Author Archives: admin

Mosh!

The tornado of sweating souls slowly catches their collective breath,

but only for the briefest of polite respites, for the pulse

is gaining speed and the heart rate quickens in time

with the drum stick, the judge’s gavel, taking issue

with the ones at the side of the pit, ready to hit-out

but too scared to throw themselves into the whirlwind.

 

The Mosh, once in, never released, never to be forgotten,

never to disclose that what happens in the sweating bounce

stays in the sweating, feverish, testosterone fuelled dance.

Mosh! full post

(231 words, estimated 55 secs reading time)

Fall Out Boy, American Beauty/American Psycho. Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * *

Virtually all artists bring elements of themselves to their chosen creative pursuit. The sense of the autobiographical is interwoven with in all manner of artistic endeavours, from the artist sentimentally putting in their favourite flower into a scene where there was none to be seen, to the poet adding colour into a dull passage of time and the musician bringing, in some cases the very worst of their dystopian thoughts and nightmarish experiences to the public gaze and letting a guitar mourn the passing of a single note. It worked for bands such as Pink Floyd and solo performers such as Peter Gabriel so why not Fall Out Boy?

Fall Out Boy, American Beauty/American Psycho. Album Review. full post

(496 words, estimated 1:59 mins reading time)

Unrealised Fantasy Figure

There must come

a time in everybody’s life when they are hit

by the dawning realisation

that they never have been, and never will be,

the go to fantasy figure

in someone else’s dreams.

 

The dark brooding hero who pulls his off- white trilby down

over his eyes, who can blow smoke out his nose

like a fire breathing dragon pumping merrily away

as a thousand workers shovel Welsh coal into its lungs, and all the time

cause the damsel in distress to flutter her eye lids,

Unrealised Fantasy Figure full post

(324 words, estimated 1:18 mins reading time)

Jago And Litefoot: Beautiful Things. Series Four Box-Set. Audio Drama Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * * *

Cast: Christopher Benjamin, Trevor Baxter, Louise Jameson, Conrad Asquith, Lisa Bowerman, Alan Cox, John Sackville, Christopher Beeny, Mike Grady, Colin Baker.

The continuing adventures of Jago and Litefoot, of mysterious machinations and the blood and death of inexplicable things are possibly on the hands of much changed old friend and Beautiful Things will suffer for it.

Jago And Litefoot: Beautiful Things. Series Four Box-Set. Audio Drama Review. full post

(432 words, estimated 1:44 mins reading time)

The Waterboys, Modern Blues. Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * * *

Some fortunate people in this world are just born to deliver poetry to the mass population. Some, no matter what form that poetry should take or whether accompanied by the delicate sound of an acoustic guitar and the wistful nodding of a bespectacled, beard wearing and book loving saxophonist who clicks his fingers between notes, are just put on this Earth to urge others to turn away from a world of bleak impossibilities to a world where a single word in the right place can level mountains and take down Governments.

The Waterboys, Modern Blues. Album Review. full post

(522 words, estimated 2:05 mins reading time)

The Eichmann Show, Television Review.

Cast: Martin Freeman, Anthony LaPaglia, Vaidotas Martinaitis, Samuel West, Nicholas Woodeson, Rebecca Front, Andy Nyman, Ben Addis, Caroline Bartlett, Ed Birch, Zora Bishop, Dylan Edwards, Nathaniel Gleed, Ben Lloyd-Hughes, Soloman Mousley, Anna-Louise Plowman, Ian Porter, Justin Salinger,

There are moments in history that have damned us as a species. No century, no civilisation, not one era is innocent of spilling bloodshed, but nothing perhaps can touch the 20th Century for the sheer desecration of humanity and the blood of so many children.

The Eichmann Show, Television Review. full post

(502 words, estimated 2:00 mins reading time)

Generational

Every generation believes it be the last greatest one that will walk the Earth.

The final ones to shoulder the standard before a shadow falls on Empire

and weeds start to grow beneath humanity’s feet,

and weave their way silently to the fatted necks

slung low by the weight of unrealistic expectation.

 

We are kept in check by the ghosts of grandparents and their memories,

we understand the mistakes they made, the unexpected dances

they waltzed on generation’s passed and the now forgotten graves

that sit row upon row like stone guards awaiting a presidential cavalcade

Generational full post

(327 words, estimated 1:18 mins reading time)

Jago and Litefoot: Jago In Love. Series Four Box Set Audio Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Cast: Christopher Benjamin, Trevor Baxter, Louise Jameson, Conrad Asquith, Lisa Bowerman, Elizabeth Counsell, Matt Addis, Christopher Beeny, Mike Grady, Colin Baker.

After the final events of Series Three’s Chronoclasm, it would be understandable if Jago and Litefoot, Victorian London’s pre-eminent Detectives, were to think of taking it easy for a while. The nerves shattered, the lives of those around them changed and their long standing friendship with Leela pushed to a limit which thankfully did not break, who would blame them for getting back to the normality of London life?

Jago and Litefoot: Jago In Love. Series Four Box Set Audio Review. full post

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

Dawn Landes & The Kentuckians, Covers E.P. Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

The love of Americana and the thought the abundance of wide open spaces that are filled with historical beauty, destruction, free thought and in some extreme cases, regretfully closed minds, all make America an appealing place in which to praise the ability of song writing.

The American dream, the chance to improve your lot in life and its downfall when the intensity of its politics bites with severity, is one that provides the thought of a lyric and offers redemption, a softness to the hammer blow when it goes wrong.

Dawn Landes & The Kentuckians, Covers E.P. Review. full post

(456 words, estimated 1:49 mins reading time)

Broadchurch, Television Review. Series Two, Episode Three.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * * *

Cast: David Tennant, Olivia Coleman, Jodie Whittaker, Andrew Buchan, Charlotte Rampling, Marianne Jean-Baptiste, Arthur Darvill, Eve Myles, James D’ Arcy, Meera Syal, Caroline Pickles, Jonathan Bailey, Tanya Franks, Phoebe Waller-Bridge, William Andrews, Charlotte Latimer, Steve Bennett, Amanda Drew, Eliza Newbury, Pippa Gillespie, Andrew Darlington, Margery Knight, Neil Stanley, Abigail Hardingham, Stephanie Clift.

Courtroom dramas are the stuff of legends when it comes to television. The after effects and fall out of the police investigation just as riveting as the methodical way in which the case is built up from the start by the detective.

Broadchurch, Television Review. Series Two, Episode Three. full post

(406 words, estimated 1:37 mins reading time)