Settle

Settle tomorrow with Daintees! Can't wait!

Console-ing Passions, Leicester

Off to Leicester's De Montford University later this week to present the final version of my paper on reggae and punk women's bands. I am looking forward to the conference: mixing with academics is a whole different world to the world of music (and the world of lecturing) and feeds the brain no end.
Till then, life is more mundane: I'm washing dusters!

Rockin'!

Gonzo #31 Interview About Pussy Riot Launch

http://us6.campaign-archive2.com/?u=66d407e1f55721a2ff0351da3&id=0965fffec8

Stageit Show on 14th July

Silly time- 5.45- but you can watch it while you eat your High Tea!

http://www.stageit.com/helenmccookerybook/live_from_my_kitchen/25271

Yesterday

Ah- should have been at the gig, all you readers who checked out the Eyre Chapel posting yesterday. Someone was filming it for Youtube, I think. It was a Solstice delight.

Rain Cover (Thanks The Mouth Magazine)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9tDNkgqbrGc

Framus: a Project

Not that I need one; in fact it provided the perfect prevarication because I should have been editing sound for a paper I'm presenting at the Console-ing Passions Conference at De Montfort University on Tuesday... I'll have to rise early tomorrow!
I was heading out with my guitar yesterday and firstly had to stop to clear up the debris from my bin bags that a fox had decorated the street with, and then spotted a poorly-looking Framus guitar in a charity shop on the way to the tube station. It leapt into my arms with a pring of recognition, and who was I to resist?
I have spent the afternoon cleaning it with guitar polish, Pledge (mmm, yum yum smell) and Brasso.
In fact, my cleaning was so efficient that I cleaned the brass 'Framus' logo off the top of it.
I found 'Fram' on the floor after it impaled my foot and I'll endeavour to glue it back on tomorrow; it's on the mantlepiece looking sorry for itself. I know this sounds like an example of over scrubbiness but the whole creature was covered with brown sticky stuff, and underneath it the wood has a lovely patina which is gradually revealing itself.
The action is hopelessly high and it has four thick goo-encrusted strings on it so it'll be off to Guitar Hospital for a set-up soon to see if it sounds any good. It will be a loud guitar, judging by the noise it emits when the four strings are brushed. Made in Bavaria: cue lederhosen and red felt braces.
There is news on the Helen and the Horns front! Watch this space....

Eyre Chapel, Newbold

Lovely gig tomorrow- Eyre Chapel near Chesterfield supporting Martin. It is an intimate and unique venue tucked behind a pub in Newbold Village.
Tickets are available here: http://www.wegottickets.com/event/216971

Flying to Brighton

I booked a seagull. Hanging on to its webbed feet, I flew to Brighton for the afternoon to visit the Offsprogs.
The sea was hidden in white vapour. Offsprog One's friend was painting a gallery front black.
'They say the fog is going to turn to mist later on' he informed us.
We looked impressed.
'What is the difference between fog and mist?'
We didn't know, and vanished into the pale gloom.
Later, we picked our way through rubbish. There is a waste disposal strike in Brighton, just like in the 1970s. There seem to be a lot of dried up carrots in the mix.
'I keep standing on nappies', said Offsprog Two.
I bought some silver coloured shoes half price in the sale.
I rode a squirrel home but it was a bit lazy and took ages.
I wished I'd booked the seagull to bring me home again.

