Helen McCookerybook

Cabbage Soup

2010-02-08T20:29:00.000Z

After wrapping the pansies I bought yesterday in polythene because of the snow, I headed down to Katy's for Song Circle.
She lives off Marylebone High Street and the yummy smell of soup curled down the stairway as I puffed and panted up a million flights of stairs to her eyrie above the chimney pots. She was disappointed recently to discover that the Grand Piano she'd been given couldn't get up the stairs, so she has bought something like eight ukeleles to compensate. They hang on her walls, twinkling with potential.
We sat and drank tea till Nadya arrived. Our subject has been 'house' and Katy played hers first- almost a mazurka, it was a bouncy song about how much she loves her flat and how she'd like to win the lottery so she could buy it! The lady upstairs gave her wardrobes when she moved out the other day and Katy has tidied up and was excited to show us. She has wonky floors like me and has to shove bits of folded cardboard under the legs of things to stop them tipping drunkenly; it made me optimistic that contrary to my fears, my house is not in imminent danger of falling down.
Nadya's song wasn't finished yet, but we've decided to make the next session 'finished songs'.
Her song was all about the flavours of living in Tottenham- all the things she can hear around her from her house. Nadya's songs are simple and poetic, and I told her that she should keep them like that: it's a good style to start off from.
I was last, and mine wasn't finished either; but I remembered enough of it to do it. Mine was the House On The Hill, about living in a beautiful house that has no heart because it doesn't want people in it, just sunshine. Nadya told me at was the best song I have written so far.
The woman across the road told me while I was moving out that the two other families who had lived there before us had divorced too. It was a beautiful but poisonous house, destroying three marriages.
I didn't tell the family who moved in. Maybe they will break the pattern: I hope so.

Twillings on a Sunday Evening

2010-02-07T18:50:00.001Z

The alarm went off shortly after five this morning. Except it wasn't the alarm- it was a vivid dream, over-efficient in the sound department. Indignant, I tried without success to go back to sleep.
Dag
Nabbit!

Whippersnapper didn't want to go back to the vets, understandably; but I had to show the vet that I could inject him with insulin, so we went at the crack of dawn in spite of his loud protestations, and a small pot of insulin has joined the wrinkled old ginger root and the empty egg-compartment in the fridge door.
I bowled down to Brighton, getting there in record time, and took Offrprog One for Tapas before helping her to move a couple of heavy boxes of clothes and books into a warm, dry, tiny room that only has room for half her stuff. She is disorientated, and I hope a night's rest in a better room will help.

I bought some pots of pansies on the way back, in a effort to prompt the onset of spring, and now I'm going to sit with my guitar ad try to join some words with some chords via a melody, because it's Song Circle tomorrow and I haven't done my song yet.
Cheerio!

It Never Rains But It Paws

2010-02-06T21:54:00.000Z

Whippersnapper was fading so fast today, I took him to the vet, who took blood to test and sent us home; five minutes after we got back, the phone rang and we were back again, so I could learn how to give an insulin injection: he has diabetes.
Offsprog Two remarked that every time he goes to the vet he returns with a different part of his body shaved. He looks like a Premiership footballer with his fancy haircarvings.
Meanwhile, McMum slipped on the ice for the second time since Christmas and has broken her arm and must sleep sitting up.
And Offsprog One is moving house tomorrow; after I've shown the vet that I can inject Whippernapper successfully I'm driving to Brighton.
The University of Brighton has a housing service, Unihomes, which seems to be totally irresponsible and totally unregulated: they gave a builder a key one Saturday morning to just let himself into a flat with 3 teenage women in it- outrageous.
And then her room got colder, and damper, and colder, and damper, and her clothes went mouldy in the wardrobe and her leather belt grew green fur on it, and the ink ran on her drawings, and the Unihomes people git cheekier and cheekier and told the girls that their landlords had terminal cancer- which was true, but how cruel to use that as an excuse!
They missed appointments, letting their tenants down, who had taken precious time off University to wait in for them. Poor Offsprog 1 has been camping out in the tiny living room, after finding a collection of slugs behind her wardrobe.
Finally, she is moving to a little room around the corner and I'm going down to help her move her stuff.

