Helen McCookerybook (born Helen McCallum, a.k.a. Dr Helen Reddington) is a British musician and singer-songwriter, who was the bass player and co-singer with the Chefs (an acclaimed Brighton based punk band), during the late 1970s and early 1980s. She went on to form Helen and the Horns in the mid 80s. Both bands were admired by John Peel, recording six BBC Radio 1 sessions between them. After a long break from her music career, Helen McCookerybook started again as a solo artist in 2005. She regularly plays live gigs, releases recordings, and promotes occasional revivals of Helen and the Horns.[1]
Her move to Brighton coincided with the emergence of punk and she joined her first band Joby and the Hooligans in 1978, learning to play the bass in the process. They were mentored by the late Vi Subversa of the Poison Girls, and gained some notoriety on the local scene. The band was short-lived. In 1979 she formed the Chefs with guitarist Carl Evans, later joined by James McCallum on second guitar and Russell Greenwood on drums.[5][7][6]
Her pseudonym was acquired after a local journalist called her up for a "punk" name, to be attributed to a photo of all the bands in Brighton at the time. On the spur of the moment she said, "Helen McCookerybook". When the article came out, the headline to the double page spread read "Helen McCookerybook is the one in the back in the hat", and the name stuck.[8][9]
The Chefs contributed two tracks to Attrix Records' Vaultage 79 (Another Two Sides Of Brighton) compilation album, after which the label released a 4-track EP in 1980. The EP came to the attention of John Peel, who gave it repeated airplay. He invited them to do two Peel Sessions for him (one recorded under the band name Skat). In 1981 the band moved to London, after which Attrix released the single 24 Hours, which was later re-released on Graduate Records. A demo album was recorded for Graduate, but it didn't come to fruition, and the band disbanded in 1982 due to musical differences.[5][10][11]
Helen and the Horns
Helen and the Horns, Footsteps At My Door cover, 12-inch vinyl, 1984
After a brief break from playing, she met Lester Square at Cherry Red Records though A&R person Mike Alway, and they worked on her new Western-inspired songs with Mike Slocombe (Urban 75) on drums.[10][12]
At a gig she met Dave Jago, a trombone player, and recruited him and his friend Paul Davey, on saxophone. McCookerybook couldn't afford to rehearse with a full band, even though Geoff Travis from Rough Trade had financed some demos. The cost of transporting a drum kit proved prohibitive in itself, and so she switched to playing guitar and practised with just the horns. The Monochrome Set then offered them a support at Kingston Polytechnic in their rehearsal set up (vocals, guitar, trombone and saxophone, with no drums or bass), as Helen and the Horns. The performance was a success, and they decided to stick with that format. A trumpet player, Marc Jordan, was added to form a three-piece horn section.[10][7][12][13]
John Peel's producer called McCookerybook to enquire what she was up to and, subsequently, Helen and the Horn's first Peel session was recorded at the BBC's Maida Vale Studios, and broadcast in August 1983. The band went on to tour extensively in the UK, and Holland. In 1984, Thin Sliced Records released Freight Train, which was in the top ten of the indie charts for several weeks. They appeared live on BBC1's Pebble Mill at One, as well as being played on Wogan. After a further Peel session, they signed to RCA Records in 1984 and released two singles with them. Disillusioned with being signed to a major, they got released from their contract after a request from McCookerybook.[13][14][15][16][10][1][17]
Their third Peel session was broadcast in August 1984, with new trumpet player Chris Smith. Their final original release, was the self-titled album, Helen and the Horns on their own record label, Rockin' Ray Records (distributed by The Cartel), in 1985. Not wanting to become a cabaret band, or to add extra instrumentation, they disbanded amicably. McCookerybook reforms the band occasionally, to perform live.[14][12]
In 2014, Damaged Goods released their three Peel sessions, plus their album, on a CD called Footsteps At My Door: BBC Sessions & More. Helen and the Horns played the launch night at The Lexington London, in December 2013. With Katy Carr, and Honey Birch, they played The Lexington again in 2017. Their last performance was at Brighton's Concorde 2, when they were invited to be part of the Wedding Present’s David Gedge’s 10th anniversary of At the Edge of the Sea, in 2018.[18][19][16][20]
2023 marks the 40th anniversary of the formation of the band and they are reforming to celebrate this live, in the Hope and Anchor, in October.[21]
Soundtracks and other activities
