Monthly Archives: April 2009

Sparkwood & 21: Interesting name, interesting band

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With an obscure name and a bass player who appeared on one of the last Peel Sessions, Sparkwood & 21 are four Liverpool lads who describe themselves as the “purveyors of harmonic melancholy.”

The name, first of all, is a reference to the cult American TV show Twin Peaks (ask your parents…) and the last known location of the character Laura Palmer whose disappearance the show revolves around.

Singer, guitarist and mandolin player John Daglish describes how it came about: “We had a long list of the names where lots of people went ‘No, no, no, no…’ and then about six of seven weeks later, ‘What about Sparkwood & 21?,’ ‘Oh that sounds alright…’

“It’s proved to be quite a good name because anyone who knows Twin Peaks says: ‘Is that a Twin Peaks reference?’ And you get other people who have seen us a few times say ‘You got your name from Twin Peaks!’ after they’ve gone and watched it.”

They’ve been together for around two years and just over a year with bass player Nik Kavanagh whose previous band made an appearance on one of legendary BBC DJ John Peel’s last sessions. Of the experience Kavanagh says: “amazing, absolutely amazing,” acknowledging that Peel’s untimely death in 2004 was a big loss to music.

Sparkwood & 21’s sound is a mix of acoustic, folk, pop and country: “Sad songs that make you feel happy and happy songs that make you feel sad,” says Daglish.

The band next play at Liverpool’s free Mello Mello venue at the corner of Wolstenhome Square and Slater Square on May 21 as part of the Liverpool Sound City festival.

For chilled out music from four very chilled out lads, check their MySpace where there’s also all the latest news and gig dates.

Susan Boyle and the myth of ‘reality’ TV

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So you all know who Susan Boyle is. Britain’s Got Talent‘s singing sensation now commands over 40 millions hits on You Tube less than a fortnight after her appearance on the show that had audience members weeping and judge Amanda Holden on her feet applauding. She probably cried a bit as well, she tends to cry a fair bit.

It was a performance that took the world by storm. Boyle has been on morning television in the United States, Larry King Live and is slated for an appearance on Oprah. It’s a real 21st century rags to riches story in that it has happened in a ridiculously short amount of time.

When Boyle was first introduced to us, you, like me and all my friends, no doubt thought that this dowdy looking, 47-year-old, Scottish virgin was a bit of a joke. Then she opened her mouth, sang beautiful things and we all felt a little crap for having pre judged her.

But at the same time we were uplifted by this small town girl who proved us and everyone else wrong. The scowls and derisive laughter turned to tears of joy and the smirking from Simon Cowell and his fellow judges turned to admiration and high praise.

There was only one problem with it all. It was fake, all so fake and that’s what bothers me. Once again reality TV failed to live up to its name. It was reality but with a caveat in that everyone on the production team at Britain’s Got Talent knew how good Boyle was but rather than present her as such they decided to trick us all into thinking she was crap then unleash this beautiful singing voice on us.

Great TV of course but my issue is with honesty and transparency and on the very shows where this should be most evident it is not. Instead we have pre packaged, pre determined and pre judged ‘talent’ forced upon us because this is how Simon Cowell says it should be.

I’ve been told more than once before that Cowell and his team are in total control of everything that happens on his extensive catalogue of ‘reality’ TV shows and that’s a dangerous trend to a genre that has dominated the screens for the last ten years. 

Susan Boyle is a fantastic singer and her story is a fantastic one. I wish her every success but I worry for her too in that the extent to which her short career has been managed so far will only increase over the coming weeks and months and she becomes no longer the modest, unglamorous small town girl we were initially presented with but yet another pre packaged, soulless, singing talent for Cowell to make obscene amounts of money from.

UPDATE: As if the media frenzy surrounding Susan Boyle wasn’t manic enough, she’s now even been mentioned on South Park of all places!

A powerful message has made a difference

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On Wednesday at Anfield, the 96 people who died at Hillsborough 20 years ago were not just remembered and honoured, their long suffering families were given hope.

The anger of the families, survivors, people of Liverpool and many others was conveyed very clearly to Culture Secretary Andy Burnham whose speech was interrupted by cries of “Justice for the 96″ from the 30,000 plus people who attended the memorial service. 

This anger, reported throughout the mainstream media, has had a powerful effect.

Burnham, a good man who did well in a situation that can’t have been easy for him, relayed the people’s anger to the government and today the Liverpool Echo reports that the cabinet will probe claims of a ‘cover-up’ by South Yorkshire Police.

In the coming months they will decide whether there is a need to relax the 30-year secrecy rule if the “inquiry into an inquiry” shows any fresh evidence of police negligence on the day and in the aftermath. Nothing has been ruled in or out and that at least is a new and positive development.

