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
Salif Keita: Un Autre Blanc (Naive/Southbound)
17 Feb 2019 | 2 min read
This “retirement” thing is a long game: artists like Paul Simon, Sir Elton, various New Zealand television “personalities” and others announce their farewell . . . then tour for a few years to sell-out concerts, or clutter up the small screen with their goodbye-interviews. Frankly I don't trust 'em. None of them. After having interviewed... > Read more
Itarafo
Methyl Ethel: Triage (4AD)
15 Feb 2019 | <1 min read
Their location (Perth in Western Australia) and the band name (which brings to mind Nick Cave/Grinderman's raucous Depth Charge Ethyl) might conjure up some pretty brittle and aggressive. But as we've noted in previous reviews of this project of Jake Webb, there's something a lot more glam-poise and danceable electro-influenced dance pop going on here (as on the... > Read more
Real Tight
Johno: The Road Not Taken (RNT Records)
14 Feb 2019 | 1 min read
Although the Johno here comes with a fairly substantial press release when it boils down it's short on gritty specifics. We glean he is London-born of Irish parents and we'll accept he was a jazz musician who ended up doing a lot of production, and that now he lives on a coast in Greece but spends a lot of time traveling through Europe, Africa, the Balkans and Middle East.... > Read more
The Long and Winding Road
ONE WE MISSED: Brisa Roche: Father (Black Ash)
14 Feb 2019 | 1 min read
We forgive ourselves – and of course you – because this one went past unnoticed. Elsewhere only discovered it when a fan/supporter here sent a on copy of this quietly gripping album from last year. American-born musician-poet Roche – now 42 – spent most of her life in Paris where she performed across a variety of genres, recorded an album and was... > Read more
Carnation
Nils Lofgren: Valentine (1991)
14 Feb 2019 | 1 min read | 2
Some would say Nils Lofgren never fulfilled his early promise. Certainly his band Grin were pretty good but then he scored with a couple of excellent solo albums. His self-titled album in '75 was terrific and contained his plea to an increasingly drug-abusing Keith Richards in Keith Don't Go, a fine version of the Goffin-King classic Goin' Back and flash originals such as If... > Read more
The Lemonheads: Varshons II (Fire/Southbound)
14 Feb 2019 | 1 min read
We can only look at promise unfulfilled in the wayward and often self-destructive career of Evan Dando, the Lemonhead who foreshadowed so much with the early work (notably the Favourite Spanish Dishes EP and the albums Lovey, It's a Shame About Ray and some of Come On Feel The Lemonheads). But thereafter the wheels came off, the music more intermittent, the guest... > Read more
Old Man Blank
THE EYES OF ORSON WELLES, a doco by MARK COUSINS
13 Feb 2019 | 2 min read
Many decades ago when taking a class in film analysis to a group of enthusiastic young people, I was at a loss as to how introduce Orson Welles, his art and work was so diverse and massive. By chance it was made easy: I threw up an image of the older Orson on the screen and immediately a voice from the darkness said, “Hey, that's the Nashua 120 guy!” Yes,... > Read more
JAPANESE AMBIENT MUSIC OF THE EIGHTIES CONSIDERED (2019): The sound of very little, but beautiful
12 Feb 2019 | 5 min read
Someone very famous – who doesn't turn up on a Google search – once quipped “money follows intellect”. You'd like to think it was more true than it is, but it is certainly verifiable when you see Big Money (usually in the form of advertisers) paying top dollar to use the work of creative people. (And I don't mean “creatives” in ad... > Read more
BILL FAIRS' ROCK'N'ROLL PHOTOS, AT AUDIOCULTURE (2019): History in the lens . . .
