Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * * *
Cast: Ewan McGregor, Robert Carlyle, Ewan Bremner, Jonny Lee Miller, Steve Robertson, Shirley Henderson, Kelly McDonald, Gordon Kennedy, Anjela Nedyalkova, James Cosmo, Katie Leung, Thierry Mabonga, Scot Greenan, Irvine Welsh, Pauline Turner, Eileen Nicholas, Kyle Fitzpatrick.
We are the wise women,
We know more than we think,
Perceive more than realise,
Are capable of more than we expect,
We are the wise women,
We can change the world
If we support each other,
Encourage each other,
Allow ourselves to be used as stepping stones,
Provide a foothold for other wise women
Or reach out a helping hand,
We are the wise women,
We set the world to rights,
No more content with just “pretty”,
No more content with comfortable,
A stomach growl, felt the stab
of indiscriminate pain
that has wandered my body
all of my life, and it froze
causing me terror at
one thirty A.M. no addiction.
Turning on the radio to wipe
away the sweet sweat, I hear that you had died
and grief, just as painful
washed over me,
I was blessed to have existed
when you had lived,
I wouldn’t change that for the world.
Ian D. Hall 2017
Eleanor Nelly has been a woman to watch on stage for an awful long time, anybody who has the slightest idea of what makes somebody so eminent, so very cool as a performer will understandably nod their head in satisfaction and admiration when the young lady’s name comes up in conversation. To be held in such high esteem in Liverpool, the city in which she comes from and by people that have the pleasure, the honour of writing about and performing music in the city day in day out, it comes as no surprise that the talent, the sheer and exhausting hard work has paid off for Eleanor as she takes the next step in being signed to a major label, Decca.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10
At the end of the world, what lullabies would you sing those who you love and what songs of anger would you chant with fingers pointed at those who have done you wrong; any decent person would probably suggest that the two somehow meld into one, that you treat those who have done you disservice the generosity of forgiveness in such bleak times, after all, the music is there to build bridges not hate. Despite it all music is a savior and perhaps a guiding light in a world of Modern Ruin.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *
There is nothing Middle of the Road about Eric Gales, if anything the music is a highway, an expressway with only the best eateries along the way, the dust cleaned and given to flights of fancy instead of dirt in the eyes and the speedometer happily cruising just above the limit; after all if you are going to break hearts with your music, you may as well break a few rules also.
A fence is a wall by any other name,
keep
them out, sign their names,
put them in one place,
in a home, make everybody scared
to show their compassion, ridicule them when they do
and when someone speaks up,
when the tiny voice of reason
finds that they can stand it no more,
take them out also and shoot them
against a bullet riddled wall.
Makes no difference to me
what religion you are,
just because I do not believe what you believe
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10
The breathing quickens, the feeling of gravitas and surprise once more is palpable under the skin and the pulse, once steady, a continual motion of fixed security, now, with elegance injected into the nearest vein, doubles in speed, it magnifies the feeling of drought that has been inexplicable in the heart as you come to realise that whilst music is truly global, you can only see so much of it live due to fiscal responsibilities and distance.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10
What is under the bed, who really hides away with their fur showing and a pair of eyes looking out from in between the crack in the closet and what really lives in the fertile imagination of a child; monsters are real, parent’s reactions to them are unfeigned and yet for one small boy, monsters are the finest things in the world; they also deserve love and respect.
B.B. Taylor’s Murphy and The Monsters is an explosion of colour and deep thought all wrapped up in a wonderful children’s tale; a tale in which the monsters are there to be loved.
Today
we mourn the loss
of our dear
friend.
Although he was unashamedly odd,
89
was a trooper,
and whilst
many of us only knew him in late life,
I just wish
you could have known him
in his prime.
Ian D. Hall 2017