Because

Gig Tonight at Latest Music Bar, Brighton

I'll be playing from 8 till 8.45, songs from the forthcoming album which I have been working on, (currently being recorded with Ian Button), and also some songs from the past which I'm hoping to remember the lyrics of after a late night back from Liverpool. Thanks to everyone who came, Doc'n'Roll for organising, Kirsty and Amy and it was lovely to see you, Holly Tessler and Sara Cohen.
I sat and watched the ferry cross the Mersey, and also the big guy who drew in from the Isle of Man with three kicking feet going round in circles. It reminds me of that Boy Scout thing, where if you stand a big group of people closely together in a circle all facing the same way, and someone shouts 'Sit!', you all end up perched on each other knees, perfectly balanced.
Actually, it doesn't really, come to think of it.

Asbo Derek are also playing and I know they have been recording new stuff so I'm really looking forward to that, and the Pat Fish, the Jazz Butcher. Everything finishes at 11 so you can go for a romantic walk along the seafront afterwards, if you are so inclined.

Coventry Culture Show Broadcast Saturday 8 a.m.

This will be broadcast tomorrow: it's an interview with Neil Wilkes about my gig at The Tin with The Sunbathers and Peter Hall on the 10th of May , and also the screening of the film at Temperance in Leamington Spa on the following day at 2 p.m.

http://www.962touchfm.co.uk/on-air/neil-wilkes/

Tickets for the Tin

https://www.ents24.com/coventry-events/the-tin-at-the-coal-vaults/helen-mccookerybook/5476764

Tickets for the screening

https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/film-screening-stories-from-the-she-punks-tickets-55695863828

Come to both!

Stories from the She-Punks: music with a different agenda, at The British Music Experience in Liverpool

The film screening starts at 6.30 p.m. toning in Liverpool, and afterwards there will be a Q & A which I'm travelling up for. No Gina at this one, unfortunately, but w have shared out the travelling and there will be at least one of us, and sometimes two, at every screening.
If you can get to the Liverpool one tonight, here is the link to the venue:
http://www.britishmusicexperience.com/whats-on/events/docn-roll-stories-from-she-punks-plus-qa-with-helen-reddington/

Mum's Revenge

Due to unfeasibly early start when a huge car transporter rolled up to take away my killer car, I'm listening to Vic's new album which turned up this morning and is going to 'drop' on Mother's Day.
I have stopped reviewing albums but this is a listen, not a review. So...

My favourite track is Opus, a wobbly Northern Soul track, although I also like Neil Palmer's spoken word track, and Lessons 2B Learnet, which is quite Beefeartish. I love Inertia, which is downright bonkers. There is a thread of scratchy Sterling Morrison influenced guitar all the way through.
It's not a schmoove album by any stretch of the imagination. Hooray!

Shouts to Ruth, Dave and all the others on this album. It feels particularly friendly.
Oh yes, and I sing a Francoise Hardy duet with Vic on it, too.

Doc'n'Roll She-Punks Screenings In Full

LIVERPOOL  @ BME 18:30 29th March + Helen Q&A

BRIGHTON @ PH Komedia 18:30 5th April + Helen Q&A

EDINBURGH  @ Cameo 18:00 26th April + Helen and Gina Q&A

NOTTINGHAM @Broadway 18:30 10th May + Gina Q&A

Leamington Spa Temperance 2 p.m. 11th May (not Doc'n'Roll) + Helen

MANCHESTER @HOME 18:00 1st June + Helen and Gina Q&A

BRISTOL @ The Watershed 17:00 14th June + Helen and Gina Q&A

GLASGOW @CCA 17:00 29th June  + Helen Q&A

Tickets https://www.docnrollfestival.com/fi…/stories-from-she-punks/

More Writing

Yesterday I did more writing on the chapter on Oh Bondage! Up Yours. There is so much to say- and a lot of it has already been said. There is also a lot to read, and a lot to disagree with.
One of the books has a chapter that derides writing on punks for essentially, fake anti-racism.
This is very difficult to read, because it is untrue. The racists punks were completely blatant about it and this is one of the reasons why other punks decisively played gigs with reggae bands, and in solidarity with gay and lesbian bands, and so on. The writer castigates punks for focusing on 'British Afro-Caribbeans' instead of British Asians who were bearing the brunt of white racism.
There was a Dean here at the University of the East who made an appointment for me to see him about two years ago, just as he was leaving to go to a job at the UN. I couldn't understand why he'd done this.
At the meeting, he said that he had invited me there because I used to be a punk, and he wanted to talk to a person like me on behalf of his family. He had been brought up in west London, and Skinheads had regularly posted turds though his family's letterbox on Friday nights and harassed them by banging on their front door. He told me that the worst thing was the Fridays that they didn't do this; it was the stress of wondering if, and when, they were going to come.
His older brother had started attending a Youth Club and had met a bunch of punks, and he told them what was happening. The punks had immediately started supporting him and his family, against the grain of what the Skinheads were doing. He had wanted to say thank you to a person who had been involved in punk ever since.
For young people at that time, it was actually very difficult to go against the grain of what TV, the newspapers and some of the older generation wanted us to think, and who they wanted us to associate with. They were violent times, and sticking up for what you believed in could put you into frightening situations; it was moving to hear that some of our generation had been so supportive to a family that needed to feel safe and protected against racist Skinheads.
And now I have to go back to reading the book.
Just needed a rant.