12 Feb 2019 | <1 min read
Many bands have an in-house archivist, the member (or proud parent) who keeps posters, tickets, clippings, photos and such. Such people are invaluable to researchers, historians and the curious. The early New Zealand pop and rock scene from the late 1950s to the early 70s was lucky enough to have saxophonist Bill Fairs, who kept dozens of photos. These charted his career... > Read more
John Mayall: Nobody Told Me (Forty Below/Southbound)
11 Feb 2019 | 1 min read
Now 85, John Mayall is like the great-grandfather of British blues. More than half a century ago however he was akin to a wise uncle for a generation of players at least a decade younger than himself who passed through his influential Blues Breakers, among them Eric Clapton and Jack Bruce (off to form Cream and beyond), Peter Green, Mick Fleetwood and John McVie (who went... > Read more
Distant Lonesome Train (w Carolyn Wonderland)
The Famous Elsewhere Questionnaire
THE FAMOUS ELSEWHERE SONGWRITER QUESTIONNAIRE: Juanita Stein
11 Feb 2019 | 3 min read
Former Australian of the London-based rock band Howling Bells, Juanita Stein, may not be a name familiar to most locals here and her second solo album Until the Lights Fade, recorded in Austin, of late last year probably went past just about everyone. But when she opens for Bryan Ferry and plays here own show in Auckland (dates below) she will get a chance to prove... > Read more
French Film
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Beirut: Gallipoli (4AD)
11 Feb 2019 | 1 min read
There's a fairly prevalent belief that if you look busy, people will think you are; that if the surface looks impressive there's probably real substance beneath it; and that if you write in the world of whatever passes for “indie rock” these days (the genre which appears when you drop this new Beirut album into a computer) that you don't need to bother about... > Read more
Gauze fur Zah
THE PICTONES PROFILED, AT AUDIOCULTURE (2019): Hashish in the provinces, or maybe not
11 Feb 2019 | 1 min read
In an odd coincidence, around the same time as the young Beatles went into a studio in Germany in 1961 and backed the singer Tony Sheridan on a rock'n'roll version the old While that uniquely European amalgam out of Hamburg featured a vocalist, the version from the band out of Palmerston North was a Shadows-styled instrumental, and a pretty good one at that. It... > Read more
Cherry Glazerr: Stuffed and Ready (Secretly Canadian)
11 Feb 2019 | <1 min read
Some part garageband with a dollop of power-pop alongside songs which could fill a stadium, this trio from California around singer-guitarist Clementine Creevy hold fast to some old values which sometimes also marry punk energy with studio polish. Despite that collision of styles and references – all of which have pop values at core – there is sameness among... > Read more
Daddi
Taiwu Children's Ancient Ballads Troupe and Daniel Ho: To and From the Heart (Wind Music)
11 Feb 2019 | 2 min read
In Taipei, the choking capital of Taiwan there is the remarkable National Palace Museum dug deep into a mountainside and which houses centuries of Chinese treasures, most of them brought over when the Nationalists fled the mainland as the Communist forces surged into ascendancy. It is visited by millions every year and its displays – a tiny, tiny percentage of what... > Read more
Yaqui/Ode to Mothers
Hank Williams: The Funeral (1952)
11 Feb 2019 | 1 min read
The great country singer Hank Williams died a rock'n'roll death, in the back of a car from a heart attack brought on by too much booze and too many pills somewhere between gigs. They don't write endings much better than that. Unfortunately as with most such deaths, it came far to early. He was only 29. Williams' music provided a cornerstone for country music in his... > Read more
Beat Rhythm Fashion: Tenterhook (Failsafe/digital outlets)
9 Feb 2019 | 2 min read
To be honest, I can't say I ever saw Wellington's late Seventies/early Eighties band Beat Rhythm Fashion . . . and until now maybe not even much, if anything, of their music, other than perhaps in passing on bFM. They were however a band – just three singles – many of us in Auckland were “aware” of. Ever since the seven year gap between a... > Read more
Optimism
EPs by Yasmin Brown
8 Feb 2019 | 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 BRIEF does for international artists. You can read her previous... > Read more
Aro: Manu (Aro)
6 Feb 2019 | 1 min read
The premise here may sound a bit twee – 10 songs about New Zealand native birds, at some remove from Dudley Benson's art music we would add – which were written by Aro (Charles and Emily Looker) while they were traveling the country in their mobile home. Sound a bit close to the ever-favourite Kiwi acoustic strum on a beach in summer? And yes,... > Read more
Miromiro
PETER POSA INTERVIEWED (2012): Pulling a hit out of the hat
4 Feb 2019 | 9 min read | 3
Half a century ago, in that monochrome world before the Beatles – before even Coronation Street screened on New Zealand television -- guitarist Peter Posa from Henderson rode a wave of local popularity with his single Wheels. As was the custom of the day, he'd adapted an already established hit – by the String-A-Longs out of Texas – and radio picked... > Read more