Other Voices, Other Rooms
Subscribe to my newsletter for weekly updates.
GUEST WRITER ANDREW DAWSON looks back at punk as a new way forward
Andrew Dawson | 15 Dec 2014 | 9 min read
“Texts are worldly,” the literary theorist Edward Said wrote in '83, “[they are] a part of the social world, human life, and of course the historical moments in which they are located and interpreted”. Of all modern musical genres, it's undoubtedly punk music that exemplifies Said’s thesis that texts (in the broadest definition) are produced by and engage... > Read more
The Sound of the Suburbs
GUEST MUSICIAN ADAM McGRATH OF THE EASTERN on what drives their new album, The Territory
13 Dec 2014 | 7 min read
It'd be good to know exactly where it's at. I mean the what it is, the what it was and what it shall be, are hard enough but the elusive “where it's at” creates all kinds of troubling rumbles in the back of your brain. It feels like we've been looking for the illusive 'it' since we started this long ramble we call The Eastern. Sometimes it’s... > Read more
The Territory
GUEST PHOTOGRAPHER JONATHAN GANLEY once again shoots Nick Cave
Jonathan Ganley | 7 Dec 2014 | 2 min read
Auckland photographer Jonathan Ganley first photographed Nick Cave in 1983 at Mainstreet when Cave was with The Birthday Party. On the 30th anniversary of that show Elsewhere ran a photo essay by Ganley with his own recollections and those of others involved. So it seemed only fitting he should be there for Cave's appearance at the Civic on December 6, 2014. Ganley has written on... > Read more
GUEST AUTHOR DAVID VEART argues toys are us
1 Dec 2014 | 2 min read
Although many of our toys were produced in factories, others came from the backyard shed and the kitchen table: trolleys, tin canoes, dolls' houses, dolls' clothes, soft toys, made by cash- or import-strapped parents or by children themselves. In a world where basic sewing, woodwork and metalwork skills were taught, toys could be homemade, although they were not always the wholesome... > Read more
GUEST WRITER ANDREW DAWSON considers Michael Houstoun's interpretations of Beethoven's piano sonatas
Andrew Dawson | 21 Nov 2014 | 4 min read
If Chuck Berry’s hit Roll Over Beethoven was meant to dethrone the composer from his place in Western culture, it didn’t work. In the intervening years, Beethoven’s music has featured in over 700 movies alone, not to mention a plethora of commercials and even on the ‘77 Voyager Golden Record sent out for extra-terrestrial appreciation (with Berry as a fellow... > Read more
Appasionata; Allegro assai
GUEST ARTIST ALEXA SHAW writes about photographing a Pacific nation
1 Nov 2014 | 4 min read
Niue. Have you been? It’s a beautiful, rugged, raised coral atoll in the South Pacific. It’s a place for adventure, discovery, disconnecting oneself from the ‘real world’. Our host, Graham Reid has spent a bit of time in Niue discovering the place, and, most likely, something new about himself. To find out some of his highlights and definite ‘to... > Read more
GUEST ARTIST JOSEPHINE CACHEMAILLE on her new exhibition and current practice
23 Oct 2014 | 3 min read
I am interested in making objects, paintings and installations that provoke questions about our magical thinking tendencies. Magical thinking refers to causal reasoning that looks for correlations between objects, acts and utterances, where there are no plausible correlations. Despite its proliferation amongst ‘modern’ people, magical thinking it is still commonly seen... > Read more
GUEST COMMENTATOR SIMON GRIGG on New Zealand's patchy history of political songs
8 Oct 2014 | 6 min read
The story of political song in New Zealand is a mixed one. It goes from almost nothing to a flood to a trickle. For much of the history of popular song in New Zealand we simply did not make political statements in song – with very rare and sometimes accidental exceptions. Two of those exceptions are amongst the biggest hits of their eras and one was a definite pointer towards... > Read more
Treaty
GUEST WRITER SUSAN EPSKAMP considers One Direction and the idea of the concert film
6 Oct 2014 | 4 min read
It’s official: One Direction will be seen in cinemas again. The English boy group released a video message to Digital Spy announcing their new film, featuring footage from the San Siro Stadium in Milan. In their announcement, the boys say the film – entitled Where We Are; The Concert Film – was made for the fans who missed out on tickets to see them on their... > Read more
GUEST ILLUSTRATOR SARAH RYAN analyses the interface of text and art in her current work
29 Sep 2014 | 3 min read
In my current illustration work I have been exploring the ways which a narrative can be impelled by contradicting and contrasting ideas between illustration and typography. I have been playing with the way in which the ambiguous form of both illustration and typography can blur the line between what is illustration and what is typography. Through this approach I have been testing ways... > Read more
