tag:jezhellard.net,2005:/blogs/finally-on-the-way-again?p=2Finally on the way again...2023-08-22T21:25:50+02:00Jez Hellard & The Djukella Orchestrafalsetag:jezhellard.net,2005:Post/72610762023-08-22T21:25:50+02:002024-03-01T06:53:55+01:00 Spiritually enriched in an industrial unit...<p>Dear friends out there in the wide world,<br><br>As I finally get a moment of neither driving nor singing, I find myself back in an industrial unit in Well Rough waiting for a new calliper and a length of cable to get Bella, The Great White Hope through this years’ MOT. It’s been a slightly gruelling, but thoroughly enjoyable couple of weeks, playing pretty much every day all around the West Country with an emergency mission to cover for The Hot Rats at Broadstairs in East Kent thrown in to test my driving stamina.<br><br>The music has been flowing beautifully and we’ve had some incredible shows, but the shoulder injury I’ve been nursing for the last couple of months has become excruciating, and doesn’t seem to appreciate a constant regime of either roundabouts or guitar playing. To be honest, playing the guitar is fairly comfortable; humping cases around and steering, less so.</p><p> </p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/s:bzglfiles/u/560234/7b25266d2b7ae8fb56714c987fb195c7e7b274e1/original/vikingbay2023.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==" class="size_l justify_center border_" /><p> </p><p>We only have a few shows left before I need to skedaddle home to the mountains and get back to building, and I’d love to catch up with as many of you as possible before the off.<br><br>This Thursday, August 24th, we are playing our only Northamptonshire show of the year; <a class="no-pjax" href="https://www.facebook.com/events/751137483064850" target="_blank"><u>Little Ember Sessions</u></a> at <a class="no-pjax" href="https://talbothotel.co.uk/" target="_blank"><u>The Talbot Hotel</u></a> in Oundle. I know it’s a school night and all that, but it’s our only chance to play a local show for local people, so if you’re anywhere nearby, or know anyone who is, please help us to spread the word and fill the place up.<br><br>It’s a beautiful venue in the heart of historic Oundle run by good people, so help us make their day. <a class="no-pjax" href="https://www.wegottickets.com/event/573328?fbclid=IwAR1LBJnO_mNCqFMr5sIik1Yhvrkg6dnUiCQBOuIY6jIwch3JkBztELfDxc4" target="_blank"><u>Tickets are available here</u></a>. If you’re in touch with any PWS old-timers, The Sofa Sessions crew or any other musical connections, let them know.</p><p> </p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/s:bzglfiles/u/560234/69ecc09f070a78a3409a4a4e9e1ac63bef8241d2/original/djukellalittleember2023.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==" class="size_l justify_center border_" /><p> </p><p>The same goes for our only remaining London show, this Sunday, August 27th at the incredible new <a class="no-pjax" href="https://www.jamboreevenue.co.uk/" data-link-type="url">Jamboree</a>, tucked away on a charming corner right next to King’s Cross Station. It’s a perfect concert venue with fine beers, wines and the like. If you’re anywhere near London, or indeed a train station, come and join us, or send your friends along. <a class="no-pjax" href="https://www.jamboreevenue.co.uk/events/jez-hellard-the-djukella-orchestra-2/" target="_blank"><u>Tickets are available here</u></a>…</p><p> </p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/s:bzglfiles/u/560234/77133d0bb7a9bf6d3ad71a861625a436c596855c/original/djukellajamboree1.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==" class="size_l justify_center border_" /><p> </p><p>As the rest of the world seems to be on fire, devastating vast swathes of humanity as governments squabble about who best to sell more weapons and oil to, England had somehow managed to almost totally avoid summer this year. We’ve had the odd glimmer of sunshine, but generally a wind-tan has been about as much as I can manage.<br><br>To all of the dear people we’ve met over the past few weeks, and are therefore new to this blog, I normally have more time for musings on the wider world in a slightly more poetic and amusing manner, but right now fixing the van and trying to sell enough tickets to eat are priorities, so I’ll have to keep it short.<br><br>Some recent highlights have been; reuniting with Mati Congas and the Clovelly contingent at the aptly named <a class="no-pjax" href="https://www.thegloriousoyster.co.uk/" target="_blank"><u>Glorious Oyster</u></a> in Instow, replete with incredible oysters and the best dune-based music scene I’ve found in years, catching up with Tirion, Dave and the whole crew at the Psychedelic Dentist Sessions, discovering <a class="no-pjax" href="https://www.morgawrfalmouth.co.uk/" target="_blank"><u>The Morgawr</u></a>, Falmouth’s brand-spanking new venue for classy music and sea-monsters, another unforgettable night at Hatch Court, our first ever show at the sublime <a class="no-pjax" href="https://ashburtonarts.org.uk/" target="_blank"><u>Ashburton Arts Centre</u></a>, singing a wide variety of revolutionary musics in what used to be Glastonbury’s Conservative Club (where I’m sure Rees-Mogg, Thatcher and other “honorables” have trod the boards over the years) as the sun set gently on the honey-coloured high-street behind us (thanks to Dan Caruso for setting it up), and finishing our last <a class="no-pjax" href="https://broadstairsfolkweek.org.uk/" target="_blank"><u>Broadstairs</u></a> show with James Kelly, Danny Tonks and other Kentish luminaries sitting, wrapt, on the floor at our feet, lapping up the last of the poetry.</p><p> </p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/s:bzglfiles/u/560234/74aab57fc745858ee492af13bafc0aa03f811d12/original/djukellaconclub23.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==" class="size_l justify_center border_" /><p> </p><p>In Bristol, I was honoured to be made custodian of the late, great Nick Clyne’s beautiful guitar by his daughter and my dear friend, Jess. Nick, to those who didn’t know him, was the head sound engineer for <a class="no-pjax" href="http://www.smallworldsolarstage.org/" target="_blank"><u>Small World Solar Stage</u></a> at Glastonbury and a host of other festivals, and an all round good egg, bad boy and author of such classics as <a class="no-pjax" href="https://nickclyne.bandcamp.com/track/old-enough-to-know-better" target="_blank"><u>Old Enough to Know Better</u></a> and <a class="no-pjax" href="https://nickclyne.bandcamp.com/track/the-donkey-song" target="_blank"><u>Plinky-Plonky, Sucking Off a Donkey</u></a> as well as The Deadbeat Diaries.<br><br>A prime example of Simian Ashkanasi (as he would put it) he headed a team of miscreants known as <a class="no-pjax" href="https://www.facebook.com/Gingineers" target="_blank"><u>The Gingineers</u></a> who have amplified and tormented generations of musicians in equal measure. Nick died after a long struggle with cancer ten years ago, and after a particularly good rendition of Pass it Along last year, Jess decided that it was time his guitar was played again, and this year we finally managed to cross paths and make it happen. She had assured Spike that I wouldn’t play it, as I only like my guitar, but I sang one song on it that very night and ended up singing five in a row.</p><p> </p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/s:bzglfiles/u/560234/09f5b5e9db105ae88ecf10c1458cf46ec26b0203/original/nickandjesssleeping.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==" class="size_l justify_center border_" /><p> </p><p>Thank you so much my dear. It is a beautiful instrument, it’ll save me a fortune in strings now I have one in one tuning and another in another, and it’s a true joy to be able to tell tales of your dad and his antics to various crowds around the world. I shall dig out my copy of <a class="no-pjax" href="https://nickclyne.bandcamp.com/album/nick-clyne-kind-of-orange" target="_blank"><u>Kind of Orange</u></a> and learn all his songs when I get a moment.<br><br>Talking of the dearly departed, it’s with great sadness I learned that Derek Pace; father of my belle-soeur, Joanna, grandfather to my niece and nephew, mechanical genius, bagman of the Rutland Morris and all round incredible man, dropped dead on his way to the garden at his care home last Saturday morning. He will be dearly missed by all who knew him. So much love to the whole family.</p><p> </p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/s:bzglfiles/u/560234/c940f50987bc1ca485b0a09acd26cd5dae751a6d/original/derekandjo.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==" class="size_l justify_center border_" /><p> </p><p>For any of you who knew the great <a class="no-pjax" href="https://www.youtube.com/@nicknoodles8841" target="_blank"><u>Nick Noodles</u></a>, particularly those who were unable to make it to his funeral, if there’s any chance you can make it out to Oundle on Thursday, I’d really love to catch up. I could only go to the funeral for an hour between epic drives, and we’ve got a good couple of stonking songs to sing for him.<br><br>It’s been quite the summer for tragedy, both personal and across much of the world. My heart goes out to all those struggling against the odds in La Haina, Yellowknife, the Okanagan, Taiwan, Yemen, Ethiopia, Sudan, Ukraine, Nagorno Kharabakh, Afghanistan; the list goes on. I can’t offer many solutions other than singing to people, fiddling while Rome burns, so to speak, but I do think that if we could all try to spend a bit more time singing and a bit less fighting, it couldn’t hurt.<br><br>With so much love from a somewhat physically broken, but spiritually enriched journeyman, now fully furnished with a new MOT,<br><br>Jez</p>Jez Hellard & The Djukella Orchestratag:jezhellard.net,2005:Post/72610752023-08-22T21:20:57+02:002023-08-22T21:20:58+02:00Summer funerals, gentle rain & glimmers of sunshine...<p>Dear Friends around the world,<br><br>I find myself looking out at dappled sunshine on rampant undergrowth for the first time in what seems like forever.<br><br>As the south of Europe burns in the fierce heat and prevailing winds, one reason so many Brits continue to fly to Greek islands which are literally on fire, is that it’s been almost continuously bleak, damp and windy in England since we made our way down from sunny Scotland at the end of June, and perhaps the chance of drying out seems worth the risk to a mildewed populace.<br><br>Massive respect to all the crews who’ve managed to run tent-based festivals despite it all. <a class="no-pjax" href="https://jezhellard.us16.list-manage.com/track/click?u=f57a5708b8b32b5898394964b&id=e457c0bf68&e=f64f4cbd5e" target="_blank" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://jezhellard.us16.list-manage.com/track/click?u%3Df57a5708b8b32b5898394964b%26id%3De457c0bf68%26e%3Df64f4cbd5e&source=gmail&ust=1692818112811000&usg=AOvVaw3EDE-sUB-nrSsCC7F1RLXm"><u>Tolpuddle</u></a> sadly had to be cancelled at the last minute, for the first time ever, as gale-force winds threatened to whisk the tent away to Bere Regis and beyond, but <a class="no-pjax" href="https://jezhellard.us16.list-manage.com/track/click?u=f57a5708b8b32b5898394964b&id=89065a80cf&e=f64f4cbd5e" target="_blank" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://jezhellard.us16.list-manage.com/track/click?u%3Df57a5708b8b32b5898394964b%26id%3D89065a80cf%26e%3Df64f4cbd5e&source=gmail&ust=1692818112811000&usg=AOvVaw0-w1stGDw4HwkwA-cFmb8s"><u>Pig’s Ear Folk Ale</u></a>, perched on the High Weald of Kent somehow managed to cling on for dear life with only minor wind-based mishaps, and when we arrived to join the great <a class="no-pjax" href="https://jezhellard.us16.list-manage.com/track/click?u=f57a5708b8b32b5898394964b&id=6e442a16d3&e=f64f4cbd5e" target="_blank" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://jezhellard.us16.list-manage.com/track/click?u%3Df57a5708b8b32b5898394964b%26id%3D6e442a16d3%26e%3Df64f4cbd5e&source=gmail&ust=1692818112811000&usg=AOvVaw2CSltAFNyPbMW5LUEmUV2q"><u>Tim Edey</u></a> & friends on the Sunday, the clouds miraculously parted and we were treated to a bucolic sunset and musical magic from all directions. Thanks to Euan, James, Jen, Puffin and the whole crew for making it happen.<br><br>We are about to embark on our next run of shows, from Margate to Cornwall and back. If you or any of your associates are within striking distance of any of these places, we thoroughly look forward to singing to you along the way.</p><p> </p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/s:bzglfiles/u/560234/08c9ca73c71146cae99dd6edf08d251da6ddec72/original/djukella-aug-2023-poster.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==" class="size_l justify_center border_" /><p> </p><p>All tickets are available through the “<a class="no-pjax" href="https://jezhellard.us16.list-manage.com/track/click?u=f57a5708b8b32b5898394964b&id=8e4cae8fc1&e=f64f4cbd5e" target="_blank" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://jezhellard.us16.list-manage.com/track/click?u%3Df57a5708b8b32b5898394964b%26id%3D8e4cae8fc1%26e%3Df64f4cbd5e&source=gmail&ust=1692818112811000&usg=AOvVaw3hoBIxFEpncQuXg5itxS4E"><u>Shows</u></a>” page of the <a class="no-pjax" href="https://jezhellard.us16.list-manage.com/track/click?u=f57a5708b8b32b5898394964b&id=a26f5a5212&e=f64f4cbd5e" target="_blank" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://jezhellard.us16.list-manage.com/track/click?u%3Df57a5708b8b32b5898394964b%26id%3Da26f5a5212%26e%3Df64f4cbd5e&source=gmail&ust=1692818112811000&usg=AOvVaw1rNQec0B1vR6GxyDVm9ylP"><u>website</u></a>, apart from those gigs where you don’t need a ticket. There are still a few left for tonight’s show at <a class="no-pjax" href="https://jezhellard.us16.list-manage.com/track/click?u=f57a5708b8b32b5898394964b&id=d713afbe17&e=f64f4cbd5e" target="_blank" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://jezhellard.us16.list-manage.com/track/click?u%3Df57a5708b8b32b5898394964b%26id%3Dd713afbe17%26e%3Df64f4cbd5e&source=gmail&ust=1692818112811000&usg=AOvVaw3dDIcLhE2SiRZMC6F4ptZI"><u>Rosslyn Court</u></a> in Cliftonville, Margate, (Thursday July 27th) and we could really do with filling the place, so if you’re anywhere near east Kent, just <a class="no-pjax" href="https://jezhellard.us16.list-manage.com/track/click?u=f57a5708b8b32b5898394964b&id=100a5a5bcc&e=f64f4cbd5e" target="_blank" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://jezhellard.us16.list-manage.com/track/click?u%3Df57a5708b8b32b5898394964b%26id%3D100a5a5bcc%26e%3Df64f4cbd5e&source=gmail&ust=1692818112811000&usg=AOvVaw33nTYjb0bAf4rOKVF6rVlQ"><u>click here</u></a> for tickets, or if you'd like to watch online from the comfort of your own device, <a class="no-pjax" href="https://jezhellard.us16.list-manage.com/track/click?u=f57a5708b8b32b5898394964b&id=9d368c4a10&e=f64f4cbd5e" target="_blank" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://jezhellard.us16.list-manage.com/track/click?u%3Df57a5708b8b32b5898394964b%26id%3D9d368c4a10%26e%3Df64f4cbd5e&source=gmail&ust=1692818112811000&usg=AOvVaw1couk3QYFGJFgvN0X9VYPJ"><u>here's the link...</u></a><br><br>If you’re bed-ridden, housebound or just unable to make it along, our gig at <a class="no-pjax" href="https://jezhellard.us16.list-manage.com/track/click?u=f57a5708b8b32b5898394964b&id=6695415f7d&e=f64f4cbd5e" target="_blank" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://jezhellard.us16.list-manage.com/track/click?u%3Df57a5708b8b32b5898394964b%26id%3D6695415f7d%26e%3Df64f4cbd5e&source=gmail&ust=1692818112811000&usg=AOvVaw18jp6TUmqB4dJdREiHyjnb"><u>The Bell</u></a> in Bath from a couple of Mondays ago is available in its entirety to watch on <a class="no-pjax" href="https://jezhellard.us16.list-manage.com/track/click?u=f57a5708b8b32b5898394964b&id=ac16ae4646&e=f64f4cbd5e" target="_blank" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://jezhellard.us16.list-manage.com/track/click?u%3Df57a5708b8b32b5898394964b%26id%3Dac16ae4646%26e%3Df64f4cbd5e&source=gmail&ust=1692818112811000&usg=AOvVaw1vCliWiJq-j4OrXs3GToRJ"><u>youtube</u></a>. I made a couple of howling lyrical errors but otherwise everyone tells me we were on fine form, and it’s well worth a watch, if you fancy a bit of music. Beautifully captured by the great Steve Holder on sound and vision, here you go…</p><p> </p><div class="video-container size_xl justify_center" style=""><iframe data-video-type="youtube" data-video-id="94UHHMKryFw" data-video-thumb-url="" type="text/html" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/94UHHMKryFw?rel=0&wmode=transparent&enablejsapi=1" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen="true"></iframe></div><p> </p><p>The past couple of weeks have been tinged with tradgedy. The week before my dear friend Mark “Grizz” Adams’ funeral last Wednesday, which, despite the sadness, was an incredible reunion and a joyous celebration of a brilliant man, drawing people back to King’s Cliffe from as far afield as Australia, we learned of the tragic passing of yet another dear friend, leaving an aching chasm in the hearts of many.<br><br>Nick Noodles; soundman extraordinaire, DJ, guitar picker, car-fixer, shoulder-lender, purveyor of bass (and the rest) for the legendary Krunch sound system, chief-archivist of Northants music for 3 decades and finest wrapper of cables in the business, took his own life on the night of July 4th. He’d been left in a desperate situation and decided it was time to move on. It is a savagely difficult reality for many of us to even begin to understand and come to terms with.<br><br>My heart goes out to Nikita, Brenda, Joe, Chris and the many friends he leaves behind. Deepest thanks to Kim for working tirelessly to organise his affairs, many tons of equipment and meticulously organised and individually labelled belongings, as well as the funeral, which takes place at Peterborough Crematorium this Friday, July 28th at 3pm.<br><br> </p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/s:bzglfiles/u/560234/a52c62e0b4f5120ef68fe80fa8311df3df9d4eb3/original/noodlesinpink.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==" class="size_l justify_center border_" /><p> </p><p>Anyone who’d like to join us to celebrate Nick’s life, is welcome either at the ceremony or afterwards at The Ship Inn, Oundle. Bright colours, or indeed anything you fancy wearing, will be the order of the day.<br><br>Whether you knew Noodles or not, there’s a brief tribute and a rousing song in his memory on the video above. If a whole concert is a bit daunting to plough through, I completely understand, you can find it at 1:52:50 (as in 1 hour, 52 minutes and 50 seconds) into the proceedings. In the coming days I will find some tech-savvy friend who can cut it out for me so I can share it more widely, but that’s beyond me, so I’ll have to wait.<br><br>And for now, I must fly. So many miles to drive and much to do before the off. For those of you in the south, east and west of England, I look forward to catching up with as many of you as possible over the coming weeks.<br><br>Please help us to share the flyer, tell your friends, contact your favourite radio show and ask them to play our music, recommend <a class="no-pjax" href="https://jezhellard.us16.list-manage.com/track/click?u=f57a5708b8b32b5898394964b&id=9c001cd48a&e=f64f4cbd5e" target="_blank" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://jezhellard.us16.list-manage.com/track/click?u%3Df57a5708b8b32b5898394964b%26id%3D9c001cd48a%26e%3Df64f4cbd5e&source=gmail&ust=1692818112812000&usg=AOvVaw1FaXYtotCChaFmCPHWExC4"><u>this blog</u></a>, <a class="no-pjax" href="https://jezhellard.us16.list-manage.com/track/click?u=f57a5708b8b32b5898394964b&id=7bedd67cfc&e=f64f4cbd5e" target="_blank" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://jezhellard.us16.list-manage.com/track/click?u%3Df57a5708b8b32b5898394964b%26id%3D7bedd67cfc%26e%3Df64f4cbd5e&source=gmail&ust=1692818112812000&usg=AOvVaw2VkJDPzqd0jS5DgfCAvZiO"><u>buy albums</u></a> and spread the word.<br><br>Making a living is difficult, but being able to continue singing to you all is so rewarding. Sorry I’ve no time to rant on about our tragicomic political scene. For once I’ll spare you…<br><br>With much love from the back of the van, as the rain steadily patters once more on the solar panels,<br><br>Jez<br> </p>Jez Hellard & The Djukella Orchestratag:jezhellard.net,2005:Post/72351262023-06-30T16:33:58+02:002023-07-23T11:30:45+02:00The merits of enforced pitstops; inspiration both sides The Tweed...<p> </p><p>Dear listeners and readers of the world,</p><p>Deepest thanks to all the wonderful folks who have made our wee jaunt to the Scottish borders such an absolute delight. It was a true joy to catch up with so many dear friends for the first time in years, along with so many new faces and characters; it’s more than enough to remind us why we do it.</p><p> </p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/s:bzglfiles/u/560234/65d147e160a8a443869035ba3c37c8f901845659/original/viewfrombiggarwide.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==" class="size_l justify_center border_" /><p> </p><p>Right now I’m perched in the back of the van in a not too noisy industrial estate, waiting for my exhaust to be repaired, after it finally gave way en-route from Lancaster, and trying to catch up on as much correspondence, promotion and admin as I can before we need to hit the road again. It’s the best thing about enforced pit-stops, they give me a couple of hours without distraction to try to catch up.</p><p>Tonight we’re heading to Oxford to party with the ‘Gyptians, before our next run of shows down south. If you or any of your associates are anywhere near any of these places, come and join us, or send your friends along. The music has been flowing with righteous inspiration, and our audiences have been going home with a spring in their<br>step, so if you fancy some musical balm, take your chance while we’re still in the country.</p><p>Friday June 30th - Oxford - “Gyptians<br>Saturday July 1st - Hampshire - Hartstock, Holybourne<br>Sunday July 2nd - London - Jamboree Venue, King’s Cross<br>Wednesday July 5th - Leytonstone - What’s Cookin’<br>Thursday July 6th - Portslade - Railway Roots<br>Saturday July 8th - Tolpuddle Village Hall<br>Monday July 10th - Bath - The Bell Inn</p><p><br>Having managed to make a small profit after all the diesel costs, I’m now spending that on the exhaust, as is so often the way, so the more people we can lure to concerts, the better chance we have of eating.</p><p> </p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/s:bzglfiles/u/560234/0fc87bfccd21e1597366953078a5ff4d7e650b57/original/jeznyeweegroupieclovelly.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==" class="size_l justify_center border_" /><p> </p><p>As we’ve raced around the countryside, singing our hearts out, we’ve been accompanied by the usual annals of doom and despair leaking out of the radio and displayed in semi-literate barks from the front-pages in petrol-station forecourts. It’s always a curious phenomenon, to drive, juddering along the potholed remnants of roads, fuelled by service-station “meal” deals, and a steady torrent of monetised despair, to arrive in various oases of culture and wax lyrical about compassion, gardening, community and poetry.</p><p>It’s deeply nourishing to get the opportunity to actually communicate with people, and try to remind them that there is hope and inspiration all around us, but easy to see why so many perfectly intelligent people, on observing the madness of our contemporary scene and wondering whether they’re the only sane one, end up, through that old gem, peer-pressure, concluding rather that they must be mad, and seeking solace in medication, isolation or a constant stream of renovation and/or auctioneering shows on the telly.</p><p> </p><div class="video-container size_xl justify_center" style=""><iframe data-video-type="youtube" data-video-id="Q8aUjrUbWJQ" data-video-thumb-url="" type="text/html" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/Q8aUjrUbWJQ?rel=0&wmode=transparent&enablejsapi=1" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen="true"></iframe></div><p> </p><p>Where the French tend to express their malaise in terms of burning down the Town Hall (as you can see live on TV right now, if the mood takes you) when the authorities push them too far, it seems the British, despite our much-vaunted stoicism, are more inclined in recent years to retreat into solitary despair, and shrug off the outrageous levels of corruption, inequity, and incompetence with a quiet “Oh dear”, as illustrated so well in Adam Curtis’ film Hypernormalisation.</p><p>We at The Djukella Orchestra are blessed to be given regular opportunity (now it’s legal again) to gather people together and get them laughing, thinking and singing together, and I am forever grateful.</p><p>Time and time again, I see folks at the moment they realise they are not insane, but had just been surrounded by far too many of the wrong stimuli to engender decent mental health. All it takes sometimes is to just get together with your neighbours and sing a very long tomato, for example.</p><p>On that note, I would like to offer huge thanks to all of you who keep the faith, and remember that by smiling at strangers, offering a helping hand and checking in on our neighbours we can all give each other a leg-up and remind the demoralised that we’re all brilliant, we may have merely forgotten.</p><p>In particular, from this recent trip, my old mucka, Reverend Andrew Smith, Diana de Gruyther, Kate, Alex and the ever-beguiling Hester, Charlie Tibbles (without whom Falkirk may well slip from its axis and go spiralling into the heart of the sun), prize-fighter Margaret Cooper and her big brother Dick Gaughan, who’s reportedly dispirited, but should well remember that the fire of his songs keep many of us out on the road, and will do in perpetuity, the mighty Michael Mackenzie, Keiron & Chris at Arcadia Music Cafe, the amazing Black & Blue (Tom & Craig Anderson), Mama Mule and her incredible team, Georgina, Ren and the Old School Brewery crew, Daihi, Catherine, Keir and Ali, and last but not least, Nye Parsons for his mellifluous majesty and Yasmine for putting up with us.<br> </p><p>Now it is time for me to pack up and prepare for the next journey, but I’d just like to offer salutations to my dear friends Mark “Griz” Adams of King’s Cliffe, who passed away last week, Daniel “Huck” Rivers of Chicago, Jong He and everywhere in between, who was taken a few weeks before that, Yann Kircher Maltais of Engomer and Bill Morris of Celtic Music Radio in Glasgow who both passed with too little fanfare back in the winter. You were all absolute legends. My heart goes out to all who knew you. </p><p> </p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/s:bzglfiles/u/560234/ed37e96da2269f4814c98b0341e591b2981e2069/original/griz-joe.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==" class="size_m justify_center border_" /><p> </p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/s:bzglfiles/u/560234/56c8fca2cc7c1d697b5898ebb8fa95b4e2bb33af/original/huck-mayz.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==" class="size_l justify_center border_" /><p> </p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/s:bzglfiles/u/560234/6bc9ab3c463073a99cc868a21e1ce788ad3cb0ae/original/yannkirchermaltais.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==" class="size_m justify_center border_" /><p> </p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/s:bzglfiles/u/560234/f95dc62e4ed0403a43e2f1b6970168edb1647f24/original/billmorris.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==" class="size_l justify_center border_" /><p> </p><p>To those of you who’re still with us, let’s get together and sing as soon as logistically possible. I look forward to it immensely.</p><p>With much love from Well Rough,</p><p>Jez<br> </p>Jez Hellard & The Djukella Orchestratag:jezhellard.net,2005:Post/72345142023-06-29T13:54:43+02:002023-06-29T13:54:43+02:00A brief moment of not driving...<p>Dear friends near and far,<br><br>For those of you who’ve been reading my rants for years, my apologies for the long radio-silence. For those of you who we’ve only just met in the last couple of weeks, welcome; what a lot of fun it’s been.<br><br>As the thick, sultry air finally cracks, and yields a few drops on the parched ground, I have a rare, brief moment of not driving, and thought I’d try to write a very short missive before we have to hit the road again this afternoon, bound for Markfield Rectory in Leicestershire, on our way north for our first foray in to bonny Scotland since before the world stopped.<br><br>After so many months of masonry, carpentry and the like, it has been a true delight to be back on the road, singing to some of the most charming audiences I’ve seen in years.</p><p> </p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/s:bzglfiles/u/560234/7a16ab56fa96cafb87de1b8413037381144eb39d/original/smallworldafternoonaudience.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==" class="size_l justify_center border_" /><p> </p><p>To add to the joy, the cricket is on the radio, interspersed with the regular and explosive tantrums of the discredited viagra-addled honey-monster who used to be Prime Minister, as he throws all the toys out of the pram in defence of his integrity, between howls of indignation and snarls of retribution.</p><p> </p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/s:bzglfiles/u/560234/eff879c400bdd2b4810a8d39030854b71c142f19/original/ha-ha-ha-ha-ha.png/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==" class="size_m justify_center border_" /><p> </p><p>The whole circus has been as ridiculous as the very notion of “Sir” Mogg, or indeed the antics of the orange-coloured sex-pest across the water, and some day soon I may find long enough to muse a little on the dastardly doings of charlatans, but for now, back to manouevres…<br><br>Saturday June 17th, we’re playing at The Rectory in Markfield, LE67 9WE<br>Sunday June 18th - Gatley, Greater Manchester<br>Tuesday June 20th - <a class="no-pjax" href="https://the-walled-garden.co.uk/whats-on/" target="_blank"><u>The Walled Garden</u></a>, Arkleton DG13 0HL<br>Wednesday June 21st - <a class="no-pjax" href="http://www.falkirkfolkclub.co.uk/" target="_blank"><u>Falkirk Folk Club</u></a>, FK1 1RG<br>Thursday June 22nd - Biggar - <a class="no-pjax" href="https://arcadiamusicshop.co.uk/product/jez-hellard-and-nye-parsons-live-arcadia-music-cafe-thursday-22nd-june-2023/" target="_blank"><u>Arcadia Music Cafe</u></a>, ML12 6DP<br>Friday June 23rd - OPEN TO SUGGESTIONS anywhere from the borders to Yorkshire, Cumbria, Lancashire, Durham or Westmorland!<br>Saturday June 24th- Ditto<br><br>So if you are anywhere nearby, or know folk who are, please help us fill them up. Trying to make a living is even harder than it used to be, but the music is flowing like never before, so catch us while you can.