Helen McCookerybook


Helen McCookerybook is a British musician and singer-songwriter, who was the bass player and co-singer with The Chefs, during the late 1970s and early 80s. 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.
Her academic career began at the University of Westminster, where she lectured in commercial music, and where she obtained a doctorate. As Dr Helen Reddington, she published The Lost Women of Rock Music: Female Musicians of the Punk Era in July 2007. With Gina Birch, she co-produced and co-directed the documentary film, Stories from the She-Punks: Music with a different agenda, which was released in 2018. She is now lecturing at the University of East London, and is in the process of finishing her second book.

Early life

McCallum was born in Newcastle General Hospital, to Scottish parents, and was brought up in Wylam, Northumberland. She moved to Brighton to study Fine Art Printmaking, at Brighton Polytechnic, after doing a foundation course in art at Sunderland Polytechnic.

Music career

The Chefs

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.
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.
The Chefs contributed two tracks to Attrix Records' Vaultage 79 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. 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.

Helen and the Horns

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 on drums.
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, 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.
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 1985 and released two singles with them. Disillusioned with being signed to a major, they got released from their contract after a request from McCookerybook.
Their third Peel session was broadcast in July 1985, 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, 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.
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.

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 in 1991.
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 asscociates 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 from Cornwall to Tyne and Wear, culimating with a short run at the Edinburgh Fringe.

Helen McCookerybook

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.
Since then she has played extensively in towns and cities throughout the UK, at times sharing the bill with Gina Birch, Katy Carr, Martin Stephenson, The Band of Holy Joy, The Monochrome Set, The Nightingales, Vic Godard and the Subway Sect, and Viv Albertine.
McCookerybook has released six solo albums from 2006 to 2019, 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, "… acoustically led, her songs are of love, politics and quite possibly, the kitchen sink, and her voice is pure as crystal.", Paul Scott-Bates, and "The Sea by Helen McCookerybook is gentle but scathing, quiet but raging, fierce but melodic.", Cazz Blaise.
Her songs have received airplay on BBC Radio 6 Music's Gideon Coe show, and recently he's played her last single Saturday Night With The London Set, So Long Elon and The Mad Bicycle Song. She's also had airplay on BBC Radio London's Gary Crowley show, with him playing A Good Life with a Bad Apple, which went on to make track of the week in August 2019. 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.
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, Stuart Moxham, The Charlie Tipper Conspiracy and more recently a duet with Vic Godard on Autumn Rendez-Vous in 2019.

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.
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 grrrl underground feminist punk rock movement as a source of initial inspiration for her own 2001 debut album Screwing Lies.
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.
Reddington has also contributed chapters to several academic books and periodicals. She is now in the process of finishing her second book on female sound engineers and producers. Since 2006 she has been teaching at the University of East London.

Lost Women of Rock Music (2007/12)

Lost Women of Rock Music: Female Musicians of the Punk Era was first published in July 2007, with an updated paperback brought out in 2012. The book featured interviews with The Slits, Gina Birch, The Mo-dettes, Enid Williams, Dolly Mixture, Gaye Black, Vi Subversa, Rhoda Dakar, Lucy O'Brien, Attila the Stockbroker, Caroline Coon, Geoff Travis and the late John Peel.

Stories from the She-Punks (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.
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.

Discography

The Chefs

EPs

Albums/collections

Albums

Discography sources.

Dr Helen Reddington

Books

Dr Helen Reddington