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
WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT . . . THE DISCO SUCKS MOVEMENT: Divide and . . . conk out
26 Jun 2017 | 5 min read
It’s both easy and hard to explain the rise of the Disco Sucks movement at the end of the Seventies. In some parts of the world the zenith of disco coincided with the emergence of punk, and two more diametrically opposed styles could hardly be imagined. For the most part disco was chic, sleek, well-dressed, celebratory and precision crafted music. Punk was... > Read more
Benjamin Booker: Witness (Rough Trade)
26 Jun 2017 | 1 min read
This may only be Booker's second album but he has already proven the capacity to surprise, born out o his punk background in Florida coupled with a love for r'n'b', gospel and classic soul. Throw them into the blender – you can almost hear the blades grinding on the throaty opener Right On You which comes at you out of a thumping pulse and the assertive... > Read more
Selina Tusitala Marsh: Fast Talking PI (2009)
24 Jun 2017 | <1 min read
Every time I have played this track on radio it has had an immediate and favourable response: people want to know who the writer/reader is, and what else has she done. Marsh has done a lot: she was the first person of Pacific descent to graduate with a PhD in English at the University of Auckland and is currently a lecturer/tutor in that department. She is not only... > Read more
THE FIVE MOST RARESTER BEATLE ALBUMS EVER: A place where nothing is real
19 Jun 2017 | 5 min read | 1
Although the Beatles appeared to have a finite recording career (1962-69) and that everything they ever did has been released, remastered and/or remixed, for the abject Beatle fan there is always going to be the need for more. Of course the famous Carnival of Light track may never come to the surface but some rightly hold out hope for an expanded edition of the Get... > Read more
STEVE GUNN INTERVIEWED (2017): Know the past to know your future
19 Jun 2017 | 8 min read
Steve Gunn is a very nice guy to talk to . . . but he's a helluva hard guy to talk to. For the first five minutes of our scheduled conversation to him at home in New York, the Skype connection keeps dropping out. For all that time we get no further than, “Hi Steve and thanks for taking the time to . . .”. “Steve, I can't hear you... > Read more
Stevens, Muhly, Dessner, McAlister: Planetarium (4AD)
19 Jun 2017 | 3 min read
Elsewhere is of the firm opinion that the education system has failed young people if, by the age of 15, they haven't been introduced to some Shakespeare (Julius Caesar is an easy sell to teens), Picasso/Cubism and some start-off classical music (Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra, Peter and the Wolf perhaps?). These are things in the arts which extend... > Read more
Algiers: The Underside of Power (Matador)
19 Jun 2017 | 1 min read
Two years ago the incendiary, distorted and angry self-titled debut album by this US political powerhouse spent some weeks in and out of our Favourite Five Recent CDs column. At that time we wrote: “Out of the torn traditions of America's gospel'n'blues Deep South but shot through with post-punk fury, this trio take a hammer to politics, religion and race but... > Read more
Ariel: Yellow Submarine (1997)
19 Jun 2017 | <1 min read
Another track from the often hilarious and sometimes worrying Plastic Soul Vol 4 album which is a compilation of mad Beatles covers, many from Russia. Ariel weigh in with two entries, A Little Help From My Friends and this tempo-challenging stab at Yellow Submarine which ends up waltzing down the Danube. The band – which these days seems to consist of five... > Read more
EPs by Yasmin Brown
17 Jun 2017 | 5 min read
With so many CDs commanding and demanding attention Elsewhere will run this occasional column by the informed and opinionated Yasmin Brown. She will scoop up some of those many EP releases, in much the same way as our SHORT CUTS column picks up albums by New Zealand artists, and IN BRIEFdoes for international artists. You can read her previous... > Read more
CHUCK BERRY CONSIDERED (2017): He gave us that rock'n'roll music
16 Jun 2017 | 6 min read
There's a very easy case to be made that Chuck Berry – who died earlier this year at 90 – was Elvis Presley's equal in the emerging of rock'n'roll in the Fifties. And that he actually surpassed the King when it came to consolidating and embedding this exciting music in popular culture. As with Presley, Berry forged an amalgam of... > Read more
