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. 

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. 

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. 

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. 

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. 

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. 

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. 

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.

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.

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. 

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. 

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…………….”. 

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! 

With much love from the back of the van, 

Jez

Springtime greetings to all of you, 

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.

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. 

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. 

Anyway, I have news. Drumroll please… From now on, all of your Djukella musical needs will be catered for at jezhellard.net

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. 

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. 

In the mean time, look what we have here...

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. 

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. 

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. 

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. 

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. 

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.

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.

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. 

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.

Talking of musical comrades and new albums, anyone who has yet to preorder a copy of TEYR's new album Estren, 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...

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. 

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. 

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.

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. 

Looking forward to some correspondence from anyone who finds the time, and to seeing you all as soon as possible. 

Jez

Dear friends far and wide, 

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. 

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. 
  

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. 

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. 

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. 

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. 

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. 

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. 

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. 

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. 
  

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 Carl Folker for all the help keeping them going. 

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 Falkirk’s Cyber Folk Session and work out how and when we might be able to perform to human people again one of these days. 

Thanks for your patience. I can’t wait for you to hear it. 

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. 

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 Salossi, 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. 

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. 
  

A beautiful serenade from a couple of years ago... 

For any of you who’ve yet to get your hands on a copy of Scott Cook’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. 

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. 
  

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. 

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. 

Any of you who fancy getting in touch to let me know what’s been keeping you sane, I’m all ears. 

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. 

With much love from the sunny patch in front of the van! 

Jez

Dear friends wherever you may be, Solstice Greetings to all and sundry! 

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. 

Here's a link to Piotr's recital in the mean time...

Absolutely sublime violism from the one and only Piotr Jordan... 

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. 

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. 

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. 

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. 

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. 

A private audience with Dunayska Kapelye... 

In fact, speaking of new music which has just been released, The James Patrick Gavin Trio - Live at The Welsh Chapel is a beautiful thing, as is "When the Lights Are Bright" the new album from Beth Porter's band Marshes (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", The Undercover Hippy, 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. 
  

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. 

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. 

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. 
  

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. 

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. 

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. 

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. 

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. 
 

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. 

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. 
  

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. 
  

Dominie Hooper & The Djukella Orchestra - The Quiet Joys of Brotherhood 

With much love from the back of the van and all the best wishes for a positively delightful 2021. 

Jez