THE MAGAZINE FOR CURIOUS PEOPLE
Elsewhere is a concept and a place, and Graham Reid goes there for his wide angle travels, writing, music review and interviews with writers, musicians and artists.
Elsewhere is an on-line magazine for new music (we filter out the mundane and spotlight the more interesting albums), different travel, arts and more. It is dedicated to the diversity and possibilities of Elsewhere. It's an equal opportunity enjoyer. Subscribe here (it's free) for a weekly newsletter. Welcome . . .
Latest posts
Dandy Warhols: Rockmaker (digital outlets)
18 Mar 2024 | 1 min read
Despite their seemingly ramshackle career, Portland's Dandy Warhols have survived line-up changes, being seduced by the major label Capitol, being dropped, making poor business choices and albums which changed their direction from ragged indie rock to psychedelia, synth-pop, New Wave influences and shoegaze. They often seemed casually dismissive of any career releasing... > Read more
The Summer of Hate
Ted Brown: Solstice Canyon Loop (digital outlets)
18 Mar 2024 | <1 min read
It has probably been many years, if not decades, since most in New Zealand heard of Ted Brown, most commonly known as the longtime guitarist in Greg Johnson's band. Like Johnson, Brown has lived in Los Angeles for more the 20 years now and just as Johnson moved into the refined, singer-songwriter territory, Brown moved more toward alt.country. This highly... > Read more
Stops
Charles Lloyd: The Sky Will Still Be There Tomorrow (Blue Note/digital outlets)
18 Mar 2024 | 1 min read
Even those who just casually poke around Elsewhere will know the affection and high esteem in which we hold saxophonist/flautist Charles Lloyd. One of his albums Lift Every Voice is in our Essential Elsewhere selection and frankly there are another couple we could slip in there without apology. Now 86, Lloyd brings even more quiet sensitivity and emotional care to... > Read more
The Lonely One
JENNIFER LOPEZ. ONE ALBUM, TWO FILMS (2024): Oversharing overkill
18 Mar 2024 | 3 min read
When the brightest stars in the pop firmament – Taylor, Adele, Beyonce – release new albums, the announcement alone often ensures hysteria and hyperbole, expensive videos and soul-baring interviews. And so we come to Jennifer Lopez's new album This is Me . . . Now, its title updating her 2002 album This Is Me . . . Then. J-Lo – we'll default to the... > Read more
Young Guv: Couldn't Leave U If I Tried (2022)
18 Mar 2024 | <1 min read
A recent disc which came with a copy of a British music magazine alerted us to the power pop charms of Brooklyn-based Young Guv who on this song – which opened his 2022 album Guv III – distills the sound of the Shoes, Searchers, Raspberries and . . . Well, as we've said previously, power pop is a genre which announces and defines itself in the name: pop... > Read more
MINNIE RIPERTON: PERFECT ANGEL, CONSIDERED (1974): La la la la da da bee doo . . .
17 Mar 2024 | 2 min read
When Minnie Riperton died in 1979 many were shocked, and not just that she should be taken so young at 31. Nor was it that she looked so full of cheeky life on the cover of her hit album Perfect Angel which contained the extraordinary single Lovin' You. It was that she died of breast cancer which was probably the first time many of her young soul/r'n'b followers had... > Read more
SOUND THINKING #8: The podcast for music people
16 Mar 2024 | <1 min read
The eighth episode of the music podcast in which Marty Duda of 13th Floor hosts some reviewers who discuss new albums. This week Chris Warne, Veronika Bell, Andra Jenkins and I review four new albums by The Black Crowes, Dandy Warhols,Amiria Grenell and Kacy Musgraves. Good informed comment. Here it is. For other episodes of Sound Thinking go here > Read more
Black Crowes: Happiness Bastards (digital outlets)
15 Mar 2024 | 1 min read
The 30 year story of the Black Crowes, the sibling rivalry between singer/guitarist Chris and his guitarist brother Rich, the side projects, line-up changes, drugs, break-ups and reunions makes for complex and sometimes hilarious reading. For a while they seemed the Band Most Likely on the back of their debut Shake Your Money Maker and its sprawling follow-up The... > Read more
Bleed It Dry
Omni: Souvenir (digital outlets)
11 Mar 2024 | <1 min read
The sharp-edged, snappy and staccato pop-rock from this taut three-piece out of Atlanta taps into the spirit and sound of Wire, the very early Cure, the Feelies and the young Talking Heads. These 11 songs are almost skeletal but that suits their compact, nervous energy which bristle with small ideas rendered large and don't waste a second. Only three songs break the... > Read more
Granite Kiss
Shivkumar Sharma, Brijbushan Kabra, Hariprasad Chaurasia: Call of the Valley (1967)
11 Mar 2024 | 1 min read | 2
When this beautiful, elegant tone poem of Indian classical music was reissued in 1995 on the EMI Hemisphere label (with three extra tracks), people like me with a long affection for Indian music could hardly believe our luck. It was one of those long-hard-to-find albums -- although it had been kept in print in India, where I'd bought a bad copy on cassette in... > Read more
