A potato is just a potato,
humble, quiet,
unassuming,
an object from the soil,
do whatever you want with it,
all is good…
until you make it spell a name,
till you see that there is nothing more
important in the world
worth fighting over,
worth a revolution
than a potato
that cannot spell…
Ian D. Hall 2016
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10
To be seen as perfect is not always the ideal, to have A Perfect Landing might be seen as textbook, as rigid and completely by the book as you can get and one that doesn’t allow for any variation in imagination or in the scale of the job at hand. Yet for Sheila K, Cameron A Perfect Landing is a piece of music that the listener cannot but help care for and admire because it offers a different set of values to which the absolute never caters for, that of unblemished hope.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *
Delicate as bird taking its first flight across a cloudless sky or as subtle as the first whispering of a night of Prog heralded by the sound of a meaningful but floating cymbal, Acadian Driftwood sound as beautiful and peaceful as the cries of dawn against the savagery that life can throw at you but they also catapult lines of extreme dynamic potential into the mix at the same time. It is pure and overpoweringly elusive, something you can imagine holding but knowing full well that the musicians are in complete control of this dream like state.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10
Cast: Tom Hanks, Aaron Eckhart, Valerie Mahaffey, Delphi Harrington, Mike O’ Malley, James Sheridan, Anna Gunn, Holt McCallany, Ahmed Lucan, Laura Linney, Katie Couric, Jeff Kober, Blake Jones, Molly Bernard, Chris Bauer, Jane Gabbart, Ann Cusak, Molly Hagan, Purva Bedi, Max Adler, Sam Huntington, Christopher Curry, Vincent Lombardi.
To deny the written word,
to seek to erase words
that might offend
is as criminal
as the act in which they were used
to demonise in the first place;
not only in Virginia it seems
can a word see a book banned
from being taught
but why stop there, lets place a prohibition
upon all literature,
all words,
give them a life sentence
for in the beginning
was the word
and now that word
is mute.
Ian D. Hall 2016
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10
Darkness comes quickly this time of year, it has the appearance of being shrouded in mystery and the decidedly ambiguous, shadows form and egged on by the early onset of street lamps that hang over the heads of the wandering seeker of music and art as if taking on the form of lonely satellites shining a path between pillar and post; for true illumination though, you have to wander beyond the streets, set the eyes firmly in search of a beacon of hope and know that no matter how dark December is, it is only a few short weeks till the world starts to turn and the light comes flooding back.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *
The pull the city of Liverpool has on musicians is never anything short of incredible, there must be an invisible hook, a stream of unbreakable Velcro that catches all it aims for and who want to be caught in its heart, for no matter how long you have resided in the city, you will always come across a stranger with a smile and carrying more than likely the weapon of a guitar in their hands who is just happy to play a couple of songs in the most artistic city in the country.
Made your resolutions yet?
I once vowed to not
eat fish for a year
after hearing that cod was running out; I missed
the taste of battered flesh
and the vinegar that splashed
over spiky remains.
Why wait till December 31st,
this new year, new you bollocks…
if you really wanted to change,
you wouldn’t wait a month.
Ian D. Hall 2016
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10
When they don’t let you take advantage of your first chance, the second stab at showing the world your words not only has to be taken, it has grabbed, slung over the shoulder and held so tightly that nobody can ever wrestle it of you. It requires love, attention and the spite to spit in the faces of all the detractors and those that dare raise their eyebrows in mock derision and painful excuses; wherever the Rain may fall, is not usually the sign of a flood but of the green and well thought of lawn, of the return of one of Liverpool’s much admired bands.
The pain was intense,
meant that I dropped the plate
that I was carrying
and it split into three large
china fragments
and small dust pieces,
like the first split in the land mass
of Pangea, never again fitting.
I screamed but no one was there
in the virtual world
and nobody cared in mine,
silence after the final shattering
realisation that I am on my own,
as we all are
when we break the china plate.
Ian D. Hall 2016