In the late 1980s she started writing and recording film and video soundtracks, including work for Smith Bundy Video, which was Terry Jones’ campaigning video company. In 1990, for the emerging Channel 4, she co-wrote with Lester Square the soundtrack for the controversial documentary about Millwall Football Club, called No-One Likes Us, We Don’t Care, sampling the supporters' football chants in the process. They also did the soundtrack for Akiko Hada's film, The Fall of the Queen (or the Taste of Fruit to Come) in 1991.[15][22][23][24]
In 2000, she devised a show called Voxpop Puella. It was a song-cycle, revolving around the seven ages of women, consisting of seven short films that explored those ages. Each film was made by women film-makers and associates that she'd worked with in the past, namely Akiko Hada, Charlotte Worthington, Gail Pearce, Gina Birch, Jane Prophet, Joan Ashworth, and Rachel Davies. McCookerybook provided the soundtracks. It premiered at The Museum of Emotions on London's South Bank. With a grant from the Arts Council of England, it toured (with Gina Birch's Headspace) from Cornwall to Tyne and Wear, culminating with a short run at the Edinburgh Fringe.[15][25]
Helen McCookerybook
Helen McCookerybook's d.i.y. tour continues ... poster, 2017
After a long break from performing live, when she was lecturing at the University of Westminster in 2005, a student asked her to support his band which she did. This, and the writing of new songs for the solo set, inspired her to begin performing and recording again as Helen McCookerybook.[4]
McCookerybook has released eight solo albums from 2006 to 2022, garnering reviews such as: "Helen McCookerybook’s lyrics, frank and idiosyncratic, find poetry in the everyday shards of broken glass in the ice cream.", David Sheppard (Art & Music: The Saatchi Gallery Magazine), "… acoustically led, her songs are of love, politics and quite possibly, the kitchen sink, and her voice is pure as crystal.", Paul Scott-Bates (Louder Than War), and "The Sea by Helen McCookerybook is gentle but scathing, quiet but raging, fierce but melodic.", Cazz Blaise.[6]
Her songs have received airplay on BBC Radio 6 Music's Gideon Coe show, including her last single Saturday Night with the London Set, So Long Elon (both from Green) and The Mad Bicycle Song (from The Sea). She's also had airplay on BBC Radio London's Gary Crowley show, with him playing A Good Life with a Bad Apple (from Green), which went on to make track of the week in August 2019. Mojo magazine gave her 10 track mini-album release, Pea Soup, four stars in their May 2020 issue saying "... the discipline of brevity makes this a shining gem". In October 2022, McCookerybook released her eighth solo album, Drawing on my Dreams, of which Gideon Coe said, “Helen McCookerybook has an excellent new record …”. Guest musicians on the album included Steve Beresford, Lindy Morrison (The Go-Betweens), and Anne Wood of the Raincoats. It had pre-release airplay on BBC Radio 6 Music's Gideon Coe show (Coffee and Hope track), BBC Radio London's Gary Crowley show (Beachwalk track), Dexter Bentley's the Hello GoodBye Show (Amazonia track) on Resonance FM, and other stations. She also makes regular appearances and performs live on radio stations varying from independent stations such as Soho Radio and Resonance FM in London, the community Radio Woking station in Surrey, to BBC Scotland Highlands & Islands radio (where she was a featured artist).[7][26][27][28][29][30][31][32]
In addition to her solo work, McCookerybook has been a long-term collaborator with Lester Square on various projects, as well as with Gina Birch, Martin Stephenson, Nick Page (Count Dubulah), Stuart Moxham (Young Marble Giants), the Charlie Tipper Conspiracy (a Christmas single, Femme Fatale, in aid of Refugee Action), and Vic Godard (a duet on Autumn Rendez-Vous on Mums' Revenge). In 2020, a collaboration with Robert Rotifer resulted in a new project called McCookerybook and Rotifer. Their debut 6 track EP, called Equal Parts, was released in December 2020. The EP premiered (pre-release) on Gideon Coe's BBC Radio 6 show when he played the track No Man's Land from it (and he went on to play it and other tracks during 2021). Her most recent collaboration was with analogue synth musician and producer Willie Gibson, for an EP called The Cutty Wren, which received a favourable review in The Wire magazine's May 2021 issue. In February 2023, Gina Birch released her debut solo album I Play My Bass Loud, on Jack White's Third Man Records, which was given a four stars rating in Mojo magazine. McCookerybook co-wrote two of the tracks and performed (backing vocals/bass) on four of them.[7][16][33][34][35][36][37][38]
Academic career
