Elsewhere by Graham Reid

Kayenta, Arizona: Into the valley

Sat, 25 Jun 2011 00:00:00 +1200

Kayenta is a wide spot on the highway through north east Arizona. There's not much there worth reporting: a Wal-Mart, a small and somewhat pitiful town which shimmers in the dry heat, and a few motels.

Kayenta -- between not far from Four Corners where Utah, Arizona, Colorado and New Mexico meet -- offers no reason to stop, unless you are looking for a place to stay before the short drive into nearby Monument Valley where John Ford filmed such classic westerns as Stagecoach and The Searchers.

Monument Valley is cowboy country, the land where John Wayne roamed, the imagined West defined through the filter of Hollywood in the 30s and 40s.

But of course Monument Valley is not that at all. It is Indian land, part of the Navajo Nation, and its ...

Source: Kayenta, Arizona: Into the valley

THE GRATEFUL DEAD: The Dead rise again

Wed, 28 Jul 2010 00:00:00 +1200

There are some pretty odd tribute albums out there lately - and they seem to be getting stranger by the day.

A couple of years ago it was all sensible kind of stuff, artists getting together to play Byrds songs or salute Neil Young. That’s cool.

These days, however, we are getting albums like the Manson Family Sings the Songs of Charles Manson(previously unreleased 1970 recordings, folks) and artists are palling up to pay tribute to obscure figures like Roky Erikson and, strangest of them all, the Rutles.

Yep, in the early Nineties there was ...

Source: THE GRATEFUL DEAD: The Dead rise again

The Flying Burrito Brothers: Wild Horses (1970)

Wed, 28 Jul 2010 00:00:00 +1200

Few Rolling Stones songs have had such an interesting history -- right up to Susan Boyle's recent interpretation -- as this one.

Keith Richards has always claimed the title was his; Mick Jagger insists the song came from the first words Marianne Faithfull said when she came arround from a failed suicide attempt in '69: "Wild horses wouldn't drag me away from you".

The Stones recorded their version in Muscle Shoals Studio in Alabama in December '69 (there is footage of this in their Altamont film Gimme Shelter) but realised that being a country song it needed some appropriate embellishment. They t ...

Source: The Flying Burrito Brothers: Wild Horses (1970)

The Flys: Love and a Molotov Cocktail (1978)

Tue, 27 Jul 2010 00:00:00 +1200

1977 was a confusing year in Britain: pub-rockers Dr Feelgood were at an all-time peak, the Sex Pistols, the Clash and others advanced the punk agenda, and off on the margins were power-pop bands which hadn't quite seen the changes coming.

The four-piece Flys out of Coventry -- a little distant from the London scene -- were in the latter category, they knew a power pop-cum-New Wave riff but they also caught a whiff of punk anger . . . hence this likeable single which stood somewhere between Sham 69 and radio pop, delivered with a little ...

Source: The Flys: Love and a Molotov Cocktail (1978)

POI E AND PATEA MAORI (1988): Dalvanius, man of passion

Tue, 27 Jul 2010 00:00:00 +1200

The old wooden Methodist church in a side street in Patea isn’t used much anymore. A lot of places in Patea aren't. It's a town battered by the economic ideas of successive governments and people have had to move out.

The work just isn’t there anymore.

But at least once a week the cobwebs in the church rafters shake when the Patea Maori group, the town's most visible success story of the past four years, use it as a rehearsal space.

It’s the Monday night before the soon to be doomed Neon Picnic and the group has gathered to run through its set and organise transport for the coming Friday.

They are supposed to open the festival.

Enthusiasm is high and members have come back from ...

Source: POI E AND PATEA MAORI (1988): Dalvanius, man of passion

JUDY MOWATT INTERVIEWED (1990): The black queen arises