All those photos
doesn’t he look handsome,
big cheesy smiles
for the waiting camera
and the very proud Mum,
back to school again
in polished shoes and single
creased trousers,
all now in the world
for the world
to see.
We never see the end of first day,
the hole in the knee
where football was too much
of a pull
and the scuffed shoes
from a shot
that rivalled
anything that went on Match of the Day
at the weekend;
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * * *
When the past has been so good, it is always a shame that the future might be considered blank, a void, the page that will remain unwritten and with the ink kept inside its pen, nothing great lasts forever, yet in the hands of the four giants that make up Black Country Communion, it can at least be seen to add a smile to the lips of musical eternity.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10
There is not much you can do when you feel the pull of the High Temperature, when the sweat drives on and the pulse begins to race just that little bit harder than you would otherwise feel comfortable with. When the heat, when the temperature runs high, you just have to lay back and feel the warmth, express the desire to let it be cool and let a musician such as JW Jones open up his hands and rub the Blues and Rock right through you.
The souls of coffee beans
evaporate in the air,
apparitions
apparent for a brief moment
on the edge of twilight,
pulling me along for the ride;
so easy to despise one’s self at four
in the morning as the smoke
from a cheap cigar
dances with the Mersey mist
and allows you to believe that Time
is ready to pull you apart.
Ian D. Hall 2017
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10
A mountain is universally not measured to the same scale on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean; the definition of such is awkward, the symbolism perhaps uncomfortable, one person’s mountain is another’s hill and yet both require the mind and the body to imagine conquering the heights and laying down the flag on the very pinnacle of expression and heartfelt scales of demonstration.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *
Often in life anarchy presents itself as well meaning, it is only when you look at it objectively and close up that what you first perceived as rebellion and possible revolution, is merely playful change, a flexing of muscles which have no discernible interest in revolt, it just wants to be noticed; it is the age of the petulant and the grumpy asking for attention and thus the cycle continues.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 7.5/10
Any venture into the unknown should be celebrated with the loud and cheerfully fulfilling; it is the fear that keeps us in our own personal caves, eyes used to the meagre light afforded us by holding back, not willing to see what lays beyond the crevice and the crack in the rocks. The fear may hold us back but humanity always perseveres and in some cases, the first step out into the blinking light is worth the sound of the metaphorical Cave In, the abandoning and crumbling of that fear, that will inevitably follows.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *
Cast: Tom Burke, Holliday Grainger, Martin Shaw, Davis Avery, Leo Bill, Tara Fitzgerald, Kadiff Kirwan, Kerr Logan, Natasha O’Keeffe, Killian Scott, Bronson Webb, Elarica Johnson, Amber Anderson, Brian Bovell, Adelle Leonce, Kevin Fuller, Greg McKenzie, Jazz Cartier, Tezlym Senior-Sakutu, Suzanna Hamilton, Callie Coke, Sian Phillips.
There is always a detective waiting in the wings, a shadow waiting to emerge and be able to save the day with cunning, remarkable insight and the odd quirk to their name; in an age where television and arguably literature seems to have cornered every possible way to portray the down at heel gumshoe or detective with a flaw, along comes Cormoran Strike to add another dimension to the armchair detective’s televised alter ego.
Look at the art
not to the artist,
for the polarising view
of half the population
will have you believe
that you are dancing with Jane Fonda
under a star filled night sky
and the siren of the 60s screen
is dressed like Barbarella; whilst
others will have you convinced that
Hanoi Jane is leading you astray,
not realising the implications
of both and one and the same.
Look to the art and not the artist they say,
yet deep down, I would still dance
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *
Gravity will always do its best to keep us firmly in our place; its function is to stop reaching out beyond our sphere and arguably play with our hopes, our aspirations, gravity keeps us grounded; however gravity can also be fooled, it can be given dignity by those who find a way to harness its energy and who can teach it to sing with bright sedateness and not insignificant magnitude.