Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *
Cast: Macon Blair, Devin Ratray, Amy Hargreaves, Kevin Kolack, Eve Plumb, David W. Thompson, Brent Werzner, Stacy Rock, Sidné Anderson, Bonnie Johnson, Daniel L. Kelly, Ydaiber Orozco, Erica Generaux Smith.
When one plots revenge they had better dig two graves…but once revenge is thrust into the hands of the meek and mild the body count could be a lot higher as the film starring the superb Macon Blair, Blue Ruin, more than ably shows.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *
Something old, something new, something borrowed, lots of things blue…The Voodoo Sheiks cover all the bases with their new album Borrowed & New.
Borrowed & New sees The Voodoo Sheiks lead with something rich, diverse and ultimately a pleasure to wriggle into, an album of many different features but with one goal squarely in mind, to give the Blues a good going over and rock the life out of it, to give it a good shake and tell it to misbehave, to disobey the sometimes tight regulation attached and play up all night long. In that Andy Pullin, Slowbox Dave, John Coombes and Adrian Thomas tear into the Blues, their own temple building songs and tracks by some of the greats, and start to put up the adjoining and naughty beat alongside.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *
If you can remember the 60s then as saying goes, you can’t have been there. You can’t have seduced by the sound that ensnared a generation and made the smallest hairs on their arms spring to attention as if a thousand watts of electricity had been pumped through every individual strand. Of course if you were born after the 60s and have had to make do with the stories of those who professed to having been at Candlestick Park, the Isle of Wight and the other hundreds of magic moments in which the 60s music hung round and the highlighted sores on society they captured.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 7/10
Music truly is about opening yourself up, like all art it responds to how you feel on the day, what mood you have climbed out of bed in and how that period of darkness has affected you and your thoughts. For Simon Cousins, once of the Wiltshire Folk rock band Ophiuchus and Liverpool’s own The Onset, the mood he must have come to be in whilst recording the tracks on Given Songs must have been somewhere between serene and tranquil with a little nomadic aside into the realms of tender affection.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10
Some creatures are more observant than others, be they slight or minute, what they see and reflect upon should still be taken as evidence of their existence and their right to require a voice that should be heard.
The journey through life is full of these voices and in Little Sparrow, music lovers have the chance to fully embrace someone whose observations and musical interpretations are amongst the finest you are likely to hear. The joyful sadness, the stirring, inspirational notes that Little Sparrow brings to her songs is akin to the fruitful day time walk through the woods closest to your home and discovering the world as it should be, bountiful, full of meaning and an exercise in letting go of the despondency which growls and gnaws at the flesh.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10
Cast: Tom Hollander, Essie Davis, Ewen Bremner, Phoebe Fox, Samantha Fox, Stuart Matthews, Shane Hart, Morfydd Clark, Lucinda O’Donnell.
What really drives a poet as an artist? Not for them perhaps the adulation bestowed upon them as other artists, the secrecy of their work arguably not given a thought by the population as whole in the same way as a those who follow music. The craft is unseen and so is their life as they squirrel away words like some hide treasure or famous paintings by old Masters. However for Dylan Thomas, he was a breed of the new poet, loved on both sides of The Atlantic after the ravages of World War Two.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 5/10
Into every magnificent series must come a dip, a lack of form or supposed interest that makes all the other titles so far printed seem even more tantilising. In Frank Miller’s Sin City series that fall comes with the sixth in the range, Booze, Broads and Bullets.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10
Cast: Barrie Rutter, Emily Butterfield, Darren Kuppan, Jack Quarton, Ben Burman, Elizabeth Eves, Sophie Hatfield, Lauryn Redding, Brett Lee Roberts, Mark Thomas, Russell Richardson.
An August Bank Holiday Lark, the chance for some men to become heroes, for some to find some meaning or importance in life away from the remote villages they may have been raised in all their lives or even the chance to be looked at differently by those they need validation or even respect from. An August Bank Holiday Lark, the hazy days of summer before Gavro Princip took a gun and assassinated one man and his wife and started the ball rolling on the first mechanised whole sale slaughter of soldiers and civilians that tore through Europe and beyond.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10
Cast: Tom Hardy, Nqabilezitha Mhlonga, Olivia Coleman, Ruth Wilson, Andrew Scott, Ben Daniels, Tom Holland, Bill Milner, Danny Webb, Alice Lowe, Silas Carson, Lee Ross, Kirsty Dillon.
American cinema may have invented the concept of the “Road Movie”, just as they did with the beat poetry that used the idea as metaphor to describe life but surely in the hands of one film, British cinema has shown exactly what can be done with the genre. The wide open spaces that run the width of the United States is can be argued is a poor substitute to the tediousness that is inflicted upon drivers in the U.K., the road in America takes you to the place you want to be, the road in Britain takes you where you need to be. For that prospect alone makes Locke one of the finest films dealing with solitude and everyday realism that you are likely to come across.
Ian Mcnabb is one of the great singer/songwriters to emerge from the 80’s Liverpool music scene. The founder and lead singer with chart toppers The Icicle Works, will be launching his very own ‘Open Mic’ night at Mathew Street Live on Mathew Street, Liverpool (above Eric’s) starting on Wednesday 7th May from 9pm – 1am. Entry is free.
“I’m pleased to report that I will be hosting a singer-songwriter night every Wednesday upstairs from Eric’s club starting next month. I hope to see as many of you there as possible. Come and play your music!” says Ian Mcnabb.