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Roy

@pj_smith9

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👁️🎥 Algorithm Party is an authentic, forthright glimpse into extraordinary working-class Liverpool life.

Adapted from the debut publication of the same name, this experimental feature brings to life a collection of brutal but funny stories by spoken-word artist 'Roy' (PJ Smith) in the feature-length directorial debut of The Farm drummer and Hurricane Films co-director Roy Boulter.

💬 Join Roy Boulter and PJ Smith for a special Q&A screening hosted by Peter Hooton on Thu 24 September at 6pm at Storyhouse Cinema.

🎟️ Book tickets now at storyhouse.com/cinema by @pj_smith9

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18 days ago

📸 @glamgigpics

Brilliant night at @communeliverpool Great little set up. Thank for having me, listening and buying books.

Some talented people making serious sounds. A venue and community to cherish.

Enjoyed the gig, backed by @lo_five_ despite my eyes failing me.

Until next time… by @pj_smith9

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18 days ago

@pj_smith9 is a rare breed. By day he works at a sober living house for men in Liverpool. Come evening you might find him reciting literature at spoken word events up and down the country. Oh and he used to play football for Everton.

The variety in his social and professional life makes his writing so interesting.

“I just mix in a lot of different circles I suppose. You absorb everything.”

“(I can’t write) Unless I’m plugged into something bigger than me. That things needs to be people, community.”

You can purchase PJ’s new book of short stories through his instagram. He’ll be touring his new material through 2026. taken in Liverpool, United Kingdom by @pj_smith9

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25 days ago

What comes to mind when you think of poetry, literature or short stories? Probably not @pj_smith9.

Yet over the last ten years the surly Scouser, otherwise known as Roy, has been making a name for himself on the literary landscape. A vital voice who writes about addiction, tragedy and the bits of life people usually keep to themselves. His live performances are something else entirely. Unmissable.

The Liverpudlian’s approach is as democratic as it is simple. ‘Writing is for anyone that wants it’.

PJ’s second book Boomerang Process is out now, with a tour incoming. We chatted to him about it in his favourite corner shop, Toxteth.

Photography @jonnytv____ by @pj_smith9

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a month ago

Ahoy hoy, Emotion Wave is back in just a fortnight [Thursday 10th September] in one of our favourite spaces in town, Commune.

Once again, we are proud to present a select lineup of live performances from our favourite local artists...

Roy is the alias of Liverpool-based spoken word artist, author and curator/host of Violette Societa, PJ Smith. Roy is currently promoting his latest publication, Boomerang Process along with a feature length film based on his earlier publication, Algorithm Party. At Emotion Wave, Roy will be reading a longer form pieces with audio accompaniment from Lo Five.

b.a.g.s. is a experimental electronic artist working across idm, power electronics, and industrial music. His work moves between dense walls of sound, intense rhythms, low-frequency pressure and extended periods of drone; drawing abrasive and atmospheric material in constantly shifting forms. Improvisation remains central to the project, allowing structure, texture and repetition to emerge and collapse in real time. b.a.g.s live performances have evolved into a volatile and highly responsive set, shifting fluidly between free improvisation, industrial drone, dub-informed space and the physical momentum of techno.

Jez Thelwell is the host of Moolakii Club Audio, a Wirral-based DIY label, zine publisher and live events platform which champions underground experimental electronica, bedroom producers, and cassette culture.

aaypea will be providing some dreamy ambience in between sets ~ field recordings, electro + glitch with live samples to ease transitions between each artist’s set.

This is going to be another special one, be a part of it. Neil and Sean x

Advance tickets £8.50 from Skiddle. Link in bio. taken in Commune Liverpool by @pj_smith9

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a month ago

Another lovely Sunday morning with @pj_smith9

Soundtracking us with his great collection of music.
Thanks to everyone that joined us

& Don’t worry.. he’ll be back same time next week

• sun 10am - 2pm • taken in Liverpool, United Kingdom by @pj_smith9

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a month ago

Might be the last time this is screened in Liverpool? Ticket link in bio.

Come and see ALGORITHM PARTY at @picturehouse_fact on Thursday 20th August at 19:30

From a recent review:

Roy is a composite, welded together from Smith and the people he came up with. The characters are lifted from life. Brian Scanlon, the small-time dealer turned local legend, wanders in and out of the stories like a face you keep half-recognising. Names surface from Brookside too, Max Farnham the yuppie womaniser among them, because in this city the soap and the street shared a postcode and always did. Smith denies being Roy.

