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Books, authors, spoken word and poetry which may appeal to the curious spirit of Elsewhere.
THELONIOUS MONK; THE LIFE AND TIMES OF AN AMERICAN ORIGINAL by ROBIN D.G. KELLEY
In late November 1963, a 5000 word profile of Thelonious Monk was scheduled to appear in Time magazine. Monk was to be the cover. An interviewer and jazz aficionado Barry Farrell from Time had spent months with Monk watching him at work and relaxing at home with his family, and the Russian painter Boris Chaliapin had been commissioned to paint Monk's portrait. (Chaliapan complained that... more >>
Added: 1 Mar 10 
1 Comment
MILES DAVIS, THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY (1990): Miles runs the voodoo down
When trumpeter Miles Davis turned 60 in 1986 the New York weekly Village Voice marked the occasion with a lavish 28-page supplement of essays and critical opinion. By way of introduction the editor, Gary Giddins, wrote words which seemed admirably bare and understated: “For four decades Davis has been in the forefront of American music – as a trendsetter and as a lightning rod... more >>
Added: 22 Feb 10 1 Comment
BONFIRE OF ROADMAPS by JOE ELY (2008)
Joe Ely who grew up in Lubbock, West Texas (Buddy Holly's hometown) is something of a legend in Americana/alt.country rock: he was on the road in the early 70s hitching around to play gigs far and wide but also formed the formidable band the Flatlanders with Butch Hancock and Jimmie Dale Gilmore (both of whom have gone on to remarkable careers in the own right); and his hard rockin'... more >>
Added: 15 Feb 10
I WANT TO TAKE YOU HIGHER: THE PSYCHEDELIC YEARS 1965-69 edited by JAMES HENKE AND PARKE PUTERBAUGH
Somewhere among my old photographs at home is one of me standing beside John Lennon’s psychedelic Rolls Royce. It was London in late ‘69 and -- aside from revealing the embarrassing affectation of a black cape -- it‘s most interesting for what is in the background: a Morris Minor of the kind that was considerably more common than Rollers painted like gypsy caravans. It... more >>
Added: 8 Feb 10
ROCK ME AMADEUS by SEB HUNTER: One man's journey into classical music, and out again
For those who have grown up within rock culture, author Hunter is the courageous advance guard into the world of classical music. A self-confessed addict of popular music who buys rock magazines such as Mojo, Uncut, and Record Collector (and NME although he hides that inside the Guardian so people don’t think he’s a paedophile), the lank-haired and sartorially unfashionable Hunter... more >>
Added: 7 Feb 10
JABBERROCK: THE ULTIMATE BOOK OF ROCK'N'ROLL QUOTATIONS by RAYMOND OBSTFELD AND PATRICIA FITZGERALD
This lightweight but cheap paperback provides some funny observations (such as Elvis Costello's "Rock'n'roll is the lowest form of life known to man"), but mostly it proves we're lucky these people can sing, because their insights can be as shallow as a birdbath. Rickie Lee Jones offers: "I never knew that life was so serious and hard and cruel. You can't depend on anything... more >>
Added: 6 Feb 10 1 Comment
JOHN TRUDELL, NATIVE AMERICAN ACTIVIST/POET/SINGER INTERVIEWED (1992): Living in the Elvis age
While diplomats and ambassadors exchanged platitudes and gifts in August 1992 to acknowledge the 500th anniversary of Columbus’ first voyage to the New World, others found little to celebrate at all. John Trudell, a Santee Sioux who was spokesman for the Indians of All Tribes Occupation of Alcatraz in 1970 and was for six years from 1973 national chairman of the American Indian... more >>
Added: 1 Feb 10
THE WEEKENDERS: ADVENTURES IN CALCUTTA edited by ANDREW O'HAGAN
According to Gunther Grass the sprawling city of Calcutta is like a pile of shit dropped by God. That may or may not be true, but the Maker’s handmaiden, Mother Teresa, confirmed the impression in the minds of many that this was a city of abject misery peopled by the dying and hopelessly infirm. Only a fool would deny Calcutta its extensive poverty, but a city of 14 million souls has... more >>
Added: 25 Jan 10
VENICE: PURE CITY by PETER ACKROYD (2010)
If you had been in Venice last year and gone to see the elegant Bridge of Sighs you would have had an unpleasant surprise. This passage between the Doge’s palace and the prison -- those taken to the clanger would, at the very least, sigh -- was itself a prisoner of the 21st century. It was surrounded by huge covers over the surrounding buildings which were undergoing renovation, and... more >>
Added: 25 Jan 10
TICKET TO RIDE by LARRY KANE: Along for the ride
In 1980 presidential candidate Jimmy Carter leaned over to journalist Larry Kane and said, "So I heard you toured with the Beatles. What were they like?" Even the 39th President of the United States wanted to know about those young men who changed the social and musical landscape of the 20th century. And Kane should know - he was the only American reporter in the official press... more >>
