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Good Time George - 27/5/2009
The remarkable life of Liverpool born George Melly – jazz musician, writer, art, film and music critic, lecturer on surrealism, raconteur and party animal – is being celebrated in a self-titled exhibition at the Walker Art Gallery. A series of paintings and drawings of Melly is on display, by one of Britain’s most acclaimed artists, Maggi Hambling. Read more

Review of 'Action! Race War to Door Wars' - 13/5/2009
I had thought that anyone with any sense would take Joey Owens’ so-called autobiography (Action! Race War to Door Wars) with a very large pinch of salt. However, some people who should know better have proved that this is not always the case. So, here’s a review of sorts. Read more

La Linea - 25/4/2009
After huge success in 2008, London’s Latin music festival, La Linea, returns back to Liverpool bringing two outstanding shows.
Ojos de Brujo, a fusion of dub, hip-hop and flamenco blended with modern drum licks and bass lines are regulars on Later with Jools Holland have performed at WOMAD and have scooped several awards including BBC Radio 3 World Music Award for Europe and Best European Act.
Spanish Bombs – A Tropical Tribute to The Clash involves artists including Amparo Sanchez of Amparanonia, who were awarded BBC 3 Award for world Music and Blanquito Man of group King Chango who performed at the Shockwaves NME Music Awards 2009.
Spanish Bombs is assembled by music producer Toy Hernández who has worked with Shakira, Eminem and Cypress Hill. Read more

Africa Oyé 2009 - 25/4/2009
Africa Oyé is the UK’s largest free celebration of African music and culture, and takes place annually in Liverpool. Beginning in 1992 as a series of small gigs in the city centre, the event has gone from strength to strength, moving to its present Sefton Park home in 2002 to cope with demand. Now in its seventeenth year, Africa Oyé continues to grow. In 2008 the event attracted an audience of over 20,000 people and even more are expected to attend Oyé 09. Read more

Pax Republican Convention - 26/3/2009
An interesting art and social issues event is due to take place at the Black-E Arts Centre in Liverpool.
The Pax Republic Convention is the first phase of the launch of a new transnational community building project which aims to unite Liverpool based artists, academics, faith based groups, students, filmmakers, poets, musicians, theatre, dance and business people with communities in Cape Town, Istanbul, Guadalajara and London. Read more

John Moores Students Protest Against Cuts - 26/3/2009
John Moores Vice Chancellor Michael Brown fled a group of 150 angry students and their supporters in his BMW (complete with JMU 1 numberplate) yesterday afternoon. In doing so, he postponed a showdown over his plans to cut thirty-four courses from September. Read more

Merseyside Jobs Cull Begins - 21/3/2009
Merseyside Job Centre queues grew by the largest amount in eighteen years last month, bringing back memories of traumatic times before the 'regeneration' gold rush and the credit boom.
The number of Jobseekers' Allowance claimants in the region - which officially includes Liverpool, Wirral, Sefton, Knowsley, Halton and St Helens - increased by 7,532 in February, taking the total to 52,524. This represents a month on month rise of 7.14%, the most severe since 1991. Read more

Liverpool Acoustic - 1/2/2009
Graham Holland writes about the Liverpool Acoustic website which is designed as a central resource for anyone interested in acoustic music in and around the Liverpool area. Whether they're a musician looking for an open mic event where they can play for the first time, or just a lover of acoustic music looking for somewhere to go for a good night out, they'll find all the information they need on the site. Read more

Liverpool 2009: Capital Of Crisis? - 7/1/2009
As Liverpool hands the Capital of Culture baton over to Vilnius and Linz, the city’s economy is in for an extremely tough year. Top council leaders claim Liverpool is in particularly good shape to ride out the global economic collapse, but statistics and analysis show they could not be further from the truth. Read more

Vampires Rock - 4/12/2008
This Christmas is set to be a dark one and when Vampires Rock comes to Liverpool it won’t be such a Silent Night. Vampires Rock is culminating its fifty date tour at the Echo Arena on 27th December for a night of musical comedy and rock anthems. Alison Cornmell met up with stars of the show Toyah Wilcox and Steve Steinman to find out a little more. Read more

Music in Liverpool -14/08/2008
MADeA writes "Outside of and after the Beatles, our greatest triumph of musical individuality and freedom, Liverpool music's story has been one of conformity and constraint. Today to be a successful "Liverpool" band or artist embraced by the local media and propelled to national and international levels, one must don a stylistic “scouserock” straightjacket."
Read the rest of this article