<br><br>Deepest thanks to all at Small World Festival for such a warm welcome home, to Maria and the whole team at <a class="no-pjax" href="https://thehortonepsom.org/" target="_blank"><u>The Horton</u></a>, Epsom’s brand-new arts centre (situated in the frankly sublime chapel and only remaining remnant of europe’s largest psychiatric hospital - it really has to be seen/heard to be believed) for the incredible work you’re doing down in Surrey, to <a class="no-pjax" href="https://www.facebook.com/TheDanLambertMusicPage" target="_blank"><u>Dan Lambert</u></a>, <a class="no-pjax" href="https://www.facebook.com/tomoslewismusic" target="_blank"><u>Tomos Lewis</u></a> and the whole Cardiff crew for a marvellous night, and to Joy and all at <a class="no-pjax" href="http://www.gowerfolkfestival.co.uk/" target="_blank"><u>Gower Folk Festival</u></a> for the most incredible event.</p><p> </p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/s:bzglfiles/u/560234/cbb95bc3733a163f0861b34417df9fe13850cb00/original/weobley-castle.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==" class="size_l justify_center border_" /><p> </p><p>Situated right next to Weobley Castle, with a stunning view of the entire Loughour Estuary, it’s the most beautifully situated, programmed and curated festival I’ve encountered for years. Every single act, kept drawing me back each time I tried to run an errand; such variety and consistent quality, and the audience were a treat. In festival crowds, I can often spot the listening eyes peaking out like prairie-dogs above the mélée, but this lot were pure prairie-dog, front to back. Thank you all so much for listening so intently.<br><br>Sadly I'm running out of time so you'll have to look the incredible acts up yourself on the festival website (do!), but the cherry on top was that I had no idea that my great heroes <a class="no-pjax" href="https://www.kerrfagan.uk/" target="_blank"><u>Nancy Kerr and James Fagan</u></a> were half of the <a class="no-pjax" href="https://melrosequartet.co.uk/" target="_blank"><u>Melrose Quartet</u></a> who followed us, bringing a resounding harmonious close to the evening. After the occasional email exchange over the years, we finally met for the first time at sound-check, and I was blessed enough to be able to recite to Nancy some of her own poetry, which she had forgotten. They wrapped up the whole deal with a glorious rendition of Bright Morning Stars Are Rising, and I all but melted.<br><br>The lovely people in the session put even a dusting of sugar on the cherry and for a time, at least in my mind, all was well with the world.<br><br>Now, I must get back to the road. Thanks to all we’ve come across so far. Looking forward to catching up with plenty more of you along the way.<br><br>Stay brilliant,<br><br>Jez</p>Jez Hellard & The Djukella Orchestratag:jezhellard.net,2005:Post/72345132023-06-29T13:47:52+02:002023-06-29T13:47:53+02:00Anniversaries galore, spring flowers & the return of the blonde beasts...<p>Dear friends around the world,<br><br>After a long, hard winter shivering in various parts of a building-site, wrestling with French bureaucracy and enduring rather too much existential despair, spring has finally burst onto the scene around these parts. The radio tells me that the cities of France are on fire and the whole country has ground to a halt in absolute revulsion at Macron’s extra-parliamentary shenanigans, but you wouldn’t know it from here.<br><br>About ten days ago, as though someone had flicked a switch, temperatures suddenly rose ten degrees and everything started to grow. We've even had a touch of rain for the first time in months, which is helping no end after a remarkably dry winter; wildflowers carpet the floor in the woods, the ash trees are starting to push out their first tentative leaves of the season and the hum of insects is back on the breeze.<br><br>I’ve been getting myself back into the habit of playing music everyday, rather than spending <i>all</i> my time putting calluses on the wrong parts of my hands, and it’s been going quite well, which is always reassuring. Gigs are starting to line up for the summer, and with any luck I’ll at least be able to afford the diesel to get to them.<br><br>For anyone of a Welsh persuasion or with a penchant for Dylan Thomas, we’ll be playing <a class="no-pjax" href="http://www.gowerfolkfestival.co.uk/" target="_blank"><u>Gower Folk Festival</u></a> on Saturday, June 10th, for those in Surrey or thereabouts, we’re at <a class="no-pjax" href="https://thehortonepsom.org/events/jez-hellard-the-djukella-orchestra/" target="_blank"><u>The Horton</u></a>, a beautiful new venue in Epsom, on Thursday June 15th, and for my fellow country-folk of Northamptonshire we’ve got a candlelit show for <a class="no-pjax" href="https://www.ents24.com/oundle-events/the-talbot-hotel/jez-hellard-and-the-djukella-orchestra/6702730" target="_blank"><u>Little Ember Sessions at The Talbot Hotel</u></a> in Oundle on Thursday, August 24th. There will plenty more, but for now, <a class="no-pjax" href="https://jezhellard.net/shows" target="_blank"><u>tickets</u></a> for these shows are available, and we’d love to sell them out.</p><p> </p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/s:bzglfiles/u/560234/8a3e63a5e1fe65613eb70d18df5307636c30cdd6/original/worms-head-logo-400x400.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==" class="size_l justify_center border_" /><p> </p><p>As seems be the case with many people at the moment, I’ve been really struggling with depression and overwhelming bouts of anxiety for months, not helped by an onslaught of demands for ridiculous sums of money from a plethora of intimidating acronyms, but I’m beginning to get on top of that, at least. The more disturbing French ones turned out to be an error on their part, but their automatic system continued to send me increasingly frightening demands week after week, despite endless chats with their very helpful and understanding call-centre staff. At the moment, I haven’t had one for over a month, and (touch wood) I have a feeling the message may finally have got through.<br><br>As for His Majesty’s lot, the very cheek of them informing me that I owe them for “overpayments made during the COVID measures” is a little harder to swallow. I received two payments totalling about £400 to see me through a year of lost work, when peers, cronies and assorted criminals, friends of Matt Hancock and other unsavoury characters gorged on multiple billions from the government teat, of which a mere 0.9% has been recovered or even pursued.<br><br>It may be my cut-throat business brain speaking, but it seems a slightly flawed strategy to relentlessly pursue the poor, desperate and disabled for money that they don’t have, when such fortunes have been squirrelled away all around; often by people not much brighter than the aforementioned washed-up politician, who willingly gave hundreds of thousands of incriminating WhatsApp messages to a “journalist” renowned for betraying her sources and landing them in jail. He even paid her for the privilege.<br><br>Such madness seems all the rage at the moment. At the start of last week, the 20th anniversary of the invasion and consequent destruction of Iraq was marked with great fanfare on the morning news; accompanied without a trace of irony in the triumvirate of headlines by a press-release from the UN warning that the world is at a tipping point in terms of environmental catastrophe, and to end on a positive note, a piece celebrating the order of one million incendiary shells to be shipped to Ukraine.<br><br>The cognitive dissonance required to swallow, or indeed spew, such paradoxical nuggets of information in the same breath is surely worth some sort of prize. I’m left wondering just how many times I need to drive my gas-guzzling SUV to the supermarket and back to leave the carbon-footprint of just one of these incendiary shells, which I’ve since heard are laced (or perhaps blessed) with small amounts of depleted uranium; to help the medicine go down, I suppose.<br><br>In the twenty years since the start of Bush and Blair’s (or perhaps Rove and Campbell’s - how names blur in the haze of time) ill-fated crusade for “freeman-moxy” in the Middle East, countless tons of ordinance have been rained down liberally on an ever increasing itinerary of countries, while we’re all encouraged to scrupulously separate our recyclable waste and compost teabags. Again, maybe our sights are trained in the wrong direction.</p><p> </p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/s:bzglfiles/u/560234/5a30d2e4edc7bcd3ef8b870ea4d33ad647c849e4/original/seenoevilblairbushstraw.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==" class="size_l justify_center border_" /><p> </p><p>It does seem to be the season of portentous anniversaries. The 30th anniversary of the privatisation of Britain’s water infrastructure is marked by the release of literally millions of gallons of raw sewage into our rivers, lakes and beaches, as the hedge funds who run the system cream off yet more dividends; liberated, as they are from decades of EU regulation, monitoring and investment which had eventually managed to undo some of the damage done by two centuries of industrial effluent.<br><br>The 25th anniversary of The Good Friday Agreement, which brought an effective end to decades of sectarian warfare in Northern Ireland, having recently been put to the test by Johnson’s “oven-ready Brexit deal”, was celebrated with a warning of “imminent’ terrorist attacks to accompany Joe Biden’s upcoming visit.<br><br>The 80th anniversary of the end of the Battle of Stalingrad is being commemorated by yet another seemingly interminable bloodbath a mere 500 miles west across the alluvial planes of the Kalmius, Donets and Don. The 75th anniversary of Myanmar’s independence from British rule doesn’t seem to offer much inspiration, but for those who like a bit of hocus-pocus, it’s also 100 years since the opening of Tutankhamun’s tomb.<br><br>As is often the case, paying too much attention to all this stuff brings me back endlessly to William Butler Yeats’ <a class="no-pjax" href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/43290/the-second-coming" target="_blank"><i><u>The Second Coming</u></i></a>, written a mere 104 years ago, which I’ve been known to quote before, but I’ve already painted myself into a rather bleak corner, so for those of you of a literary bent, it’s one of the least disturbing things readily available on the internet.<br><br>After all, it is a glorious Easter Morning as I type, and my heartfelt wishes go out to friends worldwide for Easter, Ramadan and Passover respectively, which coincide for the first time since 1990. It would be delightful to think that such an auspicious event could be marked by some kind of multi-Abrahamic spring festival, with competing falafel recipes scenting the streets of Old Jerusalem, but sadly it looks like a rather more precarious situation from all sides.<br><br>Netanyahu’s ragtag coalition of far-right religious nationalists and “judicial reformers” have continued as many feared they might, with such unpalatable actions that not only the oppressed masses of Gaza and The West Bank, but vast swathes of Israeli society, including their diplomatic service have been out on the streets for months protesting.<br><br>Oh, for a bit of colloquy rather than endless tub-thumping and sloganeering. My thought’s also go out to all of my Taiwanese and Taiwan-based friends who are likely celebrating none of the above, but are currently surrounded on at least three sides by the latest set of “military exercises”.<br><br>Talking of tub-thumping, sloganeering and rough beasts, we’ve recently been treated to the synchronised return of the two transatlantic blonde beasts who’ve so haunted the past few years in the English speaking world, but this time in the dock, rather than behind a lectern.</p><p> </p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/s:bzglfiles/u/560234/3f3d17610bf3045afd4acde021975050ac592114/original/johnsontrump.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==" class="size_m justify_center border_" /><p> </p><p>While bringing charges against Trump does seem to me entirely counter-productive; giving him the oxygen of publicity he constantly craves just when it appeared he was a spent balloon deflating with more of a whimper than a bang, the sorry sight of Boris, sporting for once an approximation of conventional coiffeur, shirt tucked-in and shoes shined, hunched like a petulant schoolboy in the metaphorical head-master’s office, bleating and blathering his increasingly vexed protestations for three hours seemed to signal anything but the much vaunted notion of his triumphant, Churchillian renaissance.<br><br>The point was hammered home when after returning from the call of the division bell which was supposed to herald his full-frontal assault on Sunak’s authority, such as it is, it transpired that only 21 of his amassed ranks had followed him into the breach, and that included Liz Truss, Jacob Rees-Mogg and Michael Fabricant; so make that 18.<br><br>Watching him being made to swear an oath on the bible, which has coincidentally never been required for any other such plaintiff, it was remarkable that it didn’t burst into flames. In this increasingly litigious age, it’s an object lesson that giving someone their day in court can often backfire, whereas just allowing them to humiliate themselves for three straight hours on live television can be far more satisfying for the rest of us.<br><br>While all this sleight-of-hand goes on in the popular press, training our eyes on ostentatious clowns and endless wars, it’s rather more worrying to see what nefarious policies various desperate and collapsing “governments” try, and often manage to push through before they inevitably get voted out.<br><br>Storming the Al Aqsa Mosque with riot police during Ramadan is one of the more transparent attempts to stoke up enough trouble to obscure widespread discontent on the domestic front, but far more insidious to this observer is the fact that the UK has in the past weeks joined the unfortunately acronymous CPTPP (the Comprehensive and Progressive Trans-Pacific Partnership rather than the Seepy Teepee Pee), a trade-deal so toxic that both Trump and Biden, along with Bernie Sanders and countless others were all united in refusing to touch it with a barge-pole.<br><br>Whatever your thoughts on membership of NATO, at least the UK is actually situated in the general vicinity of the North Atlantic. I know that while serving briefly as Foreign Secretary, self-described “hard-man” Dominic Raaaab was taken by surprise by Dover’s proximity to France, but failing to notice that Britain is no-where near the Pacific Ocean really is remiss.<br><br>The “benefits” of this deal are negligible, even in the entirely speculative projections of a potential 0.08% increase in GDP over the next decade, whereas the much more immediate effects will be to flood the UK with substandard meat and animal products from environmentally catastrophic industrial feed-lots thousands of miles away, undermine our own farmers just as they try to come to terms with the the fall-out from leaving their biggest export market, and give vast Canadian-based pharmaceutical conglomerates the legal right to sue doctors if they don’t push enough drugs on their patients, and to sue governments if they try to legislate in any direction contrary to the plans of their corporate overlords. All in all, it’s the kind of thing which might have benefitted from a bit of open public debate, rather than being snuck through under cover of Johnson, while everyone was looking the other way.<br> </p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/s:bzglfiles/u/560234/46607d88850b599b89e53625189863470e7615e1/original/borisbike.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==" class="size_l justify_center border_" /><p> </p><figure class="table"><table width="100%" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" border="0"><tbody><tr><td style="padding-top:9px;vertical-align:top;"><figure class="table" style="float:left;"><table width="100%" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" border="0"><tbody><tr><td style="padding:0 18px 9px;vertical-align:top;">Not having payed much attention to what happened last time they tried it, one of the most entertaining recent episodes of inept governmental sculduggery was seeing deeply <i>un</i>popular politicians trying to use the stooges they’ve winkled into positions of power at the BBC to “cancel” Gary Lineker, one of the most popular footballing legends the country has ever seen (and his 8 million twitter followers) for making what some might see as a perfectly reasonable point about the government’s toxic rhetoric on refugees.<br><br>During the first lockdown of the pandemic, they tried to take on Manchester United and England star, Marcus Rashford who was concerned that children poor enough to be on the “free school meals” programme should be offered sustenance between term-times as well. After sneering about him and his riches in the press, it all backfired spectacularly when he decided to fund the programme himself with the help of a few other socially conscious team-mates. It all ended-up with the government desperately trying to scrape enough egg off their faces to perform a screeching U-turn, and Rashford being enobled by the Queen for services to charity.<br><br>Gary Lineker was the childhood hero of my entire generation of young football fans, who now make up a substantial chunk of the electorate; the captain of his national team, the recipient of the “Golden Boot” at the 1986 World Cup and the only footballer to have played 540 professional matches without ever having been given a yellow-card, not to mention the host of the UK's favourite football show for the past 20 years.<br><br>You’d think they might have learned to pick their enemies more carefully. As it was, being a gaggle of private schoolboys in Armani suits, they were blissfully unaware of any of these facts (for those of you unfamiliar with Britain’s archaic class-system, the upper classes play rugby, not football) and decided that taking on Lineker and his “woke” opinions would play well with the right-wing press.<br><br>The result was the whole rosta of football pundits available to the BBC, along with all the commentators, went on strike in solidarity; the players refused to do any interviews with the BBC at all, and thus the Saturday night football highlights were broadcast in silence, without credits, discussion or discernible entertainment value, much to the confusion and chagrine of millions of devoted football fans.<br><br>Sure enough, he was back on air the following week with the merest trace of a wry smile, and suddenly everyone was rather interested in why the recently appointed BBC Chairman had neglected to mention organising an £800,000 loan to the erstwhile prime-minister whilst going through the notionally independent appointment process, headed by the very same Prime Minister. Having spent several years living in Taiwan and becoming fairly familiar with traditional Chinese culture and the concept of “guan-xi”, the rampant corruption of the British ruling class is not just outrageous but so lacking in subtlety as to be crass in the extreme.<br><br>On the subject of extreme crassness (and trying to wrap this up before I subject you all to much more unsolicited invective), in the midst of all these anniversaries, the leader of the Labour Party and widely assumed Prime-Minister-in-waiting, Sir Keir Starmer has decided it’s the perfect time to take a quick breather from his constant ideological punishment-beating of Jeremy Corbyn, and continue his mission to “bring civility back into politics” by calling people paedophiles on the internet.</td></tr></tbody></table></figure></td></tr></tbody></table></figure><figure class="table"><table width="100%" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" border="0"><tbody><tr><td style="padding-top:9px;vertical-align:top;"><figure class="table" style="float:left;"><table width="100%" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" border="0"><tbody><tr><td style="padding:0 18px 9px;vertical-align:top;">
<p><br>It’s all the rage at the moment. When your arguments run dry and you’ve nothing more to offer, the default position is to accuse your adversary of being either a nazi or pederast. I realise the intention is an attempt at a “mic-drop”; upping the ante so much as to end the conversation entirely, but this is rarely what actually happens.<br><br>In this particular case it seems especially daft as a tactic. The statistics which are said to corroborate Labour’s suggestion that “Rishi Sunak doesn’t think child abusers should go to jail” were harvested between 2010 and 2020. Both Starmer and Sunak were elected for the first time in 2015. Before this, Sunak worked for Goldman Sachs and various hedge-funds, very similar to his mate Macron, while Keir Starmer was the director of public prosecutions; the man ultimately responsible for sentencing policy. How many highly-paid “special” advisors does it take to tell you about “People who live in glass houses…” and all that?<br><br>Anyway, that’s quite enough of that.<br><br>I’d like to leave you with a video of a song which just happens to tie several of these strands together, recorded by the ever-ready Owain Jones at last year’s <a class="no-pjax" href="https://www.priston.org.uk/festival/" target="_blank"><u>Priston</u></a> garden concert. Written by <a class="no-pjax" href="https://guyforsyth.com/" target="_blank"><u>Guy Forsyth</u></a> and released on The Asylum Street Spankers marvellous debut album, <a class="no-pjax" href="https://asylumstreetspankers.bandcamp.com/album/spanks-for-the-memories" target="_blank"><i><u>Spanks for the Memories</u></i></a>, way back in the sun-drenched uplands of 1996, it remains one of the most poignant and relevant songs I know.<br><br>I’ve barely sung it for years, as I generally don’t tend to sing in American, but playing a few shows with <a class="no-pjax" href="https://danawylie.net/" target="_blank"><u>Dana Wylie</u></a> reminded us what a gem it is. Thanks to Owain for capturing it for us. Can’t wait to see what else he caught that night. I certainly remember a gorgeous <i>Who Knows Where The Time Goes</i>.</p>
<p> </p><div class="video-container size_xl justify_center" style=""><iframe data-video-type="youtube" data-video-id="BXJDndFqgc0" data-video-thumb-url="" type="text/html" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/BXJDndFqgc0?rel=0&wmode=transparent&enablejsapi=1" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen="true"></iframe></div><p> </p>
<p>Anyone who would like to book us for any kind of gig this summer, to <a class="no-pjax" href="https://jezhellard.net/shop" target="_blank"><u>buy any of our albums</u></a>, throw a little something in the <a class="no-pjax" href="https://jezhellard.net/tip-jars/9465" target="_blank"><u>tip-jar</u></a> or help us find a booking agent and try to protect what remains of my sanity, or just to say hello, please get in touch on your preferred medium. I can barely afford cat-food, let alone diesel for the drive to England, so every little helps, and I’m always open to suggestions.<br><br>Otherwise I shall just continue to build walls, practice music and find occasional inspiration in the sublime antics of Finn Russel and Antoine Dupont.<br><br>With much love from the last drops of this hazy spring afternoon.<br><br>Jez</p>
<p><br> </p>
</td></tr></tbody></table></figure></td></tr></tbody></table></figure>Jez Hellard & The Djukella Orchestratag:jezhellard.net,2005:Post/72345122023-06-29T13:47:51+02:002023-06-29T13:47:52+02:00Anniversaries galore, spring flowers & the return of the blonde beasts...<p>Dear friends around the world,<br><br>After a long, hard winter shivering in various parts of a building-site, wrestling with French bureaucracy and enduring rather too much existential despair, spring has finally burst onto the scene around these parts. The radio tells me that the cities of France are on fire and the whole country has ground to a halt in absolute revulsion at Macron’s extra-parliamentary shenanigans, but you wouldn’t know it from here.<br><br>About ten days ago, as though someone had flicked a switch, temperatures suddenly rose ten degrees and everything started to grow. We've even had a touch of rain for the first time in months, which is helping no end after a remarkably dry winter; wildflowers carpet the floor in the woods, the ash trees are starting to push out their first tentative leaves of the season and the hum of insects is back on the breeze.<br><br>I’ve been getting myself back into the habit of playing music everyday, rather than spending <i>all</i> my time putting calluses on the wrong parts of my hands, and it’s been going quite well, which is always reassuring. Gigs are starting to line up for the summer, and with any luck I’ll at least be able to afford the diesel to get to them.<br><br>For anyone of a Welsh persuasion or with a penchant for Dylan Thomas, we’ll be playing <a class="no-pjax" href="http://www.gowerfolkfestival.co.uk/" target="_blank"><u>Gower Folk Festival</u></a> on Saturday, June 10th, for those in Surrey or thereabouts, we’re at <a class="no-pjax" href="https://thehortonepsom.org/events/jez-hellard-the-djukella-orchestra/" target="_blank"><u>The Horton</u></a>, a beautiful new venue in Epsom, on Thursday June 15th, and for my fellow country-folk of Northamptonshire we’ve got a candlelit show for <a class="no-pjax" href="https://www.ents24.com/oundle-events/the-talbot-hotel/jez-hellard-and-the-djukella-orchestra/6702730" target="_blank"><u>Little Ember Sessions at The Talbot Hotel</u></a> in Oundle on Thursday, August 24th. There will plenty more, but for now, <a class="no-pjax" href="https://jezhellard.net/shows" target="_blank"><u>tickets</u></a> for these shows are available, and we’d love to sell them out.</p><p> </p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/s:bzglfiles/u/560234/8a3e63a5e1fe65613eb70d18df5307636c30cdd6/original/worms-head-logo-400x400.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==" class="size_l justify_center border_" /><p> </p><p>As seems be the case with many people at the moment, I’ve been really struggling with depression and overwhelming bouts of anxiety for months, not helped by an onslaught of demands for ridiculous sums of money from a plethora of intimidating acronyms, but I’m beginning to get on top of that, at least. The more disturbing French ones turned out to be an error on their part, but their automatic system continued to send me increasingly frightening demands week after week, despite endless chats with their very helpful and understanding call-centre staff. At the moment, I haven’t had one for over a month, and (touch wood) I have a feeling the message may finally have got through.<br><br>As for His Majesty’s lot, the very cheek of them informing me that I owe them for “overpayments made during the COVID measures” is a little harder to swallow. I received two payments totalling about £400 to see me through a year of lost work, when peers, cronies and assorted criminals, friends of Matt Hancock and other unsavoury characters gorged on multiple billions from the government teat, of which a mere 0.9% has been recovered or even pursued.<br><br>It may be my cut-throat business brain speaking, but it seems a slightly flawed strategy to relentlessly pursue the poor, desperate and disabled for money that they don’t have, when such fortunes have been squirrelled away all around; often by people not much brighter than the aforementioned washed-up politician, who willingly gave hundreds of thousands of incriminating WhatsApp messages to a “journalist” renowned for betraying her sources and landing them in jail. He even paid her for the privilege.<br><br>Such madness seems all the rage at the moment. At the start of last week, the 20th anniversary of the invasion and consequent destruction of Iraq was marked with great fanfare on the morning news; accompanied without a trace of irony in the triumvirate of headlines by a press-release from the UN warning that the world is at a tipping point in terms of environmental catastrophe, and to end on a positive note, a piece celebrating the order of one million incendiary shells to be shipped to Ukraine.<br><br>The cognitive dissonance required to swallow, or indeed spew, such paradoxical nuggets of information in the same breath is surely worth some sort of prize. I’m left wondering just how many times I need to drive my gas-guzzling SUV to the supermarket and back to leave the carbon-footprint of just one of these incendiary shells, which I’ve since heard are laced (or perhaps blessed) with small amounts of depleted uranium; to help the medicine go down, I suppose.<br><br>In the twenty years since the start of Bush and Blair’s (or perhaps Rove and Campbell’s - how names blur in the haze of time) ill-fated crusade for “freeman-moxy” in the Middle East, countless tons of ordinance have been rained down liberally on an ever increasing itinerary of countries, while we’re all encouraged to scrupulously separate our recyclable waste and compost teabags. Again, maybe our sights are trained in the wrong direction.</p><p> </p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/s:bzglfiles/u/560234/5a30d2e4edc7bcd3ef8b870ea4d33ad647c849e4/original/seenoevilblairbushstraw.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==" class="size_l justify_center border_" /><p> </p><p>It does seem to be the season of portentous anniversaries. The 30th anniversary of the privatisation of Britain’s water infrastructure is marked by the release of literally millions of gallons of raw sewage into our rivers, lakes and beaches, as the hedge funds who run the system cream off yet more dividends; liberated, as they are from decades of EU regulation, monitoring and investment which had eventually managed to undo some of the damage done by two centuries of industrial effluent.<br><br>The 25th anniversary of The Good Friday Agreement, which brought an effective end to decades of sectarian warfare in Northern Ireland, having recently been put to the test by Johnson’s “oven-ready Brexit deal”, was celebrated with a warning of “imminent’ terrorist attacks to accompany Joe Biden’s upcoming visit.<br><br>The 80th anniversary of the end of the Battle of Stalingrad is being commemorated by yet another seemingly interminable bloodbath a mere 500 miles west across the alluvial planes of the Kalmius, Donets and Don. The 75th anniversary of Myanmar’s independence from British rule doesn’t seem to offer much inspiration, but for those who like a bit of hocus-pocus, it’s also 100 years since the opening of Tutankhamun’s tomb.<br><br>As is often the case, paying too much attention to all this stuff brings me back endlessly to William Butler Yeats’ <a class="no-pjax" href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/43290/the-second-coming" target="_blank"><i><u>The Second Coming</u></i></a>, written a mere 104 years ago, which I’ve been known to quote before, but I’ve already painted myself into a rather bleak corner, so for those of you of a literary bent, it’s one of the least disturbing things readily available on the internet.<br><br>After all, it is a glorious Easter Morning as I type, and my heartfelt wishes go out to friends worldwide for Easter, Ramadan and Passover respectively, which coincide for the first time since 1990. It would be delightful to think that such an auspicious event could be marked by some kind of multi-Abrahamic spring festival, with competing falafel recipes scenting the streets of Old Jerusalem, but sadly it looks like a rather more precarious situation from all sides.