To death of such things
I salute you.
I raise my glass high and see the chink
in its armour sparkle with the mystery of
pleasant false respect and in yours,
held down low, sneering in its deceived imprisonment,
the thumb print gripping tighter,
it growls like a hungry tiger, fur mottled and damp
with pain, your glass remains a silent predator.
I do not fear you,
however under your nightmare armour
you fear me,
why would you have not taken me yet,
A day out in Stratford,
the November day brutally sunny,
the thin air of satisfaction multiplied
and the low down Sun blinding the eyes
and warming the soul
as fish and chips are eaten in Rio open air
and the taste of Greasepaint and the ghost
of Hamlet fills the Time.
I imagine the small boy of eight,
the day trip taken from Moor Street
Station past the furthest reaches
of Acocks Green and my grandfather’s garage
with spinning top drivers and the forgotten clippie girl
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10
Cast: Ben Vaughn, Karen Brooks, John Nichols, Niki Baldwin.
The glorious shadow of the R.S.C. looms large over Stratford-Upon-Avon, like Duncan at the feast, the spectral glow is always uppermost in people’s minds when they think of the much loved Warwickshire town.
For some the strength, valour and beauty of the R.S.C. might be considered a hindrance in being able to show with any type of realistic pleasure performances by other companies, that other theatres wishing to open up and bring in works away from the greatest ever playwright would find it difficult to live under the looming illumination that spreads from down by the river and into everybody’s lives, Relatively Speaking of course.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10
To see Patterns where there are none is a propensity that only Humans seem to be able to master with such high definitive skill and yet it doesn’t stop the relationship between the imagination and the unclear from forming, from enveloping itself deep into the psyche. It is that recognition, that connection that forges ideas, theories and the intimate design of logical answers and wild speculation to thrive and give credence to our existence.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *
When you are afforded the opportunity to listen to a loose collection of songs, a dip into the ocean of artistic endeavour and pre-E.P. planning, then the honourable thing to do is to take that opportunity and allows the un-bound and unrestricted access to all areas.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *
If the need for the sincere spiritual uplift is ever taken up, then surely it would fall to Shirlie Roden to supply it.
Music is a subjective beast, the adoration or the desire of it is as individual as the snowflake cascading, hurtling with intent down to Earth and can be just as easily destroyed by the uncaring or the blindly ignorant. It can suffer derision, it can enlighten. Yet throughout it all a particular piece of music might fall into the hands and it can offer a glimpse of something tangible that had not been seen before, a sideways glance out of the corner of a myopic eye and the realisation that the world is so much bigger, so much brighter that it was thought to be. This is arguably the case with Shirlie Roden’s seventh studio album, Be The Love.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10
Cast: Peter Capaldi, Jenna Coleman, Ingrid Oliver, Jemma Redgrave, Jaye Griffiths, Cleopatra Dickens, Rebecca Front, Abhishek Singh, Samila Kularatne, Todd Kramer, Jill Winternitz, Gretchen Egolf, Karen Mann, Aiden Cook, Tom Wilton.
The world is replete with the tales of the fear of losing one’s identity, of having it usurped, stolen, by another and seeing it misused, misappropriated and driven to the edge of a psychological breakdown; it is the story that has been the inspiration behind so many science fiction stories and the very real and perhaps just as imagined terror that led to the insanity of the McCarthy Trials in the attempt to root out so called Communists in American life.
Midnight calls and the terror begins,
the creeping agony of the task ahead,
to battle the Witch Queen
as she raps on the door, testing for your weakness
and the sliver of black octopus tentacles
reaches in like rubber smoke
to throttle your resolve.
Coral Mallor, an unearthly name,
strikes fear into all known men
and even the women that she professes to love
cross themselves in her company
and the Devil, shining red and with muscular sword
in hand looks at his companion and dreads
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *
Addiction can cost and yet in some cases the thrill of the chase is worth it, especially when it leads to a road previously unexplored and one that doesn’t cause harm or specific danger to anyone; it is the addiction of a music nature, a compulsion to attempt to understand the arts, in any of its languages or forceful communications, that leads to deeper enjoyment and perhaps a flirtatious infatuation that just keeps giving.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 7.5/10
An artist who speaks their mind, is worth their weight in gold; an artist who doesn’t mind the thought of how his ideas may be interpreted should on many levels be lauded and praised for having the courage and the audacity of their convictions to be seen for standing for the notion of uniqueness. It is into that arena, that barbed cage of industry that Duncan Ewart throws his hat into the ring for and which not many could claim to have tossed A Better Hat upon.