has been a very weird week, in which I have been tortured by various doctors in various hospitals, panicked to finish some freelance work, done a little bit of recording (yesterday), eaten almost all the fudge I brought home from Edinburgh (I'm doing an experiment to locate the point at which you have to stop eating it to prevent yourself from feeling sick), but generally felt quite happy even though it has poured with rain.
I got a minicab back late one night with a Bangladeshi driver who was ecstatically happy because it was chucking it down. 'Just like Bangladesh!', he said, and told me all about swimming in waterfalls in the mountains. He completely eradicated my assumption that Bangladesh was all about misery and floods, all the time. It sounds like a country with a lot of very beautiful natural areas.
Tomorrow, I'm meeting a woman who is writing something about the Lost Women book for the Guardian Women's page.
I have a stye on my right eye that feels a bit as though a huge hen is perched on it, winking at everybody and saying LOOK AT ME. While fascinating to watch its progress, I would rather it either belonged to someone else, or that it was a piece of costume jewellery that I could remove when I got bored with it.
If it hangs around much longer I'll make it into a feature, give it a name and perhaps its own column in the Barnet Times.

Not such a miseryguts today

Yesterday was crap- I spent the morning with my right eye pouring tears all over the place (ended up going to Barnet General last night and getting some medicine) even though I was out at Highgate with Diana and her three dogs. I was gloomy but the endorphins kicked in later on and I'm back to my usual dumb cheerful self again. My car smells a little doggy, but it's always nice to see Diana and I gave her a little old guide book to Mull; whe's just done a series for Resonance FM about Mull which the Independent newspaper has bigged-up three weeks in a row and I'm trying to persuade her to pitch it to the BBC.
If you're one of Joby's disciples, a big Hello to you! I got his mailout and I know he's mentioned this blog. I did like his picture of all your technology charging from the mains while you were all having a cup of coffee- reminded me of those hosses tethered to the railings at the saloon bar back in the Old West.
I think it was partly not being near a giutar for four days too, actually. Possibly I am addicted to playing guitar; I definitely get withdrawal symptoms when I stop. The green guitar's got to go to the menders to have its action lowered and the Hofner needs itts scratch plate screwed on again. Luckily I have been given an extraordinarily camp guitar which I will photograph and show you one day, and I can play that while the others are in hospital.
The book's done and partied, work's over for the summer, and now I'm going to set my mind to finishing the next CD and getting some gigs.
And rather a lot of sleep too, actually.

Coming Back

Well, I'm not sure what to make of that conference in Newcastle.
There was a very rude woman, one of the organisers, who was so shockingly bad-mannered that I felt like telling her to get lost and just go home without bothering to do my paper.
It was weird anyway because McDad is not well, and I'd also cleverly left my computer at home and only had a PDF-sized printout, which I had enlarged at a quick-print place so I had a giant set of disorganised lecture notes. But I suppose it went OK.
My friend Debi from Cardiff was there, almost finished her PHD on Kate Bush, and it was nice to see her.
The best thing was seeing the Royal Victoria Infirmary, where I used to work in the x-ray darkrooms as a technician, McDad's old office, and the place where I used to go to a Saturday morning pottery class when I was 8, and made a suubmarine in the shape of a teapot, or a teapot in the shape of a submarine, I can't remember which. It had people peering out of portholes all down the sides. And I liked the smell of the clay. I also remembered having German Measles when I was about 12 and sitting in the car while the family went for lunch at the University restaurant. Why didn't they leave me at home?
The Clock in Newcastle Central Station had no hands. Geordie time, said a friend.
It was a nostalgia fest mixed with an uncomfortable conference.
I am glad the weekend is over.