<br><br>Netanyahu’s ragtag coalition of far-right religious nationalists and “judicial reformers” have continued as many feared they might, with such unpalatable actions that not only the oppressed masses of Gaza and The West Bank, but vast swathes of Israeli society, including their diplomatic service have been out on the streets for months protesting.<br><br>Oh, for a bit of colloquy rather than endless tub-thumping and sloganeering. My thought’s also go out to all of my Taiwanese and Taiwan-based friends who are likely celebrating none of the above, but are currently surrounded on at least three sides by the latest set of “military exercises”.<br><br>Talking of tub-thumping, sloganeering and rough beasts, we’ve recently been treated to the synchronised return of the two transatlantic blonde beasts who’ve so haunted the past few years in the English speaking world, but this time in the dock, rather than behind a lectern.</p><p> </p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/s:bzglfiles/u/560234/3f3d17610bf3045afd4acde021975050ac592114/original/johnsontrump.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==" class="size_m justify_center border_" /><p> </p><p>While bringing charges against Trump does seem to me entirely counter-productive; giving him the oxygen of publicity he constantly craves just when it appeared he was a spent balloon deflating with more of a whimper than a bang, the sorry sight of Boris, sporting for once an approximation of conventional coiffeur, shirt tucked-in and shoes shined, hunched like a petulant schoolboy in the metaphorical head-master’s office, bleating and blathering his increasingly vexed protestations for three hours seemed to signal anything but the much vaunted notion of his triumphant, Churchillian renaissance.<br><br>The point was hammered home when after returning from the call of the division bell which was supposed to herald his full-frontal assault on Sunak’s authority, such as it is, it transpired that only 21 of his amassed ranks had followed him into the breach, and that included Liz Truss, Jacob Rees-Mogg and Michael Fabricant; so make that 18.<br><br>Watching him being made to swear an oath on the bible, which has coincidentally never been required for any other such plaintiff, it was remarkable that it didn’t burst into flames. In this increasingly litigious age, it’s an object lesson that giving someone their day in court can often backfire, whereas just allowing them to humiliate themselves for three straight hours on live television can be far more satisfying for the rest of us.<br><br>While all this sleight-of-hand goes on in the popular press, training our eyes on ostentatious clowns and endless wars, it’s rather more worrying to see what nefarious policies various desperate and collapsing “governments” try, and often manage to push through before they inevitably get voted out.<br><br>Storming the Al Aqsa Mosque with riot police during Ramadan is one of the more transparent attempts to stoke up enough trouble to obscure widespread discontent on the domestic front, but far more insidious to this observer is the fact that the UK has in the past weeks joined the unfortunately acronymous CPTPP (the Comprehensive and Progressive Trans-Pacific Partnership rather than the Seepy Teepee Pee), a trade-deal so toxic that both Trump and Biden, along with Bernie Sanders and countless others were all united in refusing to touch it with a barge-pole.<br><br>Whatever your thoughts on membership of NATO, at least the UK is actually situated in the general vicinity of the North Atlantic. I know that while serving briefly as Foreign Secretary, self-described “hard-man” Dominic Raaaab was taken by surprise by Dover’s proximity to France, but failing to notice that Britain is no-where near the Pacific Ocean really is remiss.<br><br>The “benefits” of this deal are negligible, even in the entirely speculative projections of a potential 0.08% increase in GDP over the next decade, whereas the much more immediate effects will be to flood the UK with substandard meat and animal products from environmentally catastrophic industrial feed-lots thousands of miles away, undermine our own farmers just as they try to come to terms with the the fall-out from leaving their biggest export market, and give vast Canadian-based pharmaceutical conglomerates the legal right to sue doctors if they don’t push enough drugs on their patients, and to sue governments if they try to legislate in any direction contrary to the plans of their corporate overlords. All in all, it’s the kind of thing which might have benefitted from a bit of open public debate, rather than being snuck through under cover of Johnson, while everyone was looking the other way.<br> </p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/s:bzglfiles/u/560234/46607d88850b599b89e53625189863470e7615e1/original/borisbike.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==" class="size_l justify_center border_" /><p> </p><figure class="table"><table width="100%" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" border="0"><tbody><tr><td style="padding-top:9px;vertical-align:top;"><figure class="table" style="float:left;"><table width="100%" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" border="0"><tbody><tr><td style="padding:0 18px 9px;vertical-align:top;">Not having payed much attention to what happened last time they tried it, one of the most entertaining recent episodes of inept governmental sculduggery was seeing deeply <i>un</i>popular politicians trying to use the stooges they’ve winkled into positions of power at the BBC to “cancel” Gary Lineker, one of the most popular footballing legends the country has ever seen (and his 8 million twitter followers) for making what some might see as a perfectly reasonable point about the government’s toxic rhetoric on refugees.<br><br>During the first lockdown of the pandemic, they tried to take on Manchester United and England star, Marcus Rashford who was concerned that children poor enough to be on the “free school meals” programme should be offered sustenance between term-times as well. After sneering about him and his riches in the press, it all backfired spectacularly when he decided to fund the programme himself with the help of a few other socially conscious team-mates. It all ended-up with the government desperately trying to scrape enough egg off their faces to perform a screeching U-turn, and Rashford being enobled by the Queen for services to charity.<br><br>Gary Lineker was the childhood hero of my entire generation of young football fans, who now make up a substantial chunk of the electorate; the captain of his national team, the recipient of the “Golden Boot” at the 1986 World Cup and the only footballer to have played 540 professional matches without ever having been given a yellow-card, not to mention the host of the UK's favourite football show for the past 20 years.<br><br>You’d think they might have learned to pick their enemies more carefully. As it was, being a gaggle of private schoolboys in Armani suits, they were blissfully unaware of any of these facts (for those of you unfamiliar with Britain’s archaic class-system, the upper classes play rugby, not football) and decided that taking on Lineker and his “woke” opinions would play well with the right-wing press.<br><br>The result was the whole rosta of football pundits available to the BBC, along with all the commentators, went on strike in solidarity; the players refused to do any interviews with the BBC at all, and thus the Saturday night football highlights were broadcast in silence, without credits, discussion or discernible entertainment value, much to the confusion and chagrine of millions of devoted football fans.<br><br>Sure enough, he was back on air the following week with the merest trace of a wry smile, and suddenly everyone was rather interested in why the recently appointed BBC Chairman had neglected to mention organising an £800,000 loan to the erstwhile prime-minister whilst going through the notionally independent appointment process, headed by the very same Prime Minister. Having spent several years living in Taiwan and becoming fairly familiar with traditional Chinese culture and the concept of “guan-xi”, the rampant corruption of the British ruling class is not just outrageous but so lacking in subtlety as to be crass in the extreme.<br><br>On the subject of extreme crassness (and trying to wrap this up before I subject you all to much more unsolicited invective), in the midst of all these anniversaries, the leader of the Labour Party and widely assumed Prime-Minister-in-waiting, Sir Keir Starmer has decided it’s the perfect time to take a quick breather from his constant ideological punishment-beating of Jeremy Corbyn, and continue his mission to “bring civility back into politics” by calling people paedophiles on the internet.</td></tr></tbody></table></figure></td></tr></tbody></table></figure><figure class="table"><table width="100%" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" border="0"><tbody><tr><td style="padding-top:9px;vertical-align:top;"><figure class="table" style="float:left;"><table width="100%" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" border="0"><tbody><tr><td style="padding:0 18px 9px;vertical-align:top;">
<p><br>It’s all the rage at the moment. When your arguments run dry and you’ve nothing more to offer, the default position is to accuse your adversary of being either a nazi or pederast. I realise the intention is an attempt at a “mic-drop”; upping the ante so much as to end the conversation entirely, but this is rarely what actually happens.<br><br>In this particular case it seems especially daft as a tactic. The statistics which are said to corroborate Labour’s suggestion that “Rishi Sunak doesn’t think child abusers should go to jail” were harvested between 2010 and 2020. Both Starmer and Sunak were elected for the first time in 2015. Before this, Sunak worked for Goldman Sachs and various hedge-funds, very similar to his mate Macron, while Keir Starmer was the director of public prosecutions; the man ultimately responsible for sentencing policy. How many highly-paid “special” advisors does it take to tell you about “People who live in glass houses…” and all that?<br><br>Anyway, that’s quite enough of that.<br><br>I’d like to leave you with a video of a song which just happens to tie several of these strands together, recorded by the ever-ready Owain Jones at last year’s <a class="no-pjax" href="https://www.priston.org.uk/festival/" target="_blank"><u>Priston</u></a> garden concert. Written by <a class="no-pjax" href="https://guyforsyth.com/" target="_blank"><u>Guy Forsyth</u></a> and released on The Asylum Street Spankers marvellous debut album, <a class="no-pjax" href="https://asylumstreetspankers.bandcamp.com/album/spanks-for-the-memories" target="_blank"><i><u>Spanks for the Memories</u></i></a>, way back in the sun-drenched uplands of 1996, it remains one of the most poignant and relevant songs I know.<br><br>I’ve barely sung it for years, as I generally don’t tend to sing in American, but playing a few shows with <a class="no-pjax" href="https://danawylie.net/" target="_blank"><u>Dana Wylie</u></a> reminded us what a gem it is. Thanks to Owain for capturing it for us. Can’t wait to see what else he caught that night. I certainly remember a gorgeous <i>Who Knows Where The Time Goes</i>.</p>
<p> </p><div class="video-container size_xl justify_center" style=""><iframe data-video-type="youtube" data-video-id="BXJDndFqgc0" data-video-thumb-url="" type="text/html" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/BXJDndFqgc0?rel=0&wmode=transparent&enablejsapi=1" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen="true"></iframe></div><p> </p>
<p>Anyone who would like to book us for any kind of gig this summer, to <a class="no-pjax" href="https://jezhellard.net/shop" target="_blank"><u>buy any of our albums</u></a>, throw a little something in the <a class="no-pjax" href="https://jezhellard.net/tip-jars/9465" target="_blank"><u>tip-jar</u></a> or help us find a booking agent and try to protect what remains of my sanity, or just to say hello, please get in touch on your preferred medium. I can barely afford cat-food, let alone diesel for the drive to England, so every little helps, and I’m always open to suggestions.<br><br>Otherwise I shall just continue to build walls, practice music and find occasional inspiration in the sublime antics of Finn Russel and Antoine Dupont.<br><br>With much love from the last drops of this hazy spring afternoon.<br><br>Jez</p>
<p><br> </p>
</td></tr></tbody></table></figure></td></tr></tbody></table></figure>Jez Hellard & The Djukella Orchestratag:jezhellard.net,2005:Post/71318442023-01-03T13:53:41+01:002023-01-03T13:53:41+01:0012 kilos of cats, and an actual bedroom!<p> </p>
<p>Dear friends out there in the wide world, </p>
<p> </p>
<p>Solstice greetings to you all, d’rect from the cross-bones of the year, well at least that's where I started, but thanks to the merciless onslaught of time and the vagaries of internet connection, I'm sadly a day late in actually getting the word out. </p>
<p>I trust you’re all doing your best to keep warm, fed and vaguely solvent in these straightened and increasingly ridiculous times. It’s been a while since I’ve turned my hand to typing, and I promise I’ll try to spare you a long political diatribe this time. I’ve been largely turning my hand to pointing, painting, plastering, insulating and generally trying to make our place vaguely habitable, and with a bit of luck, slightly warmer than outside, as the winter begins to bite. </p>
<p>I’m sitting at my desk, which I’m just realising is a totally revolutionary and unfamiliar phrase for me to type, wrapped up in multiple jumpers, hat and scarf, considering whether it might be possible to type with gloves on, while watching sleek fingers of milky sunshine attempt to penetrate the thick morning fog which still sits stubbornly in the valley below.</p>
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<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/560234/2f14f23abe611ba539de51122fc391319d4dd22b/original/fog-in-the-valley-below.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" /></p>
<p>For the first time since May 2005, I have a bedroom, or rather we have a bedroom, as it’s much more Yasmine’s than mine, but she lets me in from time to time. In fact, depending on your idea of habitable, we have four rooms, two of which are sometimes actually warm! </p>
<p>The revelation of sleeping in a room rather than a vehicle after many years in a series of vans, left me lying on my back giggling for the first several times I tried it. The last bedroom I got to call my own was at our marvellous old haunted mansion on Jade Mountain Road, tucked between folds of verdant mountainside just south of Taipei, so after 17 and a half years it’s going to take a while to sink in. </p>
<p>When we eventually got back here after an emotionally charged summer of heartfelt song and motorway food, we found the place buried deep in four-foot weeds and grass as high as your head. The three cats, thriving thanks to the diligent efforts of our dear neighbour, Jean-Jaques, had been happily patrolling the barns and garden, but since they had been locked out of the house, mice had been partying like there’s no tomorrow and had managed to pillage every one of the few food items we had left stashed away, including four whole packets of raw spaghetti (a small fortune in these inflationary times) and an entire carton of vegetable soup, which sat where it had been on the shelf, with a mouse-sized hole at the top of one side, and every morsel of soup cleaned meticulously from the inside.</p>
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<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/560234/4e1dfb33f6566f447d090684e5c0ce9fa81203b2/original/grassbath.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==/b:W1sic2l6ZSIsIm1lZGl1bSJdXQ==.jpg" class="size_m justify_center border_none" alt="" /></p>
<p>I was left with the delightful, if unsanitary image of mice diving into the soup and re-emerging, dripping orange gloop from whiskers to tail in what must have been the rodent equivalent of a decadent Monaco pool party. Glad they got a chance to have a bit of fun before the cats were allowed back in. We don’t come across many mice anymore, well at least not whole ones. </p>
<p>After a good deal of sweat and cursing, grunting and humping, the slightly dank, mouse-nibbled building site to which we returned now boasts a rather rustic kitchen, replete with antique marble-topped dressers, a sink and running water (thanks to my multitalented brother), a living room with an open fire, a study (admittedly a bit chilly to actually study in) with sofa, desk, bookshelf and pictures, and the aforementioned bedroom, (now with an actual ceiling!) which thanks to the gift of masses of incredible antique furniture from dear Martine who sold us the house, is fit for a princess. </p>
<p>It’s all painted white, with oiled floors and almost a semblance of tidiness at times. The contrast with a slightly damp ply-lined van is truly remarkable, as is not having to cook dinner right next to your bed. </p>
<p>The rest of the time I’ve been insulating everything I can, digging drains, pointing walls, felling the odd tree, trying to keep on top of the firewood situation and just now installing a cat-flap in our continued campaign to be warm some day. </p>
<p>The cats are cheeky, thieving buggers, but very efficient mousers and extremely sweet (as long as you’re not a mouse). Raphael is a massive black lion of a cat, with a resplendent slightly ginger mane and pantaloons, Rose is very gentle, unless food is involved, in which case she growls like a Rottweiler, and Mehitabel is tiny, fleet of foot, very personable and absolutely ferocious when it comes down to it. They rule the roost, but I must admit we’re thoroughly enjoying their company.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/560234/b89e002f7dac71375f01fb14151be87b6922fdf8/original/bedfootwindow.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" /></p>
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/560234/065cdae82da248d15e077bc44d6af978d2730416/original/rose-mehitabel-catyang.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" /></p>
<p> </p>
<p>All of this has mostly kept me from making music since the end of the summer, apart from the odd visit from my niece and nephew who won’t leave without a bit of a singalong and some occasionally musical and endlessly interesting double-harmonica action, and a delightful visit from song-writer extraordinaire, <a contents="Matthew Robb" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="https://matthewrobb.com/">Matthew Robb</a>, and Astrud who popped in on their way from Köln to Andalucia, but with any luck, that will change now we have some rooms to be in. We’re not blessed with much in the way of internet as yet, but I will work on the possibility of the odd live-stream as soon as we make some progress on that front. </p>
<p>I’m starting to assemble a few dates for next summer’s touring schedule and will let you know as soon as soon as it begins to take shape, but I could, as ever use any help I can get finding new, or indeed old contacts for places and people who still like to pay for a concert from time to time. </p>
<p>This past summer, Nye and Piotr were on superlative form, as was Sascha on the German leg, and it was true joy to play for so many of you. Though I love to spend a quiet few months building in the fresh country air, I miss you all terribly and eagerly await the next chance we get to make some Djukella music. </p>
<p>A particular treat was spending ten days or so in the company of our old bandmate Dana Wylie, and her ten-year-old daughter, Anna. I’m currently on the hunt for any videos of us playing to share with you. It’s an amazing feeling to step back on stage with people after 15 years and find it feels as though no time has passed at all, though there’s a fair bit more pretending you know the material, which is also fun. Thanks immensely to all of you and all of the lovely folks who hosted us along the way.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/560234/c68ece8d544047b11541af19851d5e9d66866fe8/original/djukelladanapriston2022.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" /></p>
<p> </p>
<p>Since I last wrote, as far as I’m told in the media, the world at large continues to spiral towards oblivion, but out the window in the real world the tractors putter on by and the cowbells clank gently in the background. It reminds me of a Bill Hicks routine from the early 90s about watching more than 27 hours of CNN in a day. </p>
<p>Israel, and indeed most of Palestine are about to be taken over by the most unsavoury far-right cabal, being as they are the only coalition able to return Bibi Netinyahu to the position to which he has become accustomed. Ever the mercenary, but he does enjoy receiving all those gifts. Turning the culture-wars up to eleven, they have decided on the very “meta” strategy of appointing a man who has already been tried and convicted of inciting racial hatred, as Minister for Police, putting the shenanigans of the most rabid American racists in the shade. </p>
<p>In the States, Biden’s desperately trying to rush as many munitions as possible to Ukraine before he loses control of Congress, whilst Trump soldiers on, attacking friend and foe alike, as perhaps it starts to dawn on him, that making America orange again might not be such a smooth ride against the wishes of his erstwhile backer, Rupert Murdoch, who in time-honoured fashion seems to have taken a shine to a new and younger nutjob. </p>
<p>In Turkey, Erdogan continues to prosecute anyone who may some day be able to challenge his unflinching grip on power, while somehow managing to straddle the “Iron”, or rather Information Curtain, remaining a loyal member of NATO (a fair way from the North Atlantic, one might note) and a key ally of Russia as the two use the Ukrainian population to slug out their differences over access to rare-earth metals in a cruel and brutal winter. </p>
<p>Iran seems intent on demonising, imprisoning and even executing a whole generation of their population to assuage the outdated dogma of yet another Cabal of crusty old zealots, whilst bankrolling their efforts by flogging arms to Putin. </p>
<p>I may be seen as a fool and a communist to suggest such a thing, but the correlation between corrupt regimes bankrolling their crooked schemes by selling weapons to other corrupt regimes, with which to oppress their own, and indeed other populations, seems hard to ignore, when the stated intention is to “enhance peace and security”. One is tempted to speculate that selling less arms to less deranged people might yield more positive results, and reduce the carbon footprint of those involved to boot, which is apparently another stated intention of the current “plan”. </p>
<p>Here in France, or rather over there in Q’atar, Macron seemed as at ease with his hosts and the slippery Infantino as he was keen to be pictured as much as possible consoling the actual King of France, Killian Mbappe after France’s defeat to Argentina in the Football World Cup Final. Being more of a rugby man myself, I’m often left wondering when watching football, why they spend so much time hanging around and kicking it to their own goal-keeper, but it was a deeply enjoyable match, involving a couple of the most amazing talents since Pélé and plenty of excitement. </p>
<p>So compelling was it that I ended up watching the bizarre spectacle of the “Awards Ceremony” when the beneficent host, Sheikh-Yermanibags, was finally allowed to strut around with all the other moneybags, fat-cats and cooperate relations managers, and be snapped with slightly confused footballers trying to negotiate the oversized stage.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/560234/dce3c9672bc3382651d8efc8a29f23a17ca23f4d/original/messimoneybags2.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==/b:W1sic2l6ZSIsIm1lZGl1bSJdXQ==.jpg" class="size_m justify_center border_none" alt="" /></p>
<p> </p>
<p>Talking of corrupt and illegitimate regimes, and lacking the time and inclination to take you any further around the world for now, we return to the UK and its latest “government”. Ever since the inevitable but still remarkably rapid implosion of The Liz Truss Experiment , I have tried, mostly in vain, to curb my news addiction, and find informative things to listen to, as I go about my day. </p>
<p>I thoroughly enjoy the <a contents="Alexei Sayle Podcast" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="https://audioboom.com/channels/5038428">Alexei Sayle Podcast</a>, particularly the more recent episodes, which become more and more informative by the month, as well as <a contents="Alexei Sayle's Imaginary Sandwich Bar" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b09fb6n5/episodes/player">Alexei Sayle's Imaginary Sandwich Bar</a> on BBC Radio 4, which is a comedy tour de force. If you weren't around in the 80s or have yet to discover Alexei Sayle, check him out. </p>
<p>Through Alexei I've recently discovered <a contents="Blind Boy Boat Club" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="https://play.acast.com/s/blindboy">Blind Boy Boat Club</a>, which is a whole other kettle of fish, with a delightful Irish lilt. If anyone can suggest any more inspiring and or entertaining podcasts, or other audio entertainment to keep my mind working as I re-point walls I'm all ears. </p>
<p>The fall of Johnson and the cheese lady in turn, made for such compelling farce, wrapped as it was in regal pomp and splendour, it was difficult to tune out, as was the case in the years of Herr Drumpf across the pond. Every news bulletin of the day would present yet another fresh revelation of corruption and incompetence, mendacity and down-right dishonesty that I was left wondering whether the newly unemployed writers of Neighbours had been hired en-masse from Melbourne by the powers that be, to come up with a distraction compelling enough to allow them to raid everyone’s pension funds unnoticed. </p>
<p>After the galloping pantomime of frauds and charlatans that characterise the past few years, it seems, certainly in the UK media, things are settling back down to the background hum of powerful men saying poisonous things about Meghan Markle, comfortable people complaining about desperate refugees “invading” our beaches, hedge-fund managers telling nurses they should work harder for less and be happy with applause for dinner, as the deeply corrupt and roundly disgraced architect of those very nurses’ COVID related PTSD, Hat Mancock himself is paid £400,000 to nibble dingo-bollocks in a holiday resort, “to raise awareness of dyslexia”. The brave and the good are shown nothing but scorn whilst the wicked are showered with gifts, or slime, as the case may be, not mention book-deals. </p>
<p>The word in the British press is that relations between Britain and France, or rather between Sunak and Macron, are far less frosty that under the regimes of the precedent blonde beasts, whose bread and butter was taunting the French, while failing to mention that both Sunak and Macron until very recently were colleagues at Goldman Sachs. </p>
<p>It’s so often the omissions that shed light, rather than the juicy nuggets we’re ostentatiously thrown. </p>
<p>So if you've managed to make it down this far, thanks for reading. </p>
<p>To wrap up this rant in a way which combines investigative journalism and decency with political intrigue and our Qatari paymasters, for some reason, the entire UK press, (even, to my great disappointment, Private Eye) has conveniently failed to notice Al Jazeera's recent offering from their award-winning (and editorially independent) investigative journalism team, entitled "The Labour Files". </p>
<p>If you're at all concerned with honesty, integrity and the right to a fair trial, it makes for some pretty intriguing viewing. And if you're worried it's another socialist diatribe, here's a Tory to tell you all about it.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><iframe class="justify_inline" data-video-type="youtube" data-video-id="tdoVw2tWb0I" data-video-thumb-url="https://img.youtube.com/vi/tdoVw2tWb0I/mqdefault.jpg" type="text/html" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/tdoVw2tWb0I?rel=0&wmode=transparent&enablejsapi=1" frameborder="0" height="180" width="320" allowfullscreen="true"></iframe></p>
<p> </p>
<p>If anyone wants to buy some music, hire us for a gig, commission a video, song, article, poem or novel, or just throw a couple of quid in <a contents="the hat" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="https://jezhellard.net/tip-jars/18122">the hat</a>; times are tough and every little helps. Everything is available at jezhellard.net and I'm always up for a bit of correspondence, even if you're not a brass penny to your name. And if anyone fancies a trip to south-west France, let us know. </p>
<p>With best wishes for a fine festive season, and perhaps a more compassionate new year. Looking forward to hearing from you all in due course. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>With much love from down here, </p>
<p> </p>
<p>Jez</p>Jez Hellard & The Djukella Orchestratag:jezhellard.net,2005:Post/70583322022-09-12T13:25:53+02:002024-03-01T06:53:55+01:00Last Post the bugle, slow step and rain...<p> </p>
<p>Dear friends,</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Greetings from my first opportunity to communicate in some time, and welcome to all who’ve joined the mailing list over the summer. </p>
<p>As the nights draw in, the moon grows fat, and westlin winds usher in a whole new era, I find myself between showers, watching quivering cobwebs in the slant light of early autumn. Well, at least I did on Thursday morning. </p>
<p>It already seemed a poignant and significant moment when I sat down to begin writing, trying to come to terms with what Nye would call “post-exertional malaise” (after a summer spent frantically careening between stages, sharing truly magical musical moments, interspersed by miles of road and regular bouts of catastrophic news) and an ominous, fluttering sense of existential dread which I couldn’t quite explain. </p>
<p>I’d just launched into the first couple of paragraphs when I turned on the radio, and everything changed. </p>
<p>Well not everything. I was still sitting at a desk, in a shed in the rain, but from an editorial point of view the goalposts had not just moved, but entirely transmogrified. We now find ourselves at the dawn of the new Carolean age, bidding an inevitable but curiously surprising farewell to one of the only constants universal to the lives of the vast majority of the world’s population.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/560234/50d19185714bbeff1420142c8305c71cc43f5b94/original/queens-last-shoot.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==/b:W1sic2l6ZSIsIm1lZGl1bSJdXQ==.jpg" class="size_m justify_center border_none" alt="" /></p>
<p> </p>
<p>The late Queen Elizabeth II, or endearingly, “Gary” to her grandsons, has put in the most extraordinary lifetime of commitment and total dedication to her duty in all its facets. Whatever one’s views on republicanism, monarchy, Diana, Meghan or indeed Pastafari, there is no denying that. </p>
