On Dead Waves, Listen To California. Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10

There is a world into which darkness, the thrill of dusk and the shadows that fall in between is not something to be concerned with, rather it is to be celebrated and allowed to grow strength in the act of consummation; it is knowing that the dark is not only infested by the escaped shadows from the realms of light, it is a place of glory into which dreams can be made; like hearing the words of passengers crossing the Golden Gate Bridge, sometimes you have to Listen To California to appreciate life.

On Dead Waves, Listen To California. Album Review. full post

(386 words, estimated 1:33 mins reading time)

The Boxer Rebellion, Ocean By Ocean. Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

The planet and its inhabitants are not just mostly water, they rely on it, poison it, drink it and consume it; it is almost the ultimate in self cannibalism; drop by drop, sea by sea and Ocean By Ocean, we are awash with the truth of life and yet so few actually feel how open we have to be with ourselves to ever feel clean.

The Boxer Rebellion, Ocean By Ocean. Album Review. full post

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

Flashback.

Flashback;

It was what you gave me

as I turned on my phone

to see your remark

on another person’s page.

Ignoring my own held advice,

that I don’t have the right

to ever know

what other people think of me,

I read the short snappy sentence,

primed like a grenade,

three second rule blast

which tore my heart in two

and my head blown

to pieces on the rocks of someone

else’s insecurity, jealousy

a spread eagled whore

who likes to spread her

Flashback. full post

(371 words, estimated 1:29 mins reading time)

Black Stone Cherry, Kentucky. Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision rating 8.5/10

People forget just how much America is a country that is arguably divided between its own extremes, of the huge and imposing cities that dominate the East and West Coasts, the mega towers that lay in between and the heartlands, the ranges and flatlands that can only look upwards and onwards with either envious eyes or more frankly with pity. It is the extremes, the separation in wealth, poverty, attitude and political alienation that drives the country to its position of dominance and its ability to give music of most genres the fair crack of the whip; after all such diversity will always throw up new heroes to worship and Kentucky is always wild about a new hero.

Black Stone Cherry, Kentucky. Album Review. full post

(403 words, estimated 1:37 mins reading time)

Mean Drunk.

I used to think you were just a mean drunk,

a man who at the end

of the long arduous night

would pop open a tin

of cheap

nasty liquor

and sink them in order,

cans one

through to eventual six

and then to whom resentment

at the world, the sign of the angry

Capitalist, the dead on sarcasm boiled

in rich memory

of having been shafted by the poor,

the meagre and the deprived…

in your greedy eyes,

in your hard-up soul

Mean Drunk. full post

(282 words, estimated 1:08 mins reading time)

Chamberlain And Haywood, First Impression. Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

It is often surprising when music appears out of seemingly nowhere and the entrancing sound that follows the discovery is almost akin to tracing the White Nile to its source and finding that the waters are intrinsically linked forever to The Tweed; music and water are universal, they both play the same song in the hearts of humanity.

For Paul Chamberlain and Michael Haywood, their debut album First Impression is one in which to savour the joy of discovery that the accordion, saxophone, violin and clarinet not only sit together well as they dance upon the knife edge of innovation but they can produce such uplifting and gregarious beauty as it flows along the entire recording.

Chamberlain And Haywood, First Impression. Album Review. full post

(369 words, estimated 1:29 mins reading time)

Muse, Gig Review. The Hydro, Glasgow.

Muse in Glasgow, April 2016. Photograph by Ian D. Hall.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

You cannot fault the effort that Muse put into their show, the production values are simply out of this world, the sound magnificent and the extras that make it always worth attending one of their performances just something to behold with slight awe. What can let it down as you watch the whole evening unfold is when the audience don’t seem to want to join in the fun and the absolute pleasure until very late in the day; the odd mosh pit opening aside, until the old storming favourite of Time Is Running Out presented itself to the crowd, there was hardly a peep of mass voice joining in.

Muse, Gig Review. The Hydro, Glasgow. full post

(438 words, 1 image, estimated 1:45 mins reading time)

Katherine Ryan, Comedy Review. Philharmonic Hall, Liverpool.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Wonderfully outspoken and a glorious acid wit, bundled together to make a woman of keen verbal desire; it’s possible that you might find many such outrageously verbose and sincerely talkative people on the comedy circuit but there are few like Katherine Ryan, there are even less that truly grab you by the short and undeniably curly in such a way as the comedienne from Sarnia in Canada.

Katherine Ryan, Comedy Review. Philharmonic Hall, Liverpool. full post

(397 words, estimated 1:35 mins reading time)

Under No Illusion.

The old lady of Rock and Roll

clears her throat,

smiles benignly to the audience,

a sense

of sorrow in her face

and as she is about to give

her final rendition,

her glorious epitaph to a worthwhile

dream, the Thunderstruck

and those with Big Balls

in jumps a man

instead

who can’t sing a note

but carries on the illusion

to the sound of guns

not cannons…

A Rose that falls

so desperately low

does not salute the worthy,

Under No Illusion. full post

(101 words, estimated 24 secs reading time)

Happy And Complete.

Normal,

who would want

to ever wish

themselves

to be stuck in that

frame of mind and desperate soul;

why be normal when you can be odd,

unique,

completely original

with just the attachment to the rest

being that you love them.

Why can’t you be normal

I was once asked,

why can you be like A,

because S is such a more interesting

letter I thought,

curvy, fluid, rounded,

not fully like an O,

but then

I wouldn’t want to be that complete.

Happy And Complete. full post

(91 words, estimated 22 secs reading time)