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 . . . SPELLING ON THE STONE: The King is dead, long live the king?
20 May 2019 | 1 min read
Of the innumerable "Elvis is Alive" hoaxes, the song Spelling on the Stone of 1989 has to count as having one of the best/funniest back-stories. So let's get this right: Elvis wanted you to believe he was just pretending to be dead . . . but he really wanted you to know he was alive by singing this song? That just like, sooooo, doesn't work. Right? ... > Read more
Jeff Kelly: Beneath the Stars, Above the River (Green Monkey/digital outlets)
20 May 2019 | 1 min read
Seattle's Jeff Kelly has appeared many times at Elsewhere for over a decade, initially when we made the case for his classy and literate pop-rock with the band Green Pajamas (intelligent indie-pop and sometimes hitting the perfect pop-rock point of the Beach Boys and Beatles 1965-66), then in a different incarnation on acoustic-framed and artistic albums and now . . . His... > Read more
Kiss the Moon Hello
The Famous Elsewhere Questionnaire
THE FAMOUS ELSEWHERE MARKETING QUESTIONNAIRE . . . Anna Loveys of Saint Lachine
20 May 2019 | 2 min read
Anna Loveys is music graduate of Auckland university, worked for three years for the music PR company The Label handling A-list clients and then set up her own marketing and PR outfit Saint Lachine which has enjoyed immediate and high profile successes with local artists. This coming weekend she joins self-managed musician Mel Parsons, online wizard Harry Pettit and Matt... > Read more
The Roadrunners: LSD (1967)
20 May 2019 | <1 min read
With British r'n'b rock legends the Pretty Things scheduled for a New Zealand concert (see interview with Dick Taylor here) in December 2012, it seemed timely to ressurect this obscurity from the vaults, a band from Lower Hutt just north of Wellington who named themselves after one of the Pretty Things' biggest hits and who here cover their '66 song, the ambiguously titled... > Read more
EPs by Yasmin Brown
19 May 2019 | 4 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
The Famous Elsewhere Questionnaire
THE FAMOUS ELSEWHERE MANAGERS' QUESTIONNAIRE . . . Matt Harvey
19 May 2019 | 2 min read
Manager Matt Harvey knows the music industry from two key perspectives, as one half of Concord Dawn and as a manager of Shapeshifter and Nick Dow. He has toured globally and so when he speaks in the Music Managers Forum panel discussion this Saturday at the Herald Theatre in Auckland's Aotea Square he brings a wealth of experience. He is on the panel which will... > Read more
Taking Back Sunday: XX (Craft/Southbound)
18 May 2019 | <1 min read
To be honest, Elsewhere has never previously encountered this New York band . . . which is a considerable oversight given this is their 20thanniversary retrospective. But unless you have a thing for yelping emo-angst and that peculiarly Eighties/Nineties American take on what they called punk rock (No Doubt, Blink 182, Green Day before American Idiot and so on) then you... > Read more
All Ready to Go
The Budos Band: V (Daptone/Southbound)
17 May 2019 | <1 min read
Combining the horn fire-power of the Daptone label with hefty rock guitar, a soul thump and Ethiopian jazz, this nine-piece American band deliver an instrumental album which fairly races out the gate and straight to the dancefloor. However, there's a psychedelic quality at work too (The Enchanter with its dirty guitar part and strange organ) alongside what could be... > Read more
Spider Web Part 1
Peter Doherty and the Puta Madres: Peter Doherty and the Puta Madres (Strap Originals/Southbound)
17 May 2019 | 1 min read
If you believed the British rock press a decade or so ago, Pete Doherty was a lyrically insightful genius who was like Keats, Ray Davies and Oscar Wilde all wrapped up in a rock'n'roll ball of swagger and addiction. With Kate Moss at his side. If that were even remotely true then all we can say is how the mighty fell, and so far. Although there were... > Read more
Lamentable Ballad of Gascony Avenue
DAVID BOWIE, LODGER AT 40 (2019): The fantastic voyage into the familiarly unfamiliar
16 May 2019 | 4 min read
Although accepted as the final installment of David Bowie's “Berlin Trilogy” which started with Low and "Heroes", the Lodger album – released 40 years ago in May 1979 – never felt, or even looked, part of the set. Where the covers of its predecessors offered a more muted experience – on Low we see Bowie in profile, kind of low... > Read more
Look Back in Anger (1979)
Bella Hristova and Michael Houstoun: Beethoven; The Violin Sonatas (Rattle)
16 May 2019 | 1 min read