<p>My heart goes out to all the many people around the world who have held her dear for so long. My heart also goes out to the residents and associates of the James Smith Cree Nation, Saskatchewan in general and the Prince Albert area in particular, the beleaguered populations of Pakistan, Afghanistan, Sri Lanka, Yemen and elsewhere whose woes have suddenly been wiped off the front or indeed back pages, engulfed in a sea of circumstance. </p>
<p>Amongst the endless pomp and drear of the constant multi-channel take-over of the airwaves since the news broke, I have heard truly inspiring anecdotes from a plethora of the world’s citizenry, along with a really very funny story from Theresa May, delivered with beat-perfect comic timing, pausing to take in incidental laughs as they came, about dropping cheese on the floor at a royal picnic. She really seems to have relaxed into herself now that her successor has managed to make even more of a hash of the job than she did. </p>
<p>The fact that he was allowed to hang around despoiling the beaches of Europe, joyriding in fighter-jets and generally fiddling while the world burns as “caretaker Prime Minister” (has a phrase ever been so misplaced?) for just long enough to exceed her three years and thirteen days in office tells as much about the driverless inertia of our delicquessent political system as it does about his own shameless and unending shallowness, pettiness and vanity. </p>
<p>Talking of driverless inertia, the malfunctioning robot currently “in charge” of governing The King’s Dominions has now been afforded a couple of weeks to let it all sink in and perhaps even come up with some kind of plan to stop us descending into rampant cannibalism before Christmas. </p>
<p>After a seemingly interminable summer of repeating the same five lines to small gatherings of geriatrics the length and breadth of the land, as Dishy Rishi shrank visibly before her eyes, and the press allowed her to bask in fake praise from those hungry for a prime job, anyone might have been lulled into such a trancelike state, akin to a mixomatosis rabbit in the headlights. </p>
<p>But Liz Truss was rather hurtled back to reality through a series of simple twists of fate, conspiring not just to rain on her parade, both figuratively and literally, but to engulf it in another ostensibly ceremonial, but in reality far more consequential series of actual parades.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/560234/4049ce76e3bd4bb3b888c05279964ce824ecbb77/original/binbaglectern.png/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==/b:W10=.png" class="size_l justify_center border_" /></p>
<p> </p>
<p>I have in the past several years been increasingly amused at the subtle, yet killer wit of the late Queen, including the revelation that she spent a fair amount of time chatting away in a convincing Scouse accent and revelled in being called Gary. </p>
<p>Notwithstanding his beautifully crafted tribute to her in The House of Commons (if only he could have applied some of his evident rhetorical skill and deft oratory to being PM), the way Her Majesty has managed to avoid having to be in a room with Bojo the disgraced clown, right up to the point where he had to trek up to Aberdeenshire in a thunderstorm to be “seen off” (his words, not mine), has been an exemplary lesson in quiet diplomacy. </p>
<p>But as is so often the way for those with uncanny good fortune, Boris breezily gave his deluded victim speech outside Number 10 in the bright morning sunshine (where he managed to suggest, through perhaps slightly under-researched classical allusion, that he might return as a proto-fascist dictator to put down a popular uprising), before flying between the looming storm-heads to Aberdeen and thence Balmoral for a last audience, leaving poor Truss to fly up through all the storms, and what must have been quite some turbulence, to find Aberdeen airport shrouded in fog; and unable to land, herself 20 minutes late for her first, and sadly as it turns out, last audience with The Queen. </p>
<p>With the formalities completed, she was then whisked back through the rain to Aberdeen, and back through the storm clouds to London, where the welcoming party had been standing ready, quietly absorbing pints of drizzle in their suit jackets, a bin-bag unceremoniously covering the microphones on the lectern as anxious sound-engineers fidgeted nearby. </p>
<p>Just as the environmentally questionable eight-car motorcade hove into view on the BBC’s live helicopter camera, bearing down on central London, the heavens opened, the welcoming party bolted for the Cabinet Office in a soggy and chaotic melée of umbrellas, and the beleaguered lectern was carted back into Number 10, much to the relief of the sound techs.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/560234/3762f5a754f5afff94cd87e00324a9bf6d14d9f2/original/wetlectern.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" /></p>
<p> </p>
<p>What followed was a fascinating improvised commentary of the progress of eight armour-plated SUVs on a seemingly random jaunt around the landmarks of the Thames. “It looks like they’re crossing over Lambeth Bridge”, “But that’s the south side of the river”, “Oh yes, there’s the Bishop’s Palace”, “One of the finest gardens in all of London, don’t you know”, and now settling into the tour guide roll, “And here’s St Thomas’ Hospital” etc etc. </p>
<p>They managed to handle the slightly comic situation without betraying any noticeable mirth, and within ten minutes there was window enough in the rain for the motorcade to sweep in, applauded roundly by the hastily reassembled but still sodden welcoming party, and for Truss to dash out and give a fairly concise speech at a re-fettled lectern, before proceeding through the famous door with her gently beaming husband. </p>
<p>The superhuman effort it must have taken for The Queen to make sure she was still there in September to expertly conduct her last official duty and make sure the hand-over of power was incontrovertibly complete before the inevitable turbulence in the wake of such a monumental historical figure, is truly remarkable, as was the lady herself.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/560234/4cb510d9cba438700d6536084d1d65708a29c583/original/1-liz-truss-queen-elizabeth.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==/b:W1sic2l6ZSIsIm1lZGl1bSJdXQ==.jpg" class="size_m justify_center border_none" alt="" /></p>
<p>Truss was afforded a fairly uneventful first Prime Minister’s Questions and one night’s sleep before her big day to announce her economically dubious plan to pay fossil fuel producers from the public purse to continue to extort vast profits from the desperate poor...</p>
<p> </p>
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/560234/9f742dea93d5e900a54d6d14c84c21fae3359b6c/original/306006392-6134225709937725-2109163504328436779-n.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" /></p>
<p> </p>
<p>...but it was not to be. </p>
<p>Moments after she had finished her initial statement, she was shown a note which left her looking as shocked as when the interviewer collapsed suddenly in the middle of one of the televised slanging matches earlier in the summer, and all plans were out of the window. </p>
<p>Since then she appears to be managing pretty well with the formalities of the situation and though a touch star-struck, managed to be very gracious when the similarly discombobulated nascent King Charles accidentally implied that he’d been dreading meeting her for ages. </p>
<p>I thought he gave a fine tribute to his mother and a well crafted speech in his first public address. Despite tiring of the continuous stream of tribute on all available wavelengths, it’s refreshing to hear some of these speeches in this strange calm where the rabid, amoral British press are forced to put on kid-gloves for a fortnight and even leave the Sussexes alone for a while. </p>
<p>Pardon my digression into blow-by-blow political commentary, but it is such a momentous and precarious time on so many levels that I find myself needing to process it all in some way.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><iframe class="justify_inline" data-video-type="youtube" data-video-id="Ynd4I3k8tzE" data-video-thumb-url="https://img.youtube.com/vi/Ynd4I3k8tzE/mqdefault.jpg" type="text/html" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/Ynd4I3k8tzE?rel=0&wmode=transparent&enablejsapi=1" frameborder="0" height="180" width="320" allowfullscreen="true"></iframe></p>
<p> </p>
<p>Last weekend, we bid farewell to Nye’s dad, in the company of all the Parsons and a wonderful collective of Wellingborough legends, at The Victoria Centre, where Les spent many years working and promoting music, colloquy and activism amongst the smidgens. </p>
<p>It was a lovely day, filled with friends, songs and fine memories. Deepest thanks to Ceri and the whole gang for all the hard work, to Yasmine for coming all the way from Thanet, to Kevin from braving the Atlantic twice in a month, to Keir and Family, Karl and Family, Gerry Elliot, Simon Andrews, and above all Nye for holding it all together and playing bass with every band from lunch til closing. </p>
<p>Last week the full Parsons, inlaws and outlaws included, headed up to Kinder Scout to scatter Les' ashes to the winds. Good on you all. You're a fine bunch.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/560234/e0d438c2f603c56b93513fdc64df45db8099be56/original/the-full-parsons-up-the-scout.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" /><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/560234/9fca533f89a381c6ed474f886a47d8c0bccfc738/original/postfuneralparsonslunch.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" /><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/560234/119b50f967bbd25063ecfed4c2cbbe1d7ad55336/original/les-and-the-boys-under-the-tree-2.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" /></p>
<p> </p>
<p>Thanks to all of the festivals, hosts, promoters, friends and fans who have made it such a special summer, and particularly to Owain and Sue for looking after us all so well and being amongst the hardest working people in show business. </p>
<p>On the subject of Owain and Sue, <a contents="Priston Festival" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="https://www.priston.org.uk/festival/">Priston Festival</a> happens next weekend, September 16th-18th, in the delightful village of Priston, 4 miles south-west of Bath. The line-up is great. It’s free to all, and you will be in the hands of the finest hosts around, so if you’re anywhere near Bath, go and check it out. </p>
<p>When time allows, I will write a little about our recent musical adventures, and perhaps about what is to come, but for now, from the dawn of a new era, I bid you adieu. </p>
<p>With much love from the edge of the road, </p>
<p>Jez</p>
<p> </p>Jez Hellard & The Djukella Orchestratag:jezhellard.net,2005:Post/70256982022-07-28T19:33:18+02:002022-07-28T19:34:28+02:00Greetings from the heart of summer...<p>Dear friends, </p>
<p>Greetings from the heart of summer, and a brief moment where I don’t have to drive the van. As the world burns and a panoply of political incompetents jostle for primacy in the race to take soup off the poor to pay for weapons for peace, we at The Djukella Orchestra have been blessed with the chance to sing meaningful words to humans who want to listen, catch up with dear friends for the first time in years and revisit some of this island’s most delightful corners. </p>
<p>Since I last wrote, we’ve covered many miles and shared profound experiences with wonderful audiences; in the trapeze-laden splendour of Hatch Court, amongst the banners of Tolpuddle Martyrs’ Festival, the balmy sunshine pf Pig’s Ear Folk Ale, the warm bosom of community that is The Square & Compass and lastly the legendarily discerning Monday night crowd at The Bell in Bath. </p>
<p>Nye and Piotr have been on superlative form, and it really has been a treat. We even got the chance to catch a whole half concert of the great <a contents="John, Kaz and Joe Devine" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="http://johndevinemusic.com/">John, Kaz and Joe Devine</a>, and spend a wonderful night and morning in fine musical company, to the accompaniment of Simon Sturt’s award-winning curries and freshly harvested scollops, before heading on our separate ways. Such a pleasure to see you all, and thanks to Sandy for putting up with such a full house.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/560234/a3df95d27d59fef5a11388286b01ea78eadbb8a3/original/djukellatolpuddle3-4.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" /></p>
<p>Now I have a brief moment to try and get on top of all the publicity for our forthcoming tour with the great Dana Wylie, fresh from the green fields of Canada, and get as much laundry as possible washed and dried before I have to head out in search of Nye and d’rect to Cambridge Folk Festival. </p>
<p>We’ll be playing on Saturday July 30th at 2pm in The Club Tent, thanks to Les Ray of The Bridge. If you’re on site, come and join us. It’s the first time we’ve had the chance to play even a wee sliver of Djukella music at Cambridge, so it’ll be lovely to have a few familiar faces in the crowd. </p>
<p>As soon as we finish at Cambridge, we have to high-tail it to Bedford for the Blender Takeover of The Quarry Theatre as part of the Bedford Fringe. Tickets are pay-what-you-can. We’ll be playing at 5:30pm in the company of the inimitable Fiona Fey. If you, or anyone you know are in the Bedford area, come and support this celebration of local grass-roots culture. Thanks to Alan and the whole team for all the hard work organising it. </p>
<p>Next Friday (August 5th) we’ll be playing at The Locks Inn Community Pub in Geldeston; on the River Waveney, dividing (or perhaps uniting) Norfolk and Suffolk. We’re not from ‘round there, so if you know anyone in East Anglia, send them along. It’s a beautiful corner of the world, and has recently been rehabilitated by the community to its former glory.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/560234/b4d46a97c88e31b3b58f13e6fd12bb7452f95466/original/djukellageldestonlocksposter2022.png/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==/b:W1sic2l6ZSIsIm1lZGl1bSJdXQ==.png" class="size_m justify_center border_none" alt="" /></p>
<p>Then we will be joining forces with <a contents="Dana Wylie" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="https://danawylie.net/">Dana Wylie</a>, one of Canada’s finest songwriters, for the first time in over a decade for a ten-date tour. </p>
<p>She is a powerhouse of musical and poetic stylings, described by Canada’s national folk magazine, <a contents="Penguin Eggs" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="https://www.penguineggs.ab.ca/"><em>Penguin Eggs</em></a> as “the only artist this critic has felt comfortable comparing favourably to Joni Mitchell in the scope of her talent EVER.” </p>
<p>If that sounds appealing to you or anyone you can think of, please get your tickets for whichever show is most convenient, and help us spread the word. What with paying for venue-hire and the exorbitant price of diesel, it’s hard to balance the books, so getting your tickets in advance really helps to save a bit of nail-biting at our end.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/560234/cb1b62e6c0aaa0a0073ecd63d43bbbdb7c21f3ca/original/djukelladanaposterweb2022.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" /></p>
<p>Tickets for all shows are available here. Please tell your friends and help us make a success of this! </p>
<p>I trust that you all managed to keep yourselves cool during the crazy heatwave. Nye and I were hurtling around between gigs and the van was running a bit hotter than I’d like it to, so we had to do the best part of a thousand miles with the heaters on full-blast and the windows open, to cool the engine, which certainly is a particular kind of torture, but we survived. </p>
<p>By the height of the heat on the Tuesday, I was luckily parked up with a day to spare, but living in a van doesn’t offer much respite in 40 degrees, and even in the shade by the river the wind was hot. I found that regularly getting in the river then drying gradually in the hot wind was by far the best way to deal with it, as the van had soaked up so much of the heat that being in there at all was starting to cook my brain. </p>
<p>For company I had the bizarre juxtaposition of Radio 4 providing me with the endless squabbling from various deluded wannabe statespersons, hell-bent on infinite financial growth and scoffing at progress of all sorts, from environmental to social, sexual to racial. </p>
<p>The suspension of disbelief required to listen sequentially to the headlines of "devastating wild-fires and apocalyptic heatwaves", "record prices destroying desperate people living in poorly insulated and overpriced houses", "record profits for fossil fuel companies and the need to reduce the tax they pay whilst simultaneously increasing the tax burden on their poor customers", without pointing out any kind of relationship between these very topics is simply astonishing. </p>
<p>Then to be told by barely-sentient politicians that the only way to solve our problems is to “grow” our dysfunctional and profligate “economy”, ask Saudi Arabia to take a break from bombing Yemeni children to ramp up oil-production, and sell more weapons to anyone who’ll buy them, is frankly insulting.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/560234/105cb67db9f458f1c8774b14fd24d151c1727380/original/johnsonlegacyinfull.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==/b:W1sic2l6ZSIsIm1lZGl1bSJdXQ==.jpg" class="size_m justify_center border_none" alt="" /></p>
<p>As far as I can see, shutters are a bloody good idea, public drinking fountains and deliberately planted and well coppiced shade trees, meeting your neighbours (particularly those who are alone or otherwise vulnerable) and checking in with them now and again, and beginning to have discussions with neighbours and local authorities about forming local resilience plans are all fairly elementary first steps. As well as conserving and collecting water, and planting as many trees and wildflowers as possible. </p>
<p>We have the power to make this a much more hospitable environment; we just need to realise we can’t leave it to self-serving cretins to lead the way.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/560234/7d3af8e450186bbf2b1815f56b18521a82c7b47b/original/frenchmarketshadetrees.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" /></p>
<p> </p>
<p>Anyway, that’s enough of my ranting for now. Thoroughly looking forward to seeing as many of you as possible over the next weeks. </p>
<p>If you’re able, please get your tickets through the “<a contents="shows" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="https://jezhellard.net/shows">shows</a>” page of the website, your music through the “<a contents="shop" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="https://jezhellard.net/shop">shop</a>” page, share <a contents="a video" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="https://jezhellard.net/videos">a video</a> with a friend who’s never heard us and encourage one or two people to sign up for <a contents="this mailing list" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="https://jezhellard.us16.list-manage.com/subscribe?u=f57a5708b8b32b5898394964b&id=585a8085ee">this mailing list</a>. </p>
<p>I know I’m demanding, but so is the life of a musical tyrant. </p>
<p>With much love from this brief moment off the road, </p>
<p>Jez</p>
<p> </p>Jez Hellard & The Djukella Orchestratag:jezhellard.net,2005:Post/70256972022-07-28T19:33:15+02:002022-07-28T19:34:28+02:00Greetings from the heart of summer...<p>Dear friends, </p>
<p>Greetings from the heart of summer, and a brief moment where I don’t have to drive the van. As the world burns and a panoply of political incompetents jostle for primacy in the race to take soup off the poor to pay for weapons for peace, we at The Djukella Orchestra have been blessed with the chance to sing meaningful words to humans who want to listen, catch up with dear friends for the first time in years and revisit some of this island’s most delightful corners. </p>
<p>Since I last wrote, we’ve covered many miles and shared profound experiences with wonderful audiences; in the trapeze-laden splendour of Hatch Court, amongst the banners of Tolpuddle Martyrs’ Festival, the balmy sunshine pf Pig’s Ear Folk Ale, the warm bosom of community that is The Square & Compass and lastly the legendarily discerning Monday night crowd at The Bell in Bath. </p>
<p>Nye and Piotr have been on superlative form, and it really has been a treat. We even got the chance to catch a whole half concert of the great <a contents="John, Kaz and Joe Devine" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="http://johndevinemusic.com/">John, Kaz and Joe Devine</a>, and spend a wonderful night and morning in fine musical company, to the accompaniment of Simon Sturt’s award-winning curries and freshly harvested scollops, before heading on our separate ways. Such a pleasure to see you all, and thanks to Sandy for putting up with such a full house.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/560234/a3df95d27d59fef5a11388286b01ea78eadbb8a3/original/djukellatolpuddle3-4.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" /></p>
<p>Now I have a brief moment to try and get on top of all the publicity for our forthcoming tour with the great Dana Wylie, fresh from the green fields of Canada, and get as much laundry as possible washed and dried before I have to head out in search of Nye and d’rect to Cambridge Folk Festival. </p>
<p>We’ll be playing on Saturday July 30th at 2pm in The Club Tent, thanks to Les Ray of The Bridge. If you’re on site, come and join us. It’s the first time we’ve had the chance to play even a wee sliver of Djukella music at Cambridge, so it’ll be lovely to have a few familiar faces in the crowd. </p>
<p>As soon as we finish at Cambridge, we have to high-tail it to Bedford for the Blender Takeover of The Quarry Theatre as part of the Bedford Fringe. Tickets are pay-what-you-can. We’ll be playing at 5:30pm in the company of the inimitable Fiona Fey. If you, or anyone you know are in the Bedford area, come and support this celebration of local grass-roots culture. Thanks to Alan and the whole team for all the hard work organising it. </p>
<p>Next Friday (August 5th) we’ll be playing at The Locks Inn Community Pub in Geldeston; on the River Waveney, dividing (or perhaps uniting) Norfolk and Suffolk. We’re not from ‘round there, so if you know anyone in East Anglia, send them along. It’s a beautiful corner of the world, and has recently been rehabilitated by the community to its former glory.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/560234/b4d46a97c88e31b3b58f13e6fd12bb7452f95466/original/djukellageldestonlocksposter2022.png/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==/b:W1sic2l6ZSIsIm1lZGl1bSJdXQ==.png" class="size_m justify_center border_none" alt="" /></p>
<p>Then we will be joining forces with <a contents="Dana Wylie" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="https://danawylie.net/">Dana Wylie</a>, one of Canada’s finest songwriters, for the first time in over a decade for a ten-date tour. </p>
<p>She is a powerhouse of musical and poetic stylings, described by Canada’s national folk magazine, <a contents="Penguin Eggs" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="https://www.penguineggs.ab.ca/"><em>Penguin Eggs</em></a> as “the only artist this critic has felt comfortable comparing favourably to Joni Mitchell in the scope of her talent EVER.” </p>
<p>If that sounds appealing to you or anyone you can think of, please get your tickets for whichever show is most convenient, and help us spread the word. What with paying for venue-hire and the exorbitant price of diesel, it’s hard to balance the books, so getting your tickets in advance really helps to save a bit of nail-biting at our end.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/560234/cb1b62e6c0aaa0a0073ecd63d43bbbdb7c21f3ca/original/djukelladanaposterweb2022.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" /></p>
<p> </p>
<p>Tickets for all shows are available <a contents="here" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="https://jezhellard.net/shows">here</a>. Please tell your friends and help us make a success of this! </p>
<p> </p>
<p>I trust that you all managed to keep yourselves cool during the crazy heatwave. Nye and I were hurtling around between gigs and the van was running a bit hotter than I’d like it to, so we had to do the best part of a thousand miles with the heaters on full-blast and the windows open, to cool the engine, which certainly is a particular kind of torture, but we survived. </p>
<p>By the height of the heat on the Tuesday, I was luckily parked up with a day to spare, but living in a van doesn’t offer much respite in 40 degrees, and even in the shade by the river the wind was hot. I found that regularly getting in the river then drying gradually in the hot wind was by far the best way to deal with it, as the van had soaked up so much of the heat that being in there at all was starting to cook my brain. </p>
<p>For company I had the bizarre juxtaposition of Radio 4 providing me with the endless squabbling from various deluded wannabe statespersons, hell-bent on infinite financial growth and scoffing at progress of all sorts, from environmental to social, sexual to racial. </p>
<p>The suspension of disbelief required to listen sequentially to the headlines of "devastating wild-fires and apocalyptic heatwaves", "record prices destroying desperate people living in poorly insulated and overpriced houses", "record profits for fossil fuel companies and the need to reduce the tax they pay whilst simultaneously increasing the tax burden on their poor customers", without pointing out any kind of relationship between these very topics is simply astonishing. </p>
<p>Then to be told by barely-sentient politicians that the only way to solve our problems is to “grow” our dysfunctional and profligate “economy”, ask Saudi Arabia to take a break from bombing Yemeni children to ramp up oil-production, and sell more weapons to anyone who’ll buy them, is frankly insulting.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/560234/105cb67db9f458f1c8774b14fd24d151c1727380/original/johnsonlegacyinfull.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==/b:W1sic2l6ZSIsIm1lZGl1bSJdXQ==.jpg" class="size_m justify_center border_none" alt="" /></p>
<p>As far as I can see, shutters are a bloody good idea, public drinking fountains and deliberately planted and well coppiced shade trees, meeting your neighbours (particularly those who are alone or otherwise vulnerable) and checking in with them now and again, and beginning to have discussions with neighbours and local authorities about forming local resilience plans are all fairly elementary first steps. As well as conserving and collecting water, and planting as many trees and wildflowers as possible. </p>
<p>We have the power to make this a much more hospitable environment; we just need to realise we can’t leave it to self-serving cretins to lead the way.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/560234/7d3af8e450186bbf2b1815f56b18521a82c7b47b/original/frenchmarketshadetrees.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" /></p>
<p> </p>
<p>Anyway, that’s enough of my ranting for now. Thoroughly looking forward to seeing as many of you as possible over the next weeks. </p>
<p>If you’re able, please get your tickets through the “<a contents="shows" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="https://jezhellard.net/shows">shows</a>” page of the website, your music through the “<a contents="shop" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="https://jezhellard.net/shop">shop</a>” page, share <a contents="a video" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="https://jezhellard.net/videos">a video</a> with a friend who’s never heard us and encourage one or two people to sign up for <a contents="this mailing list" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="https://jezhellard.us16.list-manage.com/subscribe?u=f57a5708b8b32b5898394964b&id=585a8085ee">this mailing list</a>. </p>
<p>I know I’m demanding, but so is the life of a musical tyrant. </p>
<p>With much love from this brief moment off the road, </p>
<p>Jez</p>
<p> </p>Jez Hellard & The Djukella Orchestratag:jezhellard.net,2005:Post/70138182022-07-13T18:18:11+02:002022-07-21T11:27:02+02:00Tragedy played out as farce... and the joys of singing..<p> </p>
<p>Dear all, </p>
<p>So finally the blonde beast is vanquished, hoist on his own petard. </p>
<p>Like a synthesis of Ahab and Moby Dick; fifty-seven or so resignatory harpoons hanging from his rubbery skin, the white whale ploughs the tide, plunging still deeper; determined to take the ship down with him. The game is up, but still he lingers, enjoying the trappings of office to the last, having spectacularly failed at the business end. </p>
<p>It’s been a fascinating few days for a news addict like me. A week ago, we had just finished our tour of Germany (huge thanks to all the fantastic people along the way), and made our way to Köln to begin our return train marathon across Europe.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/560234/927777584b5256d557f77052d691863eb89df364/original/saschajeznyekastanien.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" /></p>
<p> </p>
<p>On the journey I read the news that a recently retired senior civil servant (quite the tongue-twister) had broken protocol and rather burst Dominic Raaab’s bubble by announcing by press release, in the middle of an interview, that Boris is indeed a liar, just as Raaab had been assuring the interviewer the opposite was the case. No great surprise in these days of miracle and wonder, but there were glimmers of hope therein. </p>
<p>After a couple of Kölsch in the blazing sun, beside the looming gothic hulk of the cathedral, we found ourselves a hearty lunch in the art-deco brewery opposite the station, as I gleefully followed the test-match, first silently, on the text commentary, then with increasing joy on Test Match Special as Joe Root and Johnny Bairstow put on as fine a display of batting as has been seen (or indeed heard) for a long time. </p>
<p>With the cricket all wrapped up ahead of schedule and lunch polished off, we boarded the train to Brussels and all was well with the world. Getting on the Eurostar has become a rather exhausting airport-style rigmarole since I once took it years ago, but we were in good time, the queue seemed easier than on the way out, and we were soon settled into our tiny seats. </p>
<p>I took out my computer and looked at the newspaper, which informed me that Sajid Javid and Rishi Sunak had just resigned from the cabinet. Owing to the proximity of the seats in the carriage, the couple behind us couldn’t help but notice the news as they glimpsed the headline between the back-rests, and hearing their gleeful mutterings, Nye and I nearly cricked our necks by turning round for a deeply cathartic conversation. </p>
