Music and video used to go hand in hand with each other, especially in the 1980s, where it was expected that a well-made video would give a band or artist a huge lift in sales. For anybody who was getting into music in the early part of the tandem craft, songs such as Ultravox’s Vienna, A-Ha’s Take On Me, Frankie Goes To Hollywood’s Two Tribes, Marillion’s Kayleigh and Genesis’ Land of Confusion were as well remembered for their iconic videos as they were for the creative lyrics and supreme music.
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Venus In Fur, Film Review. Picturehouse@F.AC.T. Liverpool.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10
Cast: Emmanuelle Seigner, Mathieu Amalric.
Foreign language films in Britain do tend to attract a niche audience but that should not deter any fan of cinema from attending a showing of Director Roman Polanski’s film Venus in Fur.
In the U.K. audiences do tend to be split in the appreciation of a good film that has travelled across the deep waters of the Channel, it is a shame but it does happen. If an exception should be made for a film in the last ten years then Venus in Fur should be top of the pile. For this highly charged, message filled, erotic and electrifying piece of cinema, the limits of enjoyment are only placed by the confines of the mind’s refusal to accept something new and something truly fascinating, even enthralling and most of all completely and wonderfully strange.
Belle, Film Review. Picturehouse@F.A.C.T. Liverpool.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *
Cast: Tom Wilkinson, Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Emily Watson, Sam Reid, Tom Felton, James Norton, Miranda Richardson, Penelope Wilton, Sarah Gadon, Matthew Goode, Lauren Julien-Box, Natasha Williams, Alan McKenna, Timothy Walker, David Gant, Charlotte Roach, Rupert Wickham, Bethan Mary-James, Alana Ramsey, Alex Jennings, Daniel Wilde, Susan Brown, James Northcote, Andrew Woodall, Edmund Short, Christopher Middleton.
Pride meets extremism prejudice in Misan Sagay’s well written script for the film Belle.
Lennon, Theatre Review. Royal Court Theatre, Liverpool. (2014)
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * * *
Cast: John Power, Tom Connor, Kirsten Foster, Ross Higginson, Adam Keast, Jonathan Markwood, Daniel McIntyre, Mark Newnham, Nicky Swift.
It is impossible to thank somebody across the ages, to shake their hand and say cheers for bringing a story to life, even when that person is still such a force in Liverpool’s artistic and cultural society, you cannot go back to a day over 30 years ago and tell them thank you for telling the dramatic life of one of the true heroes to have come from a city in which salutes its champions harder than anywhere else in the country. However if you should bump into Bob Eaton then try your absolute best to thank him for taking the chance on a production at the Everyman Theatre just a few short months after the passing of John Lennon.
Seether, Isolate And Medicate. Album Review.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10
Every so often the urge to bang your head in time to the powerful beat playing out before you is so overwhelming that anyone with a serious neck condition might really have to think twice before disregarding a medical practitioners sage advice. On the other hand, you only live once and the music that Seether, the raw power that comes across from Shaun Morgan, Dale Stewart and John Humphrey amps should never get in the way of enjoying the unfolding spectacle.
Gary Gardner, Privileged. E.P. Review.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *
Having had the honour of seeing Gary Gardener perform live, the music fan could take the news of an imminent release of an E.P. with great pleasure. In fact in some parts of the world the celebrations would be so great that they would be cleaning off the bunting off the streets for weeks! This though being Britain, restrained jubilance is always a key. For there would be nothing worse than taking a well-made pudding out of the oven and adding just another egg to the texture. Gary Gardner is worth more than that and the set of songs he has placed under the E.P. title of Privileged is not just a sign of things to come but the eye raising unrestricted look into a musician’s mind.
Merseyside’s Finest Take To The Stage For One Night Only!
LHK Productions returns in 2014 with their amazing celebration of Merseyside talent, One Night Only. After successful shows at the Liverpool Empire in 2010 and Southport Theatre & Warrington Parr Halls in 2011 the show will be making its way, due to popular demand, to the Epstein Theatre and The Atkinson this autumn.
One Night Only is a feel good variety performance with some of your favourite Merseyside personalities as the stars of the show. This must see production includes show-stopping numbers from the world of musical theatre which has All That Jazz and enough Razzle Dazzle to leave you wanting more than one night only.
Liverpool Legend Ian McNabb Joins 92.1 FM Wirral Radio.
Get ready for 2 hours of premium rock ‘n’ roll, super opinionated banter, superb guests and live music every Friday night 10pm to midnight on The Ian McNabb Show.
“I am a lover of radio and always listen to a few hours of it every week in the hope that I will hear something I’ve never heard before and learn something new. Being given this opportunity to have my own show on Wirral Radio is a real thrill for me, especially as I have no brief from anyone about what type of music I can play. I have a free hand and it will basically be a night round at mine for a party. I can’t wait! I will also feature a guest every week and we will have acoustic music live. I will play some of my own stuff too of course” says Ian McNabb.
F.I.F.A World Cup 2014. Columbia V Greece. Match Report.
First published by Ace Magazine online, June 2014
Columbia taking on Greece was never going to be the highlight of the 2014 World Cup; however for the 50,000 plus fans inside the Estádio Mineirão in Belo Horizonte the game was surely riveting, colourful and for the first four minutes at least could have gone either way. It was a game in which vindication of 32 teams in the competition presented itself, perhaps for the first time since 1990.
World Cup 2014: Ivory Coast V Japan. Match Report
First published by Ace Magazine, June 2014.
Until the legendary Didier Drogba came off the bench, The Ivory Coast never truly looked like breaking sweat, let alone scoring. Yet something changed in the space of two minutes, something astonishing happened, The Ivory Coast suddenly turned on the heat, the drums in the stands, so long a sound to terrify even the most seasoned of explorers to the dark-continent, became louder, deafening and thunderous and matched the intensity in which Cheick Tioté, Didier Drogba and Yaya Touré had wanted their team to play.