There is good news as well though: Martin has agreed to play Club Artyfartle, and it will be lovely to have him there. It's going to be a very special night. And this weekend I'm playing the Cluny 2 in Newcastle with Martin and Gemma, a full set of songs.
Lots of people have been buying Skifflecat White Cat guitars after they got a good review in Guitar and Bass magazine, all thanks to Liz for telling them about the company.

All we need now is a bit of spring sunshine and a chocolate tap in the bathroom.

Club Artyfartle

2010-02-06T13:13:00.000Z

I think I've sorted the line-up for Club Artyfartle, although I have yet to contact the poet I'd like to do it.
Planz, planz...
24th February
The Perseverance
11 Shroton Street
Marylebone
NW1
8 pee em

A Good Exhibition To Go To

2010-02-05T17:34:00.001Z

Yesterday I took my Songwriting group from the University of the West to the Identity exhibition at the Wellcome Foundation on Euston Road.
This was to show them how important it is to be aware of what's happening around you culturally if you are involved in the creative arts, and also to try to get them to think about their own identities before they start writing songs.
I asked each person to try to define themselves in four lines of poetry before next week, when they will play me songs they've written before.
It's a good exhibition, almost amateurish in its presentation and almost arbitrary in its chosen definitions of identity, but all the better for that. The students liked a sort of delayed-image mirror that disconnects you from your self-image. I liked a small set of diaries; "I'm not that sort of girl!' someone had exclaimed in big letters. I also liked a series of photographs in the eugenics section, of Chatham Shipyard workers, Westminster Schoolboys and murderers, differentiated mainly by their haircuts. Most of the shipyard workers had their thumbs in their non-existent lapels, trying to look authoritative; the schoolboys had foppishly shiny hair, and none of the murderers looked remotely guilty.
I was delighted that my students had introduced themselves to the Museum attendants. That bodes well!
Exhibition: free
Cafe: brilliant
Vibe ****

Hitchhiking

2010-02-04T07:32:00.000Z

While I was at Brighton Art College, my boyfriend was an aspiring film-maker.
Imagine his glee when, hitchhiking to Pontefract one day, we were given a lift by Ken Russell in his blonde Rolls Royce to match his tumbling grey-blond curls!

2010-02-03T21:56:00.002Z

Tube, For No Particular Reason

2010-02-03T17:58:00.002Z

Liquorice

2010-02-03T17:57:00.000Z

Whippersnapper cat has a fetish for melon; he snorts and grunts as he snaffles it, and has been known to steal the rind from the recycling in the middle of the night for a midnight feast.
His latest passion is for liquorice.
I can eat it because it's cholesterol-free, and he's been trying to climb into my mouth just now, with a fiendish look in his eye and a sniffing set of nostrils, growling with gleeful anticipation. I had to bung it all in my mouth to stop him, but he then tried to eat the packet and I'm sitting on that now to hide it from him.
He's mad.

Bits

2010-02-02T17:27:00.000Z

Today's been a bits day; there have been lists written on bus tickets, corners of magazines, envelopes and all sort of other scraps of paper, and they had to be acted upon at some time.
So the lovely beige 70s phone with working dial went back to Past Times (dial not working after only being used about 15 times).
The resulting refund bought half a week's shopping including catfood for Whippernapper, who has brought on this belt-tightening episode.
I wrote to Ashgate asking if they're going to bring out a paperback, 'cos if not, I will try to find a publisher who will.
I looked for lashings of grey wool in the loft to give to Gina, who is making 'Birchbags', felted wool bags with spotty linings. Alas, Gina, I fear I gave it to the charity shop before I moved.
I put a newspaper on the floor in an attempt to find out if the constant puddle is coming from above or below the vinyl flooring.
I cleared a runway in my room; shelves are going up tomorrow so I might even be able to walk in front of the window from now on!
I read the newspaper and recycled it half an hour later.
I drew a poster for Club Artyfartle and messed up the writing so I'll have to do it again.
I wrote to my students about the mysterious field trip I'm taking them on on Thursday.
I ate liquorice.
I threw away the bits of paper that I'd done the things written on (?)
I wrote this.