Review of Martin Stephenson's Stageit Show

What better way to spend a Monday evening than sitting in the kitchen with a box of ripe strawberries and watching Martin's Stageit show? The anticipation articulated by the subscriber chat in the side-bar was a treat too, as we waited for the countdown from as far afield as Greece, Ireland, Sunderland and Cornwall. And wherever you were...
Sitting in front of a painted set from a theatrical production about the life of Charlie Poole, he began with a short-but-sweet rendition of Soloman to check the volume levels- they were fine, and intimate sounding as they should be for a living-room performance. Requests came flooding in from the feed at the side as we heard Nancy, and Martin swapped to a semi-acoustic for a brilliant rendition of Morning Time to a flurry of Nutella jokes from the silent audience across the net. Morning Time is one of those genius songs that makes me yearn to be able to pick like Martin and despite being written years ago it keeps its air of spontaneity whenever he plays it. Channeling Charlie Poole, he played Sweet Cherwine, a self-cmposed song that pays tribute to one of his songwriting heroes. As the concert progressed, Martin became visibly more relaxed and proved he's got the groove with a version of Orange. The drinkalonga Martin guys requested and received Little Red Bottle and an 8-year old fan heard his request for Boat to Bolivia. As the 30-minute mark was reached, Martin played out with Me and Matthew; Stageit allowed and encore an we heard the newish song Ride (Jim Hornsby's fave), some ragtime playing, Slaughterman (one of my faves), the genius song Rain (why hasn't it been covered a million times?) and Colleen, before being played out with the Reverend Gary Davis. The sidebar banter added to the atmosphere and made Martin laugh from time to time.
As you can see, the little e-gig was packed with music. These broadcasts are going to become a regular thing- hats off to Andy Cairns for rounding up the troops for the second concert.
Ta-ra for now!

Declaring Time

I have finished academic paper number one. Every time I looked at it it looked worse, so I decided to call it a day. I was challenging myself so much by the end that I almost turned inside out.
I still think it might be best as a Radio Two show, but I've done my best. Just have to take it into work tomorrow and convert it into a Word file to iron out some formatting glitches.
Paper two I have to disentangle from 30,000 words but I'm looking forward to that. It is more challenging still but it's a lively subject (to say the least).
the rest of today will be spent watching Wallender on catch-up, tussling with a song I'm writing, and later, watching Martin Stephenson's Stageit concert!
http://www.stageit.com/martin_stephenson_highland_trio/live_in_your_lounge_from_martin_s_hoose/24101

Launch: Let's Start a Pussy Riot

Some might say it is postmodern, but actually The South Bank was chaotic  yesterday afternoon. Families collided against each other, and young people with clipboards clutched to their chests like shields looked anxiously for others whose t-shirts matched their own for a sense of community. People sat at tables with leaflets, and a Steampunkish man made announcements through a loud hailer, while simultaneously being photographed and filmed as he apparently gave a running commentary on what was happening now (or should that be 'what is happening now'? Dammit, the moment's passed). Add intermittent showers to the mix and some very firm-to-rude security guards at the doors of the Queen Elizabeth Hall, and it was tempting to go home.
But I didn't want to leave without a copy of Let's Start a Pussy Riot in my hands and I'm glad I persevered: and I'm also glad I had the patience to attend the whole event, the launch which had occasional clunky moments and occasionally prompted me to question what artistic freedom is about.
Emily Neu, who put the book together (what a feat! it is a beautiful book) and the editor Jade French (much hard work!) sat together and talked through the process of creating the book briefly before inviting Fox, who had appeared an a Channel 4 TV programme about gender realignment, to talk. Fox has artwork in the book and he is a guerilla artist, pasting photographs of transgender people in public loos. He was joined by Finnish musician and film-maker 'E' who showed a film that told the story of a motley crew of presumably gay men being interrupted in their revels by a group of white-clad homophobic religious people. What bothered me was that the first punch was thrown at a woman, by one of the men. Elias was asked about any controversy thrown up by the film and he said it was mostly to do with the smoking of cigarettes by the actors. I found the film upsetting, because alongside the thread about celebration of (male) gay lifestyles was one of violence against a woman.
I think I was primed by the horrible exhibition that I wrote about yesterday to notice things like this.
However, these feelings soon vanished as Katya joined us via Skype for a very short interview. My skin began to tingle- I found this a profoundly moving moment and I actually started to cry. They have been so brave: witness what has happened to Litvinenko and various other Russian dissidents. I am certain that it is only the international attention that we give to Pussy Riot that keeps them safe. Katya looked so young and vulnerable. I hope she heard our applause.
Then two members of the Pussy Riot collective joined the stage, with their translator (who did a fantastic job). This was truly bizarre. Wearing balaclavas as part of their stated desire 'not to be part of a world that creates stars, celebrities and famous people' (and also I imagined, for safety), they spoke through voice changers and an interpreter (whose voice also took on the Dalek timbre from time to time as she swopped microphones). This was political performance art; occasionally their wisdom was punctuated by a giggle, rendered sinister through the voice-changer. Their message was of individual empowerment: 'We look on our actions as a fight for art'. An audience member asked them if they were afraid when they protested.
'Our actions are more important than fear'.
One of the many reasons that I support Pussy Riot is that they have picked up something that surfaces at times in history and made it their own: the desire for change, and the feeling that the potential for change resides in each individual person in every aspect of their lives.
I felt this at the age of 5 when I was taken on an Aldermaston March by my parents against nuclear weapons. It was embodied in punk and has recently erupted in communities across the world.
This feeling should not just belong to young people. We should never stop caring and never become complacent.
Incidentally, they told us that under Russian law, a prison sentence can be postponed until a convicted person's children are 14 years of age. This makes the incarceration of Nadya, who has young children, all the more brutal. She has only seen her children once a year.
So, to go back to the Finnish video. I have been thinking a lot about artistic and political freedom, partly because of a concern for the proliferation of pornography on the internet. It is difficult to work out what to think and how to articulate it. Perhaps today's personal position is that people who use artistic freedom to abuse other people are abusing freedom itself. But then where does this leave me, the creator of Boriceberg?
The sketch above was drawn because we were not allowed to take photographs. I was going to draw a more finished one but this spontaneous scribble seems more free!
Book available here: http://store.roughtraderecords.com/Store/LetsStartAPussyRiot.html

