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 (a Brighton-based punk band), during the late 1970s and early 1980s. She went on to form Helen and the Horns in the mid-1980s. 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.Terry Tyldesley Finding 'Lost Women of Rock' - Helen Reddington, Kitmonsters, 13 November 2012.
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.Leonie Cooper, No bondage, The Guardian, 8 August 2007. With Gina Birch (of the Raincoats), she co-produced and co-directed the documentary film Stories from the She-Punks: Music with a different agenda, which was released in 2018. Since 2006 she has lectured at the University of East London, and her second book She's at the Controls: Sound Engineering, Production and Gender Ventriloquism in the 21st Century was published in March 2021.
Early life McCallum was born in Newcastle General Hospital, Newcastle upon Tyne, 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.Helen McCookerybook, The Cavern, Liverpool, Official Blog, 19 May 2017.Rona Simpson, Helen McCookerybook – Interview, INSIGHT, 17 April 2019.The Chefs, The Punk history of Brighton Bands, punkbrighton.com.Official website Biography.
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.Helen Mccookerybook – Interview, Loud Women, 25 June 2018.
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.An Interview with Helen McCookerybook, Exposed Magazine, 15 July 2019.Sue Bishop, A Punk's Progress, The Argus (Brighton), 24 July 2000.
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.Paul Scott-Bates, Interview with Helen McCookerybook, Louder Than War, 11 July 2013.The Chef's John Peel sessions: 5th May 1981, 8th May 1982 (as Skat), BBC Radio 1.
In 2022 Helen and James McCallum, sibling members of the band, started rehearsing together again. In early 2023 they had rearranged, for two guitars and vocals, four of the Chefs songs. They went on to perform two gigs, one in London and the other in Brighton, settling on the name of The Pop-Up Chefs for their musical project. In 2024 they recorded these song arrangements and released a 4-Track EP vinyl record called The Pop-Up Chefs EP on Gare du Nord Records in 2025.Klemen Breznikar, The Chefs | Interview | Our positive sound, our harmonies, It's Psychedelic Baby Magazine, 17 January 2023.The Pop-Up Chefs, Bandcamp
Helen and the Horns After a brief break from playing, she met Lester Square (the Monochrome Set) at Cherry Red Records through A&R person Mike Alway, and they worked on her new Western-inspired songs with Mike Slocombe (Urban 75) on drums.Kitmonsters Team, Helen and the Horns CD Launch, Kitmonsters, 12 Dec 2013.
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.Helen and the Horns Damaged Goods record label.
John Peel's producer called McCookerybook to enquire what she was up to and, subsequently, Helen and the Horns' 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.Helen and the Horns' John Peel sessions: 31 August 1983, 26 November 1983, 25 July 1984, BBC Radio 1.10 Question Interview: Helen McCookerybook, No Class, February 2006.Nick Linazasoro, Brighton witnesses rare Helen and the Horns performance, Brighton and Hove News, 12 August 2018.Helen McCookerybook, Helen and the Horns Pebble Mill 1984, Official YouTube channel, 9 December 2014.
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.
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.Helen McCookerybook, A CD (not ACDC), Official Blog, 2 December 2013.Helen and the Horns Album Launch 2013, Helen and the Horns at The Lexington 2017, WeGotTickets.Helen McCookerybook, At the Edge of the Sea, Brighton, Official Blog, 4 August 2018.
2023 marked the 40th anniversary of the formation of the band and they reformed to celebrate this live, in the Hope and Anchor, in October.Helen and the Horns 40th Anniversary Show, 21 October 2023, WeGotTickets.
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.Channel 4 Television Corporation, No One Likes Us, We Don't Care (1990), IMDb.Akiko Hada, The Fall of a Queen (1991), YouTube.Akiko Hada , The Fall of a Queen (1993), BFI.
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.Voxpop Puella, sleeve notes, Helen McCookerybook Official Bandcamp.
In 2023, McCookerybook and Gina Birch collaborated on a Captain Beefheart inspired original musical piece, Beefheart, the Musical. "It seeks to deconstruct the life story of Don Van Vliet, the renowned musician Captain Beefheart, in a series of original short pieces, inspired by fragments of his musical conversations." The work was commissioned by artists Derek Tyman and Andy Webster for their three-month long Rooms to Live project at Bury Art Museum & Sculpture Centre. The duo performed the piece in the gallery on Saturday 6 January 2024.Harriet Heywood, Two post-punk music legends coming to Bury this weekend, Bury Times, 4 January 2024.Steve, Captain Beefheart exhibition – Rooms to Live – Bury Art Museum & Sculpture Centre, Captain Beefheart Radar Station website, 26 November 2023.
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, Martin Stephenson and the Daintees, the Band of Holy Joy, the Monochrome Set, the Nightingales, Vic Godard and the Subway Sect, and Viv Albertine.
McCookerybook has released nine solo albums from 2006 to 2025, 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.