The Streets You Have No Right To Walk Down - 5/7/2008
On Thursday, 3rd July 2008, Adam Ford spoke at a session of the 'Capital, Culture, Power: Criminalisation and Resistance' conference organised by the University of Liverpool, John Moores University, and Nerve magazine.The topic of his speech was the controversial Liverpool One development. Read more

Radical Route through Liverpool - 19/5/2008
The TUC and Unite have put together a “Walking Tour of Liverpool, City of Protest”. A two-hour walk around town takes you around 15 sites of demonstrations, strikes, protests and commemorations. You start outside St George’s Hall, where the police attacked demonstrators on Liverpool’s Bloody Sunday in August 1911. Read more

Kirkby Nan's Planning War! Which plan do you prefer? - 23/4/2008
Option One: Kirkby grandmother and retired laundry worker Dot Reid plus loads of her neighbours get chucked out of their homes, which are then demolished to make way for yet another Tesco, some more shops, and a new stadium for Everton FC.
Option Two: Tesco boss Sir Terry Leahy gets slung out of his luxury home in Hertfordshire, which is then demolished to make way for a community garden with water features and a kiosk for pensioners. Read more

Interview with Alun Parry - 6/12/2007
Alun Parry is acknowledged as one of Liverpool’s leading acoustic based performers and songwriters. His albums Corridors of Stone and Liverpool 800 and his work to promote live music have received widespread critical acclaim. In this interview Parry speaks about the values that underpin his work. Read more

Peter Tatchell: gay Iraqis fear for their lives - 4/12/2007
Veteran human rights campaigner and Green Party parliamentary candidate Peter Tatchell talks to Claudia Tanner about the gruesome injustices facing gay Iraqis, and how he is in constant fear for his life because of his work. Read more

Egg Café Open Mic Nights - 14/8/2007
The Egg Café on Newington Street in Liverpool’s city centre is one such venue that offers monthly get-togethers for those keen to express themselves through the medium of poetry and song.
Taking the form of an ‘Open-mic’ evening, participants are encouraged to present various pieces to an ever eager audience of contemporaries. Read more

Red Dot Recycling Workshops - 14/8/2007
Liverpool-based Red Dot Exhibitions are staging a series of workshops dealing with how to recycle waste materials and found objects into art work.
For example, turning discarded bottles and other forms of glass into art; turnig crisp packets into art; metal recycling; plastic recycling; and paper and cardboard recycling. These take place on 26th - 28th September at LCAD based at Franceys Street. Read more

Merseyside Stop the War Coalition presents 'The Alturnertive Art Prize' - 1/8/2007
Alongside the Turner Prize hosted in Liverpool this year – MSTWC is holding its own Visual Arts Competition on the theme of 'War, Peace and Occupation.'
A prize of an Art Voucher worth £100 will be awarded to the winner. Shortlisted entries will have their original artwork shown in the Domino Gallery or another City venue and offered for sale to the public. Read more

Open letter to: Chief Constable Bernard Hogan-Howe, MA, MBE - 23/7/2007
Policing and Peaceful Street Activism in Liverpool - In the afternoon of Saturday, 14 July 2007, 6 people, wearing a bit of artistic make-up, costumes and accessories for the occasion, arrived outside the fashion store, Cricket, in Mathew Street, Liverpool, to leaflet the public and protest the shop’s return to selling fur, after having promised earlier in the year not to do so. Read more

The Boy Who Dropped An Egg On The World
Jack’s Hard Rub! Theatre Company present ‘The Boy Who Dropped An Egg On The World’. Their first production is a contemporary play written by company member Julian Bond which deals with the current situation in Iraq and notions of civilisation and democracy.
Read more

Sue Lucine: Fuel
Merseyside-based artist Sue Lucine is holding a solo exhibition at the Atelier gallery on Lark Lane. Read more

Nerve 10 Launch Party
Catalyst Media held a launch party for the TENTH edition of Merseyside's marvellous Nerve magazine on Saturday, 2nd June, from 7pm til midnight, at St Michael's Cricket Club, Southwood Road, Aigburth. If you weren't there, you were somewhere else, and missed a great gig! Read more...

