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I have found 2 boxes of unplayed vinyl Helen and the Horns albums- I've played one and the top-end of the sound is a little distorted (loft fatigue) but if anyone wants one, they can sent £12.00 to the address below (say what it's for!)
And I have a limited number of 'Women Out of Line' books (they are comic strip books with stories by woman artists including me!) which are also £12.00
And I have a very limited number of black vinyl Freight Train singles, which are £10.00
All these include p & p; if you send off for more than one, I'll use the excess postage to do a next-day delivery in the UK.
Don't forget if you order 'Suburban Pastoral' from my P.O. below for £10.99, first orders get a Chefs badge, till they run out.

Helen and the Horns
P.O. Box 3427
Barnet
EN5 9EX

.... and if you live in or near Edinburgh, do come to see me play at the Cafe Royale on Saturday, I'm on at 9 p.m.
Would be nice to see you!

Hidden Treasures

I played in Brixton on Monday at Hidden Treasures. It was a real singers night- lots of lovely voices- Ilana Lorraine, Rachel Huggins (who organises the gig), Katie Leech. The harmonies were gorgeous and I've asked Rachel and another one of the vocalists to accompany me at the Christmas Offline, where I'll do some songs I've never played live before, just to be festive!
The pub where it happens, the Telegraph, is halfway through being converted into a zingy venue, and it was a bit like being on a film set, half one thing, half another, and it all added to the atmosphere, with raggedy comfortable sofas and dark corners, and lots of people eating chips from paper (they had closed the restaurant down during the renovations). I shared my banana with Rachel when I got there, and she had lots of mini-Twixes to share. Lots of people I hadn't seen for ages were there, the brothers came and one of the guitarists was so good I felt obliged to get my guitar out of it's case when he was soundchecking, and work out one of the chords he was playing. Nerdy, or what?
And Mike has redesigned the front page of my website, hasn't he, and doesn't it look good?

Telegraph

Just off to the Telegraph; I'm on at 9 p.m. and lookin' forward to it!

Assortment

Odd one, last night- it was a bit like this Parisian wine bar I went to a couple of years ago, with a French jazz band in the corner; I suppose you'd call it a cabaret bar. I almost died with shock when I got a glass of red wine from the bar after I'd played and it cost £4.50.
On the way home, I saw something straight out of and Edward Hopper painting- in an upstairs room in a block of modern flats, the curled stalk of a double bass was waving about, held by a chap who was deeeeep in conversation with another man, who was seated at what must have been a piano, all in silhouette in a plain yellow rectangle of light. Beautiful.
I've just heard from a DJ in Thailand who has bought the CD!

Padded coat hanger

One Christmas, when I was a little girl, McMum was given a pink satin padded coathanger as a present. That was the point at which I decided I was never going to grow up.

Conditioner on toast

Boots henna and horsechestnut, yummy winter snack!
Humm, lyrics. I was trying to write a rockabilly track inspired by Claire's search for songs about jewellery and ended up writing a weird scary non-rockabilly song about my grandmother, who was my Special Person before she died. It frightens me when I sing it...
And I was thinking about the first time I ever wrote a song with my guitar. I told my music teacher at school, and she asked me to sing it and play it. It was totally cheesy- 'Haunted Castle', but it had good chords and melody. After I'd sung it she said 'YOU DIDN'T WRITE THAT SONG!' and slammed the piano lid down. Mrs Fitton, if you are reading this, I did write that song! And I did write more! And I encourage everybody I meet to write songs! SO THERE!

Gigs this weekend

Tomorrow I'm playimng at Viva Viva in Hornsey- I'll be doing a few there, apparently it's a little restaurant. Lots of people play there and I'm curious to know what it's like. Monday night it's the Telegraph on Brixton Hill, and I'm onstage at 9 p.m.
Might air some new material on one or both of those nights- 'pends how I feel....
Glad to say Allan Bradbury will be playing cello on the 20th December gig in Dalston, and Serafina's playing too. We're all gonna dress up posh for that one.
Back to stuffing envelopes with CDs; I'm sending out to radio shows today, inlcuding Steve Lamacq and, if I can find the address, the DJ guy in Argentina who wrote to me about a year ago.

First Cd Orders

The first orders came in today; I found a little packet of original Chefs badges, so the first 25 orders will each get a free one. If you don't care, pass it on to someone who does!

Old People's Choir, young@heart

Did you see that programme last night? It was so wonderful, this choir of people who were really ancient, going off to sing rock cover versions to prisoners and making these hard guys weep with emotion. The high point was this little old lady and little old man singing 'I Feel Good' to a packed theatre. And they were enjoying themselves so much! Two of the old fellas died during the rehearsals, but the band carried on in their memory; there was one very poignant scene where the best friend of one of them sang a solo, his last ever with the choir, and you could hear his little air pump thing (he'd had a heart attack) whooshing gently in the background. It was brilliant, and their musical director was amazing; they were all a bit scared of him because he got so annoyed when they forgot the words. All the way through I was thinking, 'I WANT TO DO THAT!'. I'd always wanted to do songwriting with elders, and the closest I got was recording a demo with an old-people's singing group who wanted to get gigs in retirement homes; they had a mad Hindu priest accompanying them on electric piano, with a smiley smile that was so smiley it was scary, and I had to do a lot of takes because they kept booting the mike stands and rustling their sheet music mid-song. We got there in the end though; I still have the tapes somewhere!
It got me to thinking about what singing does for people, and I thought back to my frightening primary school, whose teachers beat us and shook us , and where our toilets were outside and housed the largest and slimiest snails you've ever seen. But every morning, before we went into our classrooms and shook with fear in case it was our turn, the school got together and sang a hymn. It was the most fantastic freedom, in spite of the fact that the rollickin' piano was being played by the nastiest teacher of all, Mrs Herdman (she had a 'female friend' called Mrs Oddie living in her loft, believe it or not!). But we, the schoolchildren, with our snotty noses, bad breath and dirty fingernails, became a sort of music mob and our voices escaped through the roof into outer space, even though we were physically imprisoned all day with all that violence. Sometimes I think that singing is manufactured out of anger, somehow converted from a destructive emotion, from something ugly into a free and lovely expression of self.

