Once more to Helstock, this year returning to The Institute in Kelvedon, for the annual celebration of The Fragrant and Charming La Mulley’s birthday, a cheeseboard the size of Belgium and, this year, the realisation that we have been performing in various iterations of Helen and The Neighbourhood Dogs for a decade. When Neil Young had been performing for ten years he put out a triple album retrospective* to mark the occasion, whereas we’re going to play the Sproughton Beer Festival. Diff’rent strokes…
We are blessed with the tactical substitution of one Steven Turnbull on keyboards coming into the squad and being named in the first team. I have known him principally as a member of Tony Winn’s band - they even made an album together called Love Songs which is well worth your time seeking out - which is how he is named in my phone as ‘Steven Keys’. He has very much brought an E Street vibe to proceedings and so I have similarly diversified into playing a bit more electric guitar** in order to take on some of the spaces where the fiddle used to be. This is our first public performance with the new line-up, which is also to be augmented by nepo-baby (or, in the circumstances, nepo-puppy) Indigo on third guitar, whose name we are allowed to shorten to ‘Indy’, but I am nevertheless reminded not to shout it at them in the style of John Rhys-Davies in Raiders of the Lost Ark. The mood backstage is sanguine, however I discover that my stage shirt of choice (we need a photo for the Maverick Festival programme so we’re dressed nicely) is missing a button. Gibbon, on bass, without even needing to check the label, which says ‘Slim Fit’ remarks dryly “I wonder how that happened..?” I button my jacket around me, breathe deeply in…and hold it for forty minutes.
The post-show atmosphere is remarkably brighter. “I think we got away with that” posits Mr. Wendell. “Not really a ringing endorsement though, is it?” I reply. La Mulley enters the room with a similar take. I repeat my assertation. “Oh no” she responds “I’ve got better than that - someone who’s never seen us said ‘I knew you dabbled in music, I didn’t realise you were that fucking good at it!’”. I concede that this is a much more positive summary, and wonder if we might use that for the festival blurb?
The evening proceeds in an orderly fashion. Indigo parlays a short set of singer-songwriter drafts of their own. The Arctic Mulleys, with it’s annual performance and ever-revolving line up do a principally Marc Almond-themed selection, one youngster who has clearly been listening to the right things does a Jeff Buckley-esque set which minds me of nothing so much as staying up late to watch the Whistle Test in 1974. Sadly though, as seems to be the way with the young folk these days, once his performance is concluded he and all his friends sidle off into the Spring night. As we know, the correct form is to stay for the first two numbers of the next turn and then quietly excuse oneself under cover of darkness, however that doesn’t seem to be the way to do it these days. Admittedly two of our number have also already gone but in fairness one of them had to get to a Black Metal gig in Colchester right after our show. I think it was ‘Black’, it might have been ‘blackened’ or even ‘toasted’. It was definitely something you can also do with cod, anyway.
Those people did, then, miss an absolute masterclass in composition and performance from one of my favourite singer-songwriters ever, one Paul Mosley (“Aye, spelled like the fascist…”) who really deserves to be much more appreciated than he is. He, similarly, is a veteran of many, many Helstocks, one of which was held in Helen’s sister’s back garden as I recall. Those of us with long memories often spend more time reminiscing than preminiscing. So it is with Wor Pauly, who fondly remembers one sold-out show at The Institute in the company of Jamie Lawson, who you may remember as having a massive, massive hit in Ireland with “I Wan’t Expecting That”*** and being signed to Ed Sheeran’s label. He made it so big that someone was moved to comment under one of his YouTube videos that they’d seen him back in the day in front of four people in Kelvedon. “Okay, it was’t Wembley, but this place was full” remarks Paul. “And that comment was made by…” he shades his eyes and looks around the room until he alights upon the person in question.
“I don’t normally do trigger warnings, but I am about to play the ukulele” he quips. Back to the piano and a series of torch ballads that at one point genuinely brings me to tears. I am as relieved that it’s dark and that no-one can see my expression as I imagine that other person was earlier. All too soon though, it is over. A groaning tableful of cheese is to be discreetly transported back to The Blue House. I do the idiot check to ensure I’ve retrieved all my leads. Where am I going to? So what happens now? Another guitar case in another village hall.
I cannot stress enough how much you need to listen to Paul Mosley. Start here.
https://paulmosley.bandcamp.com/album/the-ventriloquist
*pronounced in the record shop argot of the time as ‘decayed’.
**Disappointingly, no-one shouts “Judas!” when I put it on.
***It’s not the original video, but in the same way that someone happened upon that if you start playing Dark Side of The Moon at the beginning of The Wizard of Oz, it all fits rather neatly together, similarly, someone did this. Get a box of tissues. https://youtu.be/ttXrb2tRNm0?si=HCsPd8ktB9DCao-p