THE MAGAZINE FOR CURIOUS PEOPLE
Elsewhere is a concept and a place, and Graham Reid goes there for his wide angle travels, writing, music review and interviews with writers, musicians and artists.
Elsewhere is an on-line magazine for new music (we filter out the mundane and spotlight the more interesting albums), different travel, arts and more. It is dedicated to the diversity and possibilities of Elsewhere. It's an equal opportunity enjoyer. Subscribe here (it's free) for a weekly newsletter. Welcome . . .
Latest posts
Rusty: The Resurrection of Rust (EMI/digital outlets)
15 Aug 2022 | <1 min read
Well, if it was good enough for Tom Petty to resurrect his pre-Heartbreakers band Mudcrutch, then why not Declan McManus getting back with Allan Mayes with whom he'd played clubs around Liverpool and The Wirral in the years before he lit out under the name Elvis Costello? The McManus/Mayes duo was called Rusty and half a century on they got back together to record a... > Read more
Joel Grey: White Room (1969)
15 Aug 2022 | <1 min read
Actor Joel Grey won a best supporting actor Academy Award in '72 for his role as the MC in the Liza Minnelli vehicle Cabaret, following his hugely successful portrayal of the character in the Broadway musical which had won him a Tony award. After that however his successes and appearances were fewer and of lesser consequence (he appeared in Buffy the Vampire Slayer for a... > Read more
Elsewhere Art . . . militant free jazz
15 Aug 2022 | <1 min read
As Elsewhere has noted a few times when dealing with the albums and the topic, most of the militant black free jazz albms of the late Sixties/early Seventies came out on small independent labels with limited runs. As a consequence many of these albums have disappeared although if you were lucky enough (as Elsewhere was) you could sometimes find them in secondhand record... > Read more
CINDY LEE BERRYHILL. NAKED MOVIE STAR, CONSIDERED (1989): Neo-folk boho Downtown urbanists
14 Aug 2022 | 2 min read
Some advice to young artists, a couple of things to avoid. First, never join a movement which has a manifesto because within a very short time people will fall out over how to interpret it. And next thing you know the movement has broken up and counter-manifestos have been published and are being argued over. Second, never get involved with anything which styles... > Read more
12 Dollar Motel
ALEC BATHGATE OF TALL DWARFS, INTERVIEWED (2022): Something has happened.
13 Aug 2022 | 14 min read
Alec Bathgate – one half of this country's most idiosyncratic alt.pop group Tall Dwarfs with Chris Knox – is charmingly bashful when talking about the project which has occupied him for almost two years. It is Unravelled: 1981 – 2002, a loosely chronological box set of 55 Tall Dwarf songs spread over eight sides of vinyl. It arrives in a slipcase with a... > Read more
Cruising with Cochran
Gramsci: In Formation1: A Shift in Prospects (bandcamp)
13 Aug 2022 | <1 min read
About 8 months ago Gramsci – Paul McLaney, Greg Haver and Marika Hodgson – released The Hinterlands, an album we described as existential rock, cinematic yet personal. It joined a long line of albums by McLaney – some as Gramsci, some as his more ambient persona Impending Adorations, a few under his own name – which have found considerable... > Read more
Intrepid
TRAITOR KING; THE SCANDALOUS EXILE OF THE DUKE AND DUCHESS OF WINDSOR by ANDREW LOWNIE
12 Aug 2022 | 2 min read
While there is understandable interest in the fame and foibles of the self-exiled Meghan and Harry couple, nothing they have done comes even close to the appalling former Edward VIII (who had been the British monarch for less a year when he abdicated, known to most as David) and Wallis Simpson, his new wife. As the Duke of Windsor, he chose her over royal duties but... > Read more
SIGUR ROS, REVIEWED (2022): Strangers from a strange land
8 Aug 2022 | 2 min read
Among the many remarkable things about the Icelandic band Sigur Ros is you can't understand a word they say in their songs because frontman Jonsi sings in Hopelandic (a made-up language) and his native Icelandic (spoken by fewer than 400,000). Also of interest is, on the evidence of their concert at Auckland's Spark Arena, the four-piece were largely indifferent to their... > Read more
The Famous Elsewhere Questionnaire
THE FAMOUS ELSEWHERE HIGHLY PERSONAL QUESTIONNAIRE . . . Brett Adams
8 Aug 2022 | 4 min read
Guitarist/songwriter Brett Adams has had a long and distinguished career from the early Mockers to the Julie Dolphin in Britain with his partner Dianne Swann. On their return to New Zealand he and Swann became the core of the Bads and Adams a go-to player on numerous sessions and tours. He's recently been seen in the band for Tami Neilson but has also just released... > Read more
The Sky Beneath (from Black Clouds in Stereo
JOHN COLTRANE/JOHNNY HARTMAN: THE MASTER SESSIONS, CONSIDERED (1963): The gifted at their ease
8 Aug 2022 | 2 min read
