Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10
There lives within each of us a small dark corner in which the appetite for darkness is ever gnawing at the psyche, like misguided moths with no appreciation for the sunlight, we have the ability to be drawn to the darkest parts of our fellow human beings, and it is only the brightness in our souls that stops us from being zapped or burned and seeing our moth like wings shattered.
I want to leave
another permanent mark
on my skin, to feel the pulse
under the knife today,
tonight, when it is the hour
of understanding, of dismissed life.
I watched his mouth open wide
forming a sentence as the background
of clamour threatened
with deep joy to stutter any conversation
we might have had,
I leaned my head forward, slightly,
and cupped
my empty hand to my ears as if
to show his words had been mislaid
in the pulse of ether
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * * *
People quite often think of silence as being damning, of largely falling into the zone of negativity and condemning, the muzzled contempt biting at the tongue and willing to spread the seed of discontent and slander when your back is finally turned. Too often silence is greeted with the look of lack of enthusiasm, and yet silence for a short while is the epitome of awe, the reflected understanding of what can pass for sheer majesty, the shock of beauty, the reverence of joy, silence is esteem.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *
A headliner’s duty is to make his presence felt, to set the seal on authority, and for Dan Owen the presence is so powerful that when a howling, brooding harmonica punches the audience with immediacy into Willy Dixon’s Little Red Rooster. It is evident to all those upstairs in Leaf that this sand-toned guitar and pounding stomp box have seen their fair share of theatres, blues bars and gig venues across Europe. One thing is for certain: Dan Owen is a truly relentless performer with a roots-shattering vocal that would make Gregg Allman blush.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *
It has always been the feel of the British Noir, the black and white stand out persona and often photographed demeanour that has always endeared Hugh Cornwell to the British public, a sense of being one of the most open, honest and insightful men to ever grace a gig, and one that has the pulse of Time firmly within his grasp.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *
You don’t expect to go through life, whether it is in the hope of muddling through, or with the clear objective plan which is subject to the whims of the gods and to those who will pull the rug from under your feet without even a casual hello, without some kind of change being offered to us, enforced at us, to expect the remains to be always the same is to witness life as if you were made of Wax, an unmoving figure, blank eyed, the only expression to be ever be seen, moulded by the hands of another.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *
We are drawn to those who see the world as a place to explore, not to abuse, the people who seek ways in which to go from city to town and onto the path of their own choosing, never hampered by the dusty trails, the long road, or the final destination. We take pleasure in the stories of the ones willing to break out from the confines of life because secretly, no matter how much we enjoy our creature comforts of home, the knowledge of security, we are jealous of those who have the ability to become the Wanderer, the carefree or even mysterious soul.
I want to stand under the water
that flows from the moon
and across jagged downpour rocks,
and as I stare at the once
great god of old,
now on fire, raging mishap and
cold blue accident,
I see it melt, I hear the cries
of the one that shot
the arrow into the sky
and wept as it pierced
its heart, dying
now, slowly
over rocks
and its life dilutes
as it merges with the pool.
Ian D. Hall 2018
It is one of the defining moments in recent Irish history, the point arguably when the relationship, which was always strained at the very best, broke, snapped and the call of truth, of freedom from a foreign power, became enshrined in the hearts of those who sought to fight the British Government, and those who saw history as being there to hold with both hands and create a home that could not be breached by the powers or influence of Westminster.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * * *
Rumours are spread by the insincere and listened to by fools and the conniving, and yet some rumours, especially the ones that come with the blessing of the sound of trumpets and played in tune to the ragtime and the energetic and cool, they are the ones in which to place your trust, to phone your friends with the gossip and the tale of pleasure to come; a quick word to those you know and trust to expediate the speculation onwards; and in prospect of Rag ‘n Roll, the Dutch masters, The Ragtime Rumours are true, the mood is swinging.