<p>I assured them that this was it for the old charlatan, but they reminded me it has seemed that way for several months. Every time another of his howling errors has been revealed, followed inevitably by a few days of ever-changing lies, parroted by an ever diminishing cast of dispirited and baffled yes-men (and women - who could forget the yes-women), we assumed that the wheels were finally coming off the Bojocoaster; only for him to whip a shitty (as the Canadians would have it) and hurtle off-road toward yet more obscure and reactionary vistas, seemingly untouched by the hurricane of his own doings. </p>
<p>Even in the excruciating 27 hours that followed the first cabinet resignations, as almost the entire government (if that is the right word for it) had to resign, first one by one, then in groups, like kamakasi sky-divers holding hands and leaping into the Grand Canyon, as though he might cotton-on if given enough examples, it seemed he might well go full Trump and have to be dragged out, kicking and screaming, fingernails desperately clawing at the black gloss. </p>
<p>I suppose you have to give it to him for optimism.</p>
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/560234/387a538d3e562a278466c0ec137b1c7adf615f30/original/seenowrongdoing.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" /></p>
<p>Sadly we found that Champagne was not available on Eurostar, but there was beer, so we made do with that, drank a toast and shuddered as to what depths of barrel-scraping among the idealogues, fascists and sex-pests we might be treated to next. </p>
<p>Now, a week on, it seems they all want a go, and the powers-that-be are desperately trying to curtail the contest so we don’t have to see how profoundly disloyal, mercenary and lightweight the lot of them are for too long, before another can be pushed to the fore. </p>
<p>The Sri-Lankans have also called time on their own deeply corrupt administration, who are currently trying to escape the country with as much cash as they can carry, while the starving populace take turns lolling in the erstwhile president’s swimming pool and pondering what might come next. </p>
<p>It does seem that, at least on the news, the whole world is collapsing in a smouldering mess, but I must admit that from day to day, what I see is a very cooperative and adaptable populace, making things work on a small scale and bridging all manner of gaps as needs must. But I am blessed mostly to see groups of people when we’re singing them inspiring songs and trying to encourage them to remember that we are all important, and the good outnumber the malign a hundredfold. It’s just sad that it’s mostly the sociopaths who are drawn towards power. </p>
<p>Talking of singing to people, this week we will be playing on Thursday (July 14th) at Hatch Court, Loddiswell, TQ7 4AJ near Kingsbridge in South Devon. Doors 7:30 music 8:30pm. If you, or anyone you know are in the area, send them along. It’s a remarkable venue, run by the remarkable Mark Arnold. Everyone is welcome. Entry by donation.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/560234/219723605785fd1788dcabe34c26fd09382639f4/original/tolpuddle2022-logo.png/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==/b:W10=.png" class="size_l justify_center border_" /></p>
<p> </p>
<p>On Friday we’re playing at 9pm at <a contents="Tolpuddle Martyrs Festival" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="https://www.tolpuddlemartyrs.org.uk/festival">Tolpuddle Martyrs Festival</a> in Dorset, which will be a marvellous event to inspire even the most worn-down, and on Saturday we’ll be playing <a contents="Pig’s Ear Folk Ale" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="https://folkale.co.uk/tickets-2022/">Pig’s Ear Folk Ale</a> near Sevenoaks in the Weald of Kent, which will also be a delight.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/560234/1cda11791149f8c9923b70ebaef903ad8eb0f49e/original/poster5-1-670x1024.jpeg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" /></p>
<p> </p>
<p>For those of you in East Anglia, we’ll be playing a special show on Friday August 5th on the border of Norfolk and Suffolk, at the truly marvellous <a contents="Geldeston Locks Inn Community Pub" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="https://www.thelocksinn.com/">Geldeston Locks Inn Community Pub</a>. The show is free-entry to all, and the pub, gardens and canal are a truly delightful place to be. If you can come by boat, canoe, wild-swimming or indeed coracle, you will clearly have the best parking options, but if you are coming by car, we’re encouraging lift-sharing wherever possible.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/560234/70c5268d7c7ffad77ce58b3a11f18a64190e524d/original/geldestonlocksfromthecut.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" /></p>
<p> </p>
<p>So for now I shall leave you, and steel myself for the journey from Kent to Northants and on to South Devon and beyond for the next leg of the summer’s schedule. </p>
<p>If you can make it to any of <a contents="our gigs" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="https://jezhellard.net/shows">our gigs</a>, it’ll make our day, and if you can tell a friend about <a contents="our music" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="https://jezhellard.net/shop">our music</a> it’ll mean the world, and maybe even a touch towards the next tank of diesel. </p>
<p>With much love from this sweltering corner of Thanet, </p>
<p>Jez</p>
<p> </p>Jez Hellard & The Djukella Orchestratag:jezhellard.net,2005:Post/70059952022-07-01T21:25:06+02:002022-07-01T21:28:11+02:00Invisible antelopes, upcoming festivals and the return of the fabulous Dana Wylie...<p> </p>
<p>Dear people of the wide world,</p>
<p> </p>
<p>After many days of travelling, singing, and repeatedly packing an inordinate amount of equipment into a confined space, I am blessed with the coincidence of a day off, a chair, and a table beneath a handsome chestnut tree with a reliable internet connection. </p>
<p>After days of blazing sun baking the cracked ground, and travelling with strategic pieces of cardboard shading the instruments from melting in the southern sun, the weather finally cracked last night with wild winds, distant thunder and a touch of refreshment for the parched earth, just in time for us to finish barbecuing in the rain. </p>
<p>This morning it’s a bit chilly, and I’m sitting here wearing a woolly hat, contemplating adding a scarf to the ensemble, but the grass seems rejuvenated, the birds gently titter in the background, and by a stroke of luck, neither the dogs nor the power-tools across the road have started yet. </p>
<p>As we near the end of the Invisible Antelope Tour, it’s time to make sure the rest of the summer’s schedule is in order so we can catch up with as many of you as possible. Deepest thanks to all the wonderful folks who’ve hosted us, listened to us, chatted with us and made the last couple of weeks an absolute joy. As seems to be the way these days, house-concerts have bloomed into garden-concerts, barn-concerts and even swimming pool concerts, and we’ve been treated to some stunning backdrops, from horse-meadows to boat-sheds, a brand new garden stage to a gatehouse built in 1678.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/560234/81404a083cba7234f59b20632230c83351733d58/original/djukellaspargelhalle-alicecooper.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" /></p>
<p> </p>
<p>On our return to Blighty, we’re looking forward to playing some fantastic festivals, and would love you to join us. </p>
<p>Many festival organisers are finding that since the lockdowns, it remains hard to convince many traditional festival-goers to go into any place with crowds of people, so we’re having to work even harder to try to get the word out and tickets sold. Folk festivals have re-organised themselves so that there’s plenty of space for everyone to enjoy the music and festivities without having to crowd together, so people who are still wary of enclosed spaces can relax and enjoy themselves. </p>
<p>For those of you in Devon and the south-west, it looks like our only show down your way this year will be Thursday July 14th at the marvellous <a contents="Hatch Barn" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="https://www.facebook.com/groups/867342600023926">Hatch Barn</a> at Loddiswell, near Kingsbridge. It really is the most beautiful venue, hand-crafted by the great Mark Arnold, replete with trapeze, incredible decor and cushions galore. If you’re anywhere nearby, or know anyone who is, we’d love to fill the place up. </p>
<p>On Friday July 15th, we’re playing at <a contents="Tolpuddle Martyrs Festival" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="https://www.tolpuddlemartyrs.org.uk/festival/whats-on/full-programme/music">Tolpuddle Martyrs Festival</a> in Dorset, a hive of inspirational music, political colloquy and local history, nestled on the River Piddle in a glorious corner of Dorset. If you’re anywhere nearby, or fancy a bit of an adventure, <a contents="tickets are available here" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="https://www.tolpuddlemartyrs.org.uk/festival/festival-entry">tickets are available here</a>.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/560234/4fa799e3773a709b6c936cb6fcd16f809e959719/original/tolpuddle1-1336104145.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" /></p>
<p>If Dorset seems distant and the M25 is more convenient for you (I suppose it must be for someone), on Saturday 16th, we’ll be playing at <a contents="Pig’s Ear Folk Ale" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="https://folkale.co.uk/">Pig’s Ear Folk Ale</a>, at Sevenoaks Weald, which is (despite the M25) a delightful corner of Kent. <a contents="Tickets for this one are available here" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="https://folkale.co.uk/tickets-2022/">Tickets for this one are available here</a>. They’ve got a great line-up and are reputedly the friendliest festival in the South East.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/560234/8127bb3b94e072e6ab13e77c9837e7726a8e48c1/original/pigs-ear-folk-ale-logo.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==" class="size_orig justify_center border_none" alt="" /></p>
<p> </p>
<p>Those of you local to Bath or Dorset, who'd prefer to see us in two of the finest pubs anywhere in the world, we'll be bringing Djukella music to <a contents="The Square &amp; Compass" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="https://squareandcompasspub.co.uk/">The Square & Compass</a> in Worth Matravers on Sunday July 24th, and to <a contents="The Bell Inn" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="https://thebellinnbath.co.uk/">The Bell Inn</a>, Bath on Monday 25th. </p>
<p>At the end of the month we’ll be making a brief appearance at Cambridge Folk Festival on Saturday July 30th, before hightailing it across the fens to Bedford for <a contents="Blender’s Weekend Takeover" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="https://www.facebook.com/BlenderMusicUK">Blender’s Weekend Takeover</a> at <a contents="The Quarry Theatre" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="https://bedfringe.ticketsolve.com/shows?page=8">The Quarry Theatre</a>, for the Bedfringe Festival. We’ll be joined by the inimitable Fiona Fey for the 5:30pm show. If the East-Midlands is best for you, <a contents="get your tickets here. " data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="https://bedfringe.ticketsolve.com/shows/873634112?fbclid=IwAR1ldTwIuth30gtLLEw6Ms5Tzg9mJZ3fFpUHcRpUPXhp306EWjKarFKmIWQ">get your tickets here. </a></p>
<p>If you’re an East-Anglian, the very best thing you can do is <a contents="get your tickets here" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="https://www.ticketsource.co.uk/thelocksinn">get your tickets here</a> for our show on Friday August 5th at the legendary canal-side music venue, <a contents="Geldeston Locks Community Pub" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="https://www.thelocksinn.com/">Geldeston Locks Community Pub</a>, which has recently been taken over by the community and is returning to its former glory. We could use as much help as possible spreading the word to anyone you know in Norfolk, Suffolk and even Doggerland. It’ll be a great night. Maybe even a touch of Dwile Flonking...</p>
<p> </p>
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/560234/7e8125896d3206a8b26f1d146a3208ed806d4cc5/original/nb-12-geldeston-dwile-flonking.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" /></p>
<p> </p>
<p>Then on Tuesday August 9th we’ll be reuniting with the great Dana Wylie, d’rect from Canada for a run of UK gigs for the first time in a decade. If you don’t know Dana’s music, theatre or writing, you’re missing out. You can feast your ears and other appropriate senses at <a contents="www.danawylie.net" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="https://danawylie.net/home">www.danawylie.net</a></p>
<p> </p>
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/560234/ebdd8b4221362557469e28e52f7ac19d487f4ed4/original/danasmall.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==" class="size_orig justify_center border_none" alt="" /></p>
<p> </p>
<p>We’re still having trouble pinning down venues for the Bristol and Glastonbury shows so if you have any suggestions/contacts, I’m as always, all ears. I will keep you posted, but otherwise, it’s looking like this at the moment… </p>
<p>Tuesday 9th - Bath - The Bell <br>Wednesday 10th - Bristol <br>Thursday 11th - Glastonbury <br>Friday 12th Priston - Garden Concert <br>Saturday 13th - Hampshire - The Cheriton Sessions <br>Sunday 14th - King’s Cliffe - The Pytchell <br>Tuesday 16th - TBC <br>Wednesday 17th - London <br>Thursday 18th - Horley - Cafe 54 <br>Friday 19th - Purbeck Valley Folk Festival + 9pm Worth Matravers - The Square & Compass <br>Saturday 20th Purbeck Valley Folk Festival</p>
<p>After we bid farewell to Dana, we’ll be finishing off with appearances at <a contents="Into The Wild Gathering" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="https://www.intothewildgathering.com/">Into The Wild Gathering</a> in the most spectacular corner of Ashdown Forest on Friday August 26th, <a contents="tickets available here" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="https://www.intothewildgathering.com/copy-of-tickets-1">tickets available here</a>, and then playing for the first time at the great <a contents="Towersey Festival" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="https://www.towerseyfestival.com/line-up-new/">Towersey Festival</a> in Oxfordshire. The longest running folk festival in the UK, the line-up is incredible, with something for all tastes, from Bill Bailey to the Hackney Colliery Band, Anais Mitchell to Peter Knight.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/560234/be910f2c38f9dc9502bd6bd9c5bc9a2499ab7100/original/towerseyflyer.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==/b:W1sic2l6ZSIsIm1lZGl1bSJdXQ==.jpg" class="size_m justify_center border_none" alt="" /></p>
<p> </p>
<p><a contents="Tickets are available here" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="https://www.towerseyfestival.com/2022-tickets/" style="">Tickets are available here</a>, so if Oxfordshire’s convenient for you, come and join us, either for the day, or for the whole shebang. </p>
<p>So that’s most of the news for now. As you can clearly see from the gig-list on the <a contents="Shows" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="https://jezhellard.net/shows">Shows</a> page of the website, we have plenty of gaps in the schedule which we’d love to fill, as making a living is hard enough as it is, without days of having to feed musicians with no wages. So if you know of a likely spot, have a house, garden, church, bus-shelter or suchlike which you think could do with a bit of music adding to it, get in touch and we’ll organise something in your area. Otherwise you might run into us busking the highways, byways and thoroughfares of old England. </p>
<p>As always <a contents="you can buy music" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="https://jezhellard.net/shop">you can buy music</a>, either physical (how retro!) <a contents="or digital" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="https://jezhellard.net/music">or digital</a>, by clicking here, or if you’ve had a windfall dealing arms, oil or gas, or even are thriving by more ethical means, <a contents="all donations towards diesel, CD duty and general wellbeing are always deeply appreciated here" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="https://jezhellard.net/shop">all donations towards diesel, CD duty and general wellbeing are always deeply appreciated here</a>. </p>
<p>Talking of arms, oil and indeed gas (or at least hot air), I see our illustrious Prime Minister/sexually incontinent Dulux dog (delete as appropriate) has been on the run from the British press, doing the rounds of the photo-op season with various world leaders, playing the clown and grasping any opportunity to fill the front pages with anything other than what a venally corrupt and shambolic embarrassment he is. His latest schtick hinges on a preference for “good war” over “bad peace”. There’s probably a song in that.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/560234/3b7eec93a52f04dd80b28f4a194bc61eb745af66/original/bojobidenbores.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==/b:W1sic2l6ZSIsIm1lZGl1bSJdXQ==.jpg" class="size_m justify_center border_none" alt="" /></p>
<p> </p>
<p>Anyway, pardon the absence of much entertaining copy in this latest missive, but time slips by and getting the information out about where you can see/hear us is what needs doing today. </p>
<p>With much love from beneath this chestnut tree, </p>
<p>Jez</p>
<p> </p>Jez Hellard & The Djukella Orchestratag:jezhellard.net,2005:Post/70049172022-06-30T14:44:29+02:002022-06-30T14:44:30+02:00Jubilation (and a hogshead of claret)...<p>Evening All, </p>
<p>After seventeen or so hours of driving and a couple of days spent falling asleep at inopportune moments, I’m at the desk in the shed watching the blackbirds go about their business, and trying to get organised for the off. </p>
<p>For anyone planning to see us tonight in Horley, I’m sad to say it’s been cancelled at short notice for reasons totally out of our control, so I’d thoroughly recommend coming to Buxted on Friday instead, if you’re in the area, Deptford on Saturday if you're in London, or Small World on Monday, if you know what's good for you. For those of you in Horley, we will reschedule as soon as possible, and let you know as soon as we do. </p>
<p>It’s interesting to find myself back in Blighty in the midst of the preparations for the Jubilee weekend. As soon as we arrived in Kent, the purple regalia was evident. It seems, after the past decade’s ever-encroaching jingoism we may well be approaching “Peak Bunting”.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/560234/0fe6496d41eecb15776014533e895901a48d9178/original/djukellapristongardenday.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" /></p>
<p>It’s certainly encouraging to see all the invitations to various street parties, and here in Cliffe the return of Barrel Racing and other old favourites. </p>
<p>I look forward to a bit of that wonderful solidarity we saw at the beginning of the first lockdown, which I’m sure everyone’s still got in them, as soon as we all stop finding new reasons to disagree with each other over what’s on the antisocial-media feed. </p>
<p>It is however desperately comic to to see our dear jingoist-in-chief trying to cover himself in some sort of glory (and perhaps even hope) by associating himself with imperial measurements, deportations and anything at all that might distract people from his ongoing saga of obfuscation, misdirection and downright lies. </p>
<p>For a man struggling to keep in shape, and shake off an image as a shambolic booze-hound with perhaps a dozen children, I can’t see how imperial measurements will necessarily draw the collective gaze away from his various indiscretions. Pounds, stone, pints, quarts, gallons, pecks, hogsheads and tuns all best avoided at the moment; perhaps he can try his luck with bushels, cubits, perches and chains. Having reportedly complained of experiencing "buyers remorse" since his most recent marriage, probably best to steer clear of poles altogether.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/560234/f6083c56d1754a2faa13354f9fd764dd30e2a8aa/original/queen-johnson.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" /></p>
<p>As for the redoubtable empress after which his imperial efforts search for relevance, she doesn’t seem particularly interested one way or another in what Bojo has to say. </p>
<p>Far from being your typical royalist, I must admit I was tickled-pink when the queen, after putting out a press release making her apologies for not turning up to open parliament and read out yet another one of his hastily scrawled ejaculations due to “intermittent mobility issues”, was in fine fettle at the races three days later, followed by the flower-show and perhaps a spot of dancing. </p>
<p>There’s a woman who clearly has her priorities in order.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/560234/684b0224f290373d6686c24bb28fa75890e1d524/original/queen-elizabeth-ii-receives-the-winners-cup-at-the-royal-news-photo-1652448039.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" /></p>
<p>I felt enormous sympathy for Armando Iannucci and other usurped satirists when reading that Boris waited until everyone had gone home for their half-term break before amending the Ministerial Code to remove the words “integrity”, “honesty” and “accountability” from the introduction. He’s straight out of the pages of Tom Brown’s Schooldays, or a Just William story shortly before the comeuppance. He's taking work away from decent professionals. Maybe Equity might be able to do something about it. </p>
<p>I suppose we should be counting our lucky stars that he's not lobbying to arm primary school teachers, as some folks are, in a galaxy not so far away. </p>
<p>I should really learn to stop following all of this crazy nonsense, but it is grimly compelling, and despite it all being deeply uninspiring, I still manage to find the odd nugget to work with. </p>
<p>Despite the eye-watering price of diesel, I somehow managed to avoid going overdrawn by 24 centimes, but with tonight's cancellation, it's a bit skin-of-the-teeth, so if you or anyone you know fancies buying the odd track from www.jezhellard.net/shop, ordering an album, or just dropping a couple of quid into the tip jar, I'll be able to get enough diesel in the tank to start the tour and get this old Djukella machine rolling again. </p>
<p>Most of the gigs are listed on the shows page of the website, and more are being confirmed all the time, so find an appropriate date, get your tickets, tell your friends, bring your mum, or whomever you think might enjoy it, and we look forward to sharing a a few moments of the joy of living with you all in due course. </p>
<p>With all the best, d’rect from the black mirror, as the light fades, the blackbirds wrap things up for the evening and the blue light starts to melt my mind. Have a fine Jubilee, however you care to celebrate, or indeed otherwise. </p>
<p>Stay brilliant, </p>
<p>Jez</p>Jez Hellard & The Djukella Orchestratag:jezhellard.net,2005:Post/70049142022-06-30T14:31:00+02:002022-06-30T14:31:00+02:00Chocks Away (and kittens galore...)<p>Dear all, </p>
<p>I’ve been planning to write another decent-length missive before I hit the road for the summer, but as always, tasks stack up and the sands of time slip away, even without sudden unexpected occurrences, of which there have been a few. Though it’s been a lot of work, it seems the summer’s touring schedule is finally coming together. More of that in a bit, but first, a bit of distraction.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/560234/5ae861617c7437e4f48cf99077aa53159a26f443/original/threekittensjezlapbarn.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" /></p>
<p>A couple of weeks ago, someone dumped three kittens in the ditch outside our place. I was just returning from my neighbour’s house with an armful of tools, when I saw them gambolling in the tire-tracks of tractors at the side of the road. </p>
<p>On seeing me, they bolted into the ditch to hide, but one was far too interested to hide for long and came to introduce herself. We checked far and wide for a mother, or some trace of an explanation, but no luck, and as the ditch is no place for kittens, we moved them round the corner, got some kitten food, and have since been trying to finish building-work, admin and a whole host of chores with cats climbing up our legs, and anything else they come across.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/560234/21edc279eefb6ea73eb3b94f68486cf297cf36de/original/threekittenguitarcase.jpeg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" /></p>
<p>Yasmine has naturally spent a fair amount of time lying in a pool of kittens.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/560234/06c518ad322603c40f84ef1196a81f83485d6561/original/yasinapoolofkittens.jpeg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" /></p>
<p>It was a good job we found them, as the very next morning, the municiple verge-trimmer trundled past on his tractor, with what could easily be described as an industrial sized kitten-crusher, and scoured the ditch of everything, as the kittens lolled, purring in their fur-lined box in the kitchen. </p>
<p>Amazingly, I have managed to get a fair amount of work done, and even screw down almost half of the new floor in the barn. So on our return we’ll soon be able to dwell at least some of the time under a roof, like civilised people. The kittens have settled nicely in the barn, at least when they are not running around like mentalists, and Jean-Jaques seems happy to feed them for us. We just have to wait to see how big they are by the time we’re back. </p>
<p>Now I have a fast-diminishing number of hours to get everything packed up, locked up, sent off and organised before we head north for Calais and La Manche, so a few points of urgence.</p>
<p>On Saturday June 11th, we will be playing at the fabulous Salt-Works Sessions, at The Lion Salt Works in Northwich, Cheshire. It is the furthest north that anyone is willing to give us a gig so far. </p>
<p>The organisers, in common with all of us in the business, are struggling to sell tickets post-lockdown, and could use a little help getting the word out. If you know anyone in the Merseyside/Greater Manchester/Chesire area, or want to catch us while we’re on tour and fancy coming from further afield, please let them know, get your tickets and come to support a fantastic post-industrial arts-centre. We could use all the help we can get. It’s a long way to drive and diesel is through the roof. </p>
<p>For anyone who fancies one of the finest (and indeed the longest-running) folk festivals in the country, tickets are still available for Towersey Festival in Oxfordshire, where we’ll be playing on the last weekend in August. It’s an incredible festival, with a stunning line-up to satisfy all persuasions, but they could also really use a bit of help getting the word out and shifting some tickets, perhaps to a new audience who haven’t necessarily been to folk festivals before.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/560234/e687813a13eab8bcf8e001df737207d1fdea61b7/original/towersey-festival-2022-sml.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" /></p>
<p>As with all of us in acoustic music, our audiences are often fairly mature, and it seems many of our elders have been so thoroughly scared by the endless cycle of disaster, coupled with government bungling and the fashionable notion of opinion as “truth”, that they have quite understandably been a little hesitant to enter any social-gathering or crowded place (with some notable exceptions, I might add), but Towersey have gone to enormous lengths to make the event extremely safe, welcoming and spacious, without any need to sit on each others’ laps (unless of course you want to).</p>
<p> </p>
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/560234/326cb38aede79e5218c415bbe71d198bd2283f38/original/bojopartypic.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" /></p>
<p>For those in the South East of England, we will be starting the tour next week, with shows in Horley, Buxted, Deptford and then to Headcorn to reunite with the Small World family. </p>
<p>The Deptford show is our only London show all summer, so if you are in south London, or know anyone who is, come along to the Dog & Bell in Deptford on Saturday June 4th for an outdoor concert in their rather swanky beer-garden. There is fine food to be had, and all that, but get there for 7pm sharp (or come and loll for the afternoon) as there’s a 10 pm curfew and we’d love to sing you as many songs as we can. </p>
<p>For those of you who can’t afford London, or indeed anything, we’re playing a free concert in East Sussex on Friday June 3rd, as part of the Buxted Jubilee Celebrations. It’s a great village on the edge of Ashdown Forest and is certainly worth the effort if you’re local or otherwise. </p>
<p>I will try to scribble some political invective, or something humorous and perhaps even entertaining over the next few days, between bouts of driving, but for now, I need to get back to the practical and ready for the off.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/560234/52074864338ceaaae0bf3932ef5a745851fc95c8/original/jezmasseyfergusonclebis.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" /></p>
<p>Thoroughly looking forward to seeing as many of you as possible over the next couple of months of road. As always, if you or anyone you know wants to buy music, artwork or make a donation through the website, it will be deeply appreciated and immediately spent on fuel so we can come and see you all. </p>
<p>With much love from the barn, next to a small heap of kittens, </p>
<p>Jez </p>
<p>And remember, as I was just reminded by my tobacco pouch...</p>
<p> </p>
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/560234/05fdb935b32008002ab674ee1d36fe1f0691cca8/original/baby-putin-eats-fags.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" /></p>
<p style="text-align: center;">Baby Putin Eats Fags</p>Jez Hellard & The Djukella Orchestratag:jezhellard.net,2005:Post/69583552022-04-27T21:11:36+02:002022-06-30T14:45:39+02:00Back on the horse, or something like it...<p> </p>
<p>Dear Friends around the world, </p>
<p>As I sit here nursing my tea in the hazy sunshine of morning, I realise it’s been months since I managed to sit down and write anything. I have mostly been building, but to be honest I’ve been suffering from a touch of the old depression, and as my computer signifies all kinds of admin, as well as the fascinating yet intimidating rigmarole of French tax-returns and the like, I’ve found myself avoiding it, preferring to just make another mix of mortar and continue re-pointing walls.</p>
<p>I was all primed and ready to go, full of righteous indignation and quips galore, when all of a sudden, the war which our governments had been so desperately trying to start for so long, rather took them by surprise, and started. </p>