The Chefs

2010-02-02T13:55:00.000Z

I've just learned from Nick Greenwood, Russell's brother, that there is to be a Brighton Bands Day in October, with people re-forming to play.
I have often wondered what it would be like to play with the original Chefs again, but I don't think it would be the same without Russell there.
We haven't been asked anyway!

Yep, It's A Multiposting Day

2010-02-01T23:17:00.000Z

Phil at punkbrighton.co.uk has put up a gallery of Chefs pictures that I sent him a while ago (some are wrongly captioned). They are at http://punkbrighton.co.uk/chefsgal.html on the excellent site, which really captures the spirit of the Brighton punk and post-punk scene.
Phil has written a book about those times too, but I think the publishers keep delaying it, which must be incredibly frustrating for him. I can't wait to read it.
I doubt whether there's as truthful and interesting a site about a local music scene anywhere else in the world, but of course I am wildly biased, having been in three of the bands (Joby and the Hooligans, The Smartees and The Chefs) and having known just about all of them, no mean feat given the quantity of groups in Brighton in the late 1970s!
He includes fanzines, posters, badges, and all sorts of other stuff that builds up an idea of the power of the do-it-yourself world we all inhabited. It was a full-time occupation and the whole place was absolutely fizzing with energy, terrifying the Police and the local council (and quite a few snarly minicab drivers).
It was so creative, just like punk scenes everywhere: that's what people forget or simply don't realise.
It wasn't all about clothes or worshipping Malcolm McLaren: not for us, anyway.
Life was a vacuum and we filled it up with music, art, our own sort of clothes, fanzines, posters, politics and talk, putting on gigs and other events and refusing to lie down and suffer the consequences of not having a job.
Once on Radio 4 they set me up against Suzy Quatro, who set off on a little diatribe about women musicians in punk bands being not very good at music, how dare they, etc etc etc.
I knew she was quite a Tory, and I pointed out that the choice was either to do nothing, or to start something up and make a life for yourself, which is what a lot of that female music-making was about.
Entrepreneurial, n'est ce pas?
She agreed with me.

They're Taking Our Jobs

2010-02-01T18:47:00.000Z

Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I am appalled that even some of my students, who should be more enlightened, come out with this rubbish.
I remember quite clearly that in the late 1970s it was us females that were supposedly taking all the jobs.
We were part of the cause of mass unemployment. We were supposed to stay at home and look after the working males, not go out to work ourselves (what were we supposed to do until we were married?).
Don't believe what the silly chattering papers tell you!
I used to feel incredibly sorry for the doctors, accountants and other professionals at my daughters school who were forced to take menial jobs because they were refugees. I felt that their skills must surely be useful in Britain.
In a world recession, there is bound to be unemployment. It's horrible not having a job: my former partner and myself spent half of the 1980s and half of the 1990s constantly being made redundant, over and over again. You'd start a job, work for a few weeks and then the boss would come in with a grave face and break the bad news.
t was utterly dispiriting. I worked as a cleaner of retirement homes for mentally handicapped people; he worked as a cleaner at Earl's Court. We had an empty fridge almost all the time and a sweet kind milkman who gave use free milk until he got arrested for being Robin Hood. We wore our clothes out and went to the Post Office with so many letters of application that we wore a hole in the pavement.
How dreary that it is all happening again!
We mustn't scapegoat other people for imaginary reasons.
Artists, craftspeople and musicians, we need to share our skills so that people without jobs don't feel ashamed and useless.
If we are in work, we must not resent supporting people who are waiting to work again, and we must understand the depression of those who are long-term unemployed.
There is such a thing as society, and unfortunately it appears to have little control over its destiny, but to sway from one extreme to the other at the mercy of corporate financiers.

