Author Archives: admin

Paul Simon, In The Blue Light. Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10

 

The microphone is often primed for the sound of a hero standing by to record their own particular version of history, waiting for the neon light to blaze with the motto of the scared text, recording in process. Recording after many takes is to be expected, producer’s, engineers, the band, the public, all deserve the very best that can be attained, the beauty of the moment and the illusion of the first-take wonder, all comes with the definition of what is recorded, what is set down, and what makes the listener believe long after those songs may have faded from memory.

Paul Simon, In The Blue Light. Album Review. full post

(501 words, 1 image, estimated 2:00 mins reading time)

In The Lower Tiers.

 

Down

amongst the ground sharers,

the football’s sailing over half raised

hopes and nets, designed

to keep the homeless

leather marbles from entering the gardens

and hitting the post

of gnomes, glass

jaws agape as windows

are bounced and framed

as the cheer from the crowd

is passionately ironic, suitably

in time in the non-league homes

and in this field

of semi dreams

between Waterloo and affluent

Crosby lives a day remembered,

a smile between two rows of teeth,

In The Lower Tiers. full post

(121 words, estimated 29 secs reading time)

Eddi Reader, Cavalier. Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

The Cavalier approach, the adventurer lauded as she takes to the stage and sings the sonnets of love, of the knight and the fair, Eddi Reader has been a constant surveyor of the world, she has brought down the arrogant with a scathing song, she has praised the beautiful of opinion and deed and the keepers of the pure hearted with a tune so devastatingly pure that it outweighs even the most sought after of precious stones. Ms. Reader is not one for the Cavalier, her words and music and never high-handed, never careless, but one in which the exploration and the voyage are full of the introspective and the enjoyment of the considered approach.

Eddi Reader, Cavalier. Album Review. full post

(447 words, estimated 1:47 mins reading time)

The Blackkklansman. Film Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * * *

Cast: John David Washington, Adam Driver, Laura Harrier, Ryan Eggold, Topher Grace, Jasper Paakkonen, Michael Buscemi, Paul Walter Hauser, Ashlie Atkinson, Alec Baldwin, Isaiah Whitlock Jr, Damaris Lewis, Ato Blankson-Wood, Corey Hawkins, Robert John Burke, Brian Tarantina, Arthur J. Nascarella, Ken Garito, Frederick Weller, Robert John Burke, Dared Wright, Faron Salisbury, Ryan Preimesberger, Harry Belafonte, Gina Belafonte.

The Blackkklansman. Film Review. full post

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

Your Sixpence Worth.

 

The modern Pandora

gratefully accepts

your Sixpence’ worth

of opinion,

and revels in your unearned view

of the moments

to which one side

does not fit all,

perhaps late at night

the joy of burning wings

is a thrill, moth driven Ego,

inflated by the size of the Sun,

head down, a sentence written,

and then written again

in another place, an argument

of conflicting locations,

the opinion given, satisfied,

in the eyes of the dull

hilarious,

Your Sixpence Worth. full post

(116 words, estimated 28 secs reading time)

Bouncers, Theatre Review. Royal Court Theatre, Liverpool.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

Cast: Mutty Burman, Michael Horsley, Joe Speare, Zain Salim, DJ Spykatcha.

There is a train of thought that there are no new stories to tell in theatre, that the classics, modern, and those written in the depths of time, are the crowning glories of the craft and cannot be improved upon, or at least changed to give a new sense of direction to the audience’s thoughts, to their pleasure and enjoyment, in the way they perceive the characters laid down. ]

Bouncers, Theatre Review. Royal Court Theatre, Liverpool. full post

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

Searching. Film Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10

Cast: John Cho, Debra Messing, Sara Sohn, Michelle La, Joseph Lee, Dominic Hoffman, Sylvia Minassian, Melissa Disney, Connor McRaith, Colin Woodell, Brianna McLean, Derek Ellis, Ric Sarabia, Joseph John Schirle, Reed Buck.

Innovation is to be praised, the guts to try something new for an audience whilst retaining the classic elements of what makes the genre a success in the first place; to find a way to tell a story which diverts from the expected is a pleasure and one that you can spend a life time Searching for.

Searching. Film Review. full post

(461 words, estimated 1:51 mins reading time)

Mike Vernon & The Mighty Combo, Beyond The Blue Horizon. Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

There are times when looking past the limit of all that you have achieved so far and seeing further with the mind’s eye is the only option available to the human spirit of adventure; sadly the experience of finding the absolute is hindered by perspective, the limitations we have put upon ourselves is a blinkered weight which closes our eyes to the possibility of further knowledge, of understanding and greatness.

Mike Vernon & The Mighty Combo, Beyond The Blue Horizon. Album Review. full post

(476 words, 1 image, estimated 1:54 mins reading time)

The Happytime Murders. Film Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

Cast: Melissa McCarthy, Elizabeth Banks, Maya Rudulph, Leslie David Baker, Joel McHale, Cynthy Wu, Michael McDonald, Mitch Silpa, Hemky Madera, Bill Barratta, Dorien Davies, Kevin Clash, Victor Yerrid, Drew Massey, Ted Michaels, Brian Henson, Allan Trautman.

The Muppet Show it isn’t, there is no cosy sense of mischief, of childhood playfulness felt, and yet the Henson name is driven through The Happytime Murders like a nail being hammered through a sock and because of this sense of stuffed innuendo and rebellion to go and deliver an adult-orientated puppet/human story, the makers have stitched together a film which is beautifully insubordinate, outrageously defiant and completely, and utterly, sublime.

The Happytime Murders. Film Review. full post

(545 words, estimated 2:11 mins reading time)

In The Darkness, Your Negativity Was Illuminating.

 

In the darkness

of your words one February night,

you seemed to revel in my misfortune

oh dear woman

of Norfolk broad;

a scathing attack with borrowed fire

and from out of nowhere personal confrontation.

It was in that moment that I thank you

for being so mean, so

unpleasant as you tried to shame me

about finding solitude in the shadow

and the trace of ghostly human light,

your insult and insinuation

that blackness doesn’t exist

and that misery is a state of mind,

In The Darkness, Your Negativity Was Illuminating. full post

(106 words, estimated 25 secs reading time)