Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10
Time is a tremendous healer; it can also be a jailer. It can tie you down and deliver a quick, unexpected slap and shock the system to the point where unless you are willing to change the way you present yourself every now and then, or at least the fundamental part that everyone sees on a daily basis, then Time is quick to stagnate and be repulsed.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10
Every time Brooklyn-based singer-songwriter Sharon Van Etten releases an album, it’s an opportunity for the listener to check out her state of mind. An intimate setting like The Library, was the perfect platform for her selection of unguarded, confessional narratives, in a set which drew heavily from her most recent release Are We There’.
I need my next fix.
I need the needle to come gently down
and give me an escape route out of what could be
a boring existence,
if not for my not so-secret vice.
The odd burning cigar still lingers here.
Long gone is the bitter recrimination of a pint savoured and destroyed
and the gentle relaxation of something intangible
has not been taken for a while
as my friend in Oxford I haven’t seen.
I need my latest fix.
I first visited the dealer on my own far too young.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10
When The Barr Brothers were last in Birmingham at the 2013 Moseley Folk Festival, the merchandise tent had to send for extra copies of their self-titled debut album, such was the demand. Since then, the band have written and recorded their second album Sleeping Operator and quite rightly they were welcomed back to south Birmingham area for a sell-out gig, on the last date of their current U.K. tour.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *
Serendipity has a much underrated effect on the human psyche. There are just those friends of yours that only ever want to see the main band, the one they have shelled out their hard earned money for, and for the rest of the evening they are quite happy to sit in the bar, holding a sort of court and quietly and perhaps intentionally chatting about the beer on offer behind the bar, then there are those that find by chance a group or a couple of bands that peak their interest and makes the overall evening one in which to remember. Call it what you will, chance, the fickle finger of fate or fortunate providence or just an understanding that support artists can be just as enjoyable as the main act.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *
Broad Street in Birmingham has long been the resting place of those wishing to dance the night away, to fulfil every possible legal desire they wish to bestow upon themselves and perhaps a little more if the chance arises. Just off Broad Street lays The Flapper, a venue of repute and in which perhaps arguably remains a stout defender against what could be seen as the rising tide of apathy all-round the country of smaller independent pubs, bars and clubs losing a reputation in showcasing new talent in favour of the crass commercialism offered in other places, the overwhelming abundance of cover bands that seem to strike at will like a python sizing up its options in the face of a mongoose, and like the Bilston Robin takes pleasure in being able to do so.
Ian Prowse of Amsterdam. The Flapper, Birmingham. Photograph by Ian D. Hall.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * * *
Sometimes you have to go back to where it began to understand why you are where you are now. Sometimes the journey can be a little painful; it can be exciting and almost certainly overwhelming. For Ian Prowse and the energetic ensemble of musicians that make up the band Amsterdam, coming back to Birmingham after a five year absence proved not only to make the wonderfully vocal crowd’s hearts inside The Flapper grow as fond as a father’s love for his daughter but also showed exactly why lovers of music in Birmingham and Liverpool share a common thread.
Midland Railway at The Cavern Club, Liverpool. International Pop Overthrow, 2014. Photograph by Ian D. Hall.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 7 1/2/ 10
There is arguably nothing better than coming across a band with a sense of humour when the day has been filled with powerful meaningful songs, tracks that have exploded your mind and set the bran on a semi quaver rush. The art of the whimsy, of lyrics that speak at times more eruditely than the impassioned unveiled contempt and derision quite rightly aimed at those the general public are forced to stomach being in power, whimsy and humour is a very powerful tool and in the hands of Midland Railway, led by Nick Lote from Harbourne in Birmingham, the humour of the band shines through.
Ian McNabb, Birmingham 2014. Photograph by Ian D. Hall
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10
When worlds collide…the sound of an audience seemingly made of people from all over the Midlands’ city centre and its outlying areas such as Kings Heath, Selly Park, Edgbaston and Harbourne, their distinctive and homely twang ringing out inside the hall of the South Birmingham College called The Crossing declaring with an assuredness that you would only expect to hear in the venues of his home town that there is only one Ian McNabb, worlds don’t just collide become a brilliant hybrid of Birmingham audiences natural love of rock and the pure music devotion and Scouse allegiance that Ian McNabb brings to every show.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *
For anybody growing up in Birmingham in the 1960s, 70s and 80s and who moved away, coming back to the city only on the odd occasion is almost like visiting an alien world, a world that has changed beyond recognition in the days when the old Bull Ring Market dominated the skyline, when records were bought in handy shaped brown bags containing 10 singles for a pound, even if you didn’t know what you were getting till you unwrapped them like some weird and sometimes fruitful version of Pass The Parcel, and where walking down Digbeth High Street and up towards Deritend only meant that you were running the gauntlet of watching Trevor Francis or Alan Curbishly play at St. Andrews or you were on your way to take in some music at the Old Institute or The Dubliner.