When the famous “lost” album Both Directions At Once by saxophonist John Coltrane was discovered and issued in 2018, what was only mentioned in passing – as it was in Elsewhere's piece – was why Coltrane's group was even in Rudy Van Gelder's New Jersey studio on that day in May '63 anyway. It was because the... > Read more
Elsewhere Art . . . The Jazz Butcher
8 Aug 2022 | 1 min read
The British post-punk band The Jazz Butcher lead by Pat Fish (who died at age 64 in October 2021) were not widely known in New Zealand, but when a swag of their albums were reissued in a box set in 2017 (The Wasted Years) it was time to acknowldge them. They were different, fun, challenging and popped out shouldabeen hits with alarming frequency. And when the... > Read more
The Viscounts: Harlem Nocturne (1959)
8 Aug 2022 | <1 min read
In the final month of the Fifties, the Viscounts covered this piece which Ray Noble and His Orchestra had introduced two decades previous. But to it the Viscounts brought a sleazy menace in the simple bass line and shimmering guitar behind a saxophone sound which comes at you from a shadowy back alley. It reeks of film noir sensibility. This moody track was included... > Read more
Spiral Stairs: Medley Attack!!! (Amazing Grease/bandcamp)
7 Aug 2022 | <1 min read
Spiral Stairs is Scott Kannberg – co-founder of Pavement but now in semi-retirement – and his solo albums have always had an easy charm and, as we noted previously, sounding closer to the Saints/Chris Bailey in rock ballad mode. They can sound undemanding in the best way – the sound is familiar, tight and melodic – but there have always been... > Read more
Jack White: Entering Heaven Alive (Third Man/bandcamp)
7 Aug 2022 | 1 min read
When considering Jack White's often demanding album Fear of the Dawn in April we noted it was the first installment of a paired release, Entering Heaven Alive completing what could be seen as a double album. But where Fear of the Dawn was a tumultuous and disruptive collection of heavy rock, hip-hop and dubby funk-rock, Entering Heaven Alive is a much more muted affair... > Read more
Cookie Brooklyn and the Crumbs: Singles 2013 – 2019 (Burning Log/bandcamp)
6 Aug 2022 | <1 min read
The members of this Wellington-based trio have some prior form and have appeared at Elsewhere in the past: singer/guitarist Mark Williams has been in Marineville and Erika Grant (bass) and drummer Nell Thomas were in Orchestra of Spheres. So, left-field pedigrees where nonsense lyrics and avant-poetry are woven into slightly bent pop-rock. Is There Logic in Pop? here... > Read more
Puff of Air
DAVE MEET RODGER, RODGER MEET DAVE (2022): Here for big band Bliss and beyond
5 Aug 2022 | 2 min read
Dave Dobbyn was an excellent case study for my university singer-songwriter students, an artist who illustrated how they could shift between genres, lyrical approaches and song arrangements . . . and yet still sound like themselves. In his first decade Dobbyn went from the booze-bar rock of Bliss through metaphorically interesting songs like Whaling and Outlook For... > Read more
Favourite Five Recent Releases
RECOMMENDED RECORD: The Finn Brothers, Finn (Lester)
1 Aug 2022 | 3 min read | 1
From time to time Elsewhere will single out a recent release we recommend on vinyl, like this reissue which comes in a gatefold sleeve as a double album with an extra record of demos. Check out Elsewhere's other Recommended Record picks . . . . Had it not been for Chris Bourke's thorough 1997 biography of Crowded House, Something So Strong, most people would not... > Read more
It's Only Natural (demo)
MC Tali: Future Dwellers (Reign/bandcamp)
1 Aug 2022 | 1 min read
Drum'n'bass doesn't appear at Elsewhere that often, not for any aversion to it but . . . Well, there's just such a lot of everything out there. But we'll always stop for MC Tali, who has sustained an international career for almost two decades and still manages to come up with something special and different. This time out – on her eighth album – she... > Read more
JOHN CALE, FRAGMENTS OF A RAINY SEASON, CONSIDERED (1982/2016): The new society still ain't pretty
1 Aug 2022 | 3 min read | 3
Most musicians in rock culture establish their sound and reputation over a few early albums and consolidate both if their careers are of any length. The late Lemmy and Lou Reed for example released albums which became their hallmarks, and their personae – wildman Lemmy and pugnacious Reed – became our enduring image of them. That said, in each case there... > Read more
Library of Force (from M:FANS)
Darren Pickering Small Worlds: Volume One (Rattle/digital outlets)
1 Aug 2022 | <1 min read
The name of this group lead by Christchurch pianist Darren Pickering is accurate because here are sometimes small worlds of quiet, intimately detailed pieces for quartet (guitarist Mitch Dwyer, bassist Peter Fleming and drummer Mitch Thomas) which open with the very inviting and understated Simple Ballad. It's an elegance revisited later on In the Know(ere) and the... > Read more