Today,
I’m going to turn over a new leaf…
Well I have to
Ladies
and Gentlemen,
I went camping for a week
in the New Forest
and forgot
to pack any toilet rolls…
Dedicated to Ken Dodd.
Ian D. Hall 2018
Author Archives: admin
Michael Schenker Fest, Resurrection. Album Review.
Liverpool S
ound and Vision Rating 9/10
The Resurrection is one of solemnity, of earnest reflection, piety, of remembering that some things are eternal and to be seen and heard as gospel, inscribed in the mystic and for the believers, an instruction of on how to be heard forever.
Not that there is any chance of anybody ever forgetting the joy and the sound of one man’s searing guitar, a selection of vocalists performing as if their collective wings were ablaze with the timeless and the gravity defying polish attributed rightly to them, and then the choir in the form of keyboards, bass and drums into which the beauty and depth of Michael Schenker Fest roars into view and in which the Resurrection is a perpetual feast.
Neal Morse, Life & Times. Album Review.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *
It is our own story that we dance to, that we sit and think back over all the occasions we did something extraordinary, that we perhaps didn’t live up to our own sense of self or impossibly high standards. It is the Life & Times in which we remember over a large glass of smoky whisky, with friends staring into the fire as we toast marsh mellows, when we are alone and the darkness comes calling, it is the Life & Times in which we must celebrate or in which we must atone.
Endeavour: Icarus. Television Review.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * * *
Cast: Shaun Evans, Roger Allam, Anton Lesser, Sean Rigby, Dakota Blue Richards, Lewis Peak, Caroline O’Neill, Phil Daniels, James Bradshaw, Abigail Thaw, Sara Vickers, Caroline Martin, Aldo Maland, Sam Clement, Jojo Macari, Lily Lesser, Michael Simkins, Felix Scott, Andrew Buckley, Barnaby Taylor, Xander Classey, Mark Arden, Louis Strong, Tom Paney, Anson Boon, Madeleine Worrall, David Jonsson Fray.
Wet Ribbed Bones.
The bones are showing
through the ceiling, bare bones
dew ribs, dripping wet ribs, uncovered
and on show, surgeon hesitating
keeping this patient alive
without operating, without the knife
or the blue sheet to keep the dust
in place inside these wet ribbed bones.
Wet ribbed bones, wet ribbed bones,
poking through the ceiling, cartoon,
loony tunes skeleton playing on the xylophone
as I stand beneath the patient,
looking up, looking for the light,
at the end of this rib cage tunnel
and wondering when the sutures
Kristin Hersh, Wyatt At The Coyote Palace. Album Review.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10
There is a whisper that floats through the world that is often indecipherable, that is infinite and yet never seems to be allowed to begin, it is the whisper of creative passion; not something that really comes out in a blaze of glory, but instead sits in the soul and waits, sending out the random pulse like a signal from a far off planet’s inhabitants wanting to make contact with humanity, it is often undetected, sometimes gleaned at, but all the while wanting to be embraced like a child on its first day breathing air and reacting to stimuli.
The Delerium Trees, Paradise Will Be. Album Review.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 7/10
Optimism is infectious, it takes you down roads you might never have imagined ever taking, of the street of possible security, through the avenue of seeing a dream unfold and take root; it is an emotion though that is hard to handle, difficult to control and unless reigned back, tempered with the pitfalls and consequences that the search and the hope in what Paradise Will Be.
Mark Thomas: Showtime From The Frontline, Theatre Review. Playhouse, Liverpool.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10
A man walks into a comedy club and finds a way to make life better through humour and observational clowning; it could be the start to perhaps one of the most farcical jokes, instead it becomes the punch line to the best evening of wit and the pathos of human tragedy conceived.
Ha, Laughs Life.
Life’s eternal joke;
kick you in the nuts
when you having a glimmer
of a nice day,
then acting as a sweetener,
a smile of lopsided joy,
allows you three numbers
on the lottery only
to remember what it is like when your
ship docks at the wrong port
and your ceiling comes crashing down.
Ian D. Hall 2018
Ritchie Blackmore’s Rainbow, Waiting For A Sign. Single Review.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10
You could spend your entire life Waiting for a Sign, for the starting pistol trigger to show the potential of being pulled, of the moment when you know that the memories being made are more than just draws of memorabilia and junk. You could spend all your whole existence in search of that symbol which shines and calls out, “here is the beginning”, when in reality all you need is the gumption to understand, the sign was there all along, you just kept ignoring it.