Folk Bands and Artists
Helen McCookerybook
London
Helen McCookerybook’s music, ´part joie doe vivre, part viva le punk´ (exposed.com) confirms her as a unique singer/songwriter. Her fifth solo album ‘Green’ with its pensive lyrics and typically counter-intuitive upbeat melodies, is intriguingly and aptly described as ‘Elizabethan Northern Soul’ and is McCookerybook at her nuanced best. McCookerybook is currently touring the UK and will be appearing on Thursday 26th September at 8 p.m. at the King & Queen, W1W 6DL 6DL [020 7636 5619 – www.thekingandqueenpub.com) with M J Hibbett (Hey Hey 16K) in a set including tracks from her latest album ‘Green’.
McCookerybook’s percipience, leavened by the keenest wit, are evident in the ‘Green’’s standout tracks including Good Life With A Bad Apple whose beguilingly jaunty melody unravels to oh so casually reveal powerful, pithy insights into the deceptions of the human heart. Saturday Night with the London Set, played by both Gideon Coe on BBC6 Music and Gary Crowley on Radio London whose samba-inspired rhythms and gentle reflections on an irretrievable past, dissects the folly of self-deception and deflates delusion with penetrating humour. So Long Elon another favourite of Gideon Coe, satirises Silicon Valley’s multi-millionaire’s interplanetary schemes and dreams.
Bass player and lead singer with 70/80s Brighton-based punk rock band The Chefs who ‘made an impact by playing upbeat pop tunes about everyday subjects that would see them become a key influence on the C-86 and twee pop movements that would follow’ (www.ourfavourite places.com) Helen switched to her beloved guitar in Helen and the Horns. McCookerybook, part of the extraordinary wave of original She Punks (a term she coined), has often played support gigs with artists such as Pauline Murray of Penetration, Vic Godard & the Subway Sect, The Monochrome Set and The Band of Holy Joy.
‘McCookerybook is especially good at telling complex stories simply and imaginatively’ (Cazz Blaise) and ‘Green’ exemplifies this unique talent, once heard never forgotten.
Genre: Alt Folk,Indie folk