Let's Start A Pussy Riot Book Launch at Yoko Ono's Meltdown Today

http://www.southbankcentre.co.uk/whatson/activism-weekend-77002

Alternative Guide to the Universe- The Hayward Gallery

This is a weird exhibition. I had expected a much more positive and entrancing experience when I went along with my friend. Nova Castria.
I'd torn a page out of the Guardian and watched a preview on the local BBC News programme and was expecting an afternoon of inspiration.
Instead, I felt a sense of being trapped in the heads of obsessive men, whose attempts to nail down the beauty of life in mathematical schemes and quasi-scientific diagrams reminded me of people at school who seemed to be afraid of the realities of life and who hunkered down spinning protective webs of pencil lines and shooting missiles of carefully formed semi-algebraic numbers and letters at intruders.
That was not the worst of it. As I wandered past a wall of intricately-designed building plans created to represent people by the 'artist' A.G. Rizzoli, I realised that at least two of the buildings were representations of young girls who visited his house to see the exhibitions of his work that he staged there.
Eh?
I went across to read the information about the lifelong virgin whose work, he says, diverts urges that might be taboo should he put them into practice, or something along those lines.
So the guy realised he was a latent paedophile? So what is his work doing here?
Worse still were the horrible dolls made by Morton Bartlett, who took a year to make each one and learned to sew and knit so he could dress them and then pose them as ballerinas and so on.
I know a lot of women who make dolls and am not expressing a prejudice agains men doing this. But there was something more than creepy about the way the dolls were posed, and the physical early-adolescent bodies of his subjects. Really nasty.
Nova Castria also really disliked the work of Eugene Von Bruenchenhein, which she nicknamed 'Reader's Wives'. The guy had photographed his wife in many poses, sometimes naked. Pictures of their claustrophobic relationship scattered the walls with obsessive repetition.
This is a vile exhibition. We felt tainted by it all afternoon, and our visit to Tate Modern was tempered by an over-heightened awareness of what painters actually might be thinking when they create art that features women and children.
Ugh, ugh, ugh!
To be boycotted at all costs.