What do you get if you gather a Satanist, a stand-up comedian and an accordion-player onto a rain-swept Yorkshire moor in order to try and summon the Devil on a cold autumn evening? Answer: A BBC radio programme. Hopefully… Last week I found myself on Hob Moor, with comedian and broadcaster Danny Robins and folk musician David Eagle, endeavouring to invoke the forces of darkness using only my knowledge of the Satanic tradition in history, Mr Eagle’s squeezebox, and a song Danny had written in his teens entitled ‘Kill Your Dog for Satan’. While I tried to explain that edible babies and lascivious naked witches were pretty much a prerequisite if you wanted any real chance of securing an appointment with the Big Guy From Downstairs, BBC budgets did not stretch to even these basics.

So, how did I find myself – yet again – performing the dark arts on the cheap?… To cut back to the beginning of the story, Danny had been in touch with me some weeks before, with various questions concerning his radio documentary on the occult in music. Documentaries of various descriptions along similar lines crop up on my radar pretty often in some shape or form, and the same tedious tramlines are already pretty deep. Same story, over and over, which – in my opinion – frequently misses the point. But I liked Danny, he seemed receptive to something different, and appeared particularly taken by my mention of the theory that the original witches’ sabbat might have been the medieval equivalent of the modern hippy festival or metal concert. And so the notion emerged to try and record an interview on witchcraft and music in an appropriate al fresco location with musicians attempting to add some appropriate atmosphere…

The two metal bands I first suggested as ideal for the task fell through for sundry reasons, and as our appointed rendezvous approached, Danny seized the goat by the horns, and approached a local folk club. They were keen, and everything was set – until they saw the website you are currently viewing. The Black Swan folk club were apparently not willing to sell their souls to the BBC in return for free publicity, or not at least if I was involved. As the old adage has it, never trust a hippy. At the very last minute however, using the magic of Twitter, Danny conjured David of the Young ‘Uns folk trio and the gig was on. Did we succeed in raising Old Scratch? It’s probably fair to say that there was less of the sublime than the ridiculous that damp October evening, but I’m afraid you’ll have to wait and tune in to BBC Radio 6 at midnight this Halloween for your definitive answer.

The antics on Hob Moor were only a playful part of a broader and more serious discussion on the subject of the relationship between the occult and music, and I hope something worthwhile comes out of my answers to Danny’s questions on the topic. Despite my oft-whimsical tone, I take my devilment very seriously indeed. Hob Moor is a location I’d picked with some care. The main entrance is by York’s old gallows at Tyburn on Knavesmire. Almost exactly 300 years ago – in the summer of 1612 – one Jennet Preston was executed there for witchcraft. ‘Hob’ is an old northern English word for devil, and there can be little doubt that sinister legends once surrounded the place, even if they are now lost to us. Standing there in the rainy darkness, it’s still possible to feel a tiny shiver of that arcane, bone-chilling darkness, even today, with the Moor now bisected by railway tracks and enveloped by housing estates.

Of course, we were largely just fooling around there on that autumn evening in 2012, though serious enough to brave some inclement weather and risk frightening the odd cyclist. (I suspect that, while lonely travellers who saw a strange group of people on a moor in the 17th Century might fear witches, the fearful suspicions of a modern traveller might lean more towards muggers or perverts – whether that represents progress is anybody’s guess…) There was also serious intent behind the documentary overall, and I suspect that a number of the views I express – should they reach broadcast – will ruffle a few feathers. I should emphasise here that I wasn’t being deliberately provocative. Rather, that if I take an interest in something, I study and consider it, and reach an opinion based upon the evidence, my experience and best judgement. If the world also takes an interest, the subject tends to become prone to the tides of fad and fashion. As orthodoxy shifts, I often find myself stood alone in the field, left behind by the whims of ‘progress’.

This blog is now becoming worryingly obtuse. While I could easily invoke the power of privilege – this is, after all, my stage where I say what I want – I despise the needy hints and evasive clues that haunt the Internet, dropped by lonely souls desperate to create a feeble sense of mystery and inspire unwarranted curiosity. Suffice to say, I express some unfashionable opinions on the naturally related – but violently divorced – topics of witchcraft and black metal. It has only ever been in retrospect that it has occurred to me that my views might be somewhat out-of-step, but in both cases once represented orthodoxy of a sort. As I make my wayward progress in life I frequently find myself a heretic, though seldom if ever by design. If I become radical, I would maintain that it is because the world shifts, not on account of any desire to deviate for its own sake on my behalf.

In addition to obtuse, this blog is now in danger of becoming pompous, so should surely be brought to its merciful end. I fully intend at some later date to expand upon what I mean regarding witchcraft and black metal, and the bullshit that dominates current perceptions on both topics, though I suspect that a blog post is hardly the place to enter such involved debates. Suffice it to say, the numerous ‘authorities’ who claim that traditional witchcraft has nothing to do with devil-worship are either frauds or fools, and that most of what passes for black metal ‘philosophy’ is little more than desperate, amateurish PR increasingly aimed at gullible teens and the hipster contingent. On which discordant note I shall conclude this scattergun missive, with the hope of a more coherent howl into the void next time….