<p>Not to detract from the mendacity of the clearly unhinged and rather puffy-looking Putin and his enormous table, nor the plight of the beleaguered population of Ukraine, I know the narrative was of peace envoys and averting disaster, but if you’re searching for peace, when has sending Liz Truss out in full combat fatigues been a good idea?</p>
<p>Besides, all of the leaders of the “western” world were in such deep domestic holes of their own making, that they jumped at the chance of a decent distraction, not to mention the opportunity for some wholesale arms dealing. </p>
<p>As you might imagine, I have a few things to say about all that, so those of you who enjoy a bit of reading, there will be more below, but first, I need to share all of the exciting news of music, movement, and with any luck, some merriment after all the melancholia. </p>
<p>Soon I will be heading north to reunite with the Djukella Orchestra and bring a good dose of our mongrel music to the masses.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/560234/028769d1636f98eea053d54aebf9f43c55503404/original/djukella-into-wild-daylight.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" /></p>
<p>We are lucky enough to be playing some fantastic festivals for the first time, including the great <a contents="Towersey Festival" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="https://www.towerseyfestival.com/line-up-new/">Towersey Festival</a> in Oxfordshire, Cambridge Folk Festival, <a contents="Tolpuddle Martyrs Festival" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="https://www.tolpuddlemartyrs.org.uk/festival">Tolpuddle Martyrs Festival</a> in Dorset and the brand new <a contents="Pig’s Ear Folk Ale" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="https://folkale.co.uk/">Pig’s Ear Folk Ale</a> in west Kent. As I’m sure you know, all of us in music, entertainment and event-organisation have been almost destitute for the past two years, and we could use as much encouragement as possible, so if any of these are within range of your neck of the woods, get your tickets now and save the fingernails of the promoters.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/560234/50a7eb2ec7d9256292e3fb734e1f123fdc744e2f/original/small-world.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" /></p>
<p>If, like me, the idea of buying tickets for anything is totally out of the question due to a total lack of income, fear not! On Friday June 3rd, we are playing a FREE CONCERT, as part of the Jubilee celebrations in Buxted, East Sussex, with all the trimmings. It will be such a joy to see some of the local crew come and join the fun, and those who like to travel; everyone’s welcome. </p>
<p>I’ve been trying to organise a little tour of Germany on our way north, but so far haven’t had enough responses to string together, and time is ticking along faster than ever. However, it seems that we had a big gap in the schedule, late June to early July, which looks ripe for a German tour, so if the current state of COVID laws permits it, dear friends in Germany, please get in touch and we’ll get it organised. </p>
<p>Another piece of exciting news is that the great <a contents="Dana Wylie" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="https://danawylie.net/">Dana Wylie</a> is coming over from Canada in August for her first UK tour in many years, and we’ll be joining her for some of the shows, along with some special guests. I shall keep you posted on details in the next couple of weeks.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/560234/ebdd8b4221362557469e28e52f7ac19d487f4ed4/original/danasmall.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" /></p>
<p>As I’m sure you can see from the list of shows on the website, we have many gaps which need filling, so if you know any decent venues in need of Djukella music, or fancy a concert in your house, garden, church, village-hall, shed, firepit or indeed sandbox, get in touch and we will play for you. </p>
<p>I know that COVID restrictions are gradually winding down at the moment, but it seems that the confidence of the public, promoters and music-lovers in general has been severely knocked by recent events, and it has been hard to even get responses from many of our usual haunts. </p>
<p>So far we have no offers in Scotland, which seems to be opening up a little more cautiously that Bojo’s cavalier approach, so if you’d like us north of the border, let me know and we’ll make it happen. Otherwise, the furthest north we’re playing so far is The Salt Works Sessions, near Northwich, Cheshire which I’m thoroughly looking forward to, so either offer us a couple more northern gigs ;) (Yorkshire, Lancashire, Northumbria, Cumbria, any suggestions?) or get your tickets for that one and help us fill the place up. </p>
<p>So there’s the news… I know it’s a little desperate and vague, but such is the plight of the modern musician. Not only do we only get half the gigs we need, the price of fuel has been pushing even the most successful bands towards bankruptcy, so if anyone is feeling rich, magnanimous or foolish, and fancies chipping in a couple of quid/bucks/rupees/euros/dinari/kwai via the "tip jar" on the website, every little helps. </p>
<p>And here we are… Finishing a paragraph with a supermarket slogan brings me back to Boris Johnson and the remnants of democracy.</p>
<p>Though the world’s “leaders” were clearly flabbergasted when Putin actually gave the order to invade, after a couple of days flapping around like fish on a sun bed, they soon settled into their new-found mock-heroic roles. Johnson has clearly been desperate for his own war ever since David Cameron and Nicolas Sarkozy got to show off their statesmanship in the wholesale and ongoing total destruction of the nation of Libya (euphemistically called a “No-Fly-Zone” at the time). </p>
<p>That the shiny-faced “girlie-swot” got to play war, while the man who so plainly (in his own estimation at least, and certainly in silhouette) resembles Churchill, had to make do with rugby-tackling school children, seemed such a travesty to him that his indignation has made him dangerous ever since. Now he’s revelling in Zelensky’s kind words and dramatic photo-ops, doubly, in that he doesn’t even have to cower in a bunker through the rough bits.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/560234/eff2e770a43d29738f058de5511f4c3a15f86221/original/fqnmqlqxoaaimem.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" /></p>
<p>The problem for Johnson is that he’s such a catastrophic bin-fire of endless scandal, from financial corruption to philandery, dishonesty to dishevelment, pole-dancing to partygate, that in just a few short weeks, his own twattishness and that of his hapless patsies, known collectively as a “cabinet” (or perhaps shower) has somehow managed to push World War 3 off the front pages, and put his own incompetence right back on the tip of everyone’s tongue. </p>
<p>On this side of La Manche, Macron seems to have done a bit better out of the situation, thanks to the convenient scheduling of the Presidential election and his knack for always running against a Nazi, which tends to help in an unpopularity contest. He even got to touch the big table. </p>
<p>Across the pond, the “leader of the free world” seems to have avoided breaking any limbs whilst stroking a dog recently, which I suppose is something, and if we’re lucky, Justin Trudeau might even dress up as Alladin for a photo with Ukraine’s actually rather heroic leader, if one doesn’t already exist.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/560234/0d8758994e49ac147f0c0c7faa2f5d9012d68f82/original/index.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" /></p>
<p>The most jarring aspect of the whole unfolding mess is the rank hypocrisy of everything I hear from politicians and media talking heads alike. The very people who have encouraged, condoned and initiated 20 years of military occupation and near total destruction of vast swathes of the middle-east, fresh from presiding over the shameful botched retreat from Kabul; abandoning their values, allies and ill-thought plans in one fell swoop, and sold countless weapons to countless nutjobs around the world, are “shocked and appalled” that a sovereign nation has been invaded by a foreign aggressor in such an “unprecedented” fashion. The cognitive dissonance required to swallow such nonsense has me reaching, metaphorically for the “Irony Guard”, a product I once saw advertised on Saturday Night Live. </p>
<p>Even dear friends and perfectly reasonable people seem caught up in this narrative that this is the first time that modern people like us are having to face the bombardment of their homes, cities and institutions. </p>
<p>Yasmine, an Arabic-speaking Tunisian, is constantly astonished that people will express such thoughts to her, and will ask, “What about Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria and Libya?”, who’ve faced exactly the same reality for the past decades without many people batting an eye. </p>
<p>I have spent my life travelling the world and know all too well that racism is alive and well, and to some extent is inherent in all of us, particularly when times are tough and fear is rife, but it amazes me that people are so shocked when this happens to white people, but quite sanguine about the very same in a country with a deeper tan.</p>
<p>Back to the comic ineptitude of dangerous loons, but remaining loosely in the same realm, Priti Patel’s plan to pluck the analogous refugees from one of our own recent invasions from their sinking dinghies off the Kent coast and ship them to Rwanda for “processing” is about as dark as comic writers are allowed to go these days. In fact, a comedian would likely get more schtick for such a comment than politicians do for introducing it as a piece of legislation. </p>
<p>Not meaning to cast aspersions on Rwanda or it’s people, but it has clearly been chosen, not just because it’s the only country willing, but for the reason that due to Rwanda’s unfortunate infamy, it reads well as a “deterrent” in the Daily Mail. </p>
<p>It seems to me characteristic of a very base personality to even flirt with such a base notion, but when your own parents fled Idi Amin’s atrocities in an astonishingly similar situation to these poor folks in the dinghies it just seems plain perverse. When I first heard it mentioned on the radio, I must admit my immediate and gutteral utterance was, “Why not Uganda?” </p>
<p>Pass me that irony guard… </p>
<p>To those of you who’ve made it down this far, I shall attempt to pull myself away from the black dog and write you all something a bit more cheery before long. Thanks for reading. Thoroughly looking forward to seeing, or at least hearing from as many of you as possible over the summer. I trust you’re all keeping relatively sane. </p>
<p>With much love from way down here, </p>
<p>Jez</p>Jez Hellard & The Djukella Orchestratag:jezhellard.net,2005:Post/68698752022-01-15T12:05:41+01:002022-01-15T12:05:41+01:00Belated Seasonal Greetings from a pool of mud...<p>Dear Friends, </p>
<p>Belated Solstice, Christmas and indeed Boxing Day greetings to all corners of the world, </p>
<p>I trust that you’ve all been enjoying whatever festivities are available to you, given the varied nature of rules and regulations these days. We were treated to an absolutely delightful Christmas with my brother and family over in Le Mas d’Azil. Deepest thanks to them all for such a fine spread, with the added bonus of at least one heatable room and hot running water - LUXURY!. </p>
<p>For those in the northern hemisphere, and particularly to all who live in vehicles, huts, and other outdoor situations, I must say I’m delighted to have made it once more past the cross-bones of the year to the gradual return of the sun. We’ve been blessed here in the Pyrenées with a week of frosty mornings and clear (if short) sunny days which has come as a very welcome salve after a full month of rain, but today we’re back to a gentle drizzle over misty forest, with the handsome aspect of Belbèze-en-Comminges in the background.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/560234/0468583aca1a79edcb2ae84616f4eed7de906ac4/original/belbe-zeinthedistance.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" /></p>
<p>Being as we live in the only vehicle we have for transport, the need to drive in and out of our driveway through this period meant that we were mostly rather marooned in a large pool of mud, with strategically placed pallets in various states of repair, between which to hop; and established a daily routine of adding layers of broken roof tiles to the deep ruts through which the van had to struggle, until eventually we have a semblance of wide terracotta train-tracks to get us round the corner to our favoured parking spot, replete with a siding for visitors. </p>
<p>Sadly, my life has been largely based around moving massive amounts of stone, timber and tile, keeping us vaguely warm, well-fed and on the right side of the sanity barrier, so I’ve had very little time for any kind of music or festivities this festive season, but we are beginning to make some real progress on making our place at least slightly habitable. With a little help from my brother, I’ve stripped all of the old planks out of the first floor of the barn, and taken delivery of a massive piles of pine planks to replace them. To my great joy, it turns out that all of the beams and all but five of the joists are in fine condition, so after doing a little work on one of the walls, I’ll be able to put a floor in and actually have a decent dry area to occupy, rain or shine.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/560234/751448e297c7863f4a837c7be7a53d3017400bb6/original/skeletalbarnexterior.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" /></p>
<p>We have just acquired a beautiful old Godin woodburner for in the kitchen which now even boasts some cooking facilities, which certainly helps to keep the van slightly less humid, and we’ve stripped off half of the old plaster, ready to make it a little more like a house than a squat. We’ve been given a vast amount of useful bricolage by our friend Olivier, including a shower stall, which we’ve assembled, and is almost ready to plumb in (in the corner of the barn, rather than a more conventional setting, but we’ve got to start somewhere) but by far the most revolutionary step so far is our new bath-tub.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/560234/35085caf5d9e09643784ecc59afc877622e6c831/original/lepremierbain.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" /></p>
<p>Anyone who has yet to install a cast-iron bath over a fire-pit in the garden, I can’t recommend it highly enough. The curious joy of a bath which gets warmer, rather than colder as you bathe, is quite something, and brings to mind the Captain of the Golgafrinchan Ark in Douglas Adams’ The Restaurant at the End of The Universe, though I prefer a pint to his Gin and Tonic. </p>
<p>Word of our bird-feeding station on the wall outside the van window has clearly spread far and wide, as we now get daily visits, not just from Great-tits, but Blue-tits, a Robin, various little brown fellas, a pair of Nut-hatch, with their handsome peach and blue get-up and perhaps even a nightingale, though I need to get myself a decent bird book to consult on these matters. </p>
<p>It seems the barn-owl no longer roosts in the barn behind the kitchen, since Yasmine and the aforementioned Hibou were equally surprised by their brief meeting in the back barn some months ago, but it dines in the barn from time to time, judging by the fresh pellet I found the other day and the beautiful feather that Anelie collected one day when we were out.</p>
<p>Talking of something which might have been coughed up by an owl. After all my banging on about the profound mendacity and abject incompetence of Boris Johnson and his shower of “ministers”, I must admit I have been quite taken-aback by the speed in which his reputation for being immune to accountability seems to be collapsing. </p>
<p>There have been many times over the years when he has attracted the type of scandal which would signal the end of a career for anyone else, only to sail through unscathed, with everyone happy that it’s just Boris being Boris. I know that his enduring appeal and electoral successes leave most sentient beings outside the UK scratching their heads, as on the international scene he comes across as a cartoon-made-flesh of an overweight Trump impersonator having a stroke on live TV, but when I saw Declan Donnelly, one half of British Television’s most celebrated light entertainment duo, Ant & Dec, and not a noted public satirist, address him directly on a primetime show, I was gobsmacked, and at once elated that he may finally be tumbling toward his long-courted comeuppance.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/560234/65de654f784c63948ff4223b8dc855e837b5e2b2/original/pri-215245864.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" /></p>
<p> </p>
<p>After weeks of sending out ministers on TV and radio to expertly prevaricate their way through the scandal of the day, insisting that up was down, or down up, or whatever the instruction from on high had been, only to have Bojo reverse-ferret within the hour and send them out again to insist that the opposite had always been their fervently held opinion, there came a distinct point, just after the video of Allegra Stratton giggling through her mock press conference with the lads in the much fabled blue Briefing Room, when for two whole days, no-one would do it anymore - no-one that is, other than Matt Hancock, who would happily fellate a badger on Good Morning Britain if he thought it’d get him on the telly. </p>
<p>The PM can normally rely on such experienced hands as Nadim Zahawi or Kwasi Kwateng, who both have fantastic names and can quite happily talk constantly for 20 minutes in an authoritative tone without answering a single question, or conveying any information at all, but suddenly they weren’t answering the phone. </p>
<p>Much to Yasmine’s continued disdain, I am still a fairly regular listener to the Today programme on BBC Radio 4, and it was fascinating to hear the bewilderment in the voices of the presenters when endlessly required to state (for balance, naturally) that though they had repeatedly contacted the government requesting a spokesperson, no such spokespersons were forthcoming, in fact not a single representative of the party had even answered the phone, apart, of course, from Matt Hancock. </p>
<p>As a tragi-comic spectacle it’s all pretty compelling to chuckle about from afar, but the truly tragic thing is that when Boris quietly steps back to spend more time with, or perhaps without his families, we will be left with a choice of Liz Truss, currently taking every opportunity to be photographed in a spanking new Thatcher hair-cut riding on a tank, or artificially inseminating a cheese, or whatever it is she does, Raaaab, who isn’t quite sure where Dover is and insists the police don’t investigate crimes which were committed in the past, and of course, Hancock, of whom we’ve seen far too much already.</p>
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/560234/c9652191427a03f88fc286e9feaa4937c029089f/original/bojorescue.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" /></p>
<p>What a strange system it is, in a country full of deeply charismatic, capable and morally driven people working in so many fields, that executive positions are reserved for blithering idiots who’d have trouble negotiating themselves out of a damp paper bag, or posturing egotists with a Churchill/Messiah-complex. I think perhaps a work experience style job-swap scheme in which Boris Johnson and his entire cabinet change places with Gareth Southgate and the England football squad for a trial period might be enlightening, not to mention thoroughly entertaining.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><iframe class="justify_inline" data-video-type="youtube" data-video-id="JJORClH-x00" data-video-thumb-url="https://img.youtube.com/vi/JJORClH-x00/mqdefault.jpg" type="text/html" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/JJORClH-x00?rel=0&wmode=transparent&enablejsapi=1" frameborder="0" height="180" width="320" allowfullscreen="true"></iframe></p>
<p> </p>
<p>England’s young striker, <a contents="Raheem Sterling" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="https://raheemsterling.com/">Raheem Sterling</a> was guest editor on the Today programme a couple of days ago, the day after Cumbrian hill-farmer, <a contents="James Rebanks" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="https://twitter.com/herdyshepherd1">James Rebanks</a> took the reigns, and both really were a refreshing change from the usual childish tit-for-tat and blind adherence to the latest twitter-storm. The interview with Sterling and Southgate in the place of the 8:10am interview with a “leading” political figure was inspiring on many levels, and Sterling's choice of subjects, guests and causes reminded me that there are many people out there who know exactly what we need to do to make our world a better place. </p>
<p>Talking of inspiration. I have received the first rough recordings we made at the inimitable <a contents="Mike West’s 9th Ward Pickin Parlor " data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="https://www.9thwardpickinparlor.com">Mike West’s 9th Ward Pickin Parlor </a>back in the autumn, and though indeed rough and ready, there’s some good material to start working on the next Djukella album. As the sun starts to return and I have to spend less time chopping wood each day, I shall get back to playing music and perhaps even recording some videos from the garden. For now I’m booking tours for this year, so anyone who fancies hosting us for a concert, or knows of a venue/garden/barn/house/park/church/hall where we should play along the way, please get in touch.</p>
<p>For now I shall leave you with a video of us playing last summer in the twilight of a Priston evening. Thanks to Owain Jones for continuing to post songs on the <a contents="Village Hall Gigs" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC89PoqLO9OAJBngxNGayP7g">Village Hall Gigs</a> youtube channel. It’s some of the only tangible evidence I’ve found so far of last year’s tour, and it helps to remind me that I still exist. If anyone got any good photos or videos of any of our other gigs, I’d love to see them.</p>
<p> </p>
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<p> </p>
<p>I trust that you’re managing to stay positive and connected with as many inspiring folks as possible in these distinctly interesting, yet strangely boring times. With a bit of work, some quiet reflection and the odd conversation across the barricades, I have a feeling we can make 2022 a much better place to live. </p>
<p>With much love from the moist hills of Le Couserans, and best wishes for a fine New Year, </p>
<p>Jez</p>
<p> </p>Jez Hellard & The Djukella Orchestratag:jezhellard.net,2005:Post/68177152021-11-22T12:53:22+01:002023-07-23T11:28:29+02:00A Podcast Special, a long drive and a sea of nettles...<p>Dear people of the wider internet, </p>
<p>I find myself several days later in writing this than even my tardiest estimates, but it was a very long drive. </p>
<p>As you may have noticed over the years, I’m accustomed to spending most of my time on the road, but since we finished the tour with a glorious show at The Old Town Hall in Bourne, I’ve driven to Norfolk, Mid-Wales (including a slightly desperate dash to Aberystwyth in the middle of the night for diesel - as is the fashion nowadays), North Devon, Northamptonshire, Thanet, Dover, the fringe of Flanders, then all the way across France to the foothills of the Pyrenées where I now sit, in the doorway of our kitchen (or at least what once was and will once more be a kitchen). </p>
<p>It seems that it’s considerably colder here than it is outside, but there is a table at a good height for typing and in a truly blissful counterstroke, my record player, amp, speakers and the mellifluous tones of Sonny Rollins and a seriously stellar band to warm me inwardly.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/560234/9bfba60983df356a34504ea442d36f4047250878/original/sonny-rollins-vol-2.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" /></p>
<p>My lower back gave up somewhere around the middle of Normandy after far too many hours in the driver’s seat of Bella the Great White Hope, including the unfortunate complete failure of the valve on one of my swanky new tyres, which had left me lying in the muck, jacking up the overladen van as night fell on Flanders and North Sea winds whipped by, but through gritted teeth; freighted with half a ton of vinyl, a spare woodburner strapped to the wall and fully testing last winter’s new double-leaf suspension, we trundled on, and I was even able to stand up and play a delightful concert to a select few of Lauzun’s First Friday Folk the night before we finally rolled into the waist-high sea of nettles which were once more making their claim on the garden. </p>
<p>Since a freak frost the week after we left had put paid to all tomatoes in the area, the only landmark was our gargantuan leeks, but in relatively short order, Yasmine set about the place with one of the mediaeval weapons we’ve inherited and now we have a garden again, replete with a slightly rough lawn, carrots, beets, peppers of all sorts and most miraculously of all to this northern boy, cantaloupes, their vines long dissolved, ripening among the nettles. </p>
<p>All the flowers she frantically planted out from their pots the morning we left have survived, and now a plethora of finches, tits and robins are busy rooting about for the spoils whenever they don’t think we’re watching.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/560234/cd4e691612a137d8d58dddc0a1ec2693aa1e0f9c/original/great-tit-tit-small-bird-garden-bird-garden-foraging-plumage-feather-greattit.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" /></p>
<p>I’m very pleased to announce that the good people of the <a contents="Invisible Folk Club" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="https://invisiblefolkclub.com/">Invisible Folk Club</a> have released a <a contents="Podcast Special about our Djukella music" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="https://invisiblefolkclub.libsyn.com/jez-hellard-at-the-invisible-folk-club">Podcast Special about our Djukella music</a>, featuring a lively interview and several selections from <a contents="The Fruitful Fells" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="https://jezhellard.net/music">The Fruitful Fells</a>. </p>
<p>They’ve been playing us a fair bit on their deeply enjoyable weekly show, but I am honoured to have been granted a whole programme’s worth of chat with <a contents="Jon Bickley" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="https://jonbickley.com/">Jon Bickley</a>, taking in myriad digressions, from Taiwan and Polynesia to the Prairies, poetry to politics with shout-outs to the lyrical genius of <a contents="Cahalen Morrison" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="https://www.cahalen.com/">Cahalen Morrison</a>, <a contents="Si Kahn" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="https://sikahn.com/">Si Kahn</a>, <a contents="Scott Cook" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="https://scottcook.net/">Scott Cook</a> and <a contents="Robin Williamson" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="https://www.pigswhiskermusic.co.uk/">Robin Williamson</a>, the inimitable Sam Welbourne, the formidable <a contents="Mike West’s 9th Ward Pickin Parlor," data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="https://www.9thwardpickinparlor.com/about">Mike West’s 9th Ward Pickin Parlor,</a> the mighty <a contents="Dana Wylie" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="https://www.danawylie.net/">Dana Wylie</a>, whose stonking new record <a contents="How Much Muscle" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="https://www.danawylie.net/music">How Much Muscle</a> just arrived in the post, the delightful, indeed instrumental Rob Matheson of The Deportees, and of course, Master of Space & Time, Nye Parsons who gets a whole section about how brilliant he is.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/560234/b15c90694f20151cd55bce1507e0805e38309001/original/invisible-folk-club-on-the-radio.png/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==/b:W10=.png" class="size_l justify_center border_" /></p>
<p> </p>
<p>If you know anyone who likes beautiful music and interesting chat, help us spread the word. I thoroughly recommend tuning in to the Invisible Folk Club as much as possible. I find it deeply refreshing to hear such a fine selection of musics and people who still enjoy informed colloquy. </p>
<p>It was an absolute pleasure to catch up with so many of you on our recent tour. Playing real music to real people after so long was deeply nourishing. It seems that after such a long, enforced absence of society, the people of England are hungry for music in a way I haven’t experienced for years. Sadly we didn’t get to visit any of you in Scotland nor Germany, as after trying my best, it seemed the variety of COVID rules meant that either no-one was willing to book gigs, or getting us all there and back would cost more than we’d be able to make, but I trust you’re all keeping well, and thoroughly look forward to booking tours for next year and coming to sing for you all.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/560234/ce5abe98487cfb64a585776bf3bc2dc28af75e46/original/priston-garden-djukella-2021.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" /></p>
<p> </p>
<p>It is however truly refreshing to be back in France and once more slightly further away from the rather bleak media-circus and political pantomime of (the erstwhile - some might say) United Kingdom, though I do still hear angry blather about fish in the distance. </p>
<p>It was fascinating planning a heavy driving schedule when half of the pumps in the country had no fuel, but being as our touring circuit is more provincial than metropolitan, we were able to manage it without much trouble at all. </p>
<p>I was slightly disheartened to find that many people seem to spend so much of their time arguing vociferously with their own friends about what various “experts” on youtube shout into their phone camera about vaccines, trade deals, statues, microchips or whatever it may be, while the people in charge continuously outdo themselves in the farcical mismanagement of every aspect of their brief whilst handing bundles of public money to their mates, and no-one seems to notice. Or perhaps they notice, but don’t seem to care.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/560234/0d261a00da7c8484b380cd3dbead51a8d78bd653/original/real-pain.jpeg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" /></p>
<p> </p>
