Salutations to y’all on this post-Solstice Groove, babies,

Avebury was hopping this year, and the amazing weather meant that the celebrations lasted for days. Many of our friends were at Stonehenge and told us the atmosphere there was incredible. Out here in Yatesbury, we have our own vegetable temple in sight of Silbury, but it’s still the greatest feeling to see every Avebury grass verge taken up with revellers’ tents. I dropped some of our friends back in the henge for last orders at the Red Lion, and our packed car had to do 10 m.p.h. or risk running over longhairs. Rite On! But my commiserations go out to Merrick, whose slow healing broken leg precluded his coming down with everyone else.

Right now, I’m sitting listening to Love Cry Want’s epic “Peace” on repeat play. Its Amon Duul 1/Mahogany Brain proto-funk with Sly Stone on guest organ has scorched all the hairs off my legs and messed up my sinuses and still I play the thing. If the rest of the LP was as deadly On the One, I’d have made it July’s Album of the Month. But 1972 was a weird year and this weird LP exists in too weird a space to lay it on y’all with my absolute blessing. So buy the Motherfucker if your lunar meditations need a shamanic 4 a.m. kickstart, and run screaming away from it if you don’t.

Brain Donor’s album is ready to go at last, and it’s the sound of Heavy Planets moving. Imagine Grand Funk’s Live Album shagging an all-male Amon Duul 2. The lyrics are some of my favourite for a long while and there ain’t a Velvets/Stooges reference on the whole record. What a fucking lie! In the meantime, L.A.M.F. has been back in the studio with an extended line up. Me and Holy McGrail have started work on a 9‑hour DVD called Ambient Movie LAMF! Don’t hold your breath!

Oh, and Sean Woodward’s party got in, then. Sky News ‘accidentally’ billed him as a Conservative, and then The Economist called Tony Blair “the only credible Conservative” which they could sensibly advocate to be our Prime Minister. Then our local MP Michael Ancram decided to run for leader of the Conservatives. Whoa! Seeing William Hague talking a week later was like watching Banquo’s ghost. I remember that guy! Then it is – then it ain’t – then it is – then it ain’t, I guess.

Which must be why they’ve let James Bulger’s killers out last week. Every parent disagrees with the decision, and everybody else says “Move on!” Personally, I woulda liked to see them indoors a few more years just to give a little peace of mind for Denise Fergus and Ralph Bulger. Also, the longer their sentences the less excuse later on for violent retribution from high-minded members of the public. The Jesuits always said “Give me a child until he is five and I will show you the man.” I hope the Jesuits are wrong, or these two are still dangerous.

One of my big riffs from the last tour concerned Niezsche’s quote that we should never trust a God who didn’t dance. Of course, that ruled out Christianity I said, and continued that Cliff Richard may be a Pagan For Christ, but that he surely wasn’t really a Christian. Well, this month saw me proved right when Rev. Ian Paisley attempted to ban line dancing in Ulster, claiming that it was a proclamation of sexual intentions. Rock‘n’roll! I tell you, babies, I truly admire Paisley more for his lack of compromise than I could ever admire fucking Sir Cliff for trying to hoodwink the populace with his intentions. Like the Taliban and their shelling of the 130’ tall Buddhas, at least we know where we stand with Paisley. 

Which brings us to the female Egyptian writer who has set Islam on fire by reminding them that the great stone at the centre of the Kaaba is a formerly pagan idol. Nawal el-Saadawi says the Haram, the black stone housed within the Kaaba, should not be a centrepiece of every Muslim’s great pilgrimage to Mecca, as it is a “vestige of pagan practise.” The Patriarchs of Islam hate hearing this kind of thing from smart Arab women, especially Nawal el-Saadawi, who has now left Islam because of its anti-female stance. So they wanna divorce her from her husband – he doesn’t wanna divorce mind you, it’s just the Patriarchs themselves, who, of course, think they know best. Like Ian Paisley and the Taliban, she walks it like she talks it.

One final thing. I’m preparing for Discover Odin at the British Museum in October. We’ll be showing some films and playing some music, along with two nights of ur-lectures and story-telling about Odin in his earliest guises as Od, Wode, Woden, Ygg, Un, U‑Name it! I’ve also put together an excellent commemorative CD-programme of music, spoken word and poetry especially for the two evenings. Get down there and get yerselves in!

I’ll quit now,

Love ya!

JULIAN OF DONORVILLE (M’Lewd Yatesbury)