GUEST SONGWRITER GREG FLEMING recalls making his new album Forget the Past
13 Sep 2014 | 4 min read
A Sunday morning 2012. My daughter’s waiting for her poached eggs, my fiancĂ© is checking out travel deals on the net (a much promised, much delayed New Mexico holiday - making records ain't cheap!) and I’m sitting at the table picking on my acoustic guitar. My previous album Edge of the City with my band The Trains had been released a couple of months earlier. It was... > Read more
Cities in the Distance
GUEST RADIO HOST GRAHAM DONLON offers his 101 classic albums
25 Jul 2014 | 6 min read | 4
Responding to Elsewhere's recently posted all-inclusive Cornerstones collection -- 101 albums which could be the building blocks of a decent CD collection -- my 101 list includes all genres, it's just that the albums that I have never got sick of tend to lie outside popular music. This is my cornerstone collection, the discs that have sustained me over the years. As requested, I... > Read more
GUEST WRITER CHRIS BOURKE on a moving doco about an influential recording studio
23 Jun 2014 | 1 min read | 4
In 1967 Aretha Franklin went from the sophisticated studios of New York to a backwater in Alabama and finally had the hit that made her career: I Never Loved a Man. Arriving at the studio, she was surprised to find her backing band was young white boys. Looking back, and speaking with a royal “we” befitting the Queen of Soul, she said, “We didn’t know... > Read more
GUEST PHOTOGRAPHER JONATHAN GANLEY talks the art and business of images from PhotoForum
2 Jun 2014 | 6 min read
The forthcoming Rim Books publication of PhotoForum at 40: Counterculture, Clusters, and Debate in New Zealand will mark four decades since PhotoForum was founded. Perhaps the society no longer has the profile it enjoyed in its first 10 years, when it published a bi-monthly magazine, but PhotoForum is still going strong. There is a comprehensive website, frequent exhibitions, and... > Read more
GUEST WRITER SUSAN EPSKAMP on a doco about a music festival about unity and hope
25 May 2014 | 5 min read
Some of the most interesting music has been immersed in the politics of its day. The attitudes of musicians are a reaction to the social, political and economic happenings that surround them. The Made in America festival – which played out over two nights in the Benjamin Franklin Parkway in Philadelphia on September 1 and 2 in 2012 – was designed to accommodate the... > Read more
GUEST WRITER SUSAN EPSKAMP comes cold to the Clash
8 May 2014 | 3 min read
First, I should point out the Clash broke up before I was born and I'd not even heard much of them before I watched Danny Garcia’s film, The Rise and Fall of The Clash, at Elsewhere's invitation. Because of that I was confused for the better part of the 93 minutes duration. There were cuts from one idea to the other with the assumption the viewer had a clear understanding of the... > Read more
Radio Clash
GUEST MUSICIAN BEN WELLS OF TASMANIA'S THE MIDDLE NAMES on recording their debut album
2 May 2014 | 3 min read
In May 2013 we started recording our debut album ‘I Need Space. Now in May 2014 we get to release it to the public... finally. Let me start by saying this is one of the single hardest things we have done as a band; and ultimately the most rewarding. From writing and demoing 30 songs, to all five of us living in Brisbane in the one room for a month, to seeing it finished in... > Read more
Jealousy
GUEST WRITER OWEN WOOD on being unsafe at sea
28 Apr 2014 | 4 min read
For a business built on drama, this year's Oscars were singularly undramatic to the point of being tediously predictable. By a combination of timing, networking, collective guilt and America's love of self as much as some kind of redemptive conclusion, the winner for best picture was always going to be 12 Years a Slave. But, as with Lincoln the previous year, this was a film... > Read more
GUEST WRITER KEVIN BYRT recalls touring the strangely troubled Townes Van Zandt
21 Apr 2014 | 5 min read | 2
I first met Townes Van Zandt at Auckland airport in 1988. He and guitarist Mickey White were waiting on the pavement, Townes sitting on his suitcase and Mickey standing next to him. Even in that position Townes was taller than Mickey. Townes was an artist we always wanted to tour but were reluctant based on his hell raising reputation and legendary stimulant abuse. However he had... > Read more
If I Needed You
GUEST SONGWRITERS TAMI NEILSON and DELANEY DAVIDSON on writing together for her new album Dynamite
21 Mar 2014 | 4 min read | 1
Tami Neilson and Delaney Davidson have long been Elsewhere favourites in the broad church that is alt.country (and often not so alt). They have won shelves of awards for their songwriting and albums, and even more critical accolades. Neilson's new album Dynamite! -- released today -- sees her co-writing on a number of songs with Davidson (who also produced the album) so we couldn't... > Read more