<p>That our so-called government have managed to grin and giggle their way through a fuel crisis, food shortages, family doctors threatening strike-action, the ongoing scandal of Grenfell Tower and countless thousands of fire-trap apartments, the criminally wasteful slaughter and incineration of livestock, the decimation of our export-focussed fishing industry and countless other crimes, whilst sunning themselves on the private beaches of hedge-fund managers, bedding their advisers and “spaffing” (to borrow a phrase) literally ten times as much tax-payers’ money than even The Sun’s direst predictions of Corbyn’s profligacy up the proverbial wall, is a truly astonishing feat of political “optimism”. </p>
<p>It seems sometimes that whoever is writing the script for this pantomime is constantly pushing the boundary of ridiculousness, to see when someone might notice. To think that there could be a worse Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs (beyond the obvious pun) than Boris Johnson, whose only noticeable achievement in the job was indefinite (at the time of going to press) extra jail-time for Nazanin Zagari-Ratcliffe, was almost beyond belief until Raaaab hove into view. </p>
<p>Until that truly inspired choice, it was hard to imagine how Bojo would ever live down being “the worst Foreign Secretary in British History”. Now in another masterstroke, the very same sleight-of-hand has landed us with talk of Liz Truss failing upwards once more, and positioning herself as Boris’ natural successor. One has to wonder whether, had she spent a little more time “opening up pork markets” we would’ve needed to burn all those pigs. </p>
<p>Robert Buckland, the one seemingly competent minister in the previous cabinet has now had to make way for the harrumphing Raaaab to take over as “Justice” Secretary, so he won’t reveal whatever juicy nugget it is he holds over the Prime Minister, and in a move which will chill the arts to the bone, we’ve been granted a culture secretary whose only noted association with culture is consuming offal on ITV. </p>
<p>Talking of ITV, I had meant to recommend John Pilger’s latest documentary film in one of my previous missives during the summer, but for various reasons it didn’t make the edit. It was actually released a couple of months before the start of the pandemic, but far from being made obsolete by the passage of such momentous events, it seems even more informative when viewed in light of the past two years.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><iframe class="justify_inline" data-video-type="vimeo" data-video-id="446804511" data-video-thumb-url="https://i.vimeocdn.com/video/938613538-e7d6101c04f89bf9ba0c188962533ca7e759653228f5e34b29f8868e83e98de3-d_295x166" type="text/html" src="https://player.vimeo.com/video/446804511" frameborder="0" height="180" width="320"></iframe></p>
<p> </p>
<p>The Dirty War on The NHS is a fascinating investigation into the supposedly clandestine, but often brazen privatisation of Britain’s National Health Service, spanning both the recent Conservative administrations and those of the previous Labour government. </p>
<p>It may seem a rather dry subject, and I admit it may be of most interest to those in Britain, but as ever, Pilger crafts a deeply compelling film with insights into many aspects of international pharmaceutical hegemony, and the tricks of a particularly disingenuous crop of political animals (or vegetables, as the case may be - there is some rather priceless footage of unlikely sex-symbol, Matt Hancock in a virtual reality head-set). </p>
<p>A timely reminder that whatever one’s prejudices may be about commercial TV stations in general and ITV in particular, there is something to be said for true editorial independence when exploited fully by such a fearless truth-seeker as Pilger, which the maternal hand of Auntie Beeb would never allow. </p>
<p>If you happen to be a stranger to the work of <a contents="John Pilger" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="http://johnpilger.com/">John Pilger</a>, he has been at the cutting edge of investigative journalism since the 1970s, and an international star since his ground-breaking Death of a Nation:The Timor Conspiracy was released in 1994. Particularly if you are wont to believe even half of the videos you see on youtube, he provides an object lesson in how to use multiple sources and a critical approach to create arguments which stand up to scrutiny and shed light on areas where revolutionary progress can be achieved. </p>
<p>As for my views on the local political scene here in France, I must admit that I’m not quite up to speed, but in my absence, it seems the media machine has managed to whip up another instant movement, in the form of TV blowhard, long time journalist and professional contraversialist, Éric Zemmour (who has yet to announce that he’s running for President) to rival Macron, their previous creation, and put the wind up Marine LePen, the anointed one of France’s far right. </p>
<p>As far as I can see so far, the left are busy fighting each other, a similar number of people are arguing with their friends about the aforementioned interminable youtube disputes and the government are happiest when everyone’s shouting about fish rather than paying too much attention to how much governing they’re actually managing, so not a million miles from England, really, though folks are perhaps more likely to burn down the town centre if anyone expects them to adhere to laws they abhor. </p>
<p>So much to learn. To the rest of you out there in the world, my apologies for ranting on about provincial politics, but I’m told there are folks out there who love to read it, so I try to keep everyone happy.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/560234/a0f00b8ee949bff79b6e69dd5cac47807f61c3e7/original/macronjohnson.png/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==/b:W10=.png" class="size_l justify_center border_" /></p>
<p>Talking of keeping everyone happy, festive season is coming and music is certainly a fine gift. </p>
<p>Whether it be actual discs or virtual downloads; all our music is available to buy (for yourself and/or others) at <a contents="jezhellard.net" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="https://jezhellard.net/">jezhellard.net</a> and work remains thin on the ground, so it’ll really help us to eat more than just leeks through the festive season. If all of you you can share our music with one friend, a video, weblink, song, album or mailing list suggestion, it will be immeasurably helpful and deeply appreciated. </p>
<p>I trust you’re all keeping well as the nights draw in (or indeed start to wax t’ward summer if you’re south of the equator) and look forward to catching up in due course. </p>
<p>All the best from Jourdin, </p>
<p>Jez</p>
<p> </p>Jez Hellard & The Djukella Orchestratag:jezhellard.net,2005:Post/67429952021-09-11T13:02:46+02:002023-07-23T11:10:25+02:00News from nowhere...<p>Dear Friends, </p>
<p>Deepest thanks to all the wonderful souls who’ve joined us for music and merriment over the past month of touring. The catharsis of actually being able to ply our trade for the first time in many months is palpable, show to show, and we’ve been lucky enough to play some truly spectacular venues and events. </p>
<p>Now, for the first time in ages, I have a little moment to reflect, and try to catch up with all the correspondence, bills and forms I’ve let slide, as I tried to remember how one retains sanity, voice, instruments, musicians and sobriety whilst rushing like a mad thing, on the oversubscribed roads of old England, between profound musical experiences. It’s been emotional. </p>
<p>Now the van is nearly cleaned, the laundry washed, dried and folded, and I’m almost ready to set off for tomorrow’s show in Lewisham.</p>
<p>It’s been truly heartening to realise that I still remember how to sing songs to people and play instruments after such a long period of hard labour, developing all the wrong kind of callusses on my hands, but the lifestyle takes a little more practice. </p>
<p>By far the hardest aspect of this particular tour is the juxtaposition of trying to sing positive, inspirational songs to people and keep things light, while spending the rest of the time listening to the slow motion car-crash of our Afghanistani cousins being once more betrayed, deserted and thrown to the wolves by our erstwhile “war on terrr”, while the arms-dealers’ schills loosely termed “governments” of the “free world” loll on sunbeds and compete to disparage each other in media interviews. </p>
<p>It may well be the case, but the perverse spectacle of watching the shrivelled husk of Tony Blair, his marked eye still twitching in vain attempt to blot out all the Iraqi children in his waking dreams, calling Joe Biden an imbecile for admitting defeat and shambollically retreating in shame from the scene of the crime, does beg a few questions, and leaves rather a sour taste in the mouth.</p>
<p>In fact, when our Tony (who feels “the hand of history on his shoulder”) was on the radio for the second time today; in order to take the taste out of my ears, I was inspired to clean all the grot out of the bag of life (where all the useful musical electrical things go, so called, as the alternative “bag of death” had all the drum hardware in it back in the day, and weighed enough to kill an ox) and re-coil all of my cables until my hands were black. At least the bleached and waxed Branson he seems to have become is good for something. </p>
<p>The behaviour of self-described-hard-man and failed foreign secretary, Dominic Raab is so utterly sickening, it makes one grasp around for alternatives amongst the current crop of talent, but when confronted by the reality of that very crop it’s apparent we’re using the wrong vowel. </p>
<p>Gavin Williamson was gallant enough to admit his insistence he had met Marcus Rashford (who would coincidentally make a more than passable Secretary of State for Education) when he’d actually seen a picture of an entirely different person, was an “honest mistake” (for a moron and a racist who likes to keep a spider in a box to scare the girls, one might add), but his performance in his actual job is a woeful sham. Priti Patel is dividing her time between devising ways to thwart international maritime law in an attempt to “humanely” drown desperate people using a wave machine in the sea, and working out how much it might actually cost to ship them to a rock in the middle of the Atlantic for “processing”. </p>
<p>Grant Schatt is presiding over the wanton destruction of ancient woodland from the Chilterns to the Midlands in the name of a 1990s Japanese railway system we were too shortsighted to invest in at the time and he knows perfectly well will never be built, so people can get from Birmingham Airport to London slightly quicker in order to help “The North”. Liz Truss seems to make more sense on Dead Ringers than she does in real life. </p>
<p>The fact that erstwhile medi-tech salesman and all-purpose toe-rag, Matt Hancock has thankfully been allowed to spend more time working on his youtube fame, only opens the door for Sajid Javid to bring the bedside manner of Goldmann Sachs to the Department of Health, much as Robert Jendrick brings his greasy manner and easy corruption to the decidedly uncaring Department of Communities. </p>
<p>Gove has been eerily, and some might say slightly moistly quiet in recent months, save the odd burst of disco dancing, which I expect has some insidious undertones, and anyone who even knows who Oliver Dowden, Robert Buckland, George Useless, Alister Jack and Baroness Evans of Bowes Park actually are should probably seek some kind of councilling.</p>
<p>As for the alternative, the bleatings of Keir Starmer seem far more concerned with chasing Ken Loach out of the Labour Party once and for all (?!) and trying to rekindle the long lost Murdoch love-affair than with opposing any of the nonsense being spouted a mere two-swords’-length in front of him. </p>
<p>Sadly the building is yet to be condemned as the asbestos-riddled anachronism it is, which might leave a little space for in which to form some sort of consensus, among a group of sentient people to try to address aspects of the abject mess we seem to have gotten ourselves into, rather than this incessant schoolboy baying across the baize. </p>
<p>Across the Atlantic, despite the millions of people working for a sustainable alternative to our collapsing systems, I see much the same. </p>
<p>Communities fractured on dialectic lines created by our telephones’ re-enforcement of our existing prejudices. Across the familiar divides of Republican/Democrat, Labour/Tory we’ve had several years now of brand new divisions, equally black and white, which cut right through all the traditional loyalties, then before society has time to adapt to the new paradigm, a new binary argument splits us in two once more on new battle lines until you’re left with only six friends it’s “safe” to talk to. </p>
<p>Whether it’s brexit, environmentalism, trans rights, or whether or for what reason the author of Harry Potter should be crucified, people seem to have lost all empathy. Spending all your time agreeing with people who already agree with you isn’t going to change anything. I thoroughly recommend the general public. And indeed the great outdoors.</p>
<p>Talking of the general public, there may be a few tickets left for our one remaining hall show before I up and skedaddle for the hills. It’s at The Old Town Hall in Bourne, Lincolnshire on Friday September 17th. </p>
<p>Apart from that it’s been an absolute pleasure to spend a few weeks travelling the roads of England, catching up with friends old and new, and sharing what it is we love. </p>
<p>Endless thanks to Nye, Piotr for being endlessly brilliant, the other bands and performers we've been lucky enough to see along the way, including Peter Knight's Gigspanner, Two Man Ting, The Mudd Club, The Langan Band, Hands of the Heron, Ewan Bleach, Fiona Bevan, Adam Beattie, Jake Stephens and Carrie Tree, as well as everyone who has hosted us, from Broadstairs and Cafe 54 on the glorious twelfth via Simon’s Farewell, Fanny’s Meadow, Worth Matravers, Markfield, Cliffe, Into the Wild, Headcorn, Clovelly, Hatch Court, Glastonbury and Priston to last weekend’s glorious reception at The Mount Without in Bristol for such a warm welcome. It's been truly special.</p>
<p>It’s been sad not to be able to get to Scotland, Wales, Cornwall or Germany this time, but we’ll be back as soon as possible. </p>
<p>I shall get to work booking real tours for next year, and do my best to bring this Djukella music to as many places as we can. Please tell at least one music loving friend/family member/colleague/acquaintance about our music, direct them to www.jezhellard.net or send them a song/album/video. It really will be immeasurably helpful. </p>
<p>With much love, and maybe half an hour until I have to hit the road again, </p>
<p>Jez</p>Jez Hellard & The Djukella Orchestratag:jezhellard.net,2005:Post/67277602021-08-26T17:51:40+02:002022-06-30T14:46:50+02:00Fresh Air & Exercise Tour 2021<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/560234/77e7731571b6a59aad86c7fda3acc56ce9929d11/original/fruitful-tour-poster-7.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" /></p>Jez Hellard & The Djukella Orchestratag:jezhellard.net,2005:Post/67067782021-08-04T20:09:58+02:002023-07-23T11:30:45+02:00From the depths of quarantine, primed for the road...<p>Dear people of the wide world, </p>
<p>After months of laying low in the Pyrenées, days of driving over seemingly every speed-bump in France, hundreds of pounds-worth of PCR tests and umpteen novel official documents, I have finally made it back to the isle of my birth, and am for the moment, securely quarantined at an undisclosed location. We crossed the channel in the midst of last weekend’s furious storm, and have been wrapped up against the wild winds until today’s glorious sunshine has lured me out into the garden. </p>
<p>We are regularly checked-up on by the charming NHS Test & Trace service, and are blessed with deliveries of milk and bread over the wall, and after a few days of decompression from quite a monumental drive, I’m trying to take advantage of being near a solid internet connection to write this missive and put together a last minute Djukella UK tour, since various festivals have had to cancel again at the last minute. The great <a contents="Towersey Festival" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="https://www.towerseyfestival.com/">Towersey Festival</a>, which I was deeply excited to be playing for the first time, sent the email cancelling the festival literally moments after I had just forked out for non-refundable PCR tests half way across Limousin, which left me swallowing hard and wondering how the summer would pan out, but after two days work, I somehow seem to have a reasonable run of gigs coming together (have a look at the Shows page here on the website), and we would love to see you at whichever is local to you. </p>
<p>We still have a few holes left to plug, so if you’d rather host one than drive halfway across the country, get in touch at djukellamusic@gmail.com </p>
<p>On our way from Ariège, I was blessed with a house-concert for a select few of the First Friday Folk crew in Lauzun, thanks to the lightning work and boundless enthusiasm of Deb and the gang. Deepest thanks to you all. The diesel money was indispensable and singing to actual humans was truly spiritual. I thoroughly look forward to another go on the way back down. </p>
<p>If I were not quarantined, I would certainly be heading down to London tomorrow for <a contents="TEYR" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="https://teyr.co.uk/">TEYR</a>’s <a contents="launch of their new album, Estren, at Hackney Round Chapel" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="https://ww2.theticketsellers.co.uk/buy-tickets/teyr-folk-trio-at-the-round-chapel/10051525">launch of their new album, Estren, at Hackney Round Chapel</a>. If you are anywhere near London, have ears, and can get your hands on a ticket, I recommend you get yourself down there. Featuring such musical luminaries as <a contents="Sid Goldsmith" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="https://www.jimmyandsidduo.com/">Sid Goldsmith</a>, <a contents="Nina Harries" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="https://www.ninaharries.com/">Nina Harries</a> and <a contents="Abel Selaocoe" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="https://www.abelselaocoe.com/">Abel Selaocoe</a>, who is also a featured artist at <a contents="The Proms" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/events/ef3gfx">The Proms</a> the following week, it’s sure to be an unforgettable show. </p>
<p>As for an album which I know you will love, The Fruitful Fells continues to receive glowing reviews and a decent amount of radio play, but as always, a quick request to your favourite radio show would be immeasurably helpful. </p>
<p>If you don’t like CDs or no longer own the equipment to play them, it’s available to download, along with a digital version of the booklet if you fancy seeing some of Yasmine’s marvellous photographs, and soon, I will work out how to put some key parts of it on all the streaming services for your listening pleasure, though, as I’m sure you know, musicians would much prefer you got it directly from the source, so we get paid more than 17 pence a go. </p>
<p>After weeks of listening out daily for some kind of sense out of Boris Johnson, so I might be able to plan this summer’s touring schedule, and learning nothing other than the fact that no-one in his government seem to realise that L’Isle de Reunion is right next to southern Africa, not in fact France, it seems he’s now gone back to doing what he’s good at; going on holiday and impregnating people. Probably safer all round, I suppose, but it does make me wonder who is actually in charge now that he’s dispensed with Mr. Spaffings. </p>
<p>As soon as I’m allowed out in a few days time, I will collect the orchestra and head d’rectly to the very tip of Kent for <a contents="Broadstairs Folk Week" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="https://broadstairsfolkweek.org.uk/artist/jez-hellard-djukella-orchestra/">Broadstairs Folk Week</a>, where we’re playing on Thursday afternoon, then straight back to Surrey for an evening show at the legendary <a contents="Fifty Four Cafe" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="https://www.facebook.com/fiftyfourcafe/">Fifty Four Cafe</a> in Horley, from there we’re out west for <a contents="Fanny’s Meadow" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="https://fannyhatstand.com/fannys-meadow">Fanny’s Meadow</a>, then back to the midlands and onwards to various choice spots including <a contents="Wilderlands Wild Weekends" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="https://www.wilderlands.co.uk/wild-weekends">Wilderlands Wild Weekends</a> in Ashdown Forest.. I won’t bore you with it all now, but if you have the energy, we’d surely love to sing to you along the way. All shows are covid-safe and in delightful places, so we’ve made it as easy for you as we can. </p>
<p>Looking forward to catching up with all of you UK based folks, and apologies to the rest of you for neglecting you entirely, but working out how to sing in other countries might take a little more work. </p>
<p>With much love from quarantine, </p>
<p>Jez</p>Jez Hellard & The Djukella Orchestratag:jezhellard.net,2005:Post/66864272021-07-13T15:20:30+02:002021-07-13T15:20:30+02:00Possibilities of the impossible, Hancock's half hour and forthcoming movements...<p>Dear people out there, </p>
<p>This was meant to start with great fanfare reminding you that The Fruitful Fells is officially released in exactly one week, but time passes at a worrying rate, and it’s actually released in five days, on Friday the 16th. I’m trying to finalise the details of how to get back into the UK to play some concerts, but the rules seem to change every couple of days, so it’s a work in progress. </p>
<p>Since I last wrote, the seemingly impossible seems to be becoming possible all over the place. Canada is not only on fire, but might finally be starting to realise how dreadfully they treat First Nations people, the English football team have made it into a major final for the first time in many people’s lives and Boris Johnson is consequently having to pretend he didn’t just endorse racists booing the players, the erstwhile occupying forces in Afghanistan have upped and R.U.N.N.O.F.T in the night, plunging their local proteges into mortal danger yet still claim it was a worthwhile endeavour, and Matt Hancock, helmsman of Britain’s Coronavirus “response” has finally been fired; interestingly enough, not for widely acknowledged incompetence or the wilful sacrifice of a nation’s elders, not even for corruptly employing his lover, hoodwinking his family or awarding millions in public funds to his mates at the pub, but for hugging during the hugging ban. </p>
<p>You couldn’t make it up. If I’d have read this a couple of years ago, I’d be totally baffled by the idea of a ban on hugging. The rest, bar the football thing, has sadly been all too inevitable for some time. I wrote the bulk of We Have The Time, which was finally released on Heavy Wood years later, in 2003, in response to a quote from an Afghan herdsman, asked what he thought of the Americans in his country. He responded “They may have the watches, but we have the time”, betraying the innate poetry of his people, and chilling this listener to the bone. </p>
<p>For students of history, it’s clear that invading Afghanistan (however pure ones motives) never works out well. Those are some tough cookies in some pretty hostile terrain, who’ve been practicing harassing interlopers for millennia, and in the past century or so, almost constantly. I always thought it seemed strange to attempt to avenge the atrocities of September 11th 2001, perpetrated by 19 Saudis, by bombing weddings in Afghanistan, and surprisingly enough, a full twenty years later, very little seems to have been achieved other than another few rounds of arms/concrete contracts and the attendant bribes. Of course it is deeply sad for all those who fought and died and their bereaved families on all sides. Plus ça change…</p>
<p>As for news of music, we will be playing on August 12th at Broadstairs Folk Week, and August 29th amongst a truly stellar line-up at Towersey Festival. I’d thoroughly recommend getting tickets for whichever is more local to you, or both, if you like a bit of travel. We’ll also be playing an outdoor concert in King’s Cliffe on August 21st if that suits better. If I can negotiate the multifarious and ever-changing rules, we will also be playing at Bedfringe in Bedford on July 31st. Other than that we are at a loose end and in need of gigs… garden concerts, house-concerts, parties, whatever you have. It’s been so hard to plan events this summer that it’s been pretty much impossible to put a tour together, but I would love to see you all, and sing to you, so if you can get twenty or so friends together, we’ll play anywhere. </p>
<p>As I mentioned, the new album is released, officially on Friday, August 16th, and is available in various formats at www.jezhellard.net </p>
<p>Here’s a few things people have said about it so far. </p>
<p>“A standout; vocally, instrumentally, taken in a literary context, making sense of human existence…it places them towards the top in the folk music genre” - Irish Music Magazine </p>
<p>“Mad the world may be, but it’s immeasurably improved by having music such as this brought into it, imaginative, thought-provoking and, above all, entertaining.” Folk Radio UK </p>
<p>“A wonderful album, one of great depth and insight, musically intelligent and lyrically inspiring; an absolute delight.” - Liverpool Sound & Vision </p>
<p>“An album well worth the buying.” - Living Tradition </p>
<p>We’ve been getting a lot of local, internet and specialist radio play, but if you have a moment to email/tweet/bother any of the programs on BBC Radio 2, 3, or 4; In Tune, Loose Ends, Folk Show, or anyone who plays a bit of music, it would be lovely to get some national airplay. </p>
<p>As always, tell your friends, buy an album, come to a show. I’m really looking forward to playing music for people again. </p>
<p>With much love from the back of the van, perched on a mountainside, straining for internet. </p>
<p>Jez</p>Jez Hellard & The Djukella Orchestratag:jezhellard.net,2005:Post/66762752021-07-01T20:32:38+02:002021-07-01T20:32:38+02:00Fold-up chair in the only available patch of shade...<p>Warmest greetings to all of you, wherever you may be. I am currently sitting on my trusty fold-up chair in the only available patch of shade, enjoying the twitterings of birds and (mercifully) a gentle breeze through the long grasses. It is 11am and it has become well and truly too hot to do any more digging. Even raking brings the brain almost to the boil, so I have hosed myself down from top to toe and thought I’d try a little communication. </p>
<p>I’ve been almost totally incommunicado for quite some time, as we have almost no access to internet or indeed phone reception at our new abode, and I have been waiting, for what seems like an age, to hear some sense out of Boris Johnson before I can really have any idea what my plans may be, so I’m sure you can understand my problem. What I do now know is that The Djukella Orchestra will NOT be playing at Festival in the Forest on July 10th, as since Bojo’s latest podium jobby it has been postponed to September 11th, so if you are in or around Lewisham, or were planning to come along, see you in September. </p>
<p>To be quite honest, with the travel rules as they are, I don’t think I would necessarily be allowed back into the country by July 10th, which poses another problem in that our beautiful new album is officially being released on July 16th, and I’m a thousand miles away. </p>
<p>As you can see, if I were an organised and media-savvy musical entrepreneur, I might have opened with a big banner headline about our new album, but I’m currently a penniless gardener/scourge of nettle-roots, and may be slightly out of practice at the old marketing business. </p>
<p>I had planned to reconvene with the members of the orchestra to bring you some kind of live/online extravaganza to launch the album, but that will now have to wait until later in the summer. </p>
<p>The Fruitful Fells is, however, still officially being released on Friday July 16th, and any help spreading the word will be deeply appreciated. Irish Music Magazine have said some wonderfully complementary things about it already, but sending a quick email/post/tweet/letter to your favourite radio show, asking to hear it, or to your favourite publication, telling them to listen to it will really help. </p>
<p>If you’ve yet to hear it, it’s all available in various formats (or to listen to for free - if you can’t afford luxuries right now) at the new website, www.jezhellard.net and I would really love you to hear it. It’s taken a huge amount of work to get it realised in these peculiar times with no income at all, and I really think the songs will speak to you, and offer a bit of encouragement in the face of so much woe. Also, I have so very nearly paid off all the bills (only £1534 left to pay!) but still have absolutely no prospect of income until travel and concerts are once more permitted, so every sale counts. </p>
<p>If you’ve a friend who likes music or poetry, or a family member in need of a birthday present, or any excuse at all, why not buy them a CD, or send them a download? If you can’t afford gifts at the moment, you can just send them a link to jezhellard.net or suggest they join the mailing list. Tell your facebook friends about The Djukella Orchestra or tweet your twits (tweeters/tweetees), or whatever they are called. I know it’s a bit of a palaver, but the music “industry” was already in such a parlous state before it was made totally illegal, that every tiny bit of (anti)social media you can muster really make a difference, and paying off the bills and finally being able to make some wages will be absolutely marvellous.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>So I remain in the Ariège, fomenting plans for a return to the road and furiously tilling the ground until it’s time to hose myself down again. I am very glad that I have finally started receiving my subscription to Private Eye, and after nine months or so without it, it is deeply refreshing to once more be able to read articles written by people who seem to pay attention to detail, rather than the endless culture-wars and posturing of most of the publications I’ve been able to access online. </p>
<p>For those of you outside the UK, or with no knowledge of Private Eye, it is a small and unassuming bi-weekly combination of investigative journalism and satire, and remains one of the only papers in the world to continue paying people - writers/comedians/cartoonists - fairly for their work. It is also, small and light enough to read in the bath, if only I had a bath.</p>
<p>So I remain in the Ariège, fomenting plans for a return to the road and furiously tilling the ground until it’s time to hose myself down again. I am very glad that I have finally started receiving my subscription to Private Eye, and after nine months or so without it, it is deeply refreshing to once more be able to read articles written by people who seem to pay attention to detail, rather than the endless culture-wars and posturing of most of the publications I’ve been able to access online. For those of you outside the UK, or with no knowledge of Private Eye, it is a small and unassuming bi-weekly combination of investigative journalism and satire, and remains one of the only papers in the world to continue paying people - writers/comedians/cartoonists - fairly for their work. It is also, small and light enough to read in the bath, if only I had a bath. </p>