The Daily Mirror has launched a campaign for justice that has the backing of 150 MPs and a petition is now online, calling for authorities to investigate whether criminal charges can be brought against any person or organisation connected with the Hillsborough disaster. It has over 4,000 signatures, it needs many more. 

Whatever you do, sign the petition. Families have fought for 20 years for justice for their lost loved ones and with your help, their fight can continue and be won. The events of the past few days have already shown the difference that can be made by your actions.

Bill Hart and the Mersey Sound Wave

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Bill Hart, a Liverpool based music enthusiast, wants to construct an ambitious exhibition of guitars that have all been played at Liverpool’s Cavern Club, the venue made famous by The Beatles. 

The exhibition will commemorate and celebrate 50 years of the Mersey sound symbolised by John, Paul, George and Ringo throughout the 1960′s.

Last month, as part of my journalism course at LJMU, I interviewed Bill to find out more about the project and to see what drives him to take on such an ambitious task. 

You can find out more information and keep up to date about the progress of the Mersey Sound Wave by visiting the website.

Cuba/US: Relations thaw but no end to embargo

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When I blogged a few days ago about the Cuban solidarity movement in Britain I may have jumped the gun in suggesting that the restrictions placed on the Cuba by the United States showed no signs of being lifted under the new Obama administration.

Truth is that relations, or the lack of, between the two countries are thawing but crucially the issue of ending the trade blockade, rightly or wrongly, is not on the agenda according to the US.

Being honest, I really don’t feel educated enough to comment on whether the blockade serves any real purpose but common consensus appears to be that it has done more harm than good.  At the Rock Around The Blockade meeting, I was constantly being told that Cuba is surviving even with the restrictions. But obviously even they feel that life would be easier for many Cubans without the blockade.

In lifting some travel restrictions and allowing Cuban-Americans with relatives on the island to send them more money, the Obama administration has offered a hand. It will now be up to the Cubans to reciprocate and according to president Raul Castro, the country is willing to discuss everything.

And that bodes well for the future of this most intriguing of Caribbean islands.

On this the 20th anniversary, educate yourselves

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Following on from my blog yesterday I feel the need to inform as many people as possible of what happened on the day of Hillsborough, what happened subsequently and what continues to this day.

Many people are still unaware of the enormous miscarriage of justice that took place in the aftermath and the conspiracy to cover up any wrongdoing by South Yorkshire Police. There are guilty people out there, living comfortable lives whilst families cannot grieve properly for their lost loved ones.

Below is some stuff you should look at today, educate yourselves, become informed and join the fight for justice. It is a fight that has gone on these past 20 years without the intense media publicity of the last days and it will continue long after the media turn their attentions elsewhere. 

The club’s official TV channel is free to air all day and will have live coverage of the remembrance ceremony this afternoon.

The club’s official website has some moving survivors’ stories and Lynne Fox’s moving picture story. 

The Liverpool Daily Post has a must read story about the families ongoing fight for justice which outlines the extent to which they were and continue to be let down by the establishment. 

David Conn’s brilliant piece in Monday’s Guardian outlines even further how much the families have been let down and includes an interview with the current chief constable of South Yorkshire Police.

The BBC’s audio slideshow is not easy to watch but should be watched nonetheless. The website’s coverage features a wide range of video interviews with survivors, families, players, and more. 

If you think there’s anything else people should check out then leave a comment and link below.

Finally I cannot stress enough the importance of watching Jimmy McGovern’s ‘Hillsborough’ docu-drama  which is being re-screened on ITV 3 at 9pm tonight. If there’s one thing you watch on TV today it should be this. Educate yourself and then educate others.

Justice for the 96.

UPDATE: The Independent‘s James Lawton has also written a brilliant piece in today’s paper. We need more journalists exposing the sickening miscarriages of justice.

Remembering the 96

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I’ve supported Liverpool pretty much all my life and I have contemplated for a long while writing something about Hillsborough, never really being able to decide how or what to write about. 

To write something personal is perhaps the most difficult thing but not as difficult as it is for most people who really have a connection to the events of Saturday, April 15 1989.

Let me be clear from the outset that I should have no emotional involvement or attachment to the disaster. I did not know anyone killed at Hillsborough. I do not know personally anyone who survived. I’ve met hundreds of Liverpool fans down the years so chances are I’ve probably met a few surivors or people who were close to those that died. I’ve probably even sat next to them or near them at Anfield. But I’ve never sat down and had a conversation with them about that day. 

