In the final episode of this season I take a look back over the last 27 shows and include clips of each one.  Thank you for all your support and for subscribing, I'll be back later in the year with more conversations and characters to share with you x

Title track composed by Jerry Hyde and Nick Van Gelder, produced by Nick Van Gelder, keyboards by Kenny Dickenson, brass by Noel Langley, vocals by Sian O'Gorman.     

Audio Engineering by Sam Williams at  Right Royal Audio  

Chances are you won't have heard of Noel Langley. 
But you will have heard Noel Langley.
One of the world's leading and most talented jazz musicians, indeed one of the world's leading and most talented musicians of any genre, Noel has performed with Elton John, Radiohead, George Michael, Amy Winehouse, Dionne Warwick, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, John Legend, Lionel Richie, Lou Reed, Art Blakey, Macy Gray, Billy Cobham, Mark Ronson, Diana Krall, Massive Attack, Georgie Fame Big Band, Robbie Williams, Sade, London Symphony Orchestra, Tom Jones, Harry Connick Jnr, Hermeto Pascoal, Adele, Humphrey Lyttleton, Burt Bacharach, James Taylor Quartet, Jamie Cullem, The Brand New Heavies, Loose Tubes, The Eurythmics, The Ronnie Scott’s Jazz Orchestra, The Last Shadow Puppets, The Manic Street Preachers, Tony Bennet, The Monkees, The Pet Shop Boys, BBC Concert Orchestra and Stevie FUCKING Wonder...
To name just a few.
Desperately understated, shy even, Noel Langley is a mystic, a master in his own field and what you are about to listen to is nothing short of 1 hour and 42 minutes of pure, gentle, unassuming genius.
I am honoured to know Noel and have him on the show.
Prepare to have your mind blown.

Musical credits:
1) Make each Note A Prayer - Noel Langley

2) Minami - Noel Langley

3) Saint John The Evangelist - Noel Langley & Alcyona Mick

4) The Sad Star - Noel Langley & Alcyona Mick

5) Sau Paulo - Noel Langley

6) Super Mario Part VII - Paulo Duarte and the Overground Collective

7) The Turning House - Noel Langley & Ruth Wall

8) Jerry’s Theme

9) For The Uncommon Man - Noel Langley

http://www.noellangley.co.uk/
https://noellangley.bandcamp.com/album/edentide
https://www.jazzviews.net/noel-langley-ndash-edentide.html
https://twitter.com/noeltrumpet?lang=en
https://eclipsetrumpets.us/ecl-artist-noel-langley
https://londonjazzorchestra.com/trumpet-section

Title track composed by Jerry Hyde and Nick Van Gelder, produced by Nick Van Gelder, keyboards by Kenny Dickenson, brass by Noel Langley, vocals by Sian O'Gorman.     

Audio Engineering by Sam Williams at  Right Royal Audio  

This episode was originally released on paris based podcaster Fabrice Florent's Histoires De Mecs show, and he was kind enough to let me to share it here.
He describes Histoires de Mecs (formerly The Boys Club) as a podcast that "questions today's guys about what it's like to be a guy on a daily basis and questions their definition of masculinity."
And so that's where we go, with me in the hot seat for a change, looking at fathers, parenting, violence, anger, rites of passage,  all washed down of course with large doses of plant medicine.
I'm very grateful to Fabrice for having me on his show and if you're a French speaker I'd urge you to subscribe to his important podcast.

Histoires De Mecs podcast.
Website
Instagram
Twitter

Title track composed by Jerry Hyde and Nick Van Gelder, produced by Nick Van Gelder, keyboards by Kenny Dickenson, brass by Noel Langley, vocals by Sian O'Gorman.     

