Dear friends out there in the wide world, 

 

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. 

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. 

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.

 

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! 

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. 

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.

 

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. 

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. 

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. 

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. 

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.

 

 

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, Matthew Robb, 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. 

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. 

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. 

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.

 

 

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. 

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. 

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. 

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. 

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. 

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”. 

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. 

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.

 

 

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. 

I thoroughly enjoy the Alexei Sayle Podcast, particularly the more recent episodes, which become more and more informative by the month, as well as Alexei Sayle's Imaginary Sandwich Bar 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. 

Through Alexei I've recently discovered Blind Boy Boat Club, 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. 

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. 

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. 

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. 

It’s so often the omissions that shed light, rather than the juicy nuggets we’re ostentatiously thrown. 

So if you've managed to make it down this far, thanks for reading. 

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". 

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.

 

 

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 the hat; 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. 

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. 

 

With much love from down here, 

 

Jez

 

Dear friends,

 

Greetings from my first opportunity to communicate in some time, and welcome to all who’ve joined the mailing list over the summer. 

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. 

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. 

I’d just launched into the first couple of paragraphs when I turned on the radio, and everything changed. 

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.

 

 

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. 

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. 

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. 

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. 

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. 

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. 

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.

 

 

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. 

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. 

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. 

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. 

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.

 

 

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. 

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. 

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.

 

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...

 

 

...but it was not to be. 

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. 

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. 

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. 

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.

 

 

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. 

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. 

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.

 

 

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. 

On the subject of Owain and Sue, Priston Festival 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. 

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. 

With much love from the edge of the road, 

Jez

 

Dear friends, 

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. 

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. 

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 John, Kaz and Joe Devine, 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.

 

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. 

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. 

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. 

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.

 

Then we will be joining forces with Dana Wylie, one of Canada’s finest songwriters, for the first time in over a decade for a ten-date tour. 

She is a powerhouse of musical and poetic stylings, described by Canada’s national folk magazine, Penguin Eggs as “the only artist this critic has felt comfortable comparing favourably to Joni Mitchell in the scope of her talent EVER.” 

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.

 

Tickets for all shows are available here. Please tell your friends and help us make a success of this! 

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. 

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. 

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. 

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. 

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.

 

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. 

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.

 

 

Anyway, that’s enough of my ranting for now. Thoroughly looking forward to seeing as many of you as possible over the next weeks. 

If you’re able, please get your tickets through the “shows” page of the website, your music through the “shop” page, share a video with a friend who’s never heard us and encourage one or two people to sign up for this mailing list. 

I know I’m demanding, but so is the life of a musical tyrant. 

With much love from this brief moment off the road, 

Jez

 

Dear friends, 

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. 

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. 

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 John, Kaz and Joe Devine, 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.

 

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. 

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. 

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. 

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.

 

Then we will be joining forces with Dana Wylie, one of Canada’s finest songwriters, for the first time in over a decade for a ten-date tour. 

She is a powerhouse of musical and poetic stylings, described by Canada’s national folk magazine, Penguin Eggs as “the only artist this critic has felt comfortable comparing favourably to Joni Mitchell in the scope of her talent EVER.” 

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.

 

 

Tickets for all shows are available here. Please tell your friends and help us make a success of this! 

 

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. 

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. 

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. 

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. 

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.

 

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. 

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.

 

 

Anyway, that’s enough of my ranting for now. Thoroughly looking forward to seeing as many of you as possible over the next weeks. 

If you’re able, please get your tickets through the “shows” page of the website, your music through the “shop” page, share a video with a friend who’s never heard us and encourage one or two people to sign up for this mailing list. 

I know I’m demanding, but so is the life of a musical tyrant. 

With much love from this brief moment off the road, 

Jez

 

 

Dear all, 

So finally the blonde beast is vanquished, hoist on his own petard. 

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. 

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.

 

 

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. 

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. 

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. 

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. 

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. 

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. 

I suppose you have to give it to him for optimism.

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. 

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. 

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. 

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. 

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.

 

 

On Friday we’re playing at 9pm at Tolpuddle Martyrs Festival in Dorset, which will be a marvellous event to inspire even the most worn-down, and on Saturday we’ll be playing Pig’s Ear Folk Ale near Sevenoaks in the Weald of Kent, which will also be a delight.

 

 

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 Geldeston Locks Inn Community Pub. 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.

 

 

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. 

If you can make it to any of our gigs, it’ll make our day, and if you can tell a friend about our music it’ll mean the world, and maybe even a touch towards the next tank of diesel. 

With much love from this sweltering corner of Thanet, 

Jez

 

 

Dear people of the wide world,

 

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. 

