Yearly Archives: 2014

Remember Me, Television Review. B.B.C.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * *

Cast: Michael Palin, Mark Addy, Hodie Comer, Julia Sawalha, Jamie-Rooney-West, Tony Pitts, Eileen Davies, Mayuri Boonham, Kate Dobson, Mina Anwar, Noreen Kershaw, Kirsty Hoiles, Ubayd Rehman, Aqib Khan, Sheila Hancock, Rebekah Staton, Rita May, Marcus Garvey, Richard Lumsden, Orla Cottingham, Gary Pillai, Roger Grainger, Tony Monroe, Indra J. Adler, Hilly Barber, Garry Marriott.

Remember Me is the first outing in dramatic role for what seems an interminable age for one of Yorkshire’s favourite sons Michael Palin. It is a role that perhaps offered so much to one of the absolute greats of British comedy but ultimately fell flat with little hope of being considered one of the giant’s great visual feasts.

Remember Me, Television Review. B.B.C. full post

(576 words, estimated 2:18 mins reading time)

The Wicked And The Divine, Graphic Novel Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

The ancients arguably had a better idea of what makes Humanity tick than the so called enlightened era in which the notion of one deity, in which ever guise you prefer to believe in, sits in judgement or peace loving affection you care to mention. Whether through the inter-changeable Gods of Rome and Greece or the Gods of Norse mythology and British Paganism, there was personal God for everybody and whichever one you believed in surely stoked the fires within you.

The Wicked And The Divine, Graphic Novel Review. full post

(643 words, estimated 2:34 mins reading time)

Stephen Langstaff, Gig Review. Epstein Theatre, Liverpool.

Stephern Langstaff at the Epstein Theatre, Liverpool. December 2014. Photograph by Ian D. Hall.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

One of the ways in which to measure a person is how they can be weighed up in a situation not of their making or in the face of impossible insurmountable mounting odds; the quality of a person is not in what they eat, what they wear or how much stuff, gadgets, cost of house, money or seeming how popular they are after they have bought a round of drinks but in how they cope with a new challenge being thrown at them there and then on the spot and the power of how they are viewed.

Stephen Langstaff, Gig Review. Epstein Theatre, Liverpool. full post

(562 words, 1 image, estimated 2:15 mins reading time)

The Science Of The Lamps, Gig Review. Epstein Theatre, Liverpool.

The Science of the Lamps at The Epstein Theatre, Liverpool. December 2014. Photograph by Ian D. Hall.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

It doesn’t matter how long it has been since you last saw Science of the Lamps perform, some things are timeless enough to go at least a week without seeing. No more than a week though if you can ever help it and the twin dilemmas of appropriate funds and urging vocalist Kaya Herstad Carney to play more often with the imagery she deals out with utterly delicious precision are stacked in your favour.

The Science Of The Lamps, Gig Review. Epstein Theatre, Liverpool. full post

(469 words, 1 image, estimated 1:53 mins reading time)

Liverpool Sound And Vision: The Sunday Postscript, An Interview With John Jenkins.

It is only through persistence and sheer will power that John Jenkins is sat infront of me discussing his band’s latest album, Intruders and the general music scene in Liverpool post the turn of the century. Not my own will power but the genuine amiability and overall geniality of Mr. Jenkins who has waited patiently for me to meet up with him for a couple of weeks as I struggled to keep appointments due to health. It is to the musician that must be thanked for keeping faith in a world where faith sometimes is easily lost at the drop of a hat, in a world where disposability is a disease.

Liverpool Sound And Vision: The Sunday Postscript, An Interview With John Jenkins. full post

(2145 words, estimated 8:35 mins reading time)

Rumplestiltskin, Theatre Review. Unity Theatre, Liverpool.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Cast: Aiden Lee Brooks, Cameron McKendrick, Dora Colquhoun, Shaun Roberts.

There are creatures out there whose only aim is that of self-gratification, assuredness so overwhelming that it is blackened, cheap and nasty and an arrogance that sits and festers at the heart of a life like a sweating, bulbous spider on fly filled web, heavily pregnant and with a seething desire to take anything that isn’t theirs. These creatures may still be recognised but the more as a species we have galloped towards a consumerism that is more consuming than helpful, the less chance we have remembering old tales passed down, tales of not accepting help from a creature of the neglected forest.

Rumplestiltskin, Theatre Review. Unity Theatre, Liverpool. full post

(465 words, estimated 1:52 mins reading time)

Joe Symes And The Loving Kind, Gig Review. District, Liverpool.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

To perform in Liverpool should be a nothing less than an honour. It is the rightful home of the birth of British Pop Music, the most successful city in the U.K. where music is concerned and in many way it is home to perhaps the most diverse variety, with even the glimmering of the heavier side of Metal and the coolness of Progressive Rock having its fans in the Merseyside areas surrounding the heartlands of venues such as The Cavern, Parr Street, The Academy, District, The Lomax, The Brink and The Epstein. To perform in Liverpool should be an honour, to watch Joe Symes and Loving Kind is a special kind of privilege.

Joe Symes And The Loving Kind, Gig Review. District, Liverpool. full post

(581 words, estimated 2:19 mins reading time)

Shamanarchy, Gig Review. District, Liverpool.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 7.5/10

It might not quite be Anarchy in the U.K. but the spirit of women with attitude, the delivery of a demon and the manner of a Greek god chewing through the finer points of why Humanity is at the beck and call of its sisters lives well and with some tremendous flowering agility in the heart of Shamanarchy .

Shamanarchy, Gig Review. District, Liverpool. full post

(415 words, estimated 1:40 mins reading time)

The All, Gig Review. District, Liverpool.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 7/10

There are times when to hold back your emotions and perhaps even your stringent, occasionally narrow, mind and let in a music argument that night not have been on your mind when you go into a venue. You might go in expecting one thing but then the support kicks in and you are left with a further belief attached to your many quivers and multitudes of bows.

For The All, the sound they produce is one of an unusual quality, a starkness which is endearing and coming so far out of left field that if donned an Everton kit and yet banged in a hat trick every week for Liverpool at Anfield nobody would be more surprised.

The All, Gig Review. District, Liverpool. full post

(393 words, estimated 1:34 mins reading time)

The Love Dimension, Create And Consume. Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * * *

In the blink of an eye a life can change. In the time it takes to hear an album by a band foraging their way carefully through the Californian minefield of abundant music, you are already finding your thoughts focused on making sure you get on a plane sometime soon, taking a trundle down any of the side streets of San Francisco and hoping that you will bump into a band member or two and clasping them firmly by the hand and without a second thought for so called British reserve; telling them that you love them so much that you want to re-start the psychedelic revolution with them.

The Love Dimension, Create And Consume. Album Review. full post

(442 words, estimated 1:46 mins reading time)