Work in Progress

2010-02-01T14:01:00.000Z

Guitars: a Twilling

2010-02-01T14:00:00.000Z

Fretboards: you get to know them like friends.
My most comfortable one is the old red Gretsch I used to play in Helen and the Horns and that I keep by the fire to write songs on. I feel like I could play anything on that guitar and it's totally relaxing to play. It's an old pal.
The Martin acoustic has a flat fretboard with an easy action: sometimes my fingers cause the strings to squeak but it's lovely for bar chords as it's so gentle to play. It's got an amazing sound, acoustic and amplified, and does 50% of the work for you. It can perform unplugged or not, and accompanied me in the studio last week, sounding absolutely amazing.
The new pistachio-green Gretsch can be challenging but it still feel shiny and new; there's something quite rocky about the way it feels, even though I sometimes play quite jazzy chords. I think every time I play it it's amplified, and this makes me feel powerful when I touch the strings.
The Telecaster is more of a stranger but it feels exciting and punky and brash and honest. That's one I have to get to know a bit better.
The Hofner is on holiday with Martin at the moment. It has a strange thick neck like a Southern farmer in the USA, with a wide open feel that gives me different sorts of songs when I write on it. It sounds twangy and reminds me of sunshine.
I sold my Spanish guitar to a girl in a red beret and felt very happy about that; she told me she was a beginner songwriter and I told her the guitar was full of songs. I wrote lots of my first new songs on it (London for instance) when I started up again, and all the childrens' songs for Song Club. I haven't missed it, as it was quite hard to play although its sound was deep and mellow and woody.

I meant to watch the Mo Mowlam film last night but got totally distracted by drawing a poster for one of Martin's gigs, and also reading Marion Leonard's book, Gender in the Music Industry. I love Julie Walters and I thought Mo Mowlam was a very interesting woman. I do hope they repeat it.

I was delighted that McSis and her partner Paul, who plays sax with me sometimes, both liked my new album. Martin phoned and helped me to weed out the rogue track, and it just needs putting into order.
I have put one or two tracks up on Myspace.

Time to take Whippersnapper to the vets for blood tests.
'Bye.

Offsprog One's Joke

2010-01-31T21:53:00.002Z

With what sort of cheese does one hide a horse?
Mascarpone.

Making Casserole for McSis and Family's Sunday Lunch

2010-01-31T12:45:00.002Z

Row, row, row, row the boat
Gently down the stream;
Celery, celery, celery, celery,
Life is but a dream.

Musical Variety Night

2010-01-30T17:04:00.000Z

On Thursday I went to Acton Bell's Musical Variety Night at the Perseverance. I like it there and I like Acton Bell's nights. Alec Dunnachie was M.C. and told us all a long shaggy dog story with great authority, producing a pair of burnt sausages from his pocket at the end that he informed us were the fingers of a piano player who had upset his music-hall colleague by flirting with his lady-friend, prompting him to strangle the lady-friend with a piano wire and sit on the piano lid while the piano player was playing, thus chopping off his fingers.
Alex's stories are believable up to a point, the point differing according to who is listening!
Portia Winers played first, creating song-soundscapes on-the-go, short and catchy and experimental all at once- she's a very interesting performer to watch.
Trees and the Slipway played again, genial as always, and this time reminding me of Nirvana, probably because that's who I listened to last! I like the way their music bowls along; their Casio keyboard player produced a sea of crumpled paper from his bag looking for instructions for their last song, which was a new one. I liked that.
Acton Bell was serene as always, reviving those family favourite hits from the sixties. She's going to be playing at my night in February, but I'm not telling you about that just yet! (except that it's on the 24th so keep that night free!)
The last act I saw was Claire (above) whose songs I love and who plays a mini-guitar. I had to leave before the end as I was so tired. Claire is brilliant. I will put her Myspace up here when I've fed the cat.

What's Orange and Rhymes With a Parrot?

2010-01-29T18:59:00.000Z

A Carrot.

Wordverification Lingo

2010-01-29T09:09:00.001Z

Prompted by Anne, I have invented a new language, Wordverification.
My greeting to you this morning: "Shisti!"

Headphones: a Twilling

2010-01-28T17:55:00.002Z

Introducing my pink headphones, fresh from Urban Outfitters this Christmas.
They are actually very good! In this photo they are whispering something secret to each other. I met the Songwriting students from the University of the West today, who seem a lively and interesting group, and I am taking them on a mystery field trip next Thursday. They are very curious about it, but I won't tell them where we're going.
The headphones know, which is why they are whispering.

