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
Giannouli/Thorne/Garden: Rewa (Rattle)
25 Jun 2018 | 2 min read
Releases on Auckland's Rattle label seem now to fall into a few distinct categories: There is Essential, Important and last -- but far from least -- is Fascinating (But For A Select). Sometimes, of course, the music resides in a couple of those: Essential and Important being the most common pairing. This album by pianist Tania Giannouli, taonga puoro master Rob... > Read more
A Forgotten Land; The Uprooted Tree
Kamasi Washington: Heaven and Earth (Young Turks)
25 Jun 2018 | 3 min read
When composer/saxophonist Kamasi Washington announced himself with the magisterial triple CD The Epic in 2015, many were impressed by the ambition and scope (it was indeed epic in both) as much as by how Washington integrated a considerable number of black American music – jazz which reached from bop to astral aspiration but also soul, funk and more -- into what seemed... > Read more
Charles Mingus: Thirteen Pictures, The Charles Mingus Anthology (1993)
25 Jun 2018 | 6 min read
Like Duke Ellington -- with whom he is most frequently (and fairly) compared for the vastness, depth and diversity of his recordings -- no single album could stand as emblematic of Charles Mingus, although many are certainly essential. In fact after The Wire magazine offered its primer on Mingus albums in early 2004 (14 albums under his own name, a Columbia Records... > Read more
Charles Mingus: Goodbye Pork Pie Hat (1959)
Various Artists: Paris in the Spring (Ace/Border)
25 Jun 2018 | 1 min read
Half a century ago the streets of Paris were in a state of active revolution when what was initially a student protest about access to women's dorms by males turned into a protest about the university in general, the Sorbonne was occupied, police weighed in, workers sided with the students, there was a general nationwide strike and it looked like the government would be... > Read more
Baleines, by Francoise de Roubaix
Various Artists: When the Day is Done; The Orchestrations of Robert Kirby (Ace/Border)
25 Jun 2018 | 2 min read
Every five years or so venerable British music magazines like Mojo, Q or Uncut will feature Nick Drake in an extensive article to try to persuade – or remind – us of his genius, the most recent being Mojo in March on what would have been Drake's 70thbirthday. Drake died in late '74 leaving just three rather beautiful folk albums recorded after mid '69, but... > Read more
Friend to Me, by Gary Shearston (1975)
Johnny Devlin: Matador Baby (1958)
25 Jun 2018 | <1 min read
It's widely known that Johnny Devlin was New Zealand's own Elvis Presley -- but unlike Elvis, Devlin wrote his own material. Certainly he covered the hits of the day -- Hand Jive, Wild One, Bony Maronie and so on. But he also wrote some creditable originals like Hard to Get, High Heeled Shoes, Nervous Wreck and so on -- which all were firmly within the genre of Fifties... > Read more
THE BARGAIN BUY: Dionne Warwick: An Introduction To Dionne Warwick
25 Jun 2018 | 1 min read
Yes, she was sometimes a little flaky (adding an “e” to her surname at the recommendation of her astrologer, infomercials on the Psychic Network) and sometimes had a troubled life (marriages, big problems with the tax department) but at her peak in the Sixties – and in truth often enough since then for her to always be of interest – Dionne Warwick was... > Read more
Charlie Rich: Too Many Teardrops; The Complete Groove and RCA Recordings (Ace/Border)
24 Jun 2018 | 2 min read | 1
In a famous interview in San Francisco in December '65, Bob Dylan was earnestly asked about his favourite poets. He was in a playful mood and mentioned his genuine favourites Rimbaud his pal Allen Ginsberg (who was in the audience), but also WC Fields, Smokey Robinson and Charlie Rich, “He's a good poet”. From that list most people only remember he cited... > Read more
I Don't See Me in Your Eyes Anymore
Sumo: Shiko (Rattle)
22 Jun 2018 | 1 min read
While it has been common enough for the graduates in, and tutors of, jazz from the universities in Wellington and Auckland to be acknowledged on albums here at Elsewhere, this one – which features a large revolving door ensemble – is of musicians drawn mostly from the Ara Institute in Christchurch, many of whom have made (or are making) names for themselves... > Read more
Smoking Gun
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Mali Mali: Azimuth (Home Alone)
22 Jun 2018 | 3 min read
The label here may be a pointer: Local artist Mali Mali (aka Ben Tolich) recorded the eight songs for this, his third album, in the basement of his parent's home and the ambience of delay and echo, lo-fi piano and intimacy is ideally suited to these reflective, highly personal and self-referential songs. The idea of “sensitive singer-songwriter” (to adopt the... > Read more
Ruru Cry
WHY BOB DYLAN MATTERS by RICHARD F THOMAS
21 Jun 2018 | 7 min read
When 77-year old Bob Dylan plays two concerts in New Zealand in August – Auckland on 28, Christchurch two nights later – it is hard to fathom who might turn out to see him. There will be the loyalists who will enjoy and decode for days if not months what he does, and no doubt the curious who think that – despite dire warnings he can no longer sing as he... > Read more
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