Elsewhere by Graham Reid

ANOUSHKA SHANKAR INTERVIEWED: Never in the shadow (2008)

Mon, 15 Mar 2010 00:00:00 +1300

As two Lennons and any number of Marleys might tell you, it isn’t easy carrying the name of a famous musician father, especially if you want a career in the business yourself.

Certainly doors may open that otherwise wouldn’t -- but because of that critics and the public often treat your career with some scepticism, you have to grow up musically in public, and your best work will invariably be compared with that of your legendary dad.

Consider then the hard haul before Anoushka Shankar whose father Ravi has been India’s best known -- perhaps only internationally known -- musician for over five decades.

Sitar player and composer Ravi Shan ...

Source: ANOUSHKA SHANKAR INTERVIEWED: Never in the shadow (2008)

RAVI SHANKAR AND INDIAN MUSIC: More Than One Lifetime

Sun, 14 Mar 2010 00:00:00 +1300

My collection of schoolboy poetry which I would agonise over late at night, laboriously using my Scripto fountain pen and Radiant Blue ink, has long since vanished. Thank God. I’m sure it was full of adolescent anxieties -- one “poem” was about Oedipus, about whom I knew nothing other than I liked the name.

But one piece remains with me in the memory.

It was called Raga Rageshri and a key early line was “the smoke coils inside”.

It was undoubtedly Benson & Hedges -- or maybe DeReske or DuMaurier which my mum smoked -- but my English teacher who confiscated my juvenilia from under my desk knew exactly what it meant.

It was 1966 and, despite saying he quite liked that particular poem, he immediately had me pegged for ...

Source: RAVI SHANKAR AND INDIAN MUSIC: More Than One Lifetime

AL DI MEOLA INTERVIEWED (2009): Guitarist from the loud to the listener

Sun, 14 Mar 2010 00:00:00 +1300

At 55, Al Di Meola -- who still lives in New Jersey close to his musical roots -- has had a long and influential career, and was one of the great innovators on electric guitar.

In the late Sixties and early Seventies he played small clubs in New York and around Boston while at Berklee, but was largely an unknown when he made his debut appearance with the jazz-fusion outfit Return To Forever at Carnegie Hall alongside keyboard player Chick Corea and bassist Stanley Clarke. The following night he played with them before 40,000 in Atlanta.

It was 1974, he was 19 and he’d started at the top.

Di Meola not only brought jazz and rock to the band but a longtime love of Latin music which he assimilated into his sound. Santana -- who he adm ...

Source: AL DI MEOLA INTERVIEWED (2009): Guitarist from the loud to the listener

THE BARGAIN BUY

Sun, 14 Mar 2010 00:00:00 +1300

Boz Scaggs: Silk Degrees (1976)

These days singer/songwriter Boz Scaggs is more of a jazzman -- as witnessed by his album Speak Low of 2008. But in the mid Seventies, in those days just before disco started turning into a formula and a cliche, he made some beautifully soulful dance-pop which was not only radio-friendly but was subtle, understated and tasteful.

He'd come a long way from the folk album he recorded in Stockholm in '65 and being in the Steve Miller Band in the late Sixties psychedelic era. His had been a slow ...

Source: THE BARGAIN BUY

Salon Kingsadore: Mountain Rescue (Sarang Bang)

Sun, 14 Mar 2010 00:00:00 +1300

Salon Kingsadore is another vehicle for Auckland guitarist Gianmarco Liguori whose earlier albums under his own name (with stellar guests) have appeared at Elsewhere, and who seems a hard man to pigeonhole.

Here for example he leads the instrumental group of keyboard player Billy Squire, bassist Hayden Sinclair and drummer Steven Tait (with guests saxophonist Brian Smith and trumpeter Edwina Thorne) through material which weaves from blistering rock (the fiery opener Jump Cut) through edgy funky jazz-rock (Cocky Over-Confident Cocaine Border Crossing) and menacing film noir (Project Wolf where Squire provides the eerie organ backdrop) to disconcertingly beautiful moonlight swimming (The Warm War). < ...

