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
Lankum: The Livelong Day (Rough Trade/Rhythmethod)
11 Nov 2019 | 2 min read
Many decades ago I wrote an essay for a glossy monthly about The Joy of Music. It was a celebration of how music of all persuasions can inform and enrich your life. I did however say that I could barely abide earnest folk music and reserved a special place in Hell for most Irish music which I found to be either irredeemably glum or mindlessly cheerful. Well, time... > Read more
The Famous Elsewhere Questionnaire
THE FAMOUS ELSEWHERE QUESTIONNAIRE: Olivia Foa'i
11 Nov 2019 | 4 min read
Some people rebel against their parents and become musicians, the only way a young Olivia Foa'i could have rebelled would by saying she was going to be a real estate agent. She grew up with music in the Te Vaka family of singers, dancers and songwriters, the waka/vaka helmed by her father Opetaia Foa'i. The Te Vaka story is extraordinary: taking a vision of... > Read more
R.E.M.: Murmur (1983)
11 Nov 2019 | 4 min read | 1
R.E.M. didn't invent the genre known as alt.rock or give their music that name, but they – along with Violent Femmes and others in the early Eighties -- came to epitomise it at a time when the musical landscape was awash with studio polished songs by Hall and Oates (Maneater), Michael Jackson (Billie Jean, Beat It), David Bowie (Let's Dance) and the Police (who were... > Read more
Mike Stern and Jeff Lorber Fusion: Eleven (Concord/Southbound)
11 Nov 2019 | 1 min read
Guitarist Mike Stern is the man Miles Davis fans loved to hate. Probably even today. That was because he brought the hard rock textures – which Davis wanted – to Miles' band at the dawn of the Eighties, captured on the double live album We Want Miles. He was in Blood Sweat and Tears before joining Davis and six years ago came to New Zealand to play... > Read more
Jeff Daniels: Switch Blade Sam (1959)
11 Nov 2019 | <1 min read
Rock'n'roll might have celebrated cars, dating, high school, the dance and other teenage concerns, but it also celebrated itself. Chief among those cheerleaders was Chuck Berry with songs like School Days (“hail hail rock'n'roll, deliver me from the days of old”), Roll Over Beethoven (“and dig these rhythm'n'blues”), Rock and Roll Music... > Read more
ANGUS McBEAN PHOTOGRAPHER, THE FIRST ICONIC BEATLES ALBUM COVER (2019): A snapper making it snappy
9 Nov 2019 | 4 min read
The Beatles' story is one of coincidence, chance, luck and irony. What were the odds of McCartney meeting Lennon and them hitting it off, of them meeting photographers in Hamburg who could document the young band before fame struck, of Brian Epstein being interested in a scruffy pop group playing in a cellar, of classically trained producer George Martin at the minor... > Read more
WIRED FOR SOUND: THE STEBBING HISTORY OF NEW ZEALAND MUSIC by GRANT GILLANDERS and ROBYN WELSH
8 Nov 2019 | 4 min read
Some lives encompass multitudes. Take that of Eldred Stebbing, a man in the vanguard of many aspects of the New Zealand recording and music industry, who died a decade ago next month at age 88. He was born when air travel was in its infancy, movies were silent, there were market gardens around Avondale where he lived and Auckland's... > Read more
The Talkies: Girl Band (Rough Trade/Rhythmethod)
8 Nov 2019 | <1 min read
Just as you might think when you see a pensionable age person with a brand new Smiley face tattoo, so you might look at the photos of the thirtysomethings on this album cover and after enduring their noise say something like, “Act your age” or “Are you serious?” This Irish quartet open their second album with the sound of singer Dara Kiely... > Read more
BOB DYLAN: TRAVELIN' THRU; THE BOOTLEG SERIES VOL 15 CONSIDERED (2019): Were we ready for the country?