Prior to her university work, Helen Reddington taught and organised song writing courses, projects, workshops, and musicals. These were mainly in the community, including working on housing estates with young people. She also mentored for Creative Partnerships.[39][40][15][10][4]
In the 1990s, she began lecturing at the University of Westminster on its pioneering Commercial Music degree. British songwriter and performer Katy Carr cites Reddington's lectures on the musical works of the Raincoats and the Riot grrrlundergroundfeminist punk rock movement as a source of initial inspiration for her own 2001 debut album Screwing Lies.[8][6]
Whilst at Westminster she studied for a PhD, and was awarded with a doctorate. She went on to publish her thesis as an acclaimed book, Lost Women of Rock Music: Female Musicians of the Punk Era. Her second book on female sound engineers and producers, called She’s at the Controls: Sound Engineering, Production and Gender Ventriloquism in the 21st Century, was published in March 2021. Reddington has also contributed chapters to several academic books and periodicals.[2][1][41]
Panel discussion at the Stories from the She-Punks World Premier in 2018
Inspired by The Lost Women of Rock Music: Female Musicians of the Punk Era, Gina Birch and Helen Reddington produced the documentary film Stories from the She-Punks: Music with a different agenda, focusing on woman instrumentalists from the punk-inspired bands of the 70s.[45][46]
It had a 'first glimpse' screening at the British Library on 10 June 2016. The World Premiere was at the Doc’n Roll London 2018 Film Festival at the Genesis Cinema, on 10 November 2018. Since then, it has been screened in Belfast, Liverpool, Brighton, Edinburgh, Nottingham, Lemington Spa, Manchester, Bristol, Glasgow, and Lincoln (mainly hosted by Doc’n Roll Festival).[46][47][48]
The term 'she-punks' was created by Reddington for the British Library punk exhibition in 2016.[49] It has since been used for a 2019 book title, Revenge of the She-Punks by Vivien Goldman, a music compilation, Guerrilla Girls! She-Punks & Beyond 1975-2016 (Ace), and a fashion label.
She’s at the Controls (2021)
She’s at the Controls: Sound Engineering, Production and Gender Ventriloquism in the 21st Century was published in paperback in March 2021. It is a socio-historical examination of the roles of women studio professionals in the UK music industry taken from analysis of interviews with 30 practitioners over 6 years. Interviewees included Laura B, Janet Beat, Isobel Campbell, Olga Fitzroy, Mandy Parnell, Susan Rogers, Sandie Shaw and Tina Weymouth.[41]
Reddington, Helen, "Danger, Anger, and Noise: The Women Punks of the Late 1970s and Their Music" in The Oxford Handbook of Punk Rock, eds. George McKay and Gina Arnold (2020), Oxford Handbooks Online, ISBN9780190859565
Stories from the She-Punks: Music with a different agenda, Dir. Gina Birch & Helen Reddington, 2018, UK.
Related Research Articles
Siouxsie and the Banshees were a British rock band formed in London in 1976 by vocalist Siouxsie Sioux and bass guitarist Steven Severin. They have been widely influential, both over their contemporaries and with later acts. The Times called the group "one of the most audacious and uncompromising musical adventurers of the post-punk era".
The Raincoats are a British experimental post-punk band. Ana da Silva and Gina Birch formed the group in 1977 while they were students at Hornsey College of Art in London.
Galaxie 500 was an American indie rock band that formed in 1987 and split up in 1991 after releasing three studio albums: Today (1988), On Fire (1989), and This Is Our Music (1990).
Cuban Boys are an English electronic group and production team, currently composed of Skreen B and Ricardo Autobahn; the band formerly also included B.L. Underwood ("Blu") and Jenny McLaren. Their music is characterised by fast electronic beats, heavy reliance upon samples and the repetition of the name drop "The Cuban Boys" in the background of many of their tracks. They achieved success after being aired on John Peel's BBC Radio 1 show with sample-heavy dance tracks and cut-ups and were responsible for the UK No. 4 hit single "Cognoscenti vs. Intelligentsia" which was released through EMI.
Even As We Speak is an Australian indie band from Sydney. Formed in the mid-1980s, founding members Matthew Love and Mary Wyer were later joined by Rob Irwin (bass) Anita Rayner, Paul Clarke and Julian Knowles.
Doom are an English hardcore punk band from Birmingham whose first lineup were together from 1987 to 1990. Despite its short existence, the band is considered pivotal in the rise of crust punk, a genre of punk rock that takes influence and elements from extreme metal. They recorded for Peaceville Records and are cited as an early precursor to grindcore. Doom were also a favourite of BBC Radio DJ John Peel.
