The Chefs

The Chefs were an 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 (bass guitar and vocals), Carl Evans (guitar and vocals), James McCallum (Helen's brother; guitar) and Russell Greenwood (drums; died 25 June 1999).

In 1976 Helen McCallum moved from Wylam near Newcastle-upon-Tyne to Brighton to study Fine Art Printmaking at the Polytechnic. In 1977 she began to play bass in the punk band, Joby and the Hooligans. The following year, Carl Evans, a 17-year-old guitarist from Haywards Heath, joined the band, who changed their name to the Smartees. In the Smartees, McCallum wrote and sang 'Thrush', a song about the sexually transmitted disease ("Darling you diseased me, I thought you did not care/ You never tried to please me when I was lying there"). Her second song, written with singer Tracy Preston, was "Let's Make Up", about cosmetics ("You line your lips with darker shade/ Blot with tissue then you're made")

After the Smartees split in late 1978, McCallum and Evans began to write songs together. McCallum had drawn an illustration of a dancing chef, called Ken Wood, with an accompanying rhyme, "Food". This was a list of favourite foods, with the refrain "Food we eat to keep us going/ Food we eat to make us strong/ In our bellies we are stowing/ Eating eating all day long." Evans set this to music, giving them their first song, and a name for the band, the Chefs.

Evans and McCallum went on to write 'Boasting', another list song, in which they sang alternate verses describing their favourite possessions: McCallum’s pet goldfish and canvass shoes, and Evans' blue mini car, pair of pointed crepes and 10-inch Whirwind record. A third song was made up of the simple lyric, "We’re the Chefs, how do you do? We have come to play for you." All three songs were under two minutes long and McCallum later recalled that their first gig "lasted about five minutes, with between song chat".

In 1979, the Chefs, with 'Muttley' on drums, contributed two songs, 'Food', and Carl's 'You Get Everywhere', to Vaultage 79, a compilation produced by Brighton's independent record label, Attrix. The local newspaper, the Evening Argus, organised a photo shoot with all the Attrix bands standing outside the record label's shop in Sydney Street. When the photographer asked McCallum her name, she told him, on the spur of the moment, that it was 'McCookerybook'. The name stuck.

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