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. 

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. 

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.

 

 

On our return to Blighty, we’re looking forward to playing some fantastic festivals, and would love you to join us. 

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. 

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 Hatch Barn 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. 

On Friday July 15th, we’re playing at Tolpuddle Martyrs Festival 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, tickets are available here.

 

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 Pig’s Ear Folk Ale, at Sevenoaks Weald, which is (despite the M25) a delightful corner of Kent. Tickets for this one are available here. They’ve got a great line-up and are reputedly the friendliest festival in the South East.

 

 

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 The Square & Compass in Worth Matravers on Sunday July 24th, and to The Bell Inn, Bath on Monday 25th. 

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 Blender’s Weekend Takeover at The Quarry Theatre, 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, get your tickets here. 

If you’re an East-Anglian, the very best thing you can do is get your tickets here for our show on Friday August 5th at the legendary canal-side music venue, Geldeston Locks Community Pub, 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...

 

 

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 www.danawylie.net

 

 

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… 

Tuesday 9th - Bath - The Bell 
Wednesday 10th - Bristol 
Thursday 11th - Glastonbury 
Friday 12th Priston - Garden Concert 
Saturday 13th - Hampshire - The Cheriton Sessions 
Sunday 14th - King’s Cliffe - The Pytchell 
Tuesday 16th - TBC 
Wednesday 17th - London 
Thursday 18th - Horley - Cafe 54 
Friday 19th - Purbeck Valley Folk Festival + 9pm Worth Matravers - The Square & Compass 
Saturday 20th Purbeck Valley Folk Festival

After we bid farewell to Dana, we’ll be finishing off with appearances at Into The Wild Gathering in the most spectacular corner of Ashdown Forest on Friday August 26th, tickets available here, and then playing for the first time at the great Towersey Festival 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.

 

 

Tickets are available here, so if Oxfordshire’s convenient for you, come and join us, either for the day, or for the whole shebang. 

So that’s most of the news for now. As you can clearly see from the gig-list on the Shows 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. 

As always you can buy music, either physical (how retro!) or digital, by clicking here, or if you’ve had a windfall dealing arms, oil or gas, or even are thriving by more ethical means, all donations towards diesel, CD duty and general wellbeing are always deeply appreciated here. 

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.

 

 

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. 

With much love from beneath this chestnut tree, 

Jez

 

Evening All, 

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. 

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. 

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”.

 

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. 

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. 

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. 

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.

 

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. 

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. 

There’s a woman who clearly has her priorities in order.

 

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. 

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. 

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. 

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. 

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. 

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. 

Stay brilliant, 

Jez

Dear all, 

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.

 

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. 

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.

 

Yasmine has naturally spent a fair amount of time lying in a pool of kittens.

 

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. 

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. 

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.

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. 

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. 

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.

 

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).

 

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. 

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. 

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. 

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.

 

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. 

With much love from the barn, next to a small heap of kittens, 

Jez 

And remember, as I was just reminded by my tobacco pouch...

 

Baby Putin Eats Fags

 

Dear Friends around the world, 

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.

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. 

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?

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. 

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. 

Soon I will be heading north to reunite with the Djukella Orchestra and bring a good dose of our mongrel music to the masses.

 

We are lucky enough to be playing some fantastic festivals for the first time, including the great Towersey Festival in Oxfordshire, Cambridge Folk Festival, Tolpuddle Martyrs Festival in Dorset and the brand new Pig’s Ear Folk Ale 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.

 

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. 

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. 

Another piece of exciting news is that the great Dana Wylie 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.

 

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. 

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. 

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. 

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. 

And here we are… Finishing a paragraph with a supermarket slogan brings me back to Boris Johnson and the remnants of democracy.

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). 

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.

 

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. 

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. 

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.

 

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. 

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. 

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. 

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.

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. 

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. 

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?” 

Pass me that irony guard… 

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. 

With much love from way down here, 

Jez

Dear Friends, 

Belated Solstice, Christmas and indeed Boxing Day greetings to all corners of the world, 

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!. 

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.

 

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. 

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.

 

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.

 

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. 

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. 

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.

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. 

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.

 

 

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. 

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. 

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. 

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.

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.

 

 

England’s young striker, Raheem Sterling was guest editor on the Today programme a couple of days ago, the day after Cumbrian hill-farmer, James Rebanks 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. 

Talking of inspiration. I have received the first rough recordings we made at the inimitable Mike West’s 9th Ward Pickin Parlor 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.

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 Village Hall Gigs 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.

 

 

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. 

With much love from the moist hills of Le Couserans, and best wishes for a fine New Year, 

Jez