Autumn Musings …
With the first appearance of Halloween décor spilling across store shelves, it seems it is now time to say summer is over. Put the buckets and spades back in the garden shed and command the gnomes to stand guard over them until the next spell of hot weather (if you’re lucky enough to have a garden, let alone a shed for that matter)- autumn is a calling.
Given the dreadful state of so much of what we misguidedly used to call the civilised world, I hesitate to say it has been a good year for me so far. If you follow me on Facebook, you’ll be aware that I had a viral infection that kept laying me low, but thanks to the NHS and copious amounts of lemsip, I struggled manfully on and am back to blowing with the best of them. It’s been a year of old and new, large and small with the John Hackett Band revisiting past venues (a pleasure and frankly a relief to be asked back) and playing at some delightful new places. Alongside all these new and familiar spaces, we’ve made some lovely new friends on the way (you know who you are and how much Guinness you drank at my house…).
As for the summer? Well, as you lot were sunning yourselves on the Costa Del Bognor, we here at Hacktrax headquarters were hard at work with our prep for next year (though we were graciously allowed the occasional break to watch the Paris 2024 Olympics). With any luck ‘Red Institution’, a new John Hackett Band album, should finally be handed in sometime this side of Christmas (long overdue but isn’t that what summer school is for). The boys of JHB and I have also been digging back over previous years projects and dusted off a rather marvellous album recorded some 50 years ago… So, while everyone else went to play in the sun, we’ve been planning ahead, rehearsing up some numbers of old to combine with tracks from our new album Red Institution for an exciting programme set to debut in 2025.
All joking aside, thanks so much to all of you who have bought albums, come to gigs, posted reviews or just sent sweet messages of support from all over the globe – it really does make it all worthwhile. Whatever you were up to this summer, whether (or should I say weather…) you were able to get away or not, I hope your time was as good as mine back in the 60’s at Pontins Holiday Camp!
This next section of the newsletter is an unusual one for me but one I thought important to leave in. I first wrote it in the lead up to the July election but as time slipped past it never ended up being sent out so I give it to you now – better late than never.
By the time you read this, we will have spent a couple of months with a new government in place. Over the years there has been an appalling rise in child poverty with so many families having to rely on foodbanks; I hope our new government finds this as abhorrent as I do and works strongly to tackle it. But alongside this necessary priority, I also hope they will give more attention and support to the arts in this country both in the community and in schools. I count myself very fortunate that, growing up in the 60’s, I had my bite of the cherry when things were easier. At school we had a scheme for free instrumental lessons, a full orchestra (how many state schools can boast that now?) and the opportunity to go on to university without taking out student loans.
Despite all the evidence that music, and the arts in general, have a beneficial influence on the well-being (and therefore the academic achievement) of young people, we have done them a disservice by side-lining creativity. I’m reminded of this passage from Charles Dickens’ ‘Hard Times’: “You are to be in all things regulated and governed,” said the gentleman, ”by fact. We hope to have, before long, a board of fact, composed of commissioners of fact, who will force the people to be a people of fact. You must discard the word Fancy altogether.”. Well, I confess in my darkest times, it has been Fancy (in my case, music) that has seen me through.
We have a chance to change things and bring back the hope for the future that my generation got to experience. No one deserves to starve but everyone deserves the opportunity to explore the arts and find their own Fancy.