One of the students told me that out of 80 undergraduate students on the course this year, only six are female.
My colleagues used to treat me like a... well... can't say the word.... Feminist when I used to point out that their student gender balance left a lot to be desired, and actually things evened up a bit for a while, even though if they'd put their hands over their ears and yelled 'I'M NOT LISTENING!!!' they could hardly have seemed less interested.
But now I've left, and nobody's watching, and it's gone back to the good old days of the unfair sex ruling the roost.
Harumph!

And there was a member of aforesaid gender, a student with a microphone, yes, that's right, a
MICROPHONE,
SHOUTING,
'YEAH! COME ON! UUH!YEAH!'.
How interesting! In some respects microphones are the worst invention in the world, because they lead some people to equate volume with value, and to believe that their voices and what they are shouting (a microphone is supposed to mean you don't need to shout) are very interesting, just because people turn round to look at the source of (an)noise.
Shears, shears, next time, one big snip of the microphone lead and silence will reign!

One of the studio stories from last week involved a grumpy college lecturer fed up with a student's endless widdling on the electric guitar.
After several attempts to ask him to shut up, he went to his car, removed a large pair of wire clippers from the boot, went back to his room and cut the strings of the guy's guitar with a satisfying snap!

Edwardian Household Books and Other Things

2010-01-27T19:41:00.000Z

The day before yesterday when Nadya and I were browsing in the Cancer Care shop I found two fascinating books, H-J (I think) and W-Z (definitely) of an Edwardian Household Encyclopaedia.
It had blancmange recipes, information about trombones, laundry tips, suitable gas fires for different rooms in the house, lots of pinky-yellowy illustration plates and a set of photographs showing you how to give yourself elaborate Edwardian hairstyles like my ancient granny used to have.
They were £4 each and I couldn't decide which one to get (I only had a fiver) so I went off to think about it.
The shop was closed when I got back yesterday, and the books were gone this morning. Did the man lurking behind us, as I chirruped and admired, buy them?
I will know if I see him out with a lady with elaborate rococo hair curlicues, won't I!

(I have decided to name these pointless observations 'twillings').

Today, I've been at Gina's, mulling over ideas for the film.
On the way there, a snorty sniffer was on the tube; he'd been a disgust-o-sneezer complete with regular paper hanky inspections and he spent the rest of his journey gagging and gurgling like a Dickensian villain. Ugh.
Luckily, a cup of Gina's fab coffee washed away the memory and she showed me her brand new blog, theraincoats.net/blog
Things are moving along very positively, I'm pleased to say.
Caught philosophical on the way back, I mused about drawing: the picture is already there, hiding in the paper, and you pull it out with your pencil or pen...
... and music: the song is in the air, blowing about and you catch it and make it into music.
Ideas? they are there between the realities, if you can find them.
Can you tell I didn't get much sleep last night?
I was worried about Whippersnapper. He's back home, with a bald neck (most unbecoming) and a bald leg where they shaved him to put drips in and take blood. Yuk.
What else? Well, maybe Martin and I will go to North Carolina this summer to visit our friend, the ace music photographer Daniel Coston danielcostonphotography.com and play some gigs.
I have a handbag full of ideas scribbled on receipts and parking slips to investigate, and tomorrow the Songwriting starts at the University of the West; I'm planning a magical mystery tour for them all next week, and if I told you what it was, you might tell them and spoil the surprise, so I won't.

Ladies' Work

2010-01-26T20:50:00.002Z

Rumble, rumble, things happen, things happen..

My friend Debi Withers has a book coming out in March, Adventures in Kate Bush and Theory http://www.hammeronpress.net/page2.htm

I was talking to her about the Trinity in Bristol and remembering a gig The Chefs did there. It was a monstrously huge venue for us, and all the nutty people in Bristol came along. A young chap was trying to push our manager out of the way so he could get to me in the dressing room. Jonathan was a gentle sort of chap, but thankfully strong enough to barricade the door. Later, an African businessman in an extremely smart suit came into the dressing room. 'Don't be afraid little girl', he said to me. He went on to promise me gigs at the Top Rank and other such venues, and to make me a star. All this happened in a thin cloud of ganja, but I tell you, I'm not making it up!

Another friend, Caroline Blase, has had her article for the f-word accepted; it is to be serialised and as soon as I have more news I will write about it.