Liverpool Humanist Group - 10/5/2007
Are you a Humanist, atheist or an agnostic? Want to make your voice heard? Or just want to know more? The Liverpool Humanist Group started in October 2005, and meet on the second Wednesday of every month at the Pilgrim Pub, Pilgrim Street, Liverpool, having regular talks, debates and film screenings. Read more

Sonae Censorship! - 30/4/07
Not content with damaging the health of workers inside their factory and residents outside, Sonae is now trying to stop criticism of its conduct from being published. Steve Tombs and Dave Whyte tell us about this attack on Nerve’s freedom to tell the facts. Read more

Word is they say... 2/2/2007
Review by Amanda DeAngeles on the all-day event on the 27th January where local authors read from their books and scripts.
" The writers of Liverpool are a talented lot. Not just the names that spring forth first; names that have engraved the soul of the city (perhaps even as much as a 60’s local band did for music). But, I won’t mention them, as they have or have had their fame, talent, credibility, fortune and love. Let me tell you some new names instead..." Click here to read the rest.

Interview with Ramsey Campbell - 11/1/2007
Mark Langshaw interviews Ramsey Campbell, perhaps the finest British advocate of weird fiction and one of the most celebrated horror writers of his generation. His early fiction was heavily influenced by H. P. Lovecraft but subsequent works saw Campbell distance himself from this, becoming a unique and powerful voice in horror fiction. Read more

New poetry and articles - 11/1/2007
'Weather (or not)' and 'Promises' by Malcolm Rimmer. 'Humane Being', 'Trees in Peace' and 'Breathless' by Val Walsh.
Three articles by Colin Todhunter: I'm not a celebrity - get me out of here!, A Jolie Good Time and Fool Britannia.

Three new poems sent in - 7/12/2006
'The Price of Gold' by Paul Littler, and 'Antony Gormley, what the Hell do you Mean?' by Jan Sear. Also 'The Hungry Mile' a poem by Ernest Antony, sent in by Nick Bailey after reading the article on George Garrett.

The History of Cinema in Liverpool - 21/11/2006
The cinema as a place of popular mass entertainment towered over Liverpool in the first half of the last century. This has left us a rich legacy, not only of picture house buildings but also of the glorious pictures made for an insatiable and loyal audience. To read Mark Langshaw's article click here

Tony Blair Toothpaste and Happiness is... - 20/11/2006
Two satirical articles by Colin Todhunter, one based on Tony Blair and the other on consumerism/advertising:
"I used to feel really great. Then I started to watch TV on a regular basis. I didn’t know it previously but I’m ugly, have bad hair and don’t possess the latest gadgetry that will make me supremely happy. My diet is lacking, my fingernails poor, my eyes faded, my skin sagging and my taste in food, fashion and lifestyle choices questionable. I’m a total mess!" Read more

Interview with Dom Bryan - 2/11/2006
Leftfield observationalists Gamma Ray Sam came together in a most unusual way. After a near death experience, where he was electrocuted while working as a roadie for musician Pete Wylie, founding member Dom Bryan decided that life was too damn short and formed a band, now known as the highly acclaimed Gamma Ray Sam. To read Mark Langshaw's interview click here.

Africa at the Pictures comes to Liverpool - 1/11/2006
Between 9-15 November, Greenland Street will host Africa at the Pictures, an initiative which promotes African film in the UK and Europe. Africa at the Pictures will screen thirty films, offering a vibrant insight into the culture and politics of Africa. Six of Africa’s leading film makers will visit Liverpool to screen their movies at Greenland Street and share their knowledge and skills with young people in the city. Screenings are free and open to all. Read more or visit www.africaatthepictures.co.uk

A Theatre in the Dingle? - 30/10/2006
The campaign for a community theatre in the Dingle has a weekend of drama events on November 11th and 12th. They are aiming for a decent art venue which would raise the profile of the area, help keep young people involved in positive activities and give local people an avenue for their creative energy.
To find out more click here for a Word document, or visit website

Interview with Matthew Buckingham - 24/10/2006
Matthew Buckingham is a New York-based artist who was recently invited to produce a piece for this years Liverpool Biennial and opted to adapt a short story by the great American author, Herman Melville, retelling the tale through the medium of video. Read more

Sefton Short Film Festival - 5/10/2006
After last year’s successful pilot festival attracted more than forty high quality short films, which were viewed by over five hundred punters over two days, Sefton Short Film Festival is set to return to the Plaza Cinema on Crosby Road North this October. Read more

Massive March and Rally in Liverpool to Support the Striking Firefighters - 18/9/2006
Around five thousand firefighters from around the country joined campaigners and members of the general public in Liverpool on Friday 15th September 2006, to show their support for Fire Brigades Union strikers on Merseyside. Read more

Des Warren Remembered - 7/8/2006
An event was held in the Casa to commemorate the late trade union activist Des Warren and launch a campaign for an inquiry into his arrest, trial and the ‘medication’ he received in prison – which led to Parkinson’s disease and his death in 2004. Read more