Source: Salon Kingsadore: Mountain Rescue (Sarang Bang)

The Raincoats: The Raincoats (We Three/Southbound)

Sun, 14 Mar 2010 00:00:00 +1300

I'm pretty sure I shared an elevator with some of the Raincoats at a hotel in New York in the mid Nineties, but I may be wrong. And that's the end of my anecdote.

This is a reissue (The second? Third?) of their important '79 debut album when this London group of Ana da Silva, Gina Birch, Palmolive and Vicky Aspinall were hailed as the first all female post-punk band.

Owing a little to the staccato style of Talking Heads and the energy of the Clash as well as the more experimental bands on the post-punk spectrum, this debut still sounds wickedly fresh and driven by an internal need, has a powerfully untutored quality about it (the primitive percussion, the slightly wobbly vocals) and delivers a series of low punches rather than a knock-out blow.

At the ti ...

Source: The Raincoats: The Raincoats (We Three/Southbound)

Edwin Derricutt: Three Hours South (Freefall/Pure)

Sun, 14 Mar 2010 00:00:00 +1300

The debut by this New Zealand singer-songwriter, Symmetry, found immediate favour at Elsewhere a couple of years ago, but this album is big step up in maturity of songwriting and musicality.

There's a depth and muscularity to these songs (the urgent tone of Life Boat, the sharp folk-pop of 30 Seconds, the holy stillness of Soldier) which is immediately affecting and if on the previous album his voice sounded a bit light when it could have bitten harder that certainly isn't a comment you'd make this time around.

He's also got sense of humour: 2 Feet Tall about a child's eye view of the beauties and mysteries of the world contains the refrain "I might be your baby, but I ...

Source: Edwin Derricutt: Three Hours South (Freefall/Pure)

Katchafire: Say What You're Thinking (EMI CD/DVD Edition)

Sun, 14 Mar 2010 00:00:00 +1300

This will be brief because the original 2008 album (the third by this constantly working New Zealand reggae outfit) was reviewed at Elsewhere here, but just to note this expanded package now comes with extra tracks (two album tracks remixed and two live songs, one being Collie Herbsman off their debut album Revival, the other this album's title track).

There is now also a DVD disc which includes a doco of the making of Say What You're Thinking, three live tracks (all off that impressive debut album) from a showcase gig in Los Angeles, and their video for Working off this album which was directed by Adam Jones.

Katchafire are Katchafire: Say What You're Thinking (EMI CD/DVD Edition)

Moriarty: Gee Whiz but this is a Lonesome Town (Carte!l/Border)

Sun, 14 Mar 2010 00:00:00 +1300

In an odd reversal of the journey Marianne Dissard took -- from France to Arizona to create Fanco-alt.country -- this group fronted by Rosemary Moriarty out of Ohio (they are Ramones-like all called Moriarty) have an established following in France where they reside for their alt.country, old time folk.

With harmonica, double bass, acoustic guitars, a suitcase played as a drum, Jew's harp, xylophone and other low-key often lo-fi sounds, this has a backporch or barnyard recording feel to it -- but this is no retro-wish fulfillment.

The subjects here are contemporary: a young woman enlisting to get a study grant and eneding up toting an M-16 into a ...

Source: Moriarty: Gee Whiz but this is a Lonesome Town (Carte!l/Border)

Various Artists: The Gerry Goffin and Carole King Songbook (EMI)

Sat, 13 Mar 2010 00:00:00 +1300

While Carole King went on to greater fame, it is worth remembering that of the songs she wrote with her writing partner-then-husband Gerry Goffin in the early Sixties it was he who penned those memorable and often extremely adult lyrics: think of the pre-sex doubt in "will you still love me tomorrow", the post-sex pleasures of "you make me feel like a natural woman" and then the melancholy reflectiveness of "I think I'm going back to things I knew so well in my youth".

