Hunched over a Maths textbook,
not filling in Algebra equations,
refusing to bow down to going beyond
angles as they at least
were useful when playing pool
against Andy Bell in many
a Bicester public house,
the cover of the book
instead a hive of activity
in reprinting lyrics from memory
and my own tentative steps,
laborious, protracted and the topic
of conversation between headmaster
and pupil, between careers advisor and
stubborn boy who didn’t want
to anything but write, act and produce
It has been a long road, diverting
along the way, works slowing me down,
to a crawl,
sometimes to a full stop,
never losing sight though of the objective,
to prove them wrong, to show
that a poetic verse or even just a rhyme
is not the same as taking the easy
way out, that I am not
a waste of space.
Ian D. Hall 2016
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10
Time can look you straight in the eyes and without blinking, without ever showing emotion, find a way to unnerve you, show you the colossal state of the Universe and the immensity of it all; then once it has taken you down several pegs it holds your hand, smiles deeply, kisses you on the cheek and allows you another turn around the Sun. It is the kind of benevolence, the deep rooted compassion and underlying Cosmos wake that awaits anyone who wants to seek out beauty in music and who knows they will find it in abundance in The Wonder Stuff.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10
Cast: Rowan Atkinson, David Dawson, Shaun Dingwall, Lucy Cohu, Fiona Shaw, Rebecca Night, Aiden McArdle, Mark Heap, David Annen, Ian Bartholomew, Jessica Bay, Gillian Bevan, Heather Bleasdale, Christopher Bowen, Alexander Campbell, Beth Cooke, Leo Hatton, Jack Johns, Renny Krupinski, Katie Lyons, Colin Mace, Jack McMullen, Zsófia Rea, Hugh Simon, Leo Starr, Martin Turner, Eva-Jane Willis, Nicholas Wittman, Rufus Wright, Scott Alexander Young.
The skin, admittedly once ravaged
by a disease, adult eczema,
taken to extremes
as it ate into my hide,
on the back of my neck, through my scalp
and deep within sweat glands and fur,
is nothing to the leper you have made me
become…
…the glory
in which the smile never leaves your face
like some twisted marionette, string
-less, pompous, arrogant
and once divine to the point of deity,
bow down to the clown
as I once did,
now this leper, confined to the fringe
The meaning of Easter seems lost
now to commerce
and the chocolate making machine
as some perhaps suggest
that a rabbit died
at Calgary, sentenced to be
a hot cross bunny, to take up our sins,
it’s the only explanation
that can be sought
when realising with certain eyebrow
raising deflection
that to complain about Watership Down
being on the little square box
“Today of all days”
is to have offended the Rabbit god,
I scratch my head in wonder at their
acceptance and their knowledge
The sound of a legend talking down the phone might be enough to send the brain cells scurrying into submission, to wave the white flag of surrender and allow the moment to get out of hand but in Geoff Downes’ case it is a moment in which serenity and spirit is authorised to be conscious of just how important groups such as Progressive Rock Kings Yes are to the fabric of Britain and that each member of that group has played their part with enormous pride.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * * *
There has always been so much to like about Paul Heaton, a man who wears his lyrical beauty on his sleeve and who can make a grown man weep with the elegance and sly nod of his words; when you add the delightful voice of Jacqui Abbott, a woman whose own command of the slippery wink worthy English Language is as cunning as her friends and a Liverpool Philharmonic Hall rammed to the point where dancing in the aisles was not only expected but actively encouraged by the words floating with sincerity, then Paul Heaton truly found he had come home.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10
It might be hard to identify at first, the feeling of contentment that pours over you when you listen to James J. Turner, it is like being swept down- stream in raging thought and realising that you are not heading for the whirlpool, you are not going to be digested or abandoned like many others would leave you, exhausted, alone and wondering what the night will bring, instead he seduces, he offers a hand of friendship and hopes that for a while you will accompany him on the journey; for travel, as well as conversation, always broadens the mind.
I must find you a new name,
for Black Dog implies
I can have you put down,
that I can smile and take your flea
bitten arse to a lonely place
in the woods and let you howl
all you want because the only
creatures you’ll attract
are the woodpeckers, black bears
and worms.
But what is the point in it all,
the dream of existing, of being,
when the woodpecker can peck
just as hard and the black bear
is as hungry as ever,