I often thought about running away from home
when I was a child,
not because I was unhappy or ill treated,
neglected or even abused
by those charged with caring for me,
but simply due to the map of the world
that graced the wall of my bedroom,
surrounded by torn out pictures
of Steve Heighway, Johan Cruyff,
Colin Bell on football styled 1978
World Cup designed wall paper
that was all the rage in Birmingham
during Argentina’s rise to prominence.
The map became torn and scuffed
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 7/10
Like chalk and cheese, Paul Simon’s albums normally seem to go from exquisite high to downbeat low, from painstaking beauty to a desire left unfilled. It is in the nature of the listener to find absolute joy and the feeling of cold aloofness throughout every one of Paul Simon’s albums; however it is not one that normally follows in a single album.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *
From Given to Forgiven, the song is always in the moulded, sculptured hands of Simon Cousins. It is a sculpture that is worked upon, that is designed and produced with full heart, from Given to Forgiven, Simon Cousins holds the listener close and asks only that the latest creation is known for its honesty.
Yes, there is a monster in you,
I can see it in your left eye,
its claws sharp, beckoning, dangerous
and demented as its scratches
along the iris, leaving lines that seep
out the pale red of humanity
that it affords you, that the monster,
cunning and deceitful allows you too feel.
I see the monster and hear it growl and laugh,
I experience suffering
as I try my damndest to pull away
from the stare, the fixated point of lascivious
longing that comes with natural ardour.
The radio, in many people’s eyes the perfect companion, unobtrusive, clear and concise and full of mystery. Like a night in the theatre it speaks to you from out of the darkness, it talks to you like an old friend who understands your need for whatever genre it has in store and unlike television and cinema with its blatant chattering and full on meddlesome ways, the radio has a technique, a manner, in which it makes you feel as though you are the only one hearing the conversation; a two way discussion peppered with great music.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10
It is the sound of an old but vibrant soul, of the appealing echo that resonates around the air of authority that hangs around the personality and playing ability of Cal Ruddy which makes him so incessantly cool; for the young man has a natural tendency to come up with a song that not only captures the attention of the listener from the very first hook, he does it a way which makes you think.
The real job,
the well turned phrase
of the unimaginative,
of the angry dull
and the unoriginal irate,
why don’t you get a real job…
instead of…
cause pulling numbers out of thin air,
of chairing a committee looking
into the habits of weasels,
or driving a lorry with firmly entrenched
political views is any more a real job
than performing on stage
with the prospect of thunderous applause…
I presume the fuming featureless words
are always said for effect,
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10
There are entertainers and there are showmen, there are the musicians and songwriters to whom artistic impression is everything and to which a brief single moment in time in their company as they strut the stage is enough to fall in love with them.
There is no doubt that Adam Ant, a darling of the British music empire, a man who broke rules and was loved for it, still has the ability to turn heads, to slay an audience with a single smile and to offer the feelings of youthful unfulfilled desire with a single bound of his incredible presence. The stage would not be anything without the man to whom personality is an overwhelming prospect and outlandish cool but a genuine request to stand in awe of.
I wish I could take back
what I never said, the phone call
that went before it
and the day that I first met you,
for then I could say with a strange kind
of euphoria in my voice
that I was happier than I am right now
when I see your picture glaring
back, two faced, at me.
I wish I could take back the first lie
I told my dad and the moment before
in which I just wanted
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 7.5/10
Isolation is perhaps the cruellest sentence to impose upon anybody, it smacks of abandonment, of segregation from your fellow man and can foster resentment and overwhelming feelings of revenge; rather than the perfect seclusion we all dream of having for perhaps just a week in our lives, where to do our own thing, be at one with the world, is almost to be seen as the ideal.