March, The Month For Marching

Everyone has a different opinion about this march and what it was about. I found it galling to listen to the Tories speaking from the platform when they are the party of cruelty and dishonesty, and they set this foul ball rolling in the first place.

What was my reason? I wanted to be part of a group of people who show the world that Britain is not a small-minded and xenophobic country, but that we have an open attitude and a generally loving population who accept other people and other cultures because we all share one small planet, address: The Solar System, The Universe.

We are insignificant mayflies who light up and are extinguished in a cosmic nanosecond. We are inextricably knitted together with each other and with the rest of nature and just because a bunch of pointless psychopaths have grabbed the microphones and are shouting through them, that doesn't make them noble, truthful or respectable.

Thank you Offsprog Two for coming with me. Ofsprog One was working, but we represented her.

FilmLiverpoolFriday

Hanging Day

Its so peculiar to have a day when I'm not working flat-out.
I have so many things to do, but I'm too tired to use my brain for anything.
I have been moth-hunting, done a bit of half-hearted gardening, put a load of clothes on eBay, sold my car for scrap (pending) and painted a chair with Hammerite.
I have also eaten a pie (got the bug from recording sessions), paid the Council Tax and Water bills, and eaten a bag of chocolate eggs.
Now I'm sitting staring into space, and listening to birds announcing spring in various different voices and a variety of different styles.
How very lovely!

Dreaming of Narcissus

This was originally written for a children's musical performance at Brentford Sports Centre: 500 children who attended Kevin Dowsett's Theatretrain drama school sessions.
Lester Square wrote some songs and I wrote this one, which is about Salvador Dali. All of the songs were about artists, and the songs were arranged by Shirley Bassey's arranger apart from this, which was almost entirely acapella.

The Pub

Someone shared this photograph on social media a while ago, and yes, it's The Birthday Party, but it's also The Pub. I can't even remember it's name, but for about two or three years, this pub was our living room. I lived in a decaying bedsit in Chatsworth Road, a long road that stretched between Kilburn Tube station and the armpit of Willesden Green. There was only room for my bed and a piano, plus a borrowed colour TV set that only worked in red and green (psychedelic!) and that I used to change channels on by jabbing at it with a long pole from my bed. Around eighteen of us lived there with loads of cats, a dog and a budgie, I believe, and it could not have been a more diverse group of people. The chap downstairs used to watch Ayatollah videos at maximum volume and beat up his wife, so I sometimes had to go and knock on his door and threaten to call the police unless I heard her say she was OK. Paul McGann (the actor) lived upstairs with Annie, who was  stage manager, and his brother Steve lived there too for a while. Treacle and Charlotte lived there, and Ruth, and Marek Kohn (who is now a very successful writer). So did Glen and a whole bunch of other people including Andy, who fixed our electricity meters so we could put the same 50 pence in over and over again.
The Pub was over the road from Ark PR, Claudine, Chris and Gaylene's independent PR company in the basement of an anonymous building on Kilburn High Road. This was where 'meetings' happened (actually, bonding sessions) with their bands. Chris looked after The Birthday Party, but for us up the road, it was where we came in the evenings to hang out because our rooms were barely big enough to socialise in. We laughed, rowed, got drunk, planned, commiserated, and crossed the road with a tide of people at 10.30 to the pubs in Camden, which closed at 11 (this one was in Brent, and they all closed at 10.30).
I could look back on my life and see a senseless pile of disasters and crashes, or I could look back and see a crazy connection of accidental opportunities and extraordinary adventures. It's the latter life that belongs to me; there have been two funerals this year of significant people (not just to me, but to two whole communities of friends), and that makes it feel all the more important to reflect on the past from time to time. I love the way that we intersect with each other's lives, colonise places temporarily, talk, listen and just generally be human beings.
(excuse the mawkish post, this is the first day off I've had for about a month!)

17 To 12

We have recorded seventeen tracks, and now I have to choose twelve to make an album out of. Some fo the songs have been hovering around for years, and others are brand new. There is a ten day ears-rest and think-break.
I still haven't got a name for it, either, but that's nice: almost like the icing in a cake that gets put on last.
I have loved every minute of doing this album, and will miss the recording sessions when it is finished.

I haven't been doing many wordy postings, mainly due to the amount that I've been working; lecturing has been full on but very rewarding, although the 43 websites being handed in next Thursday are a terrifying prospect particularly since I have to mark them straight away because online work can be altered at any time.

Life is surreal: moths have now completely taken over the house despite early morning hunting expeditions with a lurid green Robert Dyas 'feather duster' and a healthy dose of moth-rage.

And the poor car, languishing on Gumtree. Alas, it's the scrap merchants on Saturday so I can reboot and re-wheel, for very soon touring starts and so does travelling with the documentary.

Here on the red chairs, students have been showing up every half an hour since 10.30 a.m.
At 3, I got a tea break.
Will the late afternoon students show up?
If not, I'm off to TK Maxx to look for bargainz, or ugly things to feel pity for. In fact, I think I'll do that anyway.

Screenings Start...

This is off to Brighton: a hard drive with the film on it. First screening in Liverpool next Friday!

No Hate Plz: Newcastle