The Science Of The Lamps, Gig Review. Epstein Theatre, Liverpool.

The Science of the Lamps at The Epstein Theatre, Liverpool. December 2014. Photograph by Ian D. Hall.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

It doesn’t matter how long it has been since you last saw Science of the Lamps perform, some things are timeless enough to go at least a week without seeing. No more than a week though if you can ever help it and the twin dilemmas of appropriate funds and urging vocalist Kaya Herstad Carney to play more often with the imagery she deals out with utterly delicious precision are stacked in your favour.

The Science Of The Lamps, Gig Review. Epstein Theatre, Liverpool. full post

(469 words, 1 image, estimated 1:53 mins reading time)

Liverpool Sound And Vision: The Sunday Postscript, An Interview With John Jenkins.

It is only through persistence and sheer will power that John Jenkins is sat infront of me discussing his band’s latest album, Intruders and the general music scene in Liverpool post the turn of the century. Not my own will power but the genuine amiability and overall geniality of Mr. Jenkins who has waited patiently for me to meet up with him for a couple of weeks as I struggled to keep appointments due to health. It is to the musician that must be thanked for keeping faith in a world where faith sometimes is easily lost at the drop of a hat, in a world where disposability is a disease.

Liverpool Sound And Vision: The Sunday Postscript, An Interview With John Jenkins. full post

(2145 words, estimated 8:35 mins reading time)

Rumplestiltskin, Theatre Review. Unity Theatre, Liverpool.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Cast: Aiden Lee Brooks, Cameron McKendrick, Dora Colquhoun, Shaun Roberts.

There are creatures out there whose only aim is that of self-gratification, assuredness so overwhelming that it is blackened, cheap and nasty and an arrogance that sits and festers at the heart of a life like a sweating, bulbous spider on fly filled web, heavily pregnant and with a seething desire to take anything that isn’t theirs. These creatures may still be recognised but the more as a species we have galloped towards a consumerism that is more consuming than helpful, the less chance we have remembering old tales passed down, tales of not accepting help from a creature of the neglected forest.

Rumplestiltskin, Theatre Review. Unity Theatre, Liverpool. full post

(465 words, estimated 1:52 mins reading time)

Joe Symes And The Loving Kind, Gig Review. District, Liverpool.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

To perform in Liverpool should be a nothing less than an honour. It is the rightful home of the birth of British Pop Music, the most successful city in the U.K. where music is concerned and in many way it is home to perhaps the most diverse variety, with even the glimmering of the heavier side of Metal and the coolness of Progressive Rock having its fans in the Merseyside areas surrounding the heartlands of venues such as The Cavern, Parr Street, The Academy, District, The Lomax, The Brink and The Epstein. To perform in Liverpool should be an honour, to watch Joe Symes and Loving Kind is a special kind of privilege.

Joe Symes And The Loving Kind, Gig Review. District, Liverpool. full post

(581 words, estimated 2:19 mins reading time)

Shamanarchy, Gig Review. District, Liverpool.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 7.5/10

It might not quite be Anarchy in the U.K. but the spirit of women with attitude, the delivery of a demon and the manner of a Greek god chewing through the finer points of why Humanity is at the beck and call of its sisters lives well and with some tremendous flowering agility in the heart of Shamanarchy .

Shamanarchy, Gig Review. District, Liverpool. full post

(415 words, estimated 1:40 mins reading time)

The All, Gig Review. District, Liverpool.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 7/10

There are times when to hold back your emotions and perhaps even your stringent, occasionally narrow, mind and let in a music argument that night not have been on your mind when you go into a venue. You might go in expecting one thing but then the support kicks in and you are left with a further belief attached to your many quivers and multitudes of bows.

For The All, the sound they produce is one of an unusual quality, a starkness which is endearing and coming so far out of left field that if donned an Everton kit and yet banged in a hat trick every week for Liverpool at Anfield nobody would be more surprised.

The All, Gig Review. District, Liverpool. full post

(393 words, estimated 1:34 mins reading time)

The Love Dimension, Create And Consume. Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * * *

In the blink of an eye a life can change. In the time it takes to hear an album by a band foraging their way carefully through the Californian minefield of abundant music, you are already finding your thoughts focused on making sure you get on a plane sometime soon, taking a trundle down any of the side streets of San Francisco and hoping that you will bump into a band member or two and clasping them firmly by the hand and without a second thought for so called British reserve; telling them that you love them so much that you want to re-start the psychedelic revolution with them.

The Love Dimension, Create And Consume. Album Review. full post

(442 words, estimated 1:46 mins reading time)

Cousin Jac, Believe Me To Remain. Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

There are those who are quick to judge without considering exactly what it is that makes an artist tick. The spark of idea, the small germ of a notion that takes root and multiplies until it cannot be contained, a concept that takes over every waking moment; all are seen to some as just an impulse in which to suggest that an artist and their work is of less value to society than almost anyone else, that what they do is too easy, perhaps a cop-out from doing something else. Nothing in this world is further from the truth and for Jez Wing’s Cousin Jac, he is to be believed with every fibre of his being.

Cousin Jac, Believe Me To Remain. Album Review. full post

(446 words, estimated 1:47 mins reading time)

The American Dream.

Will you be content when you see the nation burn?

Comfortable in justice being done and the millions

who are suddenly afraid of you, enough to throw their hands up

in mock surrender, and who know that they could end up

choking on their own ideals.

The nation has sizzled under a pressure cooker so great

and for so long that it can be a surprise to the senses

that the loose flying sparks that live in the memory

have somehow not caught alight and burst into

The American Dream. full post

(259 words, estimated 1:02 mins reading time)

At The Last Post.

…and the last post rings out over the graveyard

as we recounted the sad winter’s tale.

Your bugle now safely wrapped along with your R.E.M.E. beret

as those who loved you came to mourn and mark Time in the time

honoured way.

A husband, proud, strong and decent.

A Father and Uncle much adored and who was someone to look

up to; a brother to many who lined the aisle of the church

much like the way in which the trains

stood majestically when they had

come to a

halt.

At The Last Post. full post

(223 words, estimated 54 secs reading time)