Absolute Elsewhere
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BOB DYLAN: THE CUTTING EDGE, THE BOOTLEG SERIES VOL 12 (2015): Mixing up the medicine
30 Nov 2015 | 5 min read
There's a widely held belief that most creative people do their best work in the matter of furious years of activity some time either side of their 20th birthday. The evidence for this can be compelling in pop and rock culture, although equally so we can cite many musicians – Nick Cave, Kate Bush, Leonard Cohen and others – who have continued to explore and present work which... > Read more
Highway 61 Revisited (alternate take)
THE KITCHEN CINQ REDISCOVERED (2015): Amarillo, California in the Sixties, y'all
27 Nov 2015 | 2 min read
In their photos, the Kitchen Cinq out of Texas in the mid Sixties don't look entirely promising, like buttoned-down high school seniors who have been given the afternoon off from library duties. And yet . . . The first thing to pique interest in the 28 song compilation When the Rainbow Disappears; A Drama Worthy of The Kitchen Cinq is that this band from Amarillo were on Lee... > Read more
Please Come Back
THE BEATLES 1 AND 1+ : The look and sound of a culture-changing band
6 Nov 2015 | 5 min read
Oddly enough, Elvis Presley's gold Cadillac was, if you will follow this thread, responsible for the rise of video clips. In 1966 when the Beatles -- weary of touring and battered by the deafening screams of Beatlemania – decided to pull back from live appearances, they found a way of having a presence for fans while they recorded and enjoyed some rare downtime. “We'd... > Read more
VAN MORRISON REISSUED (2015): A soul poet as his peak
4 Nov 2015 | 3 min read
By recent accounts Van Morrison isn't quite as grumpy as he once was. It's relative of course; when sent to interview him in the late Eighties, Spike Milligan surprised Morrison by wearing a large pink penis nose and managed to get a laugh. But the subsequent interview was a monosyllabic affair for the most part with Milligan trying his best to draw out the notoriously grumpy Irishman.... > Read more
Slim Slow Slider take 4
ANTON NEWCOMBE INTERVIEWED (2015): Communication breakdown.
27 Oct 2015 | 3 min read
Okay, the heading there is utterly misleading because, only briefly, was Anton Newcombe of the Brian Jonestown Massacre interviewed. Some things are just not meant to be. The first call to him at his home in Berlin – to discuss his interesting recent albums and the new mini-album Thingy Wingy released in advance of his New Zealand tour (dates below) – begins well and... > Read more
Leave It Alone
FLEETWOOD MAC, A USER'S GUIDE (2015): Long distance players
27 Oct 2015 | 3 min read
With the old gang back on the block and touring, maybe it's time to look at the vast back-catalogue of Fleetwood Mac. But given the big Mac family tree has many branches and short blooming buds (the Bob Welch years) it's hard to whittle their vast catalogue down to essentials. But here goes. Then Play On (1969) The third album as a British blues band and the last with... > Read more
JOHN LENNON REISSUED ON RECORD (2015): Going solo in the Seventies
9 Oct 2015 | 4 min read | 2
Had he lived, John Lennon would turn 75 on October 9. Which means – because he had 17 years on the world stage before his murder in 80 – that he's been dead twice as long as he was alive and famous. Recently Paul McCartney noted that Lennon's death turned him into a martyr, and its also true that – perhaps largely through Lennon and Yoko Ono's self-mythologising... > Read more
Old Dirt Road
QUEEN REVISITED, AGAIN (2015): It's yesterday once more
5 Oct 2015 | 6 min read
Some years ago a friend of mine worked for a major international record company. At the time we had lunch in an early November, with the downturn in CD sales and the constantly shifting ground of the internet, things were getting tougher. So as the second bottle arrived only just in time we were talking about this situation in somewhat glum terms. But, I said cheerily, at least they... > Read more
I Want It All
LUKE BUDA INTERVIEWED (2015): Phoenix changes the Foundations
22 Sep 2015 | 8 min read
The phone call catches Luke Buda of the Phoenix Foundation at halftime in the All Blacks' unconvincing opening match of their Rugby World Cup campaign. I've seen the game against Argentina play out on an earlier broadcast so we agree he needs to watch the second half. I call back later and naturally the conversation turns to rugby and we agree the team needed this shake-up in their... > Read more
Playing Dead
SIMON THACKER INTERVIEWED (2015): The intercultural explorer on six strings
4 Sep 2015 | 9 min read
When Simon Thacker was growing up outside a small village some distance from Edinburgh in Scotland, the rest of the world seemed a very long way away. But as an aspiring guitarist he connected to it through music by exploring the blues, classical music, folk and more. He found his way to Indian and Spanish music and so these days the world doesn't so much come to him but –... > Read more
Nada-Anada: Joy. Simon Thacker and the Nava Rasa Ensemble
NWA; BACK OUTTA COMPTON (2015): The return of the original gangstas
31 Aug 2015 | 4 min read
When Ice-T boldly announced that gangsta rap was the CNN of the ghetto suburbs, one wit hit back saying — given the cliched posing with guns and chains and the sneering attitude — that it was actually more like the Cartoon Network. Of course things change fast in popular culture and before long the writer Ned Sublett in his excellent book about New Orleans and the hip-hop... > Read more
Deep Water (Kendrick Lamar, Justus, Anderson.Paak)
KARIN KROG CONSIDERED (2015): A rare voice from the north
17 Aug 2015 | 2 min read
Because no sensible soul would come to a website called Elsewhere to hear just the familiar, we can confidently speak about the extraordinary, often uncategorisable Norwegian jazz singer Karin Krog who is now in her late 70s and has been around since the Sixties when she emerged a jazz-pop singer. She first came onto the Elsewhere radar a few decades ago when she recorded with John Surman... > Read more
Maiden Voyage
PETE TOWNSHEND REPEATED (2015): Who loves who the most?
