There’s been quite a bit going on of late. For those who are unaware, Malcolm is now on the road with Man, as part of their ’50th Anniversary Tour’. At the time of writing, the band have played a sold out date at London’s Half Moon and will be heading off to Scotland for two dates before coming back south. Full tour dates are on the poster shown here. Note that the Evesham gig was cancelled.

Getting tickets in advance is well advised. Please contact the venues / Google for online ticket sites. Malc says please come and say hello if you get to one of the gigs.

PS. You may well hear an old Help Yourself song if you come along. Can you guess what it is?

PPS. Although we try and keep this website updated, the best way to get the latest
news, is to follow Malcolm on Facebook (www.facebook.com/MalcolmMorleyHelps) and/or Twitter (@bewaretheshadow).

Guess who will be playing keyboards with Man on their short upcoming UK tour?

Tour dates and ticket info here.

Remember The Jack Bentley Blues Band who played at the Richard Treece memorial gig? Well Jack Bentley has a new release, this time around as Mister Dodo Bones.

Accompanied by the One-Eyed Jacks, this is well worth checking out, especially, in the immortal words of Deke Leonard, if you enjoy “Stonkin’ quirky blues played with terrifying conviction”.

Richard was part of the Jack Bentley Blues Band before upping sticks and coming down to London and eventually joining Help Yourself. Jack Bentley and his merry band of bandoliers were kind enough to come down to Walthamstow for Richard’s memorial gig, helping turn the occasion into something special.

More info on the new release here.

Thanks to Blair Finlay for spotting another Tweet from Danny Baker. He seems keen!

Spotted on Twitter by Blair Finlay… a tweet from Danny Baker!

Great to see so many of you at the Betsey Trotwood. If everyone is in agreement, shall we try and do it again before Christmas? Thanks again to Jari and Begum… you were both fabulous! Malc

Malcolm has just done an interview with an Italian magazine. As he says, “It is great to be asked to do these things but I seem to frequently be asked, how did I start Sam Apple Pie? The answer of course, is that I didn’t. I was never in Sam Apple Pie!”

The question, which over the years has seemingly built into a myth, probably stems for the session Malcolm did for Sam Apple Pie for their first album. As the album notes correctly state, he played piano on ‘Annabelle’ and electric harpsichord on ‘Stranger’.

And of course, one member of the Helps who WAS in Sam Apple Pie was Dave Charles! Dave played drums for them before leaving to joining up with Malc to form Help Yourself.

Requests for Sam Apple Pie songs at the upcoming gig will probably be met with a stern stare and a lifetime ban from all future gigs! Not that Sam Apple Pie songs weren’t any good of course… 🙂

In case anyone has missed this, The Green Ray are having an album launch gig in cahoots with The Brainiac 5. Both bands have new albums out… and both are FANTASTIC. If you can’t get to the gig, go buy the albums! And for vinyl fans, I hear that Half Sentences will be out as a lovely 12-incher soon…

If you hadn’t noticed, The Green Ray have a new album out. And it is rather fantastic. So be good to yourself and go grab a copy asap!!! What’s more, it features the much-missed Richard Treece – his last foray into a recording studio before his sad and untimely passing. The instant you hear his unique and memorable guitar sound, you’re transported a better place… a true mark of musical genius.

More info and buying details from The Green Ray Facebook page.

https://www.facebook.com/fragile.world1/

A date for your diary… on Saturday Sept 30th, Malcolm has a gig at the Betsy Trotwood. Malcolm will be joined by the wonderful Jari, on accordion, for several songs. If you’ve been to one of Malc’s more recent gigs, you’ll already have seen and heard Jari and know what a treat this is!

Entry is £10 on the door. Hope to see you there!

Malcolm’s love affair with the guitar continues unabated. Those who have been to his gigs in the last few years, will know that Malcolm has been playing some rather tasty Spanish nylon strung guitars in an impressive improvisational gypsy/folk style. However, more recently he has also been playing steel string acoustics. And not just any old guitars either, beautiful hand-built Lowden acoustics from Northern Ireland.

One of these, the more expensive (and lavishly built) of the two that Malc owns – a 2016 S35M – is currently for sale at No.Tom Vintage & Classic Guitars in Denmark Street, London. Yep, that’s the famous ‘Tin Pan Alley’.

No.Tom Guitars are at number 6 Denmark Street – the so-called ‘home’ of the Sex Pistols. The walls in the building upstairs are covered with Jonny Rotten-penned caricatures of Sex Pistols bassist Sid Vicious, his girlfriend Nancy Spungen and their manager Malcolm McLaren. Incredibly, this graffiti has been awarded Grade II Listed status!

So there’s a very tenuous Sex Pistols / Malcolm Morley link right there. Actually, there are probably some less tenuous links… but we’ll leave that for another time.

Thanks for all your positive comments on the Malcolm Morley Facebook page with regard the new recording project. ‘Project’ is very much the word for it. At the moment, it is a series of songs that are ‘sessions’ rather than a single cohesive ‘album’.

The luxury of having a small recording set up at home means that tracks can be recorded when the muse strikes. Some are partly improvised, whilst others are more considered in terms of their construction. Currently, a few tracks are in a state of ‘gestation’… being left to settle for a few days before being reevaluated and considered for release. One is ready for release now ~ which, oddly, is one of the more ‘spur of the moment’ things.

This pedal is one of Malc’s ‘secret weapons’ in the creation of his upcoming project… and sounding pretty damn good. This is a return to a full band sound, not a million miles away from the original Help Yourself vibe, rather than the more recent acoustic-based material. Lots of tasty electric guitar currently in evidence!

Malc is playing all instruments… but the project is very much an organic one, so it could go anywhere from here. Some snippets of the demos already recorded will be uploaded here in due course!

Here’s a sticker from the archive – which was posted by John Eichler on Brinsley Schwartz’s Facebook page (although its origins may be elsewhere). As ever, if anyone has any further information – or indeed other ephemera, let us know!

For those that don’t know, Down Home Productions were set up by John Eichler and Dave Robinson as a ‘loose family of artists and creative people’… which included Help Yourself. More info here.

The evening of Saturday 10th June is the date of Deke’s Memorial Concert. Buying a ticket in advance is strongly recommended… if they haven’t sold out already!

Tickets from Derricks Music in Swansea (01792 654226) or online at www.derricksmusic.co.uk. Also available from The Princess Royal Theatre booking office (01639 763214).

With Deke’s passing still very raw for all of us, it was lovely to read this obituary in The Guardian ~ penned by none other than Michael Heatley.

It is with regret that Malcolm has decided to cancel his gig on 11 February at the Betsey Trotwood in Clerkenwell, London. The gig will however be rescheduled soon.

Not only has Malc succumbed to the nasty flu bug that is doing the rounds, but also he feels that in light of Deke’s passing, postponing the gig will “give people a chance to process their feelings of loss”. It just didn’t seem right to be playing a gig when the news of Deke’s death is so fresh with us all.

Detail of the rescheduled gig will be posted on here soon.

Nice article on United Artists in issue #60 of Shindig! In a side column, Andrew Lauder picks his favourite UA albums… which includes ‘Beware the Shadow’. Man’s ‘Live at the Padget Rooms’ also gets a look in.

Help Yourself / Strange Affair (1972)
“Their second album was a superb blend of fragile acoustic balladry and epic acid-rock guitar workouts… they are better known now than they were then and it’s nice that people remember them.”