These were remarkable lyrics (among many dozens) for Goffin to pen and have covered by women (The Shirelles, Aretha Franklin and Dusty Springfield respectively).

In the early Sixties the Goffin-King partn ...

Source: Various Artists: The Gerry Goffin and Carole King Songbook (EMI)

The Fourmyula: The Complete Fourmyula (EMI)

Sat, 13 Mar 2010 00:00:00 +1300

In his recent book 100 Essential New Zealand Albums, the writer/broadcaster Nick Bollinger lists three albums by the Fourmyula (1967-71) out of Upper Hutt.

Not bad for a band that only released three -- and one of those Bollinger cites was the unreleased Turn Your Back on the Wind.

Confused?

Bollinger doesn't list their self-titled debut but includes Turn Your Back because it has only just come out as part of this impressive four-CD collection -- for which he wrote the excellent band biography in the extensive liner notes.

In the past decade the band's star rose on the back of songwriter Wayne Mason's Nature being voted the best New Zealand song of the previous 75 years. That lead to attention being thrown on their other singles (notably Come ...

Source: The Fourmyula: The Complete Fourmyula (EMI)

JIMI HENDRIX AND ALAN DOUGLAS: The fireball and the keeper of the flame

Mon, 08 Mar 2010 00:00:00 +1300

The name Alan Douglas raises mixed feelings among Jimi Hendrix fans. By a series of canny and right-place, right-time manoeuvres after the death of Hendrix in 1970, Douglas -- a former jazz producer, and a friend and adviser to Hendrix in his final years -- ended up as the curator of the Hendrix legacy.

While others, notably the many claiming to be the late guitarist’s manager, released posthumous Hendrix albums of sometimes startlingly indifferent quality, Douglas quietly worked away at establishing himself. He pulled boxes of studio tapes under his wing, collected live recording and moved into a position of po ...

Source: JIMI HENDRIX AND ALAN DOUGLAS: The fireball and the keeper of the flame

Duran Duran: Spoiled, rude and stupid

Mon, 08 Mar 2010 00:00:00 +1300

Maybe it’s because he’s wearing what look to be his pyjamas – great big cottony, flowy things covered in only-safe-at-night checks – that John Taylor of Duran Duran looks extremely tired and bored.

Good-looking in a cheekbones and quiffed hair way, you understand. But bored witless nonetheless.

It's early 1993 and he’s standing behind the cafeteria bar in the Dominion Theatre, London, sucking thoughtfully on a well-placed toothpick and posing lazily for whatever flashgun might shoot next.

These are tough tim ...

Source: Duran Duran: Spoiled, rude and stupid

THE HAUNTING PAST OF CINEMA: Classics illustrated

Mon, 08 Mar 2010 00:00:00 +1300

For those of us who are pay-per-view civilians, television is a kaleidoscope portal from the present (the Oscars, downtown Baghdad on a bad day) to the past (the History Channel), and sometimes into an imagined future (although heaven forbid it should be as po-faced as Stargate SG-1).

The time-shift possibilities can be fun, but they are a warning if you think these are the best of times. As many -- Martin Scorsese an obvious exception -- on Hollywood’s red carpet undoubtedly now do.

But a channel scan restores perspective to any Oscar ballyhoo.

A couple of years ago I tuned in to TCM -- the channel devoted to “classic movies” -- where there were the award-wi ...

Source: THE HAUNTING PAST OF CINEMA: Classics illustrated

Buffy Sainte-Marie: The Big Ones Get Away (1992)

Mon, 08 Mar 2010 00:00:00 +1300

There are three distinct but overlapping public faces of Native American singer/songwriter Sainte-Marie: the woman who wrote and sang Universal Soldier and the theme to the film Soldier Blue in the Sixties; the permanent cast member of Sesame Street between '76 and '81; and a lifelong activist in the Native American movement.

But there was always much more to her: she is a much exhibited digital artist; her early song Cod'ine was covered by the Charlatans and Qucksilver Messenger Service in the Buffy Sainte-Marie: The Big Ones Get Away (1992)