Rag Pahadi
The Famous Elsewhere Questionnaire
THE FAMOUS ELSEWHERE BLUES QUESTIONNAIRE . . . Courtnay Low of The Mons Whaler and The Unholy Reverie
11 Mar 2024 | 4 min read
No doubt many already know of singer/guitarist and keyboard player Courtnay Low but she only came on Elsewhere's radar last week with the Taranaki-based band The Mons Whaler. Their debut album Hold My Gun is like a box of firecrackers and Low's playing was just one excellent element in a band which managed to be tough, soulful, blues and appealing all at the same time.... > Read more
It Ain't On Me, by The Mons Whaler (ft Courtnay Low)
Rachel Sweet; Stranger in the House (1978)
11 Mar 2024 | 1 min read
While no one actually used the word "jailbait" at the time, you can bet the idea passed through a few music writers' heads when the photos of Rachel Sweet came across their desks from Stiff Records. Actually, that's not entirely true: Stiff used the word about their young signing. Sweet -- from Akron, Ohio -- was just 16 when she broke through in Britain. But... > Read more
GREG JOHNSON, PROFILED AND REVIEWED (2024): Back for another crack
11 Mar 2024 | 2 min read
It has been more than 30 years since we first wrote about Greg Johnson, a major profile in the New Zealand Herald in about 1991 when he released his debut album The Watertable. We have followed his career ever since, caught up with him in Los Angeles where he went to live and have interviewed and reviewed him over the decades. But we are also aware that for many,... > Read more
The Cherry Pickers, From Thunder in Fall (2024)
MAKING THEM FRIGHTENED AND FEARFUL: My lecturing technique at university
11 Mar 2024 | 4 min read
By chance, I left university lecturing in much the same way as I'd arrived: by slipping out sideways. Some time in the late 2000s I was freelancing, had done a short and unhappy stint lecturing in journalism (which I felt was taking fees from students entering a dying industry) and every now and again I'd be invited by singer-songwriter Karen Hunter to come and talk to... > Read more
The Famous Elsewhere Questionnaire
THE FAMOUS ELSEWHERE QUESTIONNAIRE . . . Blair Jollands
10 Mar 2024 | 2 min read
Because we've written about Blair Jollands – and interviewed him – in the past, we'd like to think Elsewhere readers would be aware of him. But the fact he hasn't lived here for about 20 years – London his longtime home – we figure you might need a reminder in advance of his forthcoming tour. He also muddies his own waters by having played... > Read more
My Home Town
WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT . . . ROSEMARY BROWN: Music from the great beyond
10 Mar 2024 | 6 min read
When the English composer and pianist Rosemary Brown died in 2001 at age 85 she took with her an intimate knowledge of the works by some of the greatest classical composers. This is not uncommon of course. Classical performers and conductors always have a deep and personal connection to the music of those whose compositions they have studied and played. But... > Read more
Valse Brillante in E Minor
TIGERS OF THE MIND by MICHAEL MORRISSEY
6 Mar 2024 | 1 min read
Some writers pace themselves for the sprints or middle-distance in short story collections or maybe a novel or two. Others, like Michael Morrissey, are long-distance runners. Morrissey's new collection of poems Tigers of the Mind is his 14th and stands alongside a novel, two novellas and a couple of shorter fictions, scripts for two stage plays, a work of non-fiction... > Read more
THE STEADY RETURN OF THE VERLAINES (2024): Taking good care of it
5 Mar 2024 | 5 min read
Although Graeme Downes retired from the field of play four years ago, his legacy of music with the Verlaines – and with students who passed through his courses at the University of Otago's music department – is assured. Tall, dark and interesting, Downes always seemed more mature than his peers on Flying Nun when the Verlaines emerged alongside the Clean, the... > Read more
THE TAITE MUSIC AWARDS (2024): And the nominees are . . .
5 Mar 2024 | 1 min read
One of the most interesting and prestigious events on the local music calendar is the annual Taite Music Prize which recognises an exceptional album and is judged on musical merit not sales. The awards have expanded to include Best Independent Debut Award, another for outstanding music journalism and a classic independently released album from our past. There is also... > Read more
RIP RIG + PANIC: GOD, CONSIDERED (1981): Post-punk demented dervish heart-attack jazz'n'rock funk
4 Mar 2024 | 3 min read
When you name your post-punk debut after an album by the great jazz saxophonist Rahsaan Roland Kirk you have really upped the stakes and expectation. And when the band is formed around Mark Springer, Bruce Smith and Gareth Sager of the anarcho-punk Pop Group with guests Neneh Cherry and Ari Up of the Slits, then you know things are going to be . . . at very least,... > Read more