Sockless
and feeling the chill
of a slight September breeze
blowing across the vacant
church’s lawn, through
the tall trees that cover its blank
windows of now soulless celebration
like an autumn sheet
with browning leaves adorning the pavement,
I light a cigar in the last
sunshine that I shall see today
and breathe in a seldom ritual
to escape the craving of chocolate,
of the bounty of gluttony
that has swelled
my disposition over forty years;
one habit to replace another,
September comes around so fast, the first squeals of the autumn deluge, the days in which humanity’s first natural thoughts are to the dark days of winter that are just over the horizon. It is the autumn that perhaps reflects the mood of aging better than any other season, life in a three month cycle summed up against the flower of youth, the heady days of summer which whispers of all the potential experiences that can be had and the quiet of old age winter, autumn in life is the best we might be able to attain, the final flourish in a life well lived.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10
In the world of art, in whatever shape or form it should take, the brave, the courageous and those that dare stare into the face of the oncoming light are always those that should be highly prized. For some, just playing a guitar, penning an verse or putting a half made bed together and throwing a little bit of rubbish into the sleeping arena is enough to constitute a day well spent, that is fine, each to their own but it is like comparing The Orient Express to the coach pulled monstrosities that inhabit the tracks of Britain today, anything can be a train but it takes class and passion to be in a special group of Trains.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *
Comedy is all about interpretation, like music it can transcend across boundaries, international borders and the pain of the language barrier; comedy is the reason to laugh at the world when the world has destroyed almost everything else you have lived for. Whilst some words or actions can become lost, drift in another fruitless direction, translation is the key and it is one that the Shaved Dog Comedy duo of Danny Bradley and Michael Burton decode with genuine honest appeal and superb flair.
Picking over the words,
the vulture harvesting the
single tasty treat surrounding the bones,
I stagger and reel at the weight
of my sentence, always
truthfully incomplete,
not quite the full essay
or explanation that people require
or should be satisfied with,
but it is the only one I can offer,
the only true meaning behind all the madness,
I live for the word,
I shall die by the word,
in pursuit of the full stop,
in the drive to fall into a comma,
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10
You can have as many one sided chats with the almighty as you want but in the end, as many have found to their cost throughout the centuries, She might not or cannot be bothered, to answer back. You only have to look at some of the real hardships faced in the world, the displacement, the cities sacrificed and those with too many loose morals with the fingers on the cull switch to understand that having a conversation with god is about as useful as striking up a discussion with Death.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *
Life is a lottery, a moment in which when your time to shine is perhaps over, you slink back into the shadows and let the next generation have their say; not exactly, not ever, if the message is strong, if the words and the ideals are still relevant then no matter the time in that person’s life, the yardstick in which their years as an ambassador, as a rebel with a cause, is what matters. For Ian Hunter & The Rant Band, Fingers Crossed, they will forever be the ambassador and the rebel, the vanguards of the good fight of the eternal battle against the humdrum and the tediously packaged.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10
If it is your friends that shape you as you stride the path ahead, then it has to be your family that make you what you are, you may not realise it, you may not even care, but it is your blood that has bought you to this point in time and the stories of your ancestors are just as, if not more important that your own. It is a realisation that Shakin’ Stevens has found and played within the realm of his new album, the enjoyable, the pleasurable and unrelenting Echoes Of Our Times.
I await our Archduke Ferdinand moment,
the catalyst in which many of us will fade
into history’s notebook and which is followed
by the eraser, the silver tongue
with white mesh, diseases
of the throat capturing the lies,
spreading the hatred;
I await the gossip that spews
from the fountain of knowledge
and know that all I have learned,
all I have tried in vain
to remember
will be put down in a diary,
hidden under rubble
till the world is awash
with God’s curse.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10
The very best of men are those that have the mystique of being legendary about them, the glow that the audience sees on stage and who revel in the mystery but also appreciate the man, the very human, the down to Earth persona of the artist who is extremely talented but immensely humble about their contribution to the world, the music and souls they have touched.