Audio Engineering by Sam Williams at  Right Royal Audio  

If you've listened to this show before you'll be familiar with Sian O'Gorman, for it is she that provides the angelic vocal talent for the theme tune, recorded in the back of the van that is her gypsy home somewhere in Norfolk.
I first met Sian by chance 6 or 7 years ago when she asked my neighbour who the person was with the doormat with the words 'fuck off' printed on it.  I never imagined that such a doormat could have such a profound effect on my life, and in the years that have passed she has become one of the most precious people in my life, collaborating on live music projects, composing the score for the film I made with Mai Hua (see Somme link attached) becoming part of my core team for my retreats in Nepal and mentoring my two daughters through her work at Spirit Horse.
All of which should give you a taste of what a multi talented and extraordinary woman Sian O'Gorman is.
Speaking from her native New Zealand  we cover the now common theme for this show of plant medicine, Covid, creativity and how it is to be living without lockdown.
And for the first time on this show, rather than dividing the conversation with short musical interludes, I've included full length tracks to share with you the wonder of this incredibly talented artist from her work with NYX and Ancient Baby People.

NYX (@nyx.edc on facebook & insta)
Deep England Album out 19.03.21 - single out 22 Feb: https://ffm.to/deepengland.ois

NYX version of Somme : https://nyx-edc.bandcamp.com/album/sketches-demos-rehearsals-ep

Ancient Baby People  https://ancientbabypeople.bandcamp.com/album/ancient-baby-people

Title track composed by Jerry Hyde and Nick Van Gelder, produced by Nick Van Gelder, keyboards by Kenny Dickenson, brass by Noel Langley, vocals by Sian O'Gorman.     

Audio Engineering by Sam Williams at  Right Royal Audio  

O’Byrne is standing at the corner of Ninth Avenue and 36th Street with a to-go cup in each hand and the hood of his sweatshirt pulled up. It’s six in the morning and very cold. He’s put on twenty pounds since I last saw him and could be a laborer waiting for the gate to open at the construction site across the street. Now that he’s out of the Army I’m supposed to call him Brendan, but I’m finding that almost impossible to do. We shake hands and he gives me one of the coffees and we go to get my car. The gash across his forehead is mostly healed, though I can still see where the stitches were. One of his front teeth is chipped and looks like a fang. He had a rough time when he got back to Italy; in some ways he was in more danger there than in combat. O’Byrne had been with Battle Company in the Korengal Valley, a small but extraordinarily violent slit in the foothills of the Hindu Kush mountains of eastern Afghanistan. He was just one soldier out of thirty but seemed to have a knack for putting words to the things that no one else really wanted to talk about.
War - Sebastian Junger

Like all of Sebastian Junger's work, he has a way of painting a picture of where we're going with simple, efficient eloquence, and never more so than this opening paragraph in his book War.

I myself first met Brendan in New York City.  He had driven  more than 10 hours from his home in North Carolina to meet with me and attend the premier of a film I had made with Mai Hua about my men's work.  That's the kind of thing Brendan will do for a stranger. 

With the boundless energy of a giant puppy, Brendan O'Byrne is full of nervous excitement, warmth, enthusiasm, laughter and love, behind which is a huge well of often painful life experience that gives him a profound wisdom and generosity of spirit.

Featured in the Oscar nominated film Restrepo and its follow up Korengal, Brendan served 15 months in Afghanistan, and here he takes time to talk with me about his childhood, multi generational trauma, prison, addiction, PTSD and his time in the military.  He's an exceptional, raw, brave, sensitive and wounded man who I believe has so much to offer the world and I've wanted to share his indomitable spirit with you since this podcast's conception.   

Title track composed by Jerry Hyde and Nick Van Gelder, produced by Nick Van Gelder, keyboards by Kenny Dickenson, brass by Noel Langley, vocals by Sian O'Gorman.     

