The Adventures Of Captain Of The Lost Waves, Hidden Gems. Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * * *

Theatre is as much about experimental as it is the reliance on the original and the long standing, the deep rooted and the childhood memories of how fresh the mature and seasoned felt when you first experienced it. It is the playful and the daring to look behind the curtain, the realisation that Dorothy Gale was wrong, there was no conjurer and purveyor of cheap illusion hiding in Oz, it was magic all along and magic that drives the sensational and theatrical to unveil its Hidden Gems.

The Adventures Of Captain Of The Lost Waves, Hidden Gems. Album Review. full post

(407 words, estimated 1:38 mins reading time)

Bat-Shit Crazy.

How did I end up with a surreal addled mind,

almost drunk, sepia toned

and full of exotic weirdness;

one straight linear dream in all these years

and that I can trace back to watching Threads

the night before, scaring the crap,

the very life out of me,

a cautionary tale, I

sometimes get too involved with these dreams,

too upset and confused by the appearance

of the unexpected, the false trail

and the shivering cold of plunging

my awake brain into working

what the synaptic dozy messages mean…

Bat-Shit Crazy. full post

(155 words, estimated 37 secs reading time)

Beth Hart, Fire On The Floor. Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10

The act of sensuality is not lost, it has not become driven out into the cold and left to starve in a parking lot somewhere off the Pacific Coast Highway, shrouded by the deep greens and ambers of trees spoiling for a fight against the depths of a winter to come, sensuality is always around, it just has been overshadowed by the unremarkable and insidious. It takes a rock star of breath-taking quality to break through the over sexualised hype, a musician of conviction whose voice is the calling card to have lyrics gush in embarrassment at the attention they receive.

Beth Hart, Fire On The Floor. Album Review. full post

(505 words, 1 image, estimated 2:01 mins reading time)

Bad Touch, Truth Be Told. Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10

Therapy comes in all shapes and sizes, all manners and means, sometimes it is the smallest expression of gratitude that makes the difference to the situation, that the signal from a snare and the hum of a microphone can repair the damage done in life; it might seem a moment of Bad Touch but Truth Be Told, music is arguably the most therapeutic mechanism on the planet.

Bad Touch, Truth Be Told. Album Review. full post

(374 words, 1 image, estimated 1:30 mins reading time)

Liverpool Sound And Vision: An Interview With Nick Bagnall.

Nick Bagnall sits down in one of the many chairs that regimentally line the ground floor café at the Everyman Theatre in Liverpool. A look of wide eyed humour that always seems to bring out the very best in who he is in conversation with fills the room and somehow, as if by some Shakespearian magic, manages to drown out the world surrounding him. The sound of the music that had the ears flapping in enjoyment before hand is now silent, the sense of nerves one feels when meeting someone who has done so much for the city’s artistic front in the last couple of years, is dissipated and sent packing into the ether as if carried by the Tempest or the heavy hand of Bottom.

Liverpool Sound And Vision: An Interview With Nick Bagnall. full post

(3532 words, estimated 14:08 mins reading time)

Life Style Choice.

The choice to go

into politics, industry,

work and fleece millions

out of their hard earned dough,

by casually calling it an investment,

when really it nothing more

than gambling on a higher

stage, place your bets,

roulette wheel time,

money as safe as houses

in a time of repossession,

should be seen

as a life style choice,

not to be lauded

or having the craft

of the artist sully their hands

with handouts to those who benefit;

keep the hard working coin

Life Style Choice. full post

(127 words, estimated 30 secs reading time)

Slow Show, Dream Darling. Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

The well seasoned traveller, regardless of whether they have gone in search of inspiration, truth or melancholic anarchy or if they have stayed at home, allowing their mind to imagine the world in a perfect image, their own smile lighting up a million street lamps as their mind’s eye sees the ruins of once great cities or the flowering of new hope. All of these adventures are powered by the Dream Darling, the mordant and the biting, the homely and the gentle tones of other people’s voices scurrying around inside their heads, leading them on, leading them astray and always insisting that the reverie continues.

Slow Show, Dream Darling. Album Review. full post

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

Beans On Toast, A Spanner In The Works. Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * **

The following of a cult can be considered dangerous, a precarious passion to indulge your time within and one that is never truly advised and yet the cult figure, the difference in the fresh and the out of date is something that always appeals. The prospect of finding the stirring beginnings of another like minded Ian Dury, in whatever form, is enough to prick the ears back and listen with a wry smile at the dry wit on hand; in Beans on Toast’s new album, A Spanner In The Works, that appeal of the unusual and anti- trendy is sublime and an alternative falling for.

Beans On Toast, A Spanner In The Works. Album Review. full post

(419 words, estimated 1:41 mins reading time)

Satan’s Bear.

If you poke the Bear,

you really should expect

to find yourself

on the end of sharp and dangerous claws

and yet we poke, we provoke,

we decide to inflame the situation

and now Satan is revealed,

the pulsing super penis

that the Bear holds between its legs

and starts to dribble its urine

on the world; Satan

so apt an name,

forgive me my non-existent deity,

I think we have screwed up

big this time…

the rocket fuelled penis

only needs a number

Satan’s Bear. full post

(95 words, estimated 23 secs reading time)

Gary Maginnis & The Like, Guiding Light. Single Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10

The search for the light is never ending, it takes up so much of our time on Earth that we can blink and miss the signal to start our own lives, rummage around our own personal lighthouse and make sure all the boats on the distant waters are safe from the harm of the rocks we place around them. The Guiding Light is the principal of safety and the escort who will lead you into the protected hands of trustworthy, it is a principle that Gary Maginnis & The Like hold dear and with dependable cool.

Gary Maginnis & The Like, Guiding Light. Single Review. full post

(338 words, estimated 1:21 mins reading time)