Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * * *
History has a habit of colliding with the present day. Existence it seems is all about the small quirks of fate that lead a person from one place to the next and then an overlap, the brief spill into the past and an action from your childhood is bought back into plain site and a small forgotten memory lingers causing a reflection and possibly a smile.
Lizzie Nunnery, Leaf, Liverpool. 2014. Photograph by Ian D. Hall
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10
Lizzie Nunnery commands respect. Four simple words that are as exact as day must surely follow night or as life will find a way, for anyone catching Lizzie Nunnery for the first time, the heavens may have aligned just at the right moment for them to see for themselves just exactly why Mellowtone rate her so highly and why Liverpool music goers absolutely insist that the woman breathes guitar chords, she plays with such analytical and pure mind that you cannot but be helped drawn into the notes and words.
For forty years The Stranglers have been a part of the British way of life, a group of musicians who raised a fantastic two fingers up to anyone who doubted their ability, who threw scorn upon them from every angle and who perhaps may have suggested that the band were no better than the groups around them who would perhaps disintegrate quicker than cheap soap in a washtub.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *
Cast: Martin Bonger, Margit Szlavik, Elisabet Topp.
There is nothing better feeling than coming out of the theatre knowing you haven’t just been entertained but also educated as well. It is like reading for example American Pastoral by Philip Roth and realising just how much you have learned about the art of making gloves or the inside knowledge of whales you find repeating when reading Moby Dick, theatre is another avenue in which to be cultivated and undeniably enlightened, especially when the play is North North North.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *
Cast: Douglas Henshall, Brian Cox, Mark Bonnar, Alison O’Donnell, Stewart Porter, Sophie Carr-Gomm, Chris Reilly, Erin Armstrong, Rebecca Benson, Finn Den Hertog, Anthony Flanagan, Julie Graham, Steven Robertson, Gowan Calder, Francis Grey, Tunji Kasim, Cara Kelly, Anne Kidd, Freya Monk, Jana Reinermann, Matthew Zajac,
There is perhaps no place more remote in the U.K. than the Shetland Isles, the bleakness of the landscape betraying the cold that sits just below the surface of an island race who are closer perhaps in spirit to their old Nordic heritage than that of Scotland who has been their de facto Government since the 16th Century.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10
Beth Hart and Joe Bonamassa are like twin orbiting stars, the immense fire raging beneath one feeds across to the other in some sort of celestial storm and the warmth received grows in intensity and the process is reversed, a dance between two stars, both pulsating, both energetic and for whom if one was to be pulled away, circulated out of its chosen trajectory, it’s hard to imagine the other’s fire being seen as bright.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * * *
Not since a certain young Joe Bonamassa stood on the stage for his debut performance has anything sounded this good for the very first time.
Laurence Jones is a revelation, a man who has left the murky world of desire and flown straight headlong and true into an album of incredible depth and feeling that the listener maybe forgiven for wondering at what point did they cross a boundary between fact and dreamlike narrative fiction. The lure of lute in a medieval poets hands was surely just as enticing as they made their way across the land thrilling all with stories, tales and fables, now for the 21st Century Laurence Jones entices and persuades easily as he steps out from behind the line of Blues know how and announces himself completely with the album Temptation.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10
Frank Miller is an institution, not just to the world of graphic art and comic books but to film also and no matter that he has worked for the big two when it comes to artwork and writing, on titles such as Batman/ The Dark Knight, Superman (D.C. Comics) and Spider-Man, Daredevil and Elecktra (Marvel), it is perhaps the works that were turned into highly successful and critically acclaimed films, namely 300 and Sin City.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8/10
Cast: Tom Burke, Santiago Cabrera, Luke Pasqualini, Peter Capaldi, Zoe Tapper, Howard Charles, Ryan Gage, Tamla Kari, Maimie McCoy, Hugo Speer, Vinnie Jones, John Lightbody, Perry Fitzpatrick, Bo Poraj, Christos Tolera, Richard Symes, Simon Meacock, Giles Taylor.
Just how does the best swordsman not in active service in France become a member of the elite guards known as The Musketeers? Help from friends, patronage from a great lady, luck, skill, taking on Vinnie Jones in a sword fight that on paper would surely have had footballers of a previous generation checking more than their equipment at the sight of one of the hard men of the game brandishing a weapon.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8/10
Cast: Francesca Davies, Gillian Hardie, Hayley Davies, Nick Sheedy, James Ledsham, Katie King, Danny Woods, Sophie Tickle, Mike Howl, Rob Boyle.
The Cavern in Liverpool is a place of dreams. Even today, long since its golden age and the days in which the Beatles gave all who made their way to the venue a glimpse of the future. It has the power to bestow a certain magic on the thought of artists performing there and the memories of long since departed audiences, the thought of music history forever encased into the walls is one in which visitors clamber over themselves to see.