The Miltones: The Miltones (miltones.com/Rhythmethod)
13 Jun 2017 | 1 min read
As we have observed previously, for a very long time in the Eighties and into the Nineties New Zealand musicians shunned the idea of being “pop” when indie was so much more cool, and it often has seemed that since then the idea of appealing to a more mainstream and even slightly older audience was anathema to many. The success of Dave Dobbyn, Brooke... > Read more
Harry Styles: Harry Styles (Sony)
12 Jun 2017 | 1 min read | 2
There is a saying around Elsewhere's way which we deploy against ourselves when confronted with certain kinds of music, and we pass it on sometimes to correspondents who are railing against an artist, usually in the teen pop idiom. It is this: “Just remember, they aren't making music for you”. When Lorde released her new single a few... > Read more
Chris Stapleton: From a Room, Vol 1 (Mercury)
12 Jun 2017 | 1 min read
Because we essayed this superb songwriter and gruff-voiced singer on the back of his debut album Traveller last year we won't revisit that ground . . . only to say here is a guy whose music has been covered by Adele but whose audience would also reach from Springsteen fans to Merle Haggard devotees and those with an appreciation of how he can also touch on something... > Read more
The Famous Elsewhere Questionnaire
THE FAMOUS ELSEWHERE QUESTIONNAIRE: Kane Strang
12 Jun 2017 | 1 min read
Kane Strang at the time of this writing is touring in the US on the back his alt.pop singles so far, but also in anticipation of his new album Two Hearts and No Brain (due for release on June 30). Recorded in the studio at Chick's Hotel in Dunedin, his hometown, with producer Stephen Marr (from Doprah), Two Hearts and No Brain is a continuation and refinement of... > Read more
The Famous Elsewhere Questionnaire
THE FAMOUS ELSEWHERE WRITERS QUESTIONNAIRE . . . JEFFREY PAPAROA HOLMAN
12 Jun 2017 | 6 min read
Christchurch-based writer Jeffrey Paparoa Holman was born In London but from the age of 10 was raised on the West Coast, has published a number of books of poetry and prose (he profiled his excellent memoir of his father The Lost Pilot in 2013 for us), is a senior adjunct fellow at the University of Canterbury and has written for Elsewhere about Bowie, birds and the... > Read more
Infinity, Infinity (infinitymusic.co.nz)
12 Jun 2017 | 1 min read
Infinity are guitarist/bassist, keyboard player Pateriki Hura and drummer Cameron Budge from, I believe, Hastings and this is their all-instrumental debut. And you have to hand it to them, the opener is a spacious 11 minute piece entitled Infinity (they do seem to have a penchant for that word) which is three-part slice of enjoyably free-floating space rock which... > Read more
Cheryl Lynn: Got To Be Real (1978)
12 Jun 2017 | <1 min read
If it weren't for Madonna's hit Vogue most people outside of New York wouldn't have known of this posturing late Eighties style which seemed to come with more attitude-dance than seemed healthy. Narcissism isn't pleasant at any time. But the music was something else and no musical style should be held to account because if its followers (or even its... > Read more
Roger Waters: Is This Really the Life We Want? (Sony)
11 Jun 2017 | 1 min read
Elsewhere is of the unwavering opinion that most of Roger Waters' recorded output and ideas – most notably Pink Floyd's The Wall, a demandingly bleak and pretentious concept album – are more an endurance test or aural torture than they are insightful music. Yes, we know that The Wall is HUGE and popular, and knowing that we try sometimes to have another... > Read more
MILLION DOLLAR QUARTET REVIEWED (2017): Don't knock this rock
10 Jun 2017 | 3 min read
Here's the thing: ignore the nay-sayers, the smarter-than-thou critics and those who haven't seen this stage show but will be prepared to be dismissive in advance. Of course this isn't what it was like in late '56 when Elvis Presley and his girlfriend, Johnny Cash and Jerry Lee Lewis joined in on a Carl Perkins' session in Sam Phillips' Sun Studio in Memphis.... > Read more
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THE BARGAIN BUY: Nirvana; In Utero
9 Jun 2017 | <1 min read
Has it been almost 25 years since this, Nirvana's final studio In Utero? After the unexpected success of Nevermind, Kurt Cobain wanted to re-establish their outsider and gritty position and so this was originally recorded with producer Steve Albini. After that the story gets a little more complex (Scott Litt coming in to make some sonic changes) but from the cover... > Read more