Typical Girls: Women in Punk/Post-Punk/Underground Music (Circa 1975-1980s)

[Helen McCookerybook <helen_mccookerybook AT yahoo.co.uk>]

I'm posting this ( and have contacted Dina to OK it,
thank you Dina!) because I've just found out that my
forthcoming book, The Lost Women of Rock Music, is
going to be available in June this year, and I've just
discovered it's retail price is going to be £55 GBP
which puts it well out of the price range of most
people.
I have contacted the publisher, Ashgate, who have told
me that as an academic book it's normal for there to
be a short print-run in hardback, which, if it sells,
then becomes available as a paperback for general
consumption.
I have no real idea of whether it's worth my pushing
them on this- it is an academic book, with probably at
least two chapters that are only of real interest to
music sociologists or people who are interested in the
history of British young people in the 1970s and
1980s, but then there is a lot of interview material
(but not completely unedited interviews) with many
women instrumentalists and singers: Ari and Tessa from
the Slits, Gina from the Raincoats, Gaye Black from
the Adverts, Rachel and Hester from Dolymixture, Nora
Normal from the Gymslips, Lucy O'Brien from the
Catholic Girls, June Miles-Kingston from the
Mo-Dettes, Liz Naylor from the Gay Animals, Mavis
Bayton from the Mistakes, Lora Logic from X-Ray Spex
and Essential Logic, Enid Williams from Girlschool,
Rhoda Dakar from the Bodysnatchers,  Vi Subversa from
Poison Girls, and more lesser-known artists from bands
in London and Brighton at the end of the 1970s. There
is a case study of how the punk scene 'worked' for
getting female players up on stage in the town of
Brighton .
I also interviewed important figures at the time, such
as DJ  John Peel, Geoff Travis of Rough Trade and
music journalist Caroline Coon.
The book discusses the ways women's participation in
rock are excluded from music histories and why, and
developed out of a pHD study I did a couple of years
ago. I was driven to do it out of anger at the way so
much female creative energy had been swept under the
carpet and was going to be either forgotten or
remembered as a set of silly stereotypes!
If anyone would like to write to me about this, my
email address is helen_mccookerybook AT yahoo.co.uk
I know things have changed for female musicians, but
sometimes not as much as they should- at least not in
the UK!
Helen Reddington (aka Helen McCookerybook)

www.mccookerybook.com
www.myspace.com/helenmccookerybook



                
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