Hip Hop

A lot of rap music seems like jigsaws put together by arrogant young men living at home whose mums have bought them lots of jammy equipment out of their savings; every jigsaw has the same picture on the front.
(I heard a great track called The Booth the other day that was anything but that)

As Played by London Cabbies

My friend told me last night that her partner, who drives a Black Cab, has taken Suburban Pastoral with him to play as he drives round London! Wahey!
She and I were once going to run a pirate radio station from the back of a clapped-out mini. I had written Voxpop Puella and the idea was we'd drive round the suburbs, interrupting Radio One or whatever mindless station the home-maker was listening to, with feminist pop! Ha ha! She volunteered to build and broadcast, as she'd been in the Signals Corps as grammar school; I had a book that Alistair, the guy who was accused of biting a policeman in the Poll Tax Riots with somebody else's teeth (another story, another time), gave me, called 'Radio is My Bomb'. It was supposed to tell you how to build a radio transmitter, but he told me recently the instructions didn't work. It would have been a laugh, though, wouldn't it, like playing a trick on a teacher at school. Perhaps I should be thinking of ways to become a millionaire instead of daydreaming anarchy!

£50

Yes, that's what I found on the pavement a month ago. But I'd been having a horrendous run of bad luck and I decided I didn't want to be part of someone else's bad day (could have been someone's disability benefit or something) so I handed it in at the Police Station and immediately regretted it (£90 of parking fines...). However, no-one claimed it and today I went to pick it up; it had been sent away so I had to travel miles, and when I got there I waited 2 hours along with a bunch of people ( who were so dispirited they didn't even fidget), a broken 'It's your turn now' machine and a very, very stupid PC who took delight in doing everything immensely slowly on the other side of his glass panel. It was like watching the tropical fish bumble about their business: he even managed to blink slowly, and I know the clock on That Side Of The Glass was going at wind-up time, because on our side, we sure as heck were getting wound up. I almost gave up, but didn't want them to be spending someone's lost money, and my found money, on a Christmas bumper fun party they didn't deserve.
I was lucky; most people there were being kept waiting so they could report a theft. So I'm going to stop feeling miserable, dent my debts, and look forward to festivities to come. I think I will allow myself a huge bar of chocolate to celebrate!

Last call for Britannia Great

If you want to listen to, or download this track, hurry! I'm taking it off the Songbird site to replace it with new MP3s from artists performing at future nights.
www.myspace.com/songbirdclub

A terrific night!

The weird ones are always the best! (remind me to tell you about those nights in Hampstead). Tonight I played a benefit for East Barnet Festival at the Bull Theatre. First on was the Yag Dag Spro Ba Band, who played Tibetan-flavoured music; they had a really good double bass player who I plan to steal when the rest of the band aren't lookin'. Then a belly dancer writhed about on stage, much the joy of the male audience members (you could try denying it, guys, but I was in the wings watching the audience watching, and I saw what I saw), and then I went on with my trusty Gretsch; the D.I. box was picking up FM radio and I did at least half of the set not being able to hear my guitar at all but being able to hear an inane radio DJ blabbing away in DJ-tones.. extraordinaire! And then all down to the bar to hear the BMJ band, a big-band collective of elders playing banjos, mandolins and guitars, all grey and serious, 'Those Were the Days My Friend' and 'Paris Skies' sans swing, but with gravitas a-go-go!! Three cheers for the local!!! I even got to draw the raffle tickets, but when I drew my own numbers I generously foregoed (forwent? foregoo?) the pale blue skinny candles 12-pack and they went to someone else...
And Diana came and so did you, Monty, and The BMJ Band are playing the next Songbird with their customised music stands and embroidered sashes. What-ho Bertie, life is fun in the most peculiar way, and in the most peculiar places! (and I sold some CDs to boot!)
Oh yes, and big up the MCs, younger and older,in bow ties and suits,and their jokes so extraordinarily corny!

Birdbaby

My nephew, who is autistic, picked up an egg one day and said 'Birdbaby'. What beautiful poetry, all in one word.
At the dinner table, I asked him to please pass the tomato ketchup.
'NO', he bellowed, 'NOT BY THE HAIR ON MY CHINNY-CHIN-CHIN!
I can't remember who had hair on their chinny-chin-chin or which fairy tale it came from, but we almost choked on our chips!
Below is a link to Bobby Moore's article on The Slits- I'll try to html it later but sometimes the software on Blogger can't cope with more than one line, so it might just nbe better to paste it into your address bar if you want to have a look:
http://www.thewestgeorgian.com/media/storage/paper523/news/2006
/11/15/ArtsAndEntertainment/the-
Slits-2459140.shtml?norewrite200611150049&sourcedomain
=www.thewestgeorgian.com