20 Jul 2015 | 4 min read
A few years ago before Christmas I bought two rock autobiographies to read over the break. One was Rod Stewart's Rod which was howling funny and charted the life of a man for whom booze, blondes and a bloody good time were written into the contract of being a rock star. So he obliged. The other could not have been more different, it was Pete Townshend's earnest Who I Am which read... > Read more
My Baby Gives It Away by Pete Townshend and Ronnie Lane
JOY DIVISION REISSUED (2015): The art at the heart of darkness
13 Jul 2015 | 3 min read | 1
Many decades ago on his Graceland album, Paul Simon sang, “Every generation throws a hero up the pop charts”. New Zealand threw one of the most unexpected up its singles chart: At the dawn of the 80s Joy Division's Love Will Tear Us Apart went to number one. Some might think that confirms the country as emotionally bleak, a place where novels and films almost invariably... > Read more
The Sound of Music
JON SPENCER INTERVIEWED (2015): Another rock-blues implosion from New York
6 Jul 2015 | 5 min read
Jon Spencer is just back in his adopted home-city of New York after an American tour then a few festival dates in Europe with the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion, the band he formed 24 years ago. He's only got a little downtime however before coming to Australia and New Zealand for shows and then a punishing schedule through until the end of the year. He's going to be 50 this year and... > Read more
Funeral
DAVE BAXTER, AVALANCHE CITY INTERVIEWED (2015): Finally, above ground again
3 Jul 2015 | 9 min read
The cafe where we meet is very nice and attracts a particular clientele, as you'd expect. It is in Herne Bay, the country's first $2 million suburb apparently. Neither Dave Baxter nor I live around here of course – he's out west in Massey and I'm a few suburbs to the south – but with his hipster beard and beanie he fits in better than I do. Neither of us are good for... > Read more
THE STRANGE CASE OF THE DISAPPEARING STONE (2015): Where's Bill? Why man, he done gone!
29 Jun 2015 | 3 min read | 1
When he was in the Rolling Stones, bassist Bill Wyman was mostly an impassive and seemingly disengaged presence on stage, only occasionally flicking a knowing look at drummer Charlie Watts as Mick Jagger pranced and preened. Bill Wyman was the Silent Stone. After he left the Stones in '93 however he wrote Stone Alone, a strangely compelling and scrupulously detailed account on... > Read more
Jumpin' Jack Flash
SCALPER PROFILED (2015): New clothes for an old ceremony
22 Jun 2015 | 2 min read | 1
Scalper – known to his family as Nadeem Shafi – is one of the politest e-mailers it has been Elsewhere's pleasure to have contact with. For the past few years he's sent us sample tracks from his forthcoming album, always signed off with “Peace” and has cheerfully accepted that Elsewhere doesn't review singles or EP (too many full length albums commanding... > Read more
Lullaby (Scalper w Claire Duncan)
DISCO, NOW AND THEN (2015): The genius of Giorgio, and getting the Fever again
19 Jun 2015 | 4 min read | 2
At 74, the pioneering producer Giorgio Moroder should be slowing down, but in fact he's started again. His new album Deja-Vu will be his first in 30 years and the renewed interest in him was doubtless prompted by his appearance on Daft Punk's 2013 Random Access Memory in which he spoke over an archetypal Moroder piece entitled Giorgio by Moroder. Among the guests on the new album... > Read more
La Disco by Giorgio Moroder
JAMES TAYLOR INTERVIEWED (2015): Even now, there's a stretch of highway
19 Jun 2015 | 10 min read | 1
Against the odds of age – and a bank balance probably falling below those necessary multiple millions rock-gentry seem to require these days to survive in the lifestyle they created and have become accustomed to – James Taylor is touring again. However, despite being 67 and having seen more than his share of concierges in strange hotels, unappealing backstage areas and... > Read more