He also grew up in Roy’s world and lives there still, which is nearer the truth than yes. He carries his notebooks to every gig in a blue carrier bag from Duncan’s off-licence on Walton Road, the print on it older than a fair few of the people he reads to.

The sleight of hand is all in the delivery. On stage PJ sounds like a man improvising, three pints in, a natural who wandered up from the bar and turned out to be mesmerising. He’s doing nothing of the kind. He is word-perfect, fixed to a text he wrote and rewrote and can recite in his sleep, and in the Concert Room he keeps the book beside him though he never once needs it, a comfort object for a man who knows where every full stop lives. Boulter saw the potential years before he shot a frame. He had read the book, watched Smith perform, and thought straight away of Swimming to Cambodia, Jonathan Demme’s film of Spalding Gray sat behind a desk, holding a cinema for ninety minutes on words and nerve alone. Boulter bet that Smith could carry the same load. The bet comes off.

He breaks the single-take spell only when it earns its keep. The St George’s Hall footage is cut with sequences shot separately, the camera is then pushed closer, the face filling the frame, and Boulter is plain about why. “That’s when he holds your attention, when you are in close.” A few glimpses of the Liverpool that made Roy drift through. Otherwise it’s the face and the voice and the nerve to leave them be. No swelling strings to instruct you how to feel about a man recounting his worst nights. The restraint is t by @pj_smith9

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2 months ago

Flowers that never argue with the sun…

Wearing the Maharishi Hemp Track Jacket and zip-off Snopants from the latest collection, Year of The Praying Mantis, Roy tells the story of Maharishi’s core ethos - functional, sustainable, military design with a conscious, pacifist spirit. by @pj_smith9

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2 months ago

We’re open from 5pm today !
@pj_smith9 aka Roy plays records from 7pm, tonight and every Wednesday
Old songs and new !
Strictly vinyl gems from across the globe and spectrum
📸 @glamgigpics by @pj_smith9

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2 months ago

If peace is the oldest pattern in nature...

PJ Smith is a storyteller.

Often told through his character, Roy, PJ Smith transforms life’s chaos into Roy’s tales of reflection.

Wearing the Maharishi Hemp Tracksuit from the latest collection, Year of The Praying Mantis, Roy tells the story of Maharishi’s core ethos - functional, sustainable, military design with a conscious, pacifist spirit. by @pj_smith9

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2 months ago

Driving down Hartington Rd this afternoon with @lightbowne_72 we spotted an A-board outside someone’s house. We looked in and saw a trailer and agreed to come back for a mooch later.

So we did. A lovely family are selling coffee, tea, soft drinks, matcha, pastries etc from outside their house. It’s their first day open.

They need customers. So if you’re out and about over the weekend, get yourself to 115 Hartington Road L8 0SF.

We recommend mum’s Arabic coffee.

Go and support @sukunspresso by @pj_smith9

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2 months ago

Our guest this month is Liverpool writer, storyteller and recovery worker PJ Smith — also known through his writing and performances as Roy.

PJ was a talented young footballer who signed for Everton, but as his home life became less stable, football, school and eventually any sense of direction began to slip away.

By his late teens, alcohol and drugs had replaced football as a way of finding confidence, connection and identity. What followed was a decade PJ describes as repetitive, chaotic and increasingly hopeless.

In 2007, with his life reduced to getting through each day and the possibility of suicide becoming very real, PJ finally asked for help.

During treatment, he was asked to write his life story. A member of staff told him he could write and that he should nurture it. A few weeks later, a slightly dishonest attempt to get an afternoon away from rehab led him to an open audition in front of playwright Willy Russell and another person telling him to keep writing.

He did.

PJ’s first collection, Algorithm Party, introduced Roy: part character, part alter ego and part collection of the men, voices and contradictions PJ had grown up around.

His new book, Boomerang Process, returns to those lives and asks what happened next.
We talk about growing up anxious, his father’s absence, football and belonging, addiction, recovery, creativity and the uncomfortable period when an old identity has disappeared but a new one has not yet formed.

PJ also tells us about his work at Damien John Kelly House, a recovery living centre in Liverpool where men rebuild their lives through honesty and accountability, but also through football, cycling, books, art, music and community.

This is a conversation about wasted potential, second chances and why recovery has to become about far more than simply not drinking or using drugs.

It’s also about what makes a good man: consistency, honesty, responsibility and being prepared to live by the things you ask of others.

https://open.spotify.com/episode/1F6Jpk1AgdXIr1H34m5P6q?si=CHeQcMG4QhGD1IS5gVP5Gg&utm_source=copy-link by @pj_smith9

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2 months ago