<p>So it seems “Freedom Day” has gone the way of the Garden Bridge, Boris Island, Home By Christmas and so many more hare-brained schemes, and all the malarky about Mr Spaffings and his ground-shaking “bombshells” designed to destroy Bojo and the astonishingly inept, (yet even more astonishingly resilient) Matt Hancock amounted, surprisingly enough, to nought. It was fascinating to hear that the exact same people who worked themselves into a frenzy of anger about Cummings’ Eye Test last year, were the only ones who seemed to have missed the point that when someone has discredited themselves so thoroughly in the eyes of the public that they will likely require “Personal Protection Officers” for decades longer than anyone is willing to pay for them, they may not be the most trusted messenger, even if they are saying something nasty about someone you detest. </p>
<p>In fact, Johnson’s approval ratings seem to be locked in a rather perverse inverse ratio to his competence, and indeed his actions, which certainly poses some interesting questions about our education system, at the very least. Only this morning, on reading a short piece about his superlative reverse-ferret over the new “Royal Yacht”, after the palace released a swift press-release expressing her extreme displeasure at having anything to do with the hugely expensive project, having read about it in the press before anyone thought to mention it to her, I realised that in this, and in all matters, Bojo is simply a busker. The Busker’s Credo is “It’s often easier to ask for forgiveness than permission”, something that both Herr Drumpf and our own blonde beast clearly live by, and now, on recounting any of Boris’ exploits, it explains every one. “Please forgive me, I seem to have impregnated…………….”. </p>
<p>Talking of the blonde beast across the pond, or perhaps swamp, and wanting to end things on a positive note; even though Ol’ Uncle Joe, despite appearing considerably more progressive than predicted, seems to have immediately swung into trying to rekindle sabre-rattling with Russia and China, isn’t it delightful, on a daily basis, not to hear from, or even about that orange wind-bag! </p>
<p>With much love from the back of the van, </p>
<p>Jez</p>
<p> </p>Jez Hellard & The Djukella Orchestratag:jezhellard.net,2005:Post/65940162021-04-04T21:17:17+02:002021-04-04T21:17:17+02:00In a near-silent, electric yellow Postman-Pat mobile...<p> </p>
<p>Springtime greetings to all of you, </p>
<p> </p>
<p>I am truly blessed at this moment to be lying on my belly in the grass, buttercups blooming all around amid the hum of insects, gazing out across the strangely blue Gascon cows, who eye me suspiciously from time to time, towards the mists obscuring Mont Valier in the distance. I trust you've been enjoying some respite from endless doom and gloom, wherever you may be.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/560234/c367bc0f5f3f5ec4de8eb936b3ce339472b58740/original/strangelyblue.jpg/!!/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" /></p>
<p>After an enforced, and I must say deeply refreshing break from screens, brought on by my laptop charger suddenly giving up the ghost a couple of weeks ago, I have spent the past few days since the new charger arrived (in a near silent, electric yellow Postman-Pat mobile) pretty much glued to the thing, wrestling windows and attempting to get my head around the minutiae of constructing a new website, and painstakingingly uploading much of my life’s work into imaginary boxes. </p>
<p>During the break I’ve explored a little more of our current parish here in Ariège, and rediscover the reading of actual books, and their attendant joys. I devoured The Grapes of Wrath, which, though desperately depressing on so many levels, is a truly astonishing work of American literature, right up there with Huck Finn and Moby Dick, and unnervingly resonant with our contemporary scene, two books of Roald Dahl’s short stories, a bit of V.S. Naipal and even a touch of Dickens, and after a pretty chilly winter in the van, a few days of sunshine in which to read has been a godsend. </p>
<p>Anyway, I have news. Drumroll please… From now on, all of your Djukella musical needs will be catered for at jezhellard.net</p>
<p>I’ve had to give up on the old website for the moment (though it remains as an antidiluvian relic of our pre-covid world) as my dear friend Dan who runs it seems to have entirely disappeared, and for months I have been unable to find him , or indeed access the website to keep it up to date. If anyone has any idea where DJDJ has got to, please let me know, but for now we have a brand new album to release, and for that, the rigours of this modern world mean that a website is a prerequisite. </p>
<p>And it’s quite a fancypants kind of a website I might add. Please give it a visit and let me know if it all works alright, both on computers and the omniscient black mirror, or whichever device it is you prefer to finger. If there are any features, songs, performances or anything else you’d like to see there, just let me know and I’ll see what I can do. </p>
<p>In the mean time, look what we have here...</p>
<p> </p>
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/560234/54470d188a2355fbad57c0264c3e629a4772df07/original/fruitfulouterspreadbigger.jpg/!!/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" /></p>
<p>Talking of the new album, just around my birthday, I received the first box here in France and it has come out looking and sounding very pretty indeed, though I say so myself. By now I understand that the bulk of the preorders have been sent out, barring a few international orders I’m trying to work out how to get through the French postal system, so if any of you who ordered one have yet to receive a package in the post, get in touch and I’ll remedy the situation as soon as possible. </p>
<p>For those of you who don’t have a CD player, the album is now available to download from our Bandcamp page, which you may know, or the brand new website. </p>
<p>Now, with the help of this new website, we will be embarking on a publicity campaign ready for the official release in early July, when, with any luck, I may be allowed back into the country and even, dare I day it, to perform a few concerts to actual human people. </p>
<p>If any of you have a moment spare, please email your favourite radio-show/venue/festival/newspaper/magazine or arts organisation, asking to hear/see/read about or indeed fund us in our constant yet underpaid work of bringing music, poetry and a little sense to our troubled and confusing world. </p>
<p>Tell a friend about the website or show someone a youtube video. Send a download as a gift to a music loving friend or family member. You’d be amazed how much help the tiniest of actions can be. </p>
<p>Over the past few weeks I finally managed to get it together to record a couple more videos for Falkirk Folk Club’s weekly online folk session, which just goes from strength to strength.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><iframe class="justify_inline" data-video-type="youtube" data-video-id="gwF_pu6ORK0" data-video-thumb-url="https://img.youtube.com/vi/gwF_pu6ORK0/mqdefault.jpg" type="text/html" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/gwF_pu6ORK0?rel=0&wmode=transparent&enablejsapi=1" frameborder="0" height="180" width="320" allowfullscreen="true"></iframe></p>
<p> </p>
<p>Though I’m mostly technologically inept, and have largely failed to capitalise on the current situation by developing a regular online performance presence (it’s quite hard from a van, to be honest), as various innovative and inspiring friends have (if you’ve yet to see Tim Edey or Ewan Bleach at their weekly shows, you’re really in for a treat, also Scott Cook, Adam Beattie and various others have outdone themselves in this brave new world), Falkirk’s session, managed majestically from a gently disco-lit desk somewhere in spacetime, by the unflappable Charles Tibbles, keeps drawing me back.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><iframe class="justify_inline" data-video-type="youtube" data-video-id="JAvSlhoxdU8" data-video-thumb-url="https://img.youtube.com/vi/JAvSlhoxdU8/mqdefault.jpg" type="text/html" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/JAvSlhoxdU8?rel=0&wmode=transparent&enablejsapi=1" frameborder="0" height="180" width="320" allowfullscreen="true"></iframe></p>
<p> </p>
<p>To see the massive improvement in everyone’s playing which comes from being forced to record yourself every week for a year and more played out in myriad forms is truly inspiring, and the sense that the community has become stronger, rather than fragmenting through lockdown is palpable. Thanks to the lot of yous for having me in now and again. </p>
<p>So there is talk of it being legal to put on concerts and even some festivals this summer, though I won’t hold my breath just jet, but if all goes to plan (an irreversible roadmap!? - what on earth could that mean? Surely timeline is the word you’re after) we will be releasing the new album and touring from the first week of July, so if you fancy some outdoor, covid-safe music, keep an eye on the Shows page on the website for dates as they come in, and if you have a garden, barn, marquee or other suitable venue and 25 or more people to listen, get in touch and we’ll come and do bespoke concerts for any situation.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/560234/410feb3f32195c9bdec2f81d7011155ff5315dd8/original/djukellapytchelltriolowres.jpg/!!/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" /></p>
<p> </p>
<p>Talking of musical comrades and new albums, anyone who has yet to preorder a copy of <a contents="TEYR" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="https://teyr.co.uk/">TEYR</a>'s new album <a contents="Estren" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="https://teyr.co.uk/estren/">Estren</a>, then you're missing out. It's released on April 30th, so get yourself ready for the off, but for now here is their latest single...</p>
<p> </p>
<p><iframe class="justify_inline" data-video-type="youtube" data-video-id="JFiVoyIk4Kw" data-video-thumb-url="https://img.youtube.com/vi/JFiVoyIk4Kw/mqdefault.jpg" type="text/html" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/JFiVoyIk4Kw?rel=0&wmode=transparent&enablejsapi=1" frameborder="0" height="180" width="320" allowfullscreen="true"></iframe></p>
<p> </p>
<p>Thanks to all who’ve pre-ordered Djukella albums, donated to the tip-jar and generally helped to keep us alive through what has been a tough year for us itinerants in the performing arts. </p>
<p>Having ranted on about what a luddite I am, I will endeavour in the next couple of weeks to set up some rudimentary studio from which to do some livestream shows. The ones we did last year were such fun. It’s so refreshing to communicate with you all, even if it’s only through comments on the screen and occasional flying emojis. I will update you all about this in due course. </p>
<p>For now I'll leave you with a song from the new album whose last couple of verses seem even more poignant than usual, but I thoroughly recommend you get your hands and indeed ears on the album version, replete with the soaring strings of The Djukella Orchestra.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><iframe class="justify_inline" data-video-type="youtube" data-video-id="vIe1R9tNmfs" data-video-thumb-url="https://img.youtube.com/vi/vIe1R9tNmfs/mqdefault.jpg" type="text/html" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/vIe1R9tNmfs?rel=0&wmode=transparent&enablejsapi=1" frameborder="0" height="180" width="320" allowfullscreen="true"></iframe></p>
<p> </p>
<p>For now, I trust you’re all having a fine Easter Weekend, enjoying the chance to see other people (depending on where you are, I suppose) and generally feeling glimmers of hope amidst all the darkness. </p>
<p>Looking forward to some correspondence from anyone who finds the time, and to seeing you all as soon as possible. </p>
<p>Jez</p>Jez Hellard & The Djukella Orchestratag:jezhellard.net,2005:Post/65922592021-04-03T18:13:56+02:002022-07-21T11:27:02+02:00Finally on the way again...<p>Dear friends far and wide, </p>
<p>This morning I was lucky enough to wake up with the birds, who are definitely starting to smell spring in the air around these parts, and was treated to the most spectacular dawn. The whole valley was filled like a basin with morning mist, but where we’re parked in the van is high enough up the slope to catch the first pool of sunshine oozing over the foothills, the mist lapping around my feet, and a short jaunt across the dew-drenched grass (my boots are still a little soggy, I must admit) revealed the most spectacular view of Mont Valier’s crisp white crags against the morning sky. </p>
<p>It’s been raining pretty solidly for days which can make van-life a little trying, and it’s more than refreshing to be able to sit outside typing, never mind the chilly fingers, and listen to the world wake up. <br> </p>
<p>To those of you in Taiwan, New Zealand and a select few other places, I must admit I’m a little envious of humans being able to hang out and even sing together, but well done all round. I trust that the rest of you are managing to make the most of this seemingly endless period of isolation, and find yourself at least warm and comfortable. </p>
<p>To all of the dear souls who’ve pre-ordered the new album, sorry to keep you waiting, but they are most certainly on the way now. I’m told they should be delivered from the factory in the first week of March, then they’ll be sent out just as quickly as can be. </p>
<p>Everything got a little set back, when a few days before Christmas one of the rear suspension springs snapped on Bella The Great White Hope, thankfully at very low speed and within a mercifully short distance of a safe and welcoming park-up, but it was quite dramatic, and did leave us rather stuck, halfway up a mountain, just as the winter weather began to settle onto the Pyrenees. </p>
<p>After finding no spares in the locality, I ordered some brand new leaf springs from Sanderson Leaf Springs near Birmingham, who are marvellous, but the Brexmas madness at Dover swallowed them up, and they spent a couple of weeks at Manston Airport in Kent, not flying anywhere, just sitting in a lorry at the world’s least popular Christmas Party, and a couple more in Toulouse, before they finally made it through. </p>
<p>In the final week of this prolonged waiting period, on the third day of religiously sitting on the roadside in a deckchair in order not to miss the delivery, then inevitably receiving an email telling me I had been out when the driver arrived (?!), we were delighted to be invited to stay in a gite with my brother and family, who’d come down from their own lockdown in Bretagne, choosing a place way up a mountainside just as the most monumental blizzard descended, so we spent the week mostly snowed in, stoking the fire, cooking and getting to know our host, Tom, while they went out to buy snow-chains and go exploring. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>I must say that a little time in a house, with a bath and three fireplaces was an absolute luxury and much appreciated after so long in a stationary van, trying to stop our clothes from going mouldy, and a chance to hang out with my niece and nephew was an absolute treat, but all good things come to an end. </p>
<p>When the snow finally started to recede, we got a lift back to the van from the ever beneficent Tom and then with the incredible talents of Wayne, Ferroniere d’Art and all-round mechanical wonder, we managed to get Bella jacked-up, dismantled and reassembled in a matter of days. Thanks to Sonik and G for putting up with us for so long. </p>
<p>Since then, I’ve been able to communicate with Sue in Priston enough to complete all the album artwork, she has wrestled templates and facebook communication lag to create an truly beautiful thing, and it’s now in the capable hands of Ackent Media, being turned into objects. <br> </p>
<p>All this has been accomplished on a pair of computers whose rapidly approaching senility and obstinate tendency to just switch themselves off for no apparent reason has made the process interesting, to say the least. Deepest thanks to <a contents="Carl Folker" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="http://www.maclogics.co.uk/">Carl Folker</a> for all the help keeping them going. </p>
<p>With any luck, now that it’s been sent off, I will find the time and clement conditions to come out of hibernation and be a little more communicative, record and video or two, make a long promised appearance at <a contents="Falkirk’s Cyber Folk Session" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="https://www.facebook.com/groups/522559611996401">Falkirk’s Cyber Folk Session</a> and work out how and when we might be able to perform to human people again one of these days. </p>
<p>Thanks for your patience. I can’t wait for you to hear it. </p>
<p>Sadly, as seems increasingly to be the way in recent times, two more dear friends have passed away in the last couple of weeks, both remarkable musicians, leaving me humbled at their courage and bereft that I’ll never again get to hear them light up a room. </p>
<p>Alan Moorhouse, who Nye, Sascha and I somewhat desperately busked our way down to visit in Cornwall two Januaries ago finally lost his valiant battle with pancreatic cancer. He was an inimitable busker, ranter, raver, and crafter of incredible comic songs, with a wicked twinkle in his eye. Thankfully, with the help of the great <a contents="Salossi" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="http://salossi.de/">Salossi</a>, he managed to make it to Germany one more time last year to record some of these gems for posterity. So for anyone who needs a chuckle from an ex-busker, get in touch with Sascha for a copy of the album. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>Omer Makessa was one of the warmest, gentlest individuals with whom I’ve ever had the pleasure of sharing a stage. His passing last week came as a complete surprise and is particularly hard to swallow. Originally from Martinique, he made his home in Bristol and for many years has brought sunshine into the hearts and dancing feet of countless Bristolians and many a festival field. It’s hard to get to grips with the fact that we won’t be able to make the music we’d meant to. Yet another reminder that it’s best to just get on with it while we can. So much love to the both of you, and all of those who are trying to come to terms with your absence. <br> </p>
<p>A beautiful serenade from a couple of years ago... </p>
<p>For any of you who’ve yet to get your hands on a copy of <a contents="Scott Cook" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="https://scottcook.net/">Scott Cook</a>’s new book/CD, I just stumbled across my copy the other day, trying to work out what the seemingly endless red thread which had tied itself around my legs was coming from, and finally tracing it back to the unravelling cloth bookmark in the aforementioned hardcover chunk of soul. After a couple of pages of classic, folksy Scott Cook schtick to get you started it really is a bloody good read. He pulls no punches, and delves into the darkness of both himself and our dysfunctional world, but it’s really worth it, and comes with some fine songs to tap your feet to as you go along. </p>
<p>For those of you who know Scott’s music, or have caught him live, you’ll know a little of the depth and scope of his wit and wisdom. He’s one of the clearest and most rigorous thinkers I’ve encountered in many years on the road and there’s definitely a lot to be gained from this beautiful book. <br> </p>
<p>For those of you interested in an honest appraisal of how we’ve ended up in such strange times (Scott included), and with a gap in your binge-watching schedule, I thoroughly recommend Adam Curtis’ new series of films, Can’t Get You Out Of My Head. Any of you who saw his Century of the Self series in the early 2000s or his more recent Bitter Lake, and Hypernormalisation, will know what to expect. He’s a remarkable journalist, with a style that always takes me back to the days when television documentaries were less sensationalist and rather more sober. </p>
<p>It’s not exactly your normal light-entertainment comfort TV, but he has some fascinating insights, and though he reveals dark truths, rather like Naomi Klein, he manages to find inspiration, courage and creative potential amongst the chaos. </p>
<p>Any of you who fancy getting in touch to let me know what’s been keeping you sane, I’m all ears. </p>
<p>I’m so looking forward to seeing you all one of these days when us troubadours are once more allowed to roam. Any of you who’ve yet to pre-order the new album, we still have about £1500 worth of bills to cover, and would love you, your friends and anyone else you can think of to hear it. With any luck, it’ll bring you a bit of solace and even the odd chuckle. </p>
<p>With much love from the sunny patch in front of the van! </p>
<p>Jez</p>Jez Hellard & The Djukella Orchestratag:jezhellard.net,2005:Post/65923062021-04-03T18:13:38+02:002021-04-03T18:13:38+02:00We won't be home by Christmas afterall...<p>Dear friends wherever you may be, Solstice Greetings to all and sundry! </p>
<p>As I grab a brief moment to sit here listening to a truly stunning violin recital by the inimitable Piotr Jordan, recorded and streamed live last weekend at the French Protestant Church of London, I’d like to try to reflect a little on the current state of things, but a deeply affectionate Yasmine has just emerged in front of the screen, like a cat on a newspaper, urging me to serve the food that I just left gently simmering away, so I must to that, but will try to return to typing before the sun sinks fully behind the icy peaks out the window. </p>
<p>Here's a link to Piotr's recital in the mean time...</p>
<p><iframe class="justify_inline" data-video-type="youtube" data-video-id="6a7svdPLr50" data-video-thumb-url="https://img.youtube.com/vi/6a7svdPLr50/mqdefault.jpg" type="text/html" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/6a7svdPLr50?rel=0&wmode=transparent&enablejsapi=1" frameborder="0" height="180" width="320" allowfullscreen="true"></iframe></p>
<p>Absolutely sublime violism from the one and only Piotr Jordan... </p>
<p>Well sunset has been and gone and sadly it’s a little too hazy in the south-west to see the conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn for the first time since 1623, but the crescent moon is waxing, dinner thoroughly taken care of, and I’m back. </p>
<p>A couple of nights ago (before the rear springs on the van snapped and left us somewhat stranded for Yuletide - that's another story altogether) we were parked up by the church at Castéras as the sun set, and before I’d read anything about it in the newspaper, we saw two planets incongruously close to one another, in perfect alignment with the crescent sliver of the setting new moon, hanging above the full chain of the Pyrenees. </p>
<p>It was quite a remarkable sight, and if you happen to be somewhere with a clear sky to the SSW in the next day or two you’ll see them come so close as to likely appear as one enormous star, just above the horizon around sunset, but no-one is quite sure how close they’ll come to each other, as the last time it happened, no-one with a telescope was looking. </p>
<p>I trust you’re all keeping your wits about you and some kind of human contact, however “remote” that may be in this darkest of seasons. We’re approaching the very fulcrum of the Yule and imminently the days will start to get longer for all of us in northern climes. For those of you in the southern hemisphere, keep up the good work with what you’ve been doing, with the exception of Mr. Bolsanaro. </p>
<p>I have now finished the violin recital and have moved on through a fantastic set of Balkan selections and beyond from Dunayska Kapelye to The Pulborough Players, in the same church as part of the same concert series and featuring some of the many facets of the wonder that is Piotr Jordan. There really is so much fantastic live music being played into telephones in empty rooms this festive season. I just hope someone gets to hear it. </p>
<p>A private audience with Dunayska Kapelye... </p>
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<p>In fact, speaking of new music which has just been released, <a contents="The James Patrick Gavin Trio - Live at The Welsh Chapel" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="https://jamespatrickgavintrio.bandcamp.com/releases">The James Patrick Gavin Trio - Live at The Welsh Chapel</a> is a beautiful thing, as is "When the Lights Are Bright" the new album from <a contents="Beth Porter" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="https://www.bethporter.co.uk/">Beth Porter</a>'s band <a contents="Marshes" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="https://marshesmusic.bandcamp.com/music">Marshes</a> (formerly Beth Porter & The Availables). Click on the links and you will be lured into lush string arrangements and glorious music galore. Also, for any of you who've ever enjoyed hearing the Djukella Orchestra performing "Borders", <a contents="The Undercover Hippy" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="https://undercoverhippy.net">The Undercover Hippy</a>, the lyrical genius behind that and many other songs has designed a t-shirt that you may well want to model... Just click the above link to get your hands on one. <br> </p>
<p>It seems that despite all the bluff, bluster and perhaps even other words beginning with b, the crooked cabal of cronies masquerading as a government in the country I call home have managed to hightail it to their country hideaways mere moments before it became apparent that a new strain of the dreaded lurgy means that everyone else is now going to have to stay where they are and abandon the patriotic family Christmas celebrations they’d been encouraged to believe were an inalienable right mere moments before that. </p>
<p>It has been rather one of those years all around, to be honest, but you don’t need to look as far as Taiwan, or even Greece to realise that it’s not beyond the wit of man (or indeed woman, as the case may be) to organise things in such a way as not to give the appearance of wild improvisation by rank amateurs. I always question the records where wonderful saxophonist and famed exponent of free-jazz, Ornette Coleman decided to play “free jazz” on trumpet and violin, two instruments he is not known for being able to play (for good reason, I might add), and wonder whether a five year-old learning to play the oboe, or even a cat feeding itself into a mangle could also on these terms be considered free jazz. </p>
<p>It seems we have a “free-jazz” government, and a cabinet of amateurs, and surely an amateur cabinet is nothing more than a box, and Dominic Spaffings went off in a sulk with that some weeks ago. It seems the only one who is home by Christmas, is Mr Eye Test himself. Thank heaven for small mercies. <br> </p>
<p>To make such a fuss about how banning Christmas festivities would be “inhumane” after nonchalantly cancelling Diwali, Hanukkah and Eid just seems so lazily exceptionalist, in this of all years where thanks to the vast eruption of humanity prompted by the wanton murder of George Floyd by a gang of police officers going “viral” on the internet (that’s a phrase which doesn’t seem quite so cool this year, eh), they’ve all been frantically paying lip-service to Black Lives Matter at the same time as stirring a culture war which surely stinks far too much of the lingering Trump to be any use to them now, but then they do seem to be making it up as they go along. </p>
<p>When the lockdown of Rochdale, Burnley, Bradford and practically every part of Britain with a large Desi community was announced the night before Eid, who among them gave a thought to the folks who’d bought new clothes, laid on huge spreads for the planned feasting and booked non-refundable tickets to visit loved-ones. With just a couple of days warning and perhaps an iota of consideration, all this chaos could easily have been averted. </p>
<p>The nonsense about following “the science” as though science were some illusive beast akin to the Gruffalo, rather than the simple exercise of deductive logic available to any layman as a truly inalienable right, has worn woefully thin, as time and again, vast sums of public money is doled out to private companies owned by the spouses, friends and associates of prominent politicians, for grandiose schemes which consistently over-promise and under-deliver, and often fail to deliver anything at all. </p>
<p>The very same people who sold us “the big society” whilst imposing savage “austerity” on all public services and fostering a hostile environment in order to save the public purse pennies, are now squandering generations of current and future tax-payers’ money without a penny reaching the public at all. It’s a travesty. </p>
<p>It’s Churchill you think you are, Mr Bojo I suppose, if your dreadful book is anything to go by, but I’m afraid you’re starting to look rather more like Chamberlain in all but stature. <br> </p>
<p>As for the state of things across the Atlantic, at least we hear less of what Herr Drumpf thinks from day to day (even moment to moment) any more. Well I suppose some folks do, but I’ve not been tuning in to those channels. </p>
<p>It’s a refreshing change, but I worry that rather like in the UK (if it’s still anything but a sick joke to call it that), the “opposition” party has been so thorough in eviscerating itself to rid the body-politic of the upsurge of popularity and support amongst the young and disenfranchised these past few years, inspired by radical leaders their parties would literally do anything to thwart, that it may not in the end be too concerned about opposing the idiotic corporate culture which landed us all in our current situation. I suppose we shall have to wait and see, on both sides of the water. <br> </p>
<p>So please pardon my fierce rant, and allow me to leave you with this hymn to fraternal feelings and goodwill to all, featuring the full-cream Djukella Orchestra led by the marvellous Dominie Hooper and recorded back when such plurality of voices was permitted in public or indeed private places. Apologies for my own wild attempts at improvisation at the beginning. I soon checked myself and the assembled voices conjure some tasty chords for your listening pleasure. Dedicated at the time to the dearly departed Charlie Roff, it goes out to all those who've been snatched from us prematurely. <br> </p>
<p>Dominie Hooper & The Djukella Orchestra - The Quiet Joys of Brotherhood </p>
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<p>With much love from the back of the van and all the best wishes for a positively delightful 2021. </p>
<p>Jez</p>Jez Hellard & The Djukella Orchestra