Audio Engineering by Sam Williams at  Right Royal Audio  

Hmmmm... how best to describe Welsh actress Bettrys Jones?  Known for her work at Shakespeare's Globe, the National Theatre, the Young Vic  and Kneehigh to name but a few with productions of Wise Children, Hamlet, The Little Match Girl,The Tin Drum, Life of Galileo, We Want You to Watch, Edward II and War Horse, the TV series Skins and too many radio dramas to mention.
Funny, bright, witty, thoughtful, cheeky, mischievous, sensitive, intelligent and strong, she's highly talented, and one might say proudly Welsh.
One of the things I've wanted to do with this platform is give a voice to people in industries that have been devastated by Covid, because no matter how much many of us are struggling mentally with the impact of the pandemic, there are a great many people who have lost their way of life, none more so than the acting community.
And yet, Bettrys seems resolutely cheerful.  But then - I've never heard her moan about anything.
Give it a listen.  Might make you smile.

https://www.unitedagents.co.uk/bettrys-jones
https://www.imdb.com/name/nm3308176/
https://twitter.com/jettrysbones?lang=en
https://alondon.net/interview-with-bettrys-jones/
https://www.everymanplayhouse.com/whats-more/bettrys-jones
https://theatreweekly.com/interview-bettrys-jones-on-the-cinema-screening-of-wise-children/

Musical interludes by https://www.domcoyote.com/
Title track composed by Jerry Hyde and Nick Van Gelder, produced by Nick Van Gelder, keyboards by Kenny Dickenson, brass by Noel Langley, vocals by Sian O'Gorman.     

Audio Engineering by Sam Williams at  Right Royal Audio 
 

Shivam O'Brien is more than a friend, he's a brother, and like many brothers, sometimes there are misunderstandings and this deeply personal episode was the first time we had spoken in about 2 years, so what you're invited to listen to is the two of us reconnecting with a lot of laughter and a few tears after a long period of silence.
Shivam is like no one else I've ever met.  A deeply spiritual man with a giant personality to match, he's both blessed and cursed with a chronic and incurable case of Obsessive Building Disorder which, for the last 30 years, he's channeled relentlessly into creating a tribal community called Spirit Horse, hidden away in an idyllic secret valley in Wales.
A master of mostly forgotten ceremony and Pagan ritual, Shivam is a true creator of magic, mayhem and madness, and I'm proud to have collaborated with him on many adventures.  I can honestly say that my relationship with him, his co-creator Erica Indra and the Spirit Horse community not only changed, but maybe even saved my life.
An important and formative part of my children's upbringing, like any community or tribe Spirit Horse is not without its politics and flaws, but it's a mystical place where profound transformation can take place, and I feel blessed to have met this beautiful man and to have sat by the fire with him on many a long, stormy night.

https://www.spirithorse.co.uk/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qN_Xsm2xlIE&t=4s - Film portrait by Mai Hua
http://authenticself.co.uk/ - Shivam's Enlightenment Intensive website
https://www.instagram.com/spirithorse_uk/
https://www.facebook.com/SpiritHorseUK

Title track composed by Jerry Hyde and Nick Van Gelder, produced by Nick Van Gelder, keyboards by Kenny Dickenson, brass by Noel Langley, vocals by Sian O'Gorman.     

Audio Engineering by Sam Williams at  Right Royal Audio  

Claire Arrowsmith is my guest this week, raised in West Africa and Paris she was always destined to live outside of the box and in her role as an aid worker for the Red Cross she has spent time in North East Congo, Sudan, Syria and now Lebanon where she took time out to speak to me from Beirut.
Last time I saw her was in Nepal where together we endured a massive 100 mph storm which spun me out but was just another day in the life of this humble, courageous and deeply caring woman.  Her message that, whilst many of us may all be freaked out to various degrees by Covid and lockdown, for a great many people in the world the lack of freedom and  the ever present threat of death and disease is the norm, and we forget our Western privilege at our peril. 

Title track composed by Jerry Hyde and Nick Van Gelder, produced by Nick Van Gelder, keyboards by Kenny Dickenson, brass by Noel Langley, vocals by Sian O'Gorman.     

Audio Engineering by Sam Williams at  Right Royal Audio