The Liverpool International Carnival 2006
Saturday 5th August saw the ‘Brouhaha International’ Liverpool International Street Carnival 2006 blaze its way along outer city streets. Several thousand participants walked and danced toward Princes Park. Read review and see photos

Liverpool Vigil against the bombing in Lebanon
About a hundred people turned out for a vigil on St George’s Plateau in Liverpool on July 19th to hear representatives from the Stop The War Coalition, Friends of Palestine, CND and the Muslim Association of Britain give speeches. Report and photos

Nerve Party at the Cricket Club
We held a party at Aigburth Cricket & Bowling Club on July 7th featuring Ragz, Alun Parry, Dutch Porn Thursday, DJ Si Mack and the Raindogs. Read the review and see the photos

Photographs from the Arabic Arts Festival 2006
The Liverpool Arabic Arts Festival was officially launched at Sefton Park Palm House on Sunday 2nd July with an afternoon of Arabic live music and dance, workshops, stalls and food. See photos

Quiggins Last Night Party 1/7/2006
Quiggins was a den for the wacky, the wonderful, the beautiful and the different. To see it closing, despite years of protest by thousands of true Liverpudlians - the people who’re not set to profit from the property boom being created by ‘Capital of Culture 2008’ - is simultaneously sickening, saddening and enraging. Read more

People Trafficking: The New Slave Trade - 28/6/2006
The Padded Cell Theatre Company recently presented ‘Damaged’, which dissects the lives of two women trafficked into Britain for the purpose of prostitution. Helen Grey talked to the play’s writer and director Scott Morgan about the rise of modern day slavery. Read more

Alun Parry at The Pilgrim - 19/6/2006
Second Tuesday is an acoustic music night in the heart of Liverpool’s student land, offering a showcase for local singer songwriters to perform their own music. It is the brainchild of singer songwriter and resident host Alun Parry, who has been able to regularly pack in the punters without compromising the often political nature of his music. Read more

Maria and Jamie - 14/6/2006
Amanda DeAngeles did an interview with Maria Hughes and Jamie Reid at the opening of their new exhibition at the Egg Space Gallery which is open from 31st May - 18th June. Read more

The Yellow Lamb Banana is moving to Garston - that's official - 30/5/2006
Alex Corina commented, "I was surprised, its great news. The Yellow Lamb Banana has become an icon representing Garston and Liverpool's heritage of exporting lambs and importing bananas that combines both with humour. The other link is that not only was Garston docks the route for exporting importing, but that the sculpture was made in Garston at the old Bryant and May Factory." Read more

Letter from Thomas Lang regarding 3345 Parr Street - 25/5/2006
"Dear Sir/Madam, it is with heavy heart that I am writing to ask that you air this letter in your paper/website/radio station.
I represent the tenants and the business consortium that put together a plan to save the famous Parr Street Studios in Liverpool, a Grammy Award winning studio for its work with Coldplay. Other artists that have worked here include, Doves, Embrace, Elbow, Badly Drawn Boy, and so many more." Read more

Jim Bennett at the Originals Poetry Group Meeting - 10/5/2006
The Group meets each month at Originals Café in Hoylake, this month featured Jim Bennett and Wirral poet and broadcaster, Peggy Poole. To read a report of the night click here

Photographs from the Nerve Benefit Night on April 28th and the Liverpool May Day March and Festival on May 1st

Sonae’s Legacy of Pollution and ill Health - 20/4/2006
Article that first appeared in TVS magazine about the chipboard factory in Kirkby and the effects of the emissions on the health of the local community. Read more

Photographs from the protests against the Condoleeza Rice visit to Liverpool - 31/3/2006
A crowd of at least two thousand Liverpudlians flocked to the Catholic cathedral on Hope Street to protest against neo-Condi's gala gig at the Philharmonic. See photos | Read report
To see many more photographs and reports of the day visit Liverpool Indymedia

Liverpool: The Yuppie Takeover - 22/3/2006
The yuppies are coming! Nothing and no one is safe. The local authorities are in on the act. The government too. Everything we’ve been taught to love and trust has sold out to this dark force. Read more

The Clone Effect - 25/1/2006
It is the stated aim of the Council that Liverpool should officially be the most ‘business-friendly’ city in the U.K. by next year. However, when they talk about being business friendly, are they including any of the small businesses based in Liverpool City Centre? Chris Helm investigates. Read more

Listings for the Liverpool area

Poetry Readings at Costa Café