A few weeks ago I decided that I was going to do my final year dissertation on the effect media coverage had on the victims and families connected to the Hillsborough disaster and whether it impacted on their subsequent legal battles that continue to this day. 

As I had to write a proposal for it I did a fair amount of research, read lots of articles, saw lots of pictures, read extracts from the Taylor report, watched YouTube videos of the news coverage that day and then I watched Jimmy McGovern’s ‘Hillsborough’. For a few days afterwards I couldn’t sleep properly.

I thought about it loads. I became emotionally involved in it. I couldn’t help it but it bothered me and I wondered, why? Having thought about it part of my reasoning is that I love Liverpool Football Club and I love the city of Liverpool. Perhaps it impacted on me the way it did because it is the defining moment in the history of the football club I hold so close to my heart and it is perhaps one of the saddest and most tragic moments in the history of this city. 

Thinking about Hillsborough makes me sad and it makes me angry, it always has. But in the midst of intense dissertation research and on the eve of the 20th anniversary with media coverage considerably heightened this year, wrongly or rightly, these feelings are intensified. 

My anger stems from the denial of justice, the very obvious denial of justice and the continued ignorance of people worldwide to the causes of the disaster fuelled by the media coverage on that day and the media coverage to this day. 

In recent years the article in FHM, the comments of now London Mayor Boris Johnson and countless other small, less publicised examples have shown how many continue to misinterpret, misunderstand, and misrepresent the facts of Hillsborough to the enormous pain and suffering of victims and their families who live every day with the horrors of Hillsborough. Some without the presence of a son, a daughter, a husband, a wife, a brother, or a sister or with the memories of the crush seared into their brain. Their suffering is unimaginable, incomprehensible.

But who looks out for their interests? No one. The establishment has systematically failed them. It was as if the Taylor report meant nothing except to sanitise football. It did, it changed the game, undoubtedly for the better but the 96 lives it took to instigate the changes were seemingly worthless when it came to holding to account those at fault. In other words, 96 people died, hundreds were injured, thousands were effected but no one really cared about them as long as football got better.

When I asked my dad about Hillsborough the other day the most telling thing he said to me was:  ”It was as though the lives of football supporters didn’t matter as much as other peoples’ lives.” I don’t think he could have been more accurate. It is why the police acted the way they did on the day of Hillsborough and it is why, in the aftermath, as my dad continued “The Sun story found such a receptive audience.” and thus why the fight for justice goes on to this very day because too many people didn’t understand and didn’t care and still don’t. 

South Yorkshire Police continue to deny a systematic cover up when all the evidence says otherwise  and even a government minister, a person of authority who is sadly very much in the minority, has labeled it “a black propaganda campaign“. That’s what it is. It was then, when police briefed the media and altered their junior officers’ statements to hide their own culpability, and it is now when they continue to deny that they tried to cover it up.

On April 15 1989, South Yorkshire Police committed their greatest crime in failing to carry out their duties properly and save peoples lives. But their second greatest crime is one that they continue to perpetrate to this very day and that is to deny the cover up that has done unquantifiable harm to the victims and their families. 

On this the 20th anniversary of the disaster let us not just remember but let us make known to everyone the full extent of the anger, pain and injustice still felt in the hope that something can be done about it. We, and I’m not just referring to football supporters but to all human beings, owe that to the 96.

This great city of mine

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Liverpool’s Anglican Cathedral was a picture of real beauty yesterday evening as I walked home. The sunset gave it a remarkable colour as you can see below. It is warm, summer evenings like this that make me think how lucky I am to live in a great city like Liverpool. 

Liverpool Cathedral 1Grey skies but the strong sunset paints the cathedral a gorgeous red.

Liverpool Cathedral 3View from the front

The view from Canning Street

The view from the top of Canning Street, just off Hope Street

La Revolución lives on in Cuba

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A while back I went to a Cuban solidarity rally in Liverpool purely because the idea of socialism has always intrigued me. The evidence suggests that while in theory it works, in practice it does not.

However in Cuba socialism lives on even as Fidel Castro‘s influence diminishes and the American trade blockade is maintained with no signs of it being lifted under the Obama administration.

Socialism is something that hasn’t exactly come into fashion but is certainly more talked about now then when times were good economically two years ago. With governments and banks failing the people, naturally they turn to alternatives. Socialism is one alternative, absolutely. In my view it is not the right one but there were plenty of people at this gathering that though otherwise.

Below is an article I wrote about the Cuba, the British solidarity movement and their meeting in Liverpool. I’d love to hear any thoughts you have on this.

In January, Cuba celebrated the 50th anniversary of the socialist revolution that many believe will end with the death of its leader Fidel Castro.

