Finito!

Work in Progress

The Male Producer's Ear As A Filter

https://www.rts.ch/play/radio/pony-express/audio/pony-music---intw-de-helen-reddington-chercheuse-a-luni-de-westminster-a-propos-de-lhistoire-des?id=9267846&station=8ceb28d9b3f1dd876d1df1780f908578cbefc3d7

With Clare, in the Youth Hostel in Lausanne where we did this interview earlier this month (there are more episodes later in the week).

Celebrating Shanne

This is to celebrate Shanne Bradley, founder member of The Nipple Erectors, who auditioned Shane McGowan (who recently celebrated his 60th birthday) for the band she was forming. Shanne is now a multi-instrumentalist.
Like a lot of women musicians at the time, history seems to want to forget her. She appears in our documentary Stories from the She-punks: music with a different agenda and is a wonderful raconteur. Just putting her back where she belongs!

Shortest Gig Review Ever

That was a bonzer gig last night, for a trillion reasons.
It
just
was.
Sending you love from Darn Sarf Brian, from everyone.

Latest Music Bar Tonight, Brighton

The weather is going to be perfect, the chops have been sharpened, the Horns have been assembled from far-flung and exotic places (Webridge, Southend and Watford). The set list is written, the French words learned and then forgotten, the Asbo Dereks preparing their provocations and searing pop. You must be mad not to come. I don't care if it feels like a long way from Hastings! I don't care if it feels like a long way from Pecehaven! I don't care if it feels like a long way from Rottingdean or Portslade! Or Firle, Hassocks or Lewes!
 It will be worth it, because you are worth it (apologies to hair shampoo and cosmetic manufacturers).

http://www.wegottickets.com/event/426899

French Footsteps

Friday in Brighton

This is one of only two Helen and the Horns gigs this year, supporting the fabulously astringent Asbo Derek in Brighton! Horns on stage 9 p.m. and Asbo on stage 10 p.m.
There will be vinyl on sale (old stuff from us, new stuff from the Asbos) and I will also be selling old stock of a Helen and the Horns compilation CD for a mere fiver (this isn't the Damaged Goods compilation, it's a CD that was brought out about ten years ago). Come along and dance your January blues away. There is no better plan for Friday evening, believe me.
Tickets: http://www.wegottickets.com/event/426899

Daylight Music Today at the Union Chapel

What? Wake up and do a gig at rock'n'roll breakfast time? Who are you kidding?
You know what, this event was a lovely surprise for a billion different reasons. You have to go along to one of these!
Outside it was chilly and drizzly, but Daylight Music know how to treat their artists, and they had piled the dressing room full of tea, coffee, quiche and cake. They had warmed the chapel up (did they start that last night?). There were helpers aplenty, everyone knew what they were doing (including us, the artists, because the communication with us was exemplary), so from the outset the omens were great.
The first act was the Perfect English Weather, aka the Popguns, with the pop but minus the guns (that didn't quite work, did it? But this was Wendy and Simon on guitars, with bass and drums in the imagination). Their songs are really memorable, and Wendy's strong, beautiful voice carried them up to the rafters of the chapel and beyond. They have new material that is every bit as catchy as the songs that I was more familiar with, and the audience drifted along with their easy, positive vibe and their irresistible warmth. Rain? Grey skies? Forget it! Magic happens at gigs like this, right from the start. The applause at the end of their set said it all.
In between sets, Simon Fox played ambient music on an acoustic guitar, which prevented the intrusion of music that nobody wanted to listen to, from somebody's iPod. Regular gig-goers will know how often this happens, and it was a stroke of genius to have this instead. This allowed change-overs to happen quickly and the genial MC Ben to get the audience ready for the next performer.
My bit? I loved it. There were a lot of people there but I could tell the sound engineer was doing a really good job. Church buildings can have weird acoustics but what was bouncing back sounded good. It was particularly nice that there were children there, running around dressed as princesses or just dressed as themselves- and lots of elders, too; this was a proper all-ages gig.
Judy Dyble (formerly of Fairport Convention) and Andy Lewis were augmented by a group that included drums, keyboards and autoharp, with Robert Rotifer, who like Andy plays in Louis Philippe's band, on acoustic guitar, and a violin player called Alison who plays with a band called The Left Outsides. Judy's voice is clear and warm, and there were lush vocal harmonies in their music, which I scribbled down as being pastoral psychedelic in style. Just when you thought a song was going to come down to land in a particular spot, it landed somewhere else; for a muso this is like a puzzle that has to be solved, and I now need to listen to lots of their songs to work out what is happening. Judy took 35 years off, and I'm bloody glad she's back again. Their version of Nick Drake's Northern Sky was so lovely it made me cry. There was something in it that summed up the whole experience: us in our coats sitting listening, children running around, people smiling, a lovely chapel in the middle of London on a rainy day, people having bothered to turn out on a Saturday lunchtime (about 275 people, apparently), being part of something like this when life has sometimes been so harsh. Music is a healer, and transcends the musicians who play it. Big thanks to John Jervis for putting this bill together, and inviting me.
The dressing room bantz was pretty cool, too.