Sometimes just because we can, Elsewhere makes a courageous leap into the world of contemporary classical music because – in part – that is where we grew up; La Monte Young, Reich, Glass, Nyman et al. But The Serious Old Big Stuff – like Beethoven's violin sonatas, which we have sometimes/occasionally heard and enjoyed in small doses –... > Read more
Adagio Espressivo
RIP IT UP, RECOVERED (2019): Music and culture on the printed page
16 May 2019 | 3 min read
You don't have to be nostalgic or a grumpy senior to lament the decline in music journalism since the advent on the internet. Where once there were lengthy interviews, overviews and reviews there is now click-bait, links to something the posting person didn't write (and often didn't read) and Instagram as a substitute for insight. But to be grumpy and nostalgic on a... > Read more
Death and Vanilla: Are You A Dreamer? (Fire Records/Southbound)
15 May 2019 | <1 min read
This Swedish trio out of Malmo – Marleen Nilsson, Anders Hansson and Magners Bodin – create some deliciously dreamy, quasi-ambient and gentle psychedelia which exists somewhere between delicate drone-pop, the woozy end of the Cocteau Twins, celestial ambience and a nudge of assertive electronica. Vocalist Nilsson occupies the middle-distance in most of these... > Read more
The Hum
WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT . . . LA MONTE YOUNG AND HIS WELL TUNED PIANO: The master of minimalism, and more
15 May 2019 | 5 min read
When John Cale went to New York from Wales in the early Sixties it wasn’t with the intention of meeting up with Lou Reed to form the Velvet Underground, but to study under a pianist/composer who had literally been “born in a log cabin” in the small community of Bern, Idaho. By the late Sixties that composer, La Monte Young, was in the vanguard of the... > Read more
Eyolf Dale and Andre Roligheten: Departures (Edition Records/digital outlets)
14 May 2019 | <1 min read
Say “Norwegian jazz” to most and the most immediate response from most would be of emotionally frosty ECM albums and brusque tonality from the saxophone. This established duo however of pianist Dale and saxophonist/clarinetist Roligheten – who were previously known as Albatrosh and who have has separate careers – deliver something considerably... > Read more
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VANILLA FUDGE, THE BEAT GOES ON (2019): The most pointless album of the rock era?
13 May 2019 | 4 min read
When Vanilla Fudge released their Shadow Morton-produced album The Beat Goes On in 1968 the times and drugs were different. Rock musicians were reaching, and often over-reaching, the idea of a “concept” album had become embedded after Sgt Pepper, singles were being sneered at and albums – often with pretensions to classical influences – were where... > Read more
Mark de Clive-Lowe: Heritage II (Rope-a-Dope/Southbound)
13 May 2019 | 1 min read
In some respects the first volume of this musical journey by expat Kiwi keyboard player/electronica artist Mark de Clive-Lowe sets up this superior edition which is more focused on the Japanese half of his background. Much of the source material (musical or literary) is Japanese and the evocative opener sets a mood of reflection and a contemporary-sounding voyage back... > Read more
The Silk Road
Little Eva: The Trouble With Boys (1963)
13 May 2019 | 1 min read
When Little Eva died in 2003, most obituaries got in the story that she had been Gerry Goffin and Carole King's babysitter and, inspired by her odd dancing style, they penned The Locomotion for her, which was a massive hit in 1962. Little Eva -- born Eva Narcissus Boyd -- was 16 at the time. That story seems unlikely or exaggerated, but it is true that... > Read more
Big Thief: UFOF (4AD/Rhythmethod)
13 May 2019 | 1 min read
At first blush of the opening track Contact on this, the New York four-piece's third album, they seem to conform very much to the doe-eyed, laconic and slightly world-weary figures who lounge limply on the cover: It's all hushed harmonies, gently chiming guitars and “Judi, please turn the page for me . . . wrap me in silk . . . ” Three verses of ennui and the... > Read more
Strange
THE NEW ORLEANS JAZZ AND HERITAGE FESTIVAL (2019): Celebrating 50 years of itself in a big box set
10 May 2019 | 3 min read
Things are strange when this year Fleetwood Mac headlined one night at the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival, standing in for the Stones because Mick Jagger was having heart surgery. Yes, the Macband used to play the blues, but that was many decades ago and you wouldn't have thought they'd have much, if anything, to do with the “jazz” and... > Read more