Added: 18 Jan 10
MORE MILES THAN MONEY: JOURNEYS THROUGH AMERICAN MUSIC by GARTH CARTWRIGHT
Writing about music is a sedentary affair today: CDs are reviewed, and artists are interviewed by phone, in a comfortable hotel or their record company office. Latterly, to my regret, it has been like that for me -- but not so for Cartwright whose previous book Princes Amongst Men saw him on the road in some bad and strange parts of Eastern Europe on the trail of various gypsy musicians.... more >>
Added: 11 Jan 10 2 Comments
CAN'T BE SATISFIED, THE LIFE AND TIMES OF MUDDY WATERS by ROBERT GORDON
When McKinley Morganfield’s grandmother named him Muddy after the nearby Mississippi and he later took the surname Waters, there seemed something oddly symbolic in it. Here was man who wasn’t born in the year he said he was, claimed a town he wasn’t born in as his birthplace and carried a name he wasn’t born with. These are muddy waters indeed. Yet in that there... more >>
Added: 8 Jan 10
THE MIND AND TIMES OF REG MOMBASSA by MURRAY WALDREN: The strange and the simple
Less than a year after he had what the designer of the Sydney Olympics 2000 closing ceremony called “the biggest one-man show in history”, the artist known as Reg Mombassa was part of a group show in Wellington. For Sydney-based Mombassa -- born Chris O’Doherty in Auckland in 1951, and founder member of the Australian rock band Mental as Anything -- it was an amusing... more >>
Added: 4 Jan 10
YOU BETTER NOT CRY by AUGUSTEN BURROUGHS: Christmas spirits
Ah Christmas: ‘Tis the season to be . . . despondent and predictable? It is the time to bemoan the commercialisation of a Christian festival, to listen as miserable souls announce “I hate Christmas” to all who will listen, and recall those ghosts of Christmas past when the festive season turned into family turmoil or personal disaster. Few of us however have probably... more >>
Added: 22 Dec 09
THE ESSENTIAL SPIKE MILLIGAN complied by ALEXANDER GAMES
On New Zealand's national Poetry Day in 2004 a television news team buttonholed people on the street and asked them to recite a piece of poetry. One guy did an impromptu local variant of Spike Milligan's Silly Old Baboon. By coincidence, that very day a letter writer to the New Zealand Herald expressed outrage about the artist et.al being chosen as New Zealand's entry for the Venice... more >>
Added: 14 Dec 09
THE LEGACY OF GUILT: A LIFE OF THOMAS KENDALL by JUDITH BINNEY
Had 19th-century missionary Thomas Kendall remained in England he may have enjoyed a rewarding, if undramatic, career ministering to a modest parish. He certainly would have had a less demanding and troubled life than that which unfolded when he arrived in New Zealand in June 1814 with his wife and five children. Kendall was 36 and an enthusiastic advocate for the Anglican Church... more >>
Added: 14 Dec 09
THE WORLD OF TINTIN. The timeless boy (2004)
Age has not wearied him -- and nor can it. The little adventurer with a distinctive flick to his forelock, oddly unfashionable plus-fours and rarely a change of clothes, is frozen in time. As he globetrots from the old Orient to the Land of the Pharaohs - and even the Moon - he looks as he ever did. Yet in 2004 he turned 75. However he is with us still -- and suddenly back in the... more >>
Added: 13 Dec 09
LOWSIDE OF THE ROAD: A LIFE OF TOM WAITS by BARNEY HOSKYNS
One of Tom Waits’ most eerie yet surprisingly popular songs is What’s He Building?, in which a curious neighbour – and the listener – speculates about the odd nocturnal activities of the man next door: “He has no friends and his lawn’s dying … what’s he building in there?” Tellingly, Waits – largely shut off from the media... more >>
Added: 7 Dec 09
THE STORY OF EDVARD MUNCH by KETIL BJORNSTAD: Death at his shoulder
If we believe that, as is commonly said, great art is born of great suffering then Norwegian painter Edvard Munch (1863-1944) was born to make great art. He certainly exceeded his quota of great suffering. Munch's mother died of tuberculosis when he was 5 and his sister Sophie - the subject of his first major work, The Sick Child - succumbed to the same disease nine years later.... more >>
Added: 30 Nov 09
VINYL HAYRIDE; COUNTRY MUSIC ALBUM COVERS 1947-89 by PAUL KINGSBURY
The purest strain of American country music -- not the pop-schlock of Shania Twain or the credible singer-songwriters out of Texas -- bewilders most people. It can be cornball, sentimental, blindly patriotic, hypocritically conservative, and often just plain strange. It is also, to cite Nick Tosche's excellent studies of it, "the biggest music in America" and "the twisted roots... more >>
Added: 30 Nov 09
