26 January (Monday) - JAMES SPANKIE, HELEN MCCOOKERYBOOK, JAMES

James Spankie has a sound not too commonly found. His music rocks and lulls you into a calm state of mind, there's nothing frantic or rushed about it. The music is what it is, and doesn't try to sound like any other, the magic is truly his own and no one else can stake claim to it. The melodies seem to flow so easily from him; there is nothing jarring or hesitant in their melodious ascent. He obviously knows his instruments well enough to play them in a way that the connection doesn't just end when the song does, you will have his tracks on your mind for a long while. James Spankie is well worth giving a listen to.

 

Who am I? I was bass player for Joby and the Hooligans, the worst punk band in Brighton (but we had the best songs), then in short-lived band The Smartees, before forming The Chefs with Carl Evans and Rod Bloor. We did loads of gigs, James McCallum joined on second guitar, and we did a few Peel sessions (none of us can remember how many). Soon, we are going to bring out a compilation of Chefs songs. The I started Helen and the Horns, playing guitar, after a brief musical interlude with Lester Square, and we did even more Peel sessions and played a lot in Scotland, where we had really great audiences. Disastrously, we signed to RCA, who shelved us until I put on my scary glasses, marched down there and got us released from the deal. The kindly Horns used their savings to record an album (Rough Trade have some of the original vinyl albums too) and we spilt up. I fell asleep for twenty years, and woke up with a head full of songs and a heart full of energy to sing them with. I like playing unusual venues and sometimes promote gigs too mostly because of drawing the flyers (!) and I am a compulsive doodler. I used to publish my own comics and still contribute to comics when people ask me to. Previous bands were The Chefs (see www.myspace.com/thechefs) and Helen and the Horns (see www.myspace.com/helenandthehorns) 'The Lost Women of Rock' is a book I wrote two years ago about female instrumentalists in punk bands in the late 1970s/early 1980s, featuring interviews with the Slits, Gina Birch, the Mo-Dettes, Enid Williams (Girlschool), the Dollymixture, Gaye Black (Adverts), Vi Subversa (Poison Girls), Rhoda Dakar, Lucy O'Brien, Attila the Stockbroker, Caroline Coon, Geoff Travis and the late John Peel amongst others. It is published by Ashgate Press, an academic publisher, and is very expensive but you can get your library to buy a copy for you!!! It is written under the name of Helen Reddington, which is an identity I passed through earlier in my life. For more about the early bands I played in see www.punkbrighton.com Look out for 'Hamilton Square', new release for 2009, a collaboration with the ace songwriter Martin Stephenson. For up to date gig info and my regularly-updated Blog, see www.mccookerybook.com