Travelling

Just about to get on the train to McScotland to visit McMum and McDad.
I've charged up the iPod, copied them a disc of my latest songs, packed a selection of earrings and enough socks; just got to grab the remains of last night's salad to eat and a cruddy ladies' magazine from WHSmiths and I'll be off.
On Sunday I'm doing a paper about the Falklands and Thatcher and music in the early 80s at the Feminism and Popular Culture Conference in Newcastle upon Tyne. The computer's playing up and I can't print it out any larger than 10 pt which menas I won't be able to read it even with spectacles on. Oh dear. Plus as soon as I do anything academic, panic dyslexia kicks in and I start mis-spelling, mis-reading and turn back into what I was originally- a shop assistant.
Maybe I should have a back-up plan to sit behing a till at Fenwicks for the afternoon instead of attending the conference.
Photos- they are trickling in from Sunday, and I still haven't put the link to Paul Chong's from Birkenhead.
Someday, somewhere, sometime.

Tape's rollin

Went to Tom's yesterday and recorded three new songs (well, two and a half: one of them was an old one with a radical change)
A sculptor started drilling halfway through but we managed OK. I also redid a vocal on another song in a completely different way and realised a song is not always what you think it is when you first write it.
I have to go and get my guitar sorted out 'cos it's fighting me at the moment nd we can't have that!
I have enough now for a next album o stuff I could actually listen to myself, but now have to sort out how to release it. Actually, I have to finishe the tracks as they are almost all rough demos apart from Memento Mori which is my favourite one out of all of them at the moment although I think one of yesterday's might topple it from it's perch.
I am going to re-sing lots of them in the happy summervoice (not only is it summer when I sing better anyway but I am happy too and singing yesterday was as easy as breathing).
What else?
Well, e-conversations about Sunday, everything from harrassment by DJs to photographs taken, people met, plans for the future...
Today? Song Club. We are planning a concert in a Retirement Home, infinitely more complex than planning a normal gig. I have a red and white checked shirt on that the children like. They call me a cowboy; there's a lot of gender confusion as Jamie is gay and they call him Miss occasionally.
They have obviously not noticed that I am a woman.

Still reeling...

Kate and Heather reminisce about waking one morning in their squat in Brixton to find a massive knife lying on the bed in a room next door; Penelope and Christine talked about going to New York for the first time together and being completely naive, smoking on the subway (forbidden, and along came the New York police); Poly is going to write a book; Lora Logic is writing music; Rachel Lovell is a grandmother (how can such a young-looking woman be a grandmother?); Zillah Ashworth has completed her fllm about British punk women and is now making one about U.S. punk women.

Ah.

Today I went to visit Joan Ashworth, who is an animator, and saw the film she's been shooting in Lancashire.
She was brought up on a farm, and as I watched the footage she'd shot I had a shiver of recognition; I was brought up in the Northumbrian countryside, and there were my adolescent feelings, brought to life in a meadow with shuddering trees and trembling cow-parsley, as a solitary young woman swam through the grass on her back, ploughing a dark green furrow, catching a hare. A whooshing dawn, green, green grass, rhythms of the wind and clouds, it made me really happy to see such a beautiful and poetic film on a dull rainy urban afternoon in Camberwell.


... and a-rockin'.

