THE MAGAZINE FOR CURIOUS PEOPLE
Elsewhere is a concept and a place, and for many years Graham Reid has been going there for his wide angle travels, writing, music review columns and interviews with writers, musicians and artists.
Elsewhere is an ever-expanding on-line magazine for people curious about new music, different travel, interesting arts and much more. This site is dedicated to the diversity and possibilities of Elsewhere. It is an equal opportunity enjoyer. Subscribe here (it's free) for a weekly newsletter and be in to win CDs, DVDs, books and more. Welcome . . .
Latest posts
PHIL SEYMOUR REMEMBERED (2018): Here then and gone yesterday . . .
18 Jun 2018 | 6 min read
If Phil Seymour – who came of age with the Beatles and the British Invasion – has been watching carefully enough he might have read the signs: the Spencer Davis Group, The Dave Clark Five, Manfred Mann . . . The clues were all there. These were Sixties bands which took their name from someone other than the singer/frontman.... > Read more
Precious To Me
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ONE WE MISSED: Umar Zakaria: Fearless Music (usual digital platforms)
18 Jun 2018 | 3 min read
Elsewhere has occasionally written about the self-marginalisation of New Zealand jazz, notably with regard to the annual New Zealand Music Awards. Many years ago the jazz czars decided to withdraw from the annual (televised) awards ceremony and do their Album of the Year Award within the more narrow confines of the jazz world, at the Tauranga Jazz Festival and latterly... > Read more
Suite Melayu; Masri
Virginia Wing: Ecstatic Arrow (Fire/Southbound)
18 Jun 2018 | <1 min read
The previous album by this London duo out of Manchester was an often uneasy amalgam of emotionally cool pop, hard-edged electro-beats and an art school kind of 21st century synth-pop. This time out they look back (to the early Eighties for Glorious Idea and further on the folksy core of Eight Hours Don't Make a Day), sideways (the sax-coloured pop of the immediately... > Read more
Pale Burnt Lake
Barrence Whitfield and the Savages: Dig Everything! (Ace/Border)
18 Jun 2018 | 1 min read
With a name which sounds straight out of the Motown stable in the early Sixties, Florida-born Whitfield (real name Barry, changed to avoid confusion with the Walrus of Love) actually grew up in New Jersey and while studying in Boston put white hot flame to r'n'b rock'n'roll in the Eighties and has barely let up since . . . although there were diversions for album with... > Read more
Stop Twisting My Arm
Damien Rice: Cannonball (2002)
18 Jun 2018 | 1 min read
Irish singer-songwriter Damien Rice is perhaps the one we should thank – or blame – for Ed Sheeran, as this song was the young Sheeran's epiphany. Sheeran was 11 when, by his own account, he saw the clip for Cannonball “at about four o'clock in the morning, just this dude's mouth singing, and it turned out to be Cannonball.” Although very... > Read more
THE BARGAIN BUY: Flight of the Conchords; I Told You I Was Freaky
18 Jun 2018 | 1 min read
The recent re-screening the complete seasons of Flight of the Conchords on a Sky channel allowed a bit of distance on this decade old series and the chance to see if it still stacked up. It did, very much so. It is entirely possible there are people out there who missed this droll comedy show which made hilarious jokes about New Zealand, the music business, New... > Read more
Friends
RINGO STARR; THE KNIGHT . . . AS A DAME? A psycho-sexual biography by Dr CHRISTOPHER JORGENSEN
17 Jun 2018 | 7 min read | 4
The subtitle of this remarkable, penetratingly insightful and revisionist biography – The Drummer in the Beatles, The Woman in the Drummer – posits a bombshell theory. That during his Beatle years Ringo Starr, now Sir Richard Starkey, grappled with his sexuality and was drawn so much to his feminine side that he actually wanted to be recognised as a woman.... > Read more
The Last Poets: Understand What Black Is (Studio Rockers)
16 Jun 2018 | 2 min read
University students have grown up in a post-gangsta rap world so taking them back to origins – preachers in the church, street poets, Gil Scott Heron and others – is always a challenge for them. They hear some of it as odd, simple and sometimes compelling. The Last Poets present a particular problem because of pieces like Niggers Are Scared of Revolution... > Read more
Rain of Terror
James Carr: Dark End of the Street (1967)
15 Jun 2018 | 1 min read
One of the greatest, most pain-filled soul songs, Dark End of the Street was written by producer Chips Moman (Elvis, Aretha, Waylon and many more) and Dan Penn (whose writing credits are so legion as to be too long to list). And, for what it doesn't say, it is one of the most ambiguous lyrics too. Although they wrote it as a cheating song. That is certainly in there... > Read more
Danny Adler: Bit of Beatles (Ace/Border)
14 Jun 2018 | 1 min read