7 Nov 2019 | 5 min read
In retrospect, it was really no surprise that in the late Sixties as the psychedelic top spun wildly that Bob Dylan should return after an 18 month absence with simpler music on the albums John Wesley Harding, Nashville Skyline and Self Portrait, much of which had a country influence. The motorcycle accident in July '66 which literally took him off the road allowed him... > Read more
Mountain Dew
The Jam: All Mod Cons
7 Nov 2019 | 1 min read
If Liam Gallagher yearns for Oasis again and brother Noel still wants Paul Weller's career, then we need only go back to this '78 album by the Jam to hear Weller aspiring to be the post-punk Ray Davies. And largely succeeding. “To be someone must be a wonderful thing”, as the second track says. This third album by the Jam steered by... > Read more
ONE WE MISSED: Oddarrang: Hypermetros (Edition/digital outlets)
6 Nov 2019 | <1 min read
Here on their fifth album, this Finnish quintet with cello and trombone alongside drums, bass, acoustic guitar and synths embark on a measured instrumental journey between slo-mo jazz, atmospheric ambient music and rock with chamber music tendencies. Very Nordic we might say, and certainly the opening passages of a piece like Ohlop could seem... > Read more
Olivia Foa'i: Candid (digital outlets)
4 Nov 2019 | <1 min read
Olivia Foa'i is just one of the many talents in the Foa'i family. Their long-running and globally-recognised band Te Vaka, in which Olivia sings and dances, is helmed by her Grammy-nominated father Opetaia and appeared on the Disney soundtrack for Moana. In 2017 he received the “International Achievement Award” in the New Zealand Music Awards. Here Olivia... > Read more
THE BEATLES, THE SINGLES COLLECTION (2019): The long and winding road to your . . .
3 Nov 2019 | 6 min read | 1
Should anyone still be in any doubt, let's be clear. That long and winding road which Paul McCartney sang about half a century ago leads from the office of the Beatles' Apple accountants and marketing department to your wallet. How does it do that? Let me count just some of the ways. Since the Beatles' final recordings 50 years ago... > Read more
Jane Weaver: Fenella (Fire/digital outlets)
2 Nov 2019 | <1 min read
British composer Jane Weaver has most of us at a disadvantage here with this reimagining of the soundtrack to a Hungarian fantasy film Feherlofia/Son of the White Mare most of us probably haven't seen. It has been described as a “cult”, but classic, piece of animation. So this album is very much a case of radio without pictures. That said, if... > Read more
Truly Seduced
Richie Setford: Aimless Survivor (digital outlets)
1 Nov 2019 | 1 min read
Berlin-based these past five years and previously using the moniker Bannerman which he carried across a number of albums, extpat Richie Setford steps out again under his own name (after his earlier EP Hardly There) with this further installment of his downbeat, ennui-affected songs captured in this collection's title and the slow, beautifully realised title track.... > Read more
The Famous Elsewhere Questionnaire
THE FAMOUS ELSEWHERE HIGHLY PERSONAL QUESTIONNAIRE: Pikachunes
31 Oct 2019 | 4 min read
The cleverly named Pikachunes is handsomely named Miles G McDougall originally from Christchurch who admits that his new EP wittily entitled PE (Physical Education) comes after a period of self-exploration following “peak drug and alcohol consumption” around the time of his 2017 album. So there a feeling of joy and catharsis about PE, but the quirky pop is... > Read more
Don't Cry
The Famous Elsewhere Questionnaire
THE FAMOUS ELSEWHERE HIGHLY PERSONAL QUESTIONNAIRE: Vorn Colgan
28 Oct 2019 | 8 min read
Many years ago we threw a mainstream Questionnaire at the enormously gifted multi-instrumentalist Vorn Colgan of the band Vorn because not only did he make great music but we guessed he'd have something intelligent and/or witty to say. And he didn't disappoint. What is disappointing though is the announcement that after eight albums and about 20 years Vorn (the... > Read more
ROBERT FREEMAN PHOTOGRAPHER: CREATING ANOTHER ICONIC ALBUM COVER (2019): The rubbery result of a happy accident
28 Oct 2019 | 3 min read
Many people will know the story behind the cover of the Beatles' 1965 album Rubber Soul, a distorted image which by chance captured the slightly woozy atmosphere around marijuana and the Beatles' changing music at that time. This was the album which rescued the band from being hidebound by Beatlemania. The previous album Help! had hinted at new possibilities:... > Read more
Nowhere Man (Beatles backing outtake)
The Comet is Coming: The Afterlife (Impulse!/digital outlets)
28 Oct 2019 | <1 min read
Billed as “a companion piece to the group's breakout album Trust in the Lifeforce of the Deep Mystery”, (an Elsewhere favourite from earlier this year) this six track, 30 minute mini-album further advances the project of this UK jazz-cum-electronica phenomenon. Released to coincide with an American tour, this announces itself with All That Matters is the... > Read more
The Famous Elsewhere Questionnaire
THE FAMOUS ELSEWHERE JAZZ QUESTIONNAIRE: Byron Asher
28 Oct 2019 | 3 min read
New Orleans-based jazz saxophonist/composer Byron Asher arrives with his new album Skrontch Music trailing considerable credits. A quick look through press comments about his previous work compares him with the melodic invention of Sonny Rollins and Ornette Coleman with flavours of Dexter Gordon. Although raised in Maryland and having performed in... > Read more