Walk Tall

At the risk of repeating myself, this has long been my mantra. It wasn't what my Momma told me, but what Val said.

Words from a Wise Man

About ten years ago a Wise Man told me that some people accuse other people of doing exactly what they do themselves, and criticise them for it. This was an very interesting observation, and can help with the understanding of incomprehensible situations. It's also a warning to be careful of complaining and accusing, without checking first to make sure you're not guilty of exactly the same thing yourself.
Slogan t-shirt on the way...

R-R-R-R-R

The Last Line

Last line, last verse of the song. It took months with Heaven Avenue, and there's another one like that nagging away in my head. Just leave it on the shelf, get on with something else, and it will pop up like dawn on the horizon,

An Unusual Afternoon

Yesterday afternoon I took a group of MA students to The House of Commons to look around, and sit in the Visitors' Gallery. We were kindly invited by a chap who used to like The Chefs, and once we'd been through airport-style security, we had the opportunity to experience something that is a public right- entering the House of Parliament- shown round by someone who loves the place to bits.
It was incredibly impressive to stand in massive stone-flagged room that was built 1000 years ago, with a ceiling so high you felt that you'd need a helicopter to change the light bulbs. Everything in the building is beautifully crafted, from the mosaics on the floors to the wooden fretwork and panelling and the paintings that are hundreds of years old. I hadn't realised how badly bombed it had been in the second world war but much of it has been rebuilt, although some of the very old parts survived.
Our host was full of hilarious anecdotes- Michael Jackson trying to buy the gold throne in the House of Lords when he was given a tour, for instance.
In the visitors' gallery, we were prepared to be bored but there was a very interesting paper on Human Rights and the EU that involved some gracious interaction between the Labour and Tory MPs, with John Redwood sitting there and twitching with fury, trying to interject. It was a luxury to hear a well-researched and articulate discussion that was a million miles away from the irritating and publicity-seeking MPs who make sure they are splashed across the newspapers for saying practically nothing.
Going to witness government in action is an experience with much to recommend it, especially if you're feeling disillusioned with politics. It's not hot-headed and dramatic like Prime Minister's Questions, which is more of a furious showcase of party politics. This was the measured and well-argued presentation of facts.We could have sat there all afternoon, and I wish we had- apparently one of the Tories fell asleep later on during Ken Clarke's speech. But for a group of students, none of whom ticked the 'powerful British white man/woman' box, this was an oddly heartening experience.
Tip: make sure you haven't got a pair of scissors in the bottom of your bag!

Saturday at The Union Chapel: Daylight Music Presents...

This is a pay what you can gig. Come along at 12 after you've done your shopping at Lidls!