Movietone is an English post-rock band. They formed in Bristol, England in 1994. Core members are Kate Wright and Rachel Brook, with Wright being the main songwriter.
Isobel Campbell is a Scottish singer, songwriter and cellist. She rose to prominence at age nineteen as a member of the indie pop band Belle & Sebastian, but left the group to pursue a solo career, first as The Gentle Waves, and later under her own name. She later collaborated with singer Mark Lanegan on three albums. Her latest studio album, Bow To Love, was released in 2024.
Sonny Vincent is an American Rock musician. He has been active in music since the '60s—in particular the mid-1970s, when he was part of the New York City punk rock scene with his original band, Testors. Vincent is currently active in music, film, multi-media art, and writing. His pedigree includes mid-70s Testors' performances at C.B.G.B. and Max's Kansas City. Always active in his own bands, Vincent also spent time touring and recording for 9 years as Maureen "Moe" Tucker and Sterling Morrison's guitar player Members of Vincent's bands include a vast range of players/characters, from the drummer of the Stooges, Scott Asheton, to Charles Manson's one-time guitar player, Ernie Knapp.
The Hitchers are a band from the Irish city of Limerick. They formed in 1989.
Victoria "Vicky" Aspinall is a British musician. She was the violinist in the English post-punk band the Raincoats from 1978 to 1984. In 1992, she and Dave Morgan founded the independent dance label Fresh Records initially for releases of their own Lovestation project.
Comet Gain are a British indie pop band, formed by singer-songwriter and guitarist David Christian in 1992, with musical influences including post-punk and northern soul. Pitchfork called them "one of the most underrated contemporary indie bands in the UK".
The Stupids are an English hardcore punk band formed in the 1980s by Tom Withers.
The Chefs were an English indiepop/punk band which formed in Brighton in 1979, relocating to London in 1981, and finally splitting up in 1982. The band consisted of Helen McCookerybook, Carl Evans, James McCallum and Russell Greenwood.
Mugstar are an English rock band, influenced by kraut/psych/space/noise rock such as Oneida, Sonic Youth, Neu! and Hawkwind. Since 2003 they have issued several full-length albums, a split release with Mudhoney and two live albums performing on stage together with Damo Suzuki. Mugstar recorded one of the last-ever Peel Sessions with the late John Peel on 5 May 2004. Record labels: Rock Action, Important Records (U.S.A.), Cardinal Fuzz, Weird Beard, Agitated, Evil Hoodoo, Rocket Recordings, Trensmat, God Unknown, Chunklet Industries (U.S.A.), Hands In The Dark / All Time Low, Lancashire & Somerset, critical MASS...
The Cravats are an English punk rock band originally from Redditch, England, founded in 1977. The 'classic' line up of Robin Dallaway, The Shend, Svor Naan (saxophone) and Dave Bennett (drums) remained constant between March/April 1978 until the close of 1982. Lead vocals in the original incarnation of the band were shared between Dallaway and The Shend. A reformed version of The Cravats including original members The Shend (vocals) and Svor Naan (saxophone), with Rampton Garstang (drums) has been performing since August 2009 and, since 2013 has included Viscount Biscuits (guitar) and Joe 91.
Rachael Dadd is an English folk and lo-fi musician based in Bristol, England. She is currently signed to French independent label Talitres.
Christy Brigitte Darlington, commonly known by her stage name of Darlington, is an American singer-songwriter, guitarist, published author and visual artist. She has performed multiple American and European concert tours, and has had music played on hundreds of radio stations across North America and Europe, as well as featured in television shows on MTV.
Paul Rooney is an English artist who works with music and words, primarily through installations and records.
Matthew J. Saunders is an English composer, mastering engineer, and visual designer. During the first decade of the 21st century he was signed to 4AD Records — a British major independent label home to The Pixies, Cocteau Twins, Scott Walker and many others. He records and performs as Magnétophone, The Assembled Minds, Rapid Eye Electronics Ltd. and also runs the record label Patterned Air Recordings.
↑ "Helen Reddington - UEL HSS (Staff profile)". Archived from the original on 17 March 2011. Retrieved 4 December 2010.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link): HSS Staff, University of East London, June 2010. Retrieved 21 June 2011.
↑ Dr Helen Reddington, Staff, University of East London, Department of Music, Writing and Performance.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
