Author Archives: admin

Passion Pit, Kindred. Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating *

For many, being told as children that if you have nothing nice to say, then keep your mouth firmly shut, is a maxim to live by even into middle age or even to swear by as infirmity and shortness of breath lend a hand to day to day existence. The only trouble with that aphorism in the modern age, people tend to either believe you are being either provocative in your silence and therefore just fancy bashing you round the head with their sarcasm and ill judged retorts or, and possibly more damning, they might take the biting down on the tongue for mild acceptance, that they have done nothing wrong in life and you accept them for what they are, even if they have ventured into the beige and downbeat.

Passion Pit, Kindred. Album Review. full post

(507 words, estimated 2:02 mins reading time)

Doctor Who: The Entropy Plague, Audio Drama Review. Big Finish.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

Cast: Peter Davison, Janet Fielding, Sarah Sutton, Mark Strickson, Alastair Mackenzie, Catherine Skinner, Robert Duncan, John Voce, Chris Finney.

Decay is a state of mind for which even The Doctor struggles to hold back at times, the sheer weight of history acting as a melancholic anchor for him to grasp hold of when all is against him. His collection of travellers past and present, those he has lost, those he has loved, all acting as the living embodiments of the Memento Mori he carries around with him in his little blue box; decay is something he runs from, never looking back, never going back for old companions in case he sees the futility of life. Entropy in the end is the toughest enemy The Doctor has and one that he cannot hope to defeat forever.

Doctor Who: The Entropy Plague, Audio Drama Review. Big Finish. full post

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

I Lived And You Didn’t.

…you should have been the one to live,

you should have walked tall and taken on the world

with all its prejudiced malice and spite for

we both know you would have made so much more

of the life once glimpsed on both our parts.

I can only offer false machismo, to the point

where I gave that up as bad idea, a notion unbecoming

at the age of seventeen, perhaps the moment

where we said goodbye on the corner, only to dream of each

other’s possible lives, still holding a part of ourselves close,

I Lived And You Didn’t. full post

(228 words, estimated 55 secs reading time)

Satin Beige, Gig Review. L.I.P.A., Liverpool.

Satin Beige, LIPA, Liverpool. April 2015. Photograph by Ian D. Hall.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Relaxed, composed and only the barest hint of the immensity that resides in her fingers showing as they strain at the leash wanting to fly with the same feeling of majestic endeavour that she showed ahead of supporting Tommy Scott’s acoustic evening at Leaf in March, Satin Beige looks as if she doesn’t just want to give a performance to remember, she wants to show exactly why she is so highly regarded and so admired.

Satin Beige, Gig Review. L.I.P.A., Liverpool. full post

(396 words, 1 image, estimated 1:35 mins reading time)

Novacrow, Gig Review. L.I.P.A., Liverpool.

Kitty Staunton of Novacrow, LIPA, Liverpool, 2015. Photograph by Ian D. Hall.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

If every song needs a hook in which to guide it to the listener’s emotions then does it follow that every live performance needs something other than the music to really make it memorable? It either depends on how the sound is appreciated, a folk band for example certainly don’t need the extra polish attached their gig, neither does a solo performer serenading with almost perfect ease, and yet in some quarters, what is already rather enjoyable, even tremendous in some places has that little something extra with the visual memento mori attached.

Novacrow, Gig Review. L.I.P.A., Liverpool. full post

(438 words, 1 image, estimated 1:45 mins reading time)

Medea, Theatre Review. St. Luke’s Church, Liverpool.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Cast: Mairi-Claire Kennedy, Nathon Bibby, Faye Caddick, Rebecca Howard, Maria Hutchinson, Vicky Lodge, Natalie J. Romero, Mikyla Jane Durkan, Samantha Walton, Gillian Paterson-Fox, Alan Bowyer, Callum Wright, Gary Watson, Iffan Wyn James, Yahya Baggash.

It is a story that still resonates, still has the power to send tremor like Earthquakes through any who see it and simply turns established thought upside down and inverts the power of femininity and the female form. Euripides’ Medea is a tale so huge that in modern day thought, it still provokes the question that surely a woman cannot take the life of a child, especially her own child and yet as the news shows, Medea is not alone in the most brutal of acts.

Medea, Theatre Review. St. Luke’s Church, Liverpool. full post

(566 words, estimated 2:16 mins reading time)

Breathless In The End.

…in the end, exasperated by non-compliance on my part,

my refusal to bend to the torrent of abuse that her indignity

demanded, the strength sapping empty gale

that I would pray to whatever deity

that shrunk in the back ground,

My deity’s peace sign held above Her head and on the reverse

the phrase, “Don’t shoot the messenger” emblazoned in bright colours

with the quirkiness of capital letters like punishment

thrown in here and there to make Her look as if she was hip, happening,

and a groovy chick in which to side along…but I knew

Breathless In The End. full post

(448 words, estimated 1:48 mins reading time)

A Song For Laura In Twenty-Four Seven.

You’re charming

because you have no idea

how much you are loved,

even now,

people look at your picture and remember

how much light you bought into their lives,

how respected

you were, and just how much you meant to them.

I know,

as only one

perhaps who has slept in your bed

when you were out all day,

placed there by considerate hands

as my life become mean and meaningless,

placed there

with kindness by hands

that knows much pain

A Song For Laura In Twenty-Four Seven. full post

(256 words, estimated 1:01 mins reading time)

A Little Chaos, Film Review. Picturehouse@F.A.C.T., Liverpool.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Cast: Kate Winslet, Stanley Tucci, Jennifer Ehle, Alan Rickman, Helen McCrory, Matthias Schoenaerts, Steven Waddington, Danny Webb, Adrian Schiller, Adrian Scarborough, Pauline Moran, Phyllida Law, Morgan Watkins, Henry Garrett, Alistair Petrie, Adam James.

There are films in which the abundance of talent on offer simply overwhelms the story line, the procession of acting nobility so engulfing, so crushing, that the film dies a thousand scripted deaths; it never truly lives up to the dignity envisioned off screen and the grace offered in the initial stages of casting. Thankfully this is not the issue when it comes to A Little Chaos.

A Little Chaos, Film Review. Picturehouse@F.A.C.T., Liverpool. full post

(606 words, estimated 2:25 mins reading time)

Gem Andrews, Vancouver. Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision * * * *

To constantly evolve and move forward is a must. When an artist stagnates and starts to drift, not just away from their core audience, but also in respects of becoming machine like, delving towards the beige, then the spark begins to fade, the initial burst of excitement that was first felt can dribble away like flat lemonade down a drain. This thankfully is not the case for Liverpool born Gem Andrews as she releases her second album Vancouver, beige is not to be seen, the well oiled lyrical value of one associated with the city of Liverpool is of great quality, the songs run smoothly with bristling agitation and the urge to be seen fully; beige is not an option.

Gem Andrews, Vancouver. Album Review. full post

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