So here be 10 Lennon-McCartney covers and three originals (tributes to Lennon and Harrison) by a man whose sleeve photos would tell you he was clearly a teenager when the Beatles broke more than half a century ago. American singer-guitarist Adler – who once played with John Lee Hooker and other blues legends in California and the early Elephant's Memory (who later... > Read more
I'm Only Sleeping
Jon Hassell: Listening to Pictures/Pentimento Vol 1 (Ndeya/Border)
13 Jun 2018 | 1 min read
Trumpeter Jon Hassell came to attention at the dawn of the Eighties via a couple of innovative albums, Fourth World Vol 1/Possible Musics with Brian Eno and the even more interesting Dream Theory in Malaya (an Essential Elsewhere album) in which for one piece he used the rhythmic splashing of water by a Malay tribe as the base for his odd trumpet sound. Both albums... > Read more
Slipstream
GUEST “INSIDE SOURCE” offers a song-by-song commentary on Jonathan Bree's new album Sleepwalking
11 Jun 2018 | 3 min read
In keeping with the Jonathan Bree’s idea of anonymity and a no-image images as seen on cover of his third album Sleepwalking, we here introduce “an inside source” to comment on the songs which are heavy orchestrated element featuring real strings, horns, celeste and soprano vocals. Elsewhere has reviewed the album here but are happy to present a more... > Read more
Roller Disco
Various Artists: Jon Savage's 1965, The Year the Sixties Ignited (Ace/Border)
11 Jun 2018 | 2 min read
Our longtime From the Vaults column usually pulls out a single oddity, an interesting track or an artist with an unusual backstory . . . but here is a whole album which could fill our Vaults column for many months. Because this is whopping 48-song double CD (on Ace through Border in New Zealand) turns the spotlight on a remarkable year in pop music when – as... > Read more
See My Friends, by the Kinks
Smokey Robinson: Being With You (1981)
11 Jun 2018 | 4 min read
Michael Jackson sometimes said that Smokey Robinson – 18 years his senior at Motown – was the one who showed him that it was permissible for a male to sing high. When Jackson started at Motown of course he had little choice as he was a pre-teen (just listen to I'll Be There in '70 when he was 12 – but after puberty he continued to develop the top of his... > Read more
If You Wanna Make Love (Come 'Round Here)
ELSEWHERE WORLD SERVICE: A quick overview of recent world music releases
11 Jun 2018 | 3 min read
Here's a frequent flyer/transit lounge/vicarious listening music column for those at home who want to get their musical passport stamped. Elsewhere has so many CDs and downloads commanding and demanding attention that we run occasional columns which scoop up releases by international artists (IN BRIEF), in much the same way as our SHORT CUTS column picks out... > Read more
Jonathan Bree: Sleepwalking (Lil' Chief)
8 Jun 2018 | 1 min read
In a cover which suggests the work of Belgian surrealist Rene Magritte's masked figures in paintings like The Lovers and The Heart of the Matter, Jonathan Bree presents and equally mysterious and sometimes gorgeously strange collection of orchestrated songs which deal with seductions, online sexuality, former lovers and . . . So much more in these cleverly coded lyrics... > Read more
Boombox Serenade ft Crystal Choi
Alien Weaponry: Tu (Napalm Records)
8 Jun 2018 | 2 min read
Spotify is all very well but here is where it let's you down: With the vinyl album by this young (two members just 16), disciplined, experienced (they've been at it three years) metal outfit who frequently sing in te reo. Spotify will only give you a compressed sound but the vinyl version comes at you widescreen and about two centimetres from the end of your nose. The... > Read more
Raupatu/Confiscated
IN BRIEF: A quick overview of some recent international releases
4 Jun 2018 | 3 min read
With so many CDs commanding and demanding attention Elsewhere will run this occasional column which scoops up releases by international artists, in much the same way as our SHORT CUTS column picks up New Zealand artists and Yasmin does with EPs. Comments will be brief. . Norma Waterson and Eliza Carthy: Anchor (Topic/Southbound)... > Read more
Stephen Malkmus and the Jicks: Sparkle Hard (Matador)
4 Jun 2018 | 1 min read
Elsewhere has loyally followed the path of former Pavement man Stephen Malkmus and his band the Jicks . . . and that has not always been easy. From bristling and fuzzed-up psychedelic rock to more refined yet still quirky power pop and even dialed back folk-pop, the trail has sometimes lead into blind alleys or very deep and dark woods. But that has kept him of... > Read more
Solid Silk
Matthew Sweet: Scooby-Doo Where Are You? (1995)
4 Jun 2018 | <1 min read
The recent release of his album Tomorrow's Daughter by one of Elsewhere's favourite power pop artists, Matthew Sweet, reminded us of this oddity which appeared on the compilation album Saturday Morning; Cartoons' Greatest Hits in the mid Nineties. The curator of that album Ralph Sall remembered how the bright colours of cartoons, crazy dissonant sounds and sonic effects,... > Read more