In January 1959 Castro and his revolutionaries, amongst them a certain Che Guevara, seized power from an unpopular, US backed government. Castro held power for 49 years before handing over to his brother Raul last year in what many saw as the beginning of the end of socialist Cuba.

 The country has struggled with a 46-year-old American blockade and faced international criticism for human rights violations. But its health system is world-renowned, it’s a popular tourist destination and their infant death rate is lower than that of the US.

“What we see happening in Cuba demonstrates that with few resources but with proper social organisation you can achieve enormous human development,” says Robert Claridge, a passionate socialist and organizer of Rock around the Blockade, a UK wide Cuban solidarity movement seeking to highlight the success of socialist Cuba.

A recent meeting in Liverpool attracted an eclectic mix of people, young and old. Many are drawn to the subject of Cuba through the worldwide familiarity of Che Guevara, Castro’s most trusted revolutionary ally, whose image has become immortalised on everything from t-shirts to belt buckles. Four decades on from his death he remains an important political and popular cultural icon.

Helen Yaffe, Latin American history teacher at the University College London, is author of Che Guevara: The Economics of Revolution which looks at Guevara’s little acknowledged economic successes as a member of the post revolution Cuban government.

 She believes that Guevara’s economic model, still used in Cuba, works better than capitalist systems in the likes of Britain and the US and believes that  “sensationalist headlines in bourgeois, mainstream media” of 82-year-old Castro and Cuba’s decline are misplaced.

Claridge agrees: “The example of Cuba is going to be infectious. The movements in Latin America, they look to Cuba as an example and an inspiration because it has stood up for the last 50 years to the United States blockade.”

Indeed Latin American admiration for Cuba is strong. Diego Almeida, a politics student from Ecuador and member of the Movement of Ecuadoreans in the UK (MERU), says: “Cuba for us is the light at the end of the tunnel. We share common bonds with them, language, history and the same struggles in resistance. We are inspired by them.”

While many will continue to argue that Cuba is destined for failure, Rafael Sardinas, from the Cuban embassy in London points out: “We’ve survived ten American presidents, eleven is Barack Obama and we’re still here.”

Meet a real life superhero!

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Late last year I came across this intriguing website that is a database of people who claim to be real life superheroes, donning the tight lycra and face masks and fighting crime in the real world.

A bit of a joke you might say but these guys really do make a difference. I interviewed one of them and here’s what he had to say…

l_dc421edc03be46368be4555ae8433c66As far as we are aware the costume clad, super powered, crime fighters of the comic books don’t really exist. But that’s not to say there aren’t real life superheroes around us.

The World Superhero Registry is an online database of real life superheroes who fight crime and bring goodwill to towns and cities across the world.

Most of them are based in America, almost all of them have costumes and secret identities and some of them even claim superpowers. The Master Legend is just one of these: “I was born a superhero,” he says. “I was young and a reject and freak to the other kids but reading comics kind of told me I am a super hero.”

Based in the small city of Winter Park, Florida, The Master Legend, whose real identity is a well-kept secret, has been fighting crime for the past 22 years after moving from New Orleans where he grew up. He claims his powers come from 19th century voodoo queen Mary Laveau.

“I was born with a veil and died twice already. I have secrets I can’t even explain in this world. When needed I have super human strength and speed, also a sense of danger not just to my self but others.”

He also claims super powers and strength from something called the “diamond spirit”, which he explains “is about self definition and forging your spirit till it is pure and as strong as a diamond.”

Unsurprisingly many consider his exploits a bit of joke, to these people he has a message: “What they don’t realize is that I am really a mirror to their own souls and they are the ones who are inferior and afraid.”

What is no joke is that The Master Legend really helps the underprivileged. Over Christmas he and his crime fighting buddies from Team Justice, “a worldwide team of super heroes”, handed out gifts to disadvantaged children in his area.

He is in contact with local police and even received a certificate of commendation from the local Orange County Sherriff’s office: “I single handedly cleaned up a horrible place of evil. It took me a few years but my sector of Winter Park is safe for the most part,” he claims.

Keeping his real identity secret can be challenging: “An evil girl friend try to reveal me to the world but I, an old pro, never let her know how to spell my last name.”

His mystery alter ego, his “Clark Kent”, he describes as being a normal man, a self employed caretaker, which helps pay the bills but, he adds: “I am always Master Legend with or with out the mask.”

There are still those who begrudge him and mock his exploits. But he has learned to deal with them in a way typical of any superhero, real or fictional: “Never let your enemies know where you live,” he says.

“I have had a truck smashed up and been jumped at my doorstep by some crack heads. Of course I beat the hell out of them and sent them on to jail.”