Tomorrow, I'm going over to Gina's; she will be making a film covering the female musicians from punk to riot grrl and has asked me to help with research. This is something I'm really looking forward to!

There's more, but I'm signing off for today. I've spent the day checking and re-checking student results and inputting them into the computer. Whippersnapper is stable, thankfully.

I'm kn*ckered!

Song Circle

2010-01-25T21:32:00.000Z

Katy turned up first, dressed in red and blue and flustered after inadvertently riding the tube to Mill Hill East (home of the Mill Hill Beast).
We sat and ate Owl-and-the-Pussycat biscuits until Nadya arrived. Both of them loved my new house which made me very happy. Katy sang first: our subject had been travel, and her song was brilliant. She told us she'd written it this morning, and it was about a trip to Egypt she'd made at New Year. Mine was the New Year's Eve song, and Nadya's was acapella and walking, a song about being in the street in the rain.
We haven't done this for months, and it felt great to start up again. Later, we walked along to the antique market to show Katy, and we poked about and browsed; I bought a wicker umbrella stand for 4 quid. Nadya bought a beautiful wool kilt, brand new, from the Cancer Care shop, and came back to eat pistachios and grapes with me for lunch.
Poor Whippersnapper cat was looking terribly ill, and Nadya came with us to the vets. He is there overnight, with suspected pancreatitis, much to our distress, because we've just lost Old Lady Cat and we don't want to go through that again. So I sit with my fingers crossed while he is fed painkillers and water to try to stabilise him.

I read Mojo this evening, and noticed a review of the Marina and the Diamonds CD. Marina used to attend the University of the East (for about a term), and I remember her playing her songs at the Songlab, an informal songwriting group I run there. She was very talented: she had a sort of 'different' quality to her, a self-containment, and she was definitely ready to go off and make music on her own.
I hope she does really well.

Strange times,
as always.

Money

2010-01-24T20:31:00.001Z

Hmmm... one of my good friends has just been made redundant. At the last meeting at the University of the East the dreaded 'r' word was being inserted into the conversation sporadically, causing various degrees of panic, and an email-with-warnings came round from the powers that be (who never, ever make themselves redundant- noticed that?) at the University of the West.

I have been through this thing of living off pasta and tea for years.
Will it be all that again?
I don't smoke or drink, so I'm already economising.

I am an econo-miser!

Somebody said to me 'Well, what will be different? Artists never have any money anyway', and there is a lot of truth in that.

I forecast an upsurge in blogging and electronic art, followed by an upsurge in old-skool art as people's computers conk out and are too expensive to fix.

My friend Jane came round for lunch today and it was lovely to catch up with her. She is one of only two A&R people at 4AD records and she's just signed an artist called Meryl Garbis. Jane is such a good singer and guitarist herself, and secretly I'm hoping she starts up again. She guested with Shimmy Rivers and and Canal until they split up, but actually she's great on her own.

After being so busy, it's a come-down to sit still and do nothing. I have somebody's MPhil to read through, but I'm not yet in the mood (although I'm actually looking forward to it). I have eaten a million pieces of millionaire's shortbread, and I am trying not to look in the mirror because my face is the colour and texture of shortbread and I don't want to dwell on it.

I realised today that one of the reasons I say 'yes' to everything, why I'm so busy, is fear of redundancy and unemployment dating back for years.

People of my generation became all too familiar with rejection letters, the dreaded call to the office for a meeting with a person with a grave demeanour, and, in my case, appointments in the Unemployment Exchange with bullying men in pale blue nylon shirts trying to fit square pegs into round holes behind locked doors.

It's amazing what They can get away with, with people that They think have fallen off the bottom rung of the ladder.

Expect lots of affronted articles in The Guardian and The Independent from sacked professionals who are suddenly treated in the same way as the Long Term Poor and think it is Just Them Getting Treated Like This.

And yet more in The Daily Mail and The Express blaming the unemployed for their own predicament, instead of those members of the banking community who have gambled our money away by betting on non-existent ghost-horses.

And The Times and The Telegraph will cross over to the other side of the road with a shudder, looking away and tucking their tenners into their socks until its all over, just in case a hungry beggar dips into their coat pockets!