Astles, Full Of Wonder. E.P. Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10

To hear Daniel Astles is to see the point of naming an E.P. Full of Wonder, it does obviously allude to the songs contained harmoniously within the song listing, it does offer the sincerity of the music captured and the respect deserved. However, if you were to choose a title for the young man’s release then you would probably think of him anyway, you would align your thoughts on the whole package and come up with the same belief, that indeed it is Full of Wonder.

Astles, Full Of Wonder. E.P. Review. full post

(368 words, estimated 1:28 mins reading time)

Another Woman’s Mince Pies.

 

She makes them just for me,

and her mum, hand crafted

each Yuletide as the decorations

hang

forever in an unspectacular box

on the airing cupboard.

I told her that I loved her Mince Pies,

despite not caring about the day

itself and they were delicious,

however I had once

tasted, just to try,

a shop finished treat

as I slowly warmed myself with a hot chocolate delight

against the cold I felt in my middle age veins;

Her eyes always blue, blazed and narrowed,

Another Woman’s Mince Pies. full post

(119 words, estimated 29 secs reading time)

The Liver Birds Come Flying Home As Liverpool’s Royal Court Theatre Announces New Show For 2018.

Liverpool’s Royal Court is delighted to announce a new show for 2018 as Liver Birds Flying Home is the brand new musical based on the landmark television series The Liver Birds by Carla Lane and Myra Taylor.

A co-production with James Seabright and George Seaton directed by Benji Sperring, it features all new music by Barb Jungr and Level 42’s Mike Lindup with an original script by Barb Jungr, George Seaton and Linda McDermott. Fully supported by Carla Lane and her family, the show brings the audience up to date with Beryl and Sandra as they are now.

The Liver Birds Come Flying Home As Liverpool’s Royal Court Theatre Announces New Show For 2018. full post

(431 words, estimated 1:43 mins reading time)

Liverpool’s Echo & The Bunnymen Announce New Album And U.K. Headline Tour.

 

“I’m not doing this for anyone else. I’m doing it because it’s important to me to make the songs better. I have to do it.” Ian McCulloch. 

Echo & the Bunnymen have announced a brand new studio album, The Stars, The Oceans & The Moon for 2018, along with a headline U.K. tour, which includes a night at the Liverpool Philharmonic Hall and culminates at London’s Royal Albert Hall.

This new studio album will see The Bunnymen, still lead by the indomitable Ian McCulloch and Will Sergeant, revisit some of their greatest songs to rearrange and transform them with co-producer Andy Wright and …strings and things. Expect a couple of brand new tracks to accompany the classics.

Liverpool’s Echo & The Bunnymen Announce New Album And U.K. Headline Tour. full post

(350 words, estimated 1:24 mins reading time)

Hazel O’ Connor, Gig Review. Epstein Theatre, Liverpool.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Time, as noted by the singer and the audience, is a peculiar animal, it can snarl all it wants, it can find ways to give new perspective to eras in which some saw the end of a kind of order and were frightened by the prospect and in which other relished and rubbed their hands in glee as the future and bold vision opened up before them.

Hazel O’ Connor, Gig Review. Epstein Theatre, Liverpool. full post

(414 words, estimated 1:39 mins reading time)

Alison Moyet, Gig Review. Philharmonic Hall, Liverpool.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * * *

To make the audience focus completely on the drama unfolding before them takes consummate skill, a deftness of spirit, the potency of allure and the mystery, the sense of living through a moment so tangible that it seems all the functions of the human body stop what they are doing and just sit in the honour of the spectacle; to focus so much that you cannot hear a crowd breathe during a song and then applaud like a series of rolling thunderstorms across an empty desert, that is the absolute found.

Alison Moyet, Gig Review. Philharmonic Hall, Liverpool. full post

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

David Botting, Heart Beat. Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 7.5/10

It has always been noted that life can change within the beat of a single heart, that to not listen to the sound of your inner being is a sure fire way to be seen as nonchalant, perhaps even believing that the sound of a till in these desperate consumer driven days and times of political unreality is more in keeping with 21st Century dogma than ever stopping to think just how fortunate we are to have an organ in us that feels love, pain, despair and elation.

David Botting, Heart Beat. Album Review. full post

(413 words, 1 image, estimated 1:39 mins reading time)

Skinny Lister, The Devil, The Heart & The Fight. Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10

You can be thrashed, taken apart by friends, Government and by the elements that sometimes dictate the way world turns but all you need to survive and see out the storm that tries its best to put you under is The Devil, The Heart & The Fight, hopefully supplied by those that love you, those that will fight your corner when the world is Hell bent on seeing you suffer, those that will help you raise two fingers to the world and for whatever reason smile when the world shrinks back due to its own cowardice.

Skinny Lister, The Devil, The Heart & The Fight. Album Review. full post

(399 words, 1 image, estimated 1:36 mins reading time)

Tiny Vultures.

 

Should I not

answer you

in the social media world,

should you worry that upon

my floor I lay, tongue hanging,

gathering dust and flies

buzzing round,

eager vultures laying eggs, maggot, bluebottle,

think on,

perhaps I have forgotten,

late Middle age is near

and sometimes the fog is thicker

than it was,

other things catching my attention,

not out of malice but an interest

in the new for now,

or it could be that I found it rude

Tiny Vultures. full post

(123 words, estimated 30 secs reading time)

First Casting Announced For The Story Of Lennon’s Missing Banjo.

 

“The very first tune I ever learned to play was “That’ll Be The Day. My mother Julia taught it to me on the banjo, sitting there with endless patience until I managed to work out all the chords”. John Lennon.

 

Lennon’s Banjo – one of the most hotly-anticipated new plays of 2018 – will premiere at Liverpool’s Epstein Theatre next spring.

Now producers reveal the first four cast members who will appear in this fascinating romp through Beatledom to find the holy grail of pop memorabilia – the first instrument John Lennon learnt to play – missing for 60 years and now worth millions!

First Casting Announced For The Story Of Lennon’s Missing Banjo. full post

(958 words, estimated 3:50 mins reading time)