Speechless

I think this posting might happen in either two or even three bits; it's about the party for The Lost Women of Rock Music and I didn't sleep a wink last night because I was so excited by what happened.
I drove down to Caroline's to meet the woman from Woman's Hour, who was ideal- she had bleached white hair and was really stylish, and had really done her research which made her very easy to talk to. Caroline looked beautiful (she always does) and had got us a minicab to take the books round to First Floor on Portobello Road. It was the perfect place- just the right size and the sort of place anyone could feel comfortable. Lisa (who was the 'greeter') was already there,and we had a bit of time to settle in. Sara and Emily from Ashgate turned up next an quietly set about making a display.
First guest to arrive was Gaye Black, friendly and serene as always and with a sparkle in her eye that said the whole day was going to be a blast; she was one of the first to say she was definitely coming and hats off to her for getting into the spirit straight away. Then they started arriving, thick and fast; Heather from the Brighton band the Objekts, and the Devil's Dykes (haven't seen her for nearly 30 years).Christine Roberston, who used to manage the Slits, and Penelope Tobin, who played keyboards for them (they hadn't seen each other for years), Steve Beresford who did the same. and Tessa Pollitt (Slits) , the cover girl, with her daughter Phoebe. Kate Hayes, also for the Objekts, who wrote a song for the Raincoats with Vicky Aspinall, but Gina and Ana (Raincoats, also there with manager Shirley) had never met her before. Zillah and Sid, from Rubella Ballet, with Poly Styrene (oh I am so glad she came!) who looked about 15 years old and who was really happy; Hester Smith and Rachel Bor from the Dollymixture, with Karen Grey from the Gymslips and Serious Drinking. Suzanne Long (Reptiles) from Gateshead who spent her wedding money on a bass guitar instead of getting married; Jennie Bellstar with her camera, in a ballgown and pink hair; Mavis Bayton (Mistakes) , also in a ballgown, retiring from teaching to become a blueswoman again; Jane Woodgate from the Mo-Dettes (she looked so brilliant, honestly, I hope someone will send me some links to some photos!) and Lora Logic, calmly beautiful and wearing the most fabulous Indian clothes which I keep imagining because they were so beautiful, with her daughter; June Miles-Kingston also a Mo-Dette but also a Funboy Three (excellent interviewee), Ellie Medeiros from the Stinky Toys (I didn't get to interview her for the book but she flew over from Switzerland specially and she's amazing, and what's more she loved my party shoes so much she took a photo of them!); Vivienne Goldman, who flew over from New York (I think Gina will send her some video footage to post on her site), Lucy O'Brien, having a lovely time and just finished her book on Madonna), Sue Bradley, punk violin player, Enid Williams straight from tour with Girlschool in Germany, with a guitar on her back, Liz Naylor (Gay Animals) just standing there with a huge smile on her face, oh it was great! I kept seeing people smiling, exchanging emails, laughing, and doing sweet things like Hester getting Gaye's autograph for Suzanne's husband.
Caroline made a really good speech- I could see that it affected a lot of the women there in auite an emotional way; she has a way of pinpointing reality that is quite extraordinary. She'll post it on her site www.carolinecoon.com at the beginning of July. Poor Sarah Furse had terrible flu and missed it (was that where you were too Mufti?) but we cheered her, Vi Subversa and Ari, and then just buzzed and buzzed.
There I was shaking hands with Paul Gambaccini...
It was over in the twinkling of an eye but I am sure good is going to come out of it, I just know it will. All that exchanging of numbers, I just said to everyone, write your story, write your story!
We were just getting ready to leave when Rhoda Dakar arrived, hot from Glastonbury- she's got in at 8 a.m. and spent the morning trying to find where we were. That's dedication! We poured a huge bowl of strawberries into a carrier bag, and went back to Caroline's for a cup of tea and a de-brief (and a bit of a gossip too)
Wow.
I can't believe it happened, all those brains and talent all under one roof, all talking and some meeting for the first time.
You know, I took no photos, didn't get any autographs, didn't even eat anything apart from one little thing on a stick, but it was just the best Sunday of my entire life, by golly it was.
All thanks to Caroline, who suggested it, found the venue and funded the entire thing. I know she had a great time too; I am so grateful to her, she is a complete better-than-a-diamond, and I know everyone who came along will agree with me on that.

Jammie Dodgers

I'm sure some of the children from Song Club only come along for the jammie dodgers we have at the end.
Today, the head told us not to get felt pen on the floor (guilty- it writes straight through the paper on to the wood)
But we did well- we did a new song about being up in the clouds and alone in the sky that the children learned straight away.
What do you call the part of the plane where a pilot sits? The saddle, according to one of the children.
Ah well.
Up early tomorrow to travel to Gateshead Little Theatre. Martin's been learning some of my songs and I have been learning some of his, so we'll play some together; we have also been co-writing songs by email for the CD we are going to record.
Also, I have developed a couple of London gigs and have therefore not fallen foul of the Cockneys.
Bout time I finished my album too, so must go and do a bit more recording at Tom's.
Bitty posting: Song Club's exhausting; Jamie has a gig tonight at the Goethe Institute with the Irrepressibles, and had one with a covers band last night. He didn't get in till 5 a.m this morning. At least I got to snore a bit longer than that last night.