Wednesday, October 26, 2005

Bull fiddle case


Played the Brighton Ladyfest on Sunday- I've always wanted to do one, and was very flattered to be asked. Sally (who was the H and H sound engineer) played cello and we went on after someone who didn't seem terribly female.... It was good fun anyway, saw my first female-led hardcore band, there were three ukeleles and a trombone in the dressing room and I put on huge quantities of blue mascara to celebrate.
I found this picture of a double bass case being put to use in the Peter Hunt's how-to-do-it book. Reminds me of when the friends I shared a house with in Willesden bought ne a violin for my birthday. I couldn't play it. There were about 9 cats in that house and they all came and put their paws on me to shut me up- although I did do a gig in Victoria with Dr Devito about 2 days later and there's a bootleg recording on which you can only really hear the violin! Lester Square had borrowed the choir's uniform from his dad's church (he was the vicar of Fulham) and Bid read from the Bible while we all played along. Anyway, I went to Portobello market to buy a violin case. The one I bought had a brass handle on the top and someone told me it looked like a baby's coffin so I sat on the step and painted it with white emulsion. The problem was, when I opened it to do the inside, all the woodworm had surfaced to get away from the paint fumes and the case was crawling with horrible little wriggly things and I had to throw it in the bin. I wonder if the same thing happened to Peter Hunt?

Saturday, October 22, 2005

3 Cheers for the Barnet Chewing Gum Painter


Barnet is pretty boring, unless you like climbing trees (I do) although it does have a shop that sells antiques and hoovers (a bit like clothes and onions). But we do have the man who paints on blobs of discarded chewing gum on the pavement. I thought he had fainted when I first saw him painting and went to assist. Then I realised what he was doing. Everybody talks to him now- I think he's a sort of village psychotherapist as well as being a painter. I took this photo outside a horrible burger shop (I think). Someone with a digital camera should come and document these properly!

Thursday, October 20, 2005

electronic mistakes...

I've just done a vanity-search and found yet another site, this time the BBC archive, that says Helen and the Horns split up because I had stage-fright. This is completely untrue- H and H was the first time I realised that stage-fright was pointless, because an audience comes to see you play, not to see you be frightened. We split up because I hated being with a major label, having my band's wings clipped by whatever a large corporation felt like doing, or not doing. We had a talk about it as a band, I went to the A&R man and asked them to release us from the contract, they did, the band pooled their money, we formed Rockin' Ray Records and released our album, and then split up, because we didn't want to be categorised as a sort of novelty cabaret band- we'd been playing proper venues to proper audeinces and didn't want to become a parody of ourselves. I also found it very difficult to work in the studio with producers who had never seen us play live! Freight Train had been self-produced and had been played on daytime Radio One (the Breakfast show, every day) and daytime airplay's supposed to be the reason for employing a producer. I'd asked for Dennis Bovell or John Collins ( both reggae producers who know what to do with female voices and horns and sparse instrumentation) but ended up with perfectly nice people who didn't understand the 'sound'. Blogs are for ranting, aren't they?

Tuesday, October 18, 2005

Magic computer posts blogs without being asked to

Yes, it did. Thank you computer! As I was saying, it costs £5 or £3 concessions. Line-up is Shimmy Rivers, solo me, The Beautiful Valley and Grassy Noel.
I think I'll be playing in Barnet Church as part of the Barnet Street party on 4th December.
Next posting, I'll upload some photos of the Barnet chewing-gum painter's pictures, if they come out. Had to photograph them with my ancient Pentax as I couldn't borrow a digital camera, but I think they'll come out.
Such an exciting place, Barnet, with our Daily Mails tucked under our arms and our green wellingtons! (that's what they call them here, you know!)
Since I can now progrm links in html, here is Mike's and Paul's again:
Mike (partyclubdrum- man and webdesigneur extraordinaire): urban75.com
and the trombone poet, Paul: trombonepoetry.com
Will upload an old Chefs poster next posting.....

More details of Klinker gig (28th), etc

The Klinker is at the Sussex, 107a Culford Road, London N1

Friday, October 14, 2005

Music download

I have a track, Heaven Avenue, on this site- more will follow.
I'm doing a lot of recording at the moment.
Helen McCookerybook on iSOUND.COM

Thursday, October 13, 2005

Ladyfest Poster and thanks to Jacob


Here is the poster for the Ladyfest gig, and a big thankyou to Jacob Stevens for the photo on the previous page. Jacob takes great photos, makes videos and puts on events at the Diorama.
Thanks also to Mike Slocombe( a big pirate-radio-dj-type-shout) for designing this site- his site address is urban75.com, and if you haven't been to Offline, you haven't lived!
You might want to check out the H&H trombone player's site- it's www.trombonepoetry.com.
I have some music posted on www.myspace.com (if you are in a band) and also on www.isound.com (if you are not) and I'll be uploading more tracks soon.
More sites next posting!

Tuesday, October 11, 2005

Further Details- Ladyfest

Performance Time- 5 p.m.
Place- The Engine Room, 1 Preston Street, Brighton
I'll be accompanied by Sally Smith, who used to be the sound engineer for Helen and the Horns, on Cello. She played with me at the Strummerville gig at Concorde 2 last November.

Thursday, October 06, 2005

Brighton Ladyfest-23rd October

Playing the Brighton Ladyfest on 21st of October in the afternoon- further details soon.
Also The Clinker in London on Friday 28th October.

Wednesday, October 05, 2005

Solo gig at Birkbeck Student Union

Friday 7th October 7pm-midnight

Solo gig at
Birkbeck College SU Bar
4th Floor,
Malet Street
London WC1

Onstage around 9:45-10pm.

Also featuring:

DJs
Dubversion and Editor

Vic's Cabaret Corner
with
Your host Vic Lambrusco
Ant The Rant "Acidic Verse From Colostomy Del Mar"
Sarah Daggar-Nickson "A Finger Of The Wise On Triviality's Pulse"

Entry: FREE!

Click here for poster