THE MAGAZINE FOR CURIOUS PEOPLE
Elsewhere is a concept and a place, and Graham Reid goes there for his wide angle travels, writing, music review and interviews with writers, musicians and artists.
Elsewhere is an on-line magazine for new music (we filter out the mundane and spotlight the more interesting albums), different travel, arts and more. It is dedicated to the diversity and possibilities of Elsewhere. It's an equal opportunity enjoyer. Subscribe here (it's free) for a weekly newsletter. Welcome . . .
Latest posts
MERMAIDENS, REVIEWED (2023): The arc of their covenant
9 Dec 2023 | 4 min read
Recently I interviewed Mermaidens' Gussie Larkin and Lily West for an extensive AudioCulture profile at the time of their fourth, self-titled album. At one point singer/guitarist Larkin said, “Our audience has got older, more of a Radio New Zealand crowd, and we’re just leaning into that”. By that she meant that audience which -- in the absence of... > Read more
THE 1:12 LABEL, PROFILED (2023): And why not?
9 Dec 2023 | 4 min read
Small independent labels – from Zodiac through Ripper, Propellor, Flying Nun and Pagan to Rattle and Lil' Chief – have been not just the backbone of New Zealand music but have given platforms for great songs, albums and artists. And sometimes they just allow people to get something off their chests. Somewhere between those points is Auckland's 1:12 label... > Read more
Punk Nuns, by Thee Golden Geese
Riot 111: 1981! (Leather Jacket Records/bandcamp)
8 Dec 2023 | 4 min read
With a season of discontent looming it's understandable if many reflect back on the 1981 Springbok tour which divided the nation and families. It was as much a cynical political ploy by prime minster Robert Muldoon as it was about racism in South Africa (and by implication in this country). Marches were held, riots ensued and posters were printed. Decent law-abiding... > Read more
1981!
Erny Bell: Not Your Cupid (digital outlets)
8 Dec 2023 | 1 min read
It would be fair to say that, unless you were listening carefully or following the fine print, Erny Belle Aimee Renata (Ngāpuhi from Maungatūroto) would be a new name. Or just someone who snuck up on you. But her debut album Venus is Home saw her nominated for Taite Prizes in the best independent album and best independent debut album categories. That's not a... > Read more
The Coral: Sea of Mirrors (digital outlets)
6 Dec 2023 | 1 min read
The previous album by Britain's Coral was Coral Island of 2021 which was one of our Recommended Records and also in our best of the year list. It is a wonderful concept album based around a seaside town and a band which plays there. We said of it, “wistful UK pop-rock nostalgia about a lost time and place, the band's history and with brief spoken word... > Read more
Oceans Apart
Lou Reed: Hudson River Wind Meditations (vinyl release, CD)
4 Dec 2023 | 1 min read
The title of the latest Lou Reed biography probably confirms how many see him. It is The King of New York (by Will Hermes) and immediately we picture Lou in leather on the dirty boulevard, being aggressive and cantankerous as he strides out sneering at lesser intellects, goes on about the poet Delmore Schwartz and somewhere in the background Waiting for the Man is playing... > Read more
Hudson River Wind (Blend the Ambience)
The Master Musicians of Jajouka: Brian Jones presents The Pipes of Pan at Jajouka (1971)
4 Dec 2023 | 3 min read
Some albums have auspicious beginings and a messy legacy. So it is with this album recorded in Morocco in 1968 by Brian Jones, then of the Rolling Stones. By the time the album was released Jones had been dead a year -- he drowned a year after his trip to Morocco and was no longer a Stone -- and a shadow was cast over its mesmerising music. When it was reissued in... > Read more
The Master Musicians of Jajouka: Take Me With You My Darling, Take Me With You
PRIDE OF THE SOUTH: Sometime in New York City
4 Dec 2023 | 2 min read | 1
He was at the south-west entrance to Central Park, sitting by himself with a bottle wrapped in a brown paper bag on a cool September afternoon. Pride was his name, Pride Wilson from Louisiana but mostly Kentucky. Been in New York maybe five, maybe seven years. We walked into the park where yuppies in expensive workout gear would glide by on their in-line skates, and... > Read more
Geeshie Wylie and Elvie Thomas: Last Kind Word Blues (1930)
4 Dec 2023 | 1 min read | 1
The mysterious Geeshie Wylie has appeared previously pulled From the Vaults with Skinny Leg Blues, the B-side of Last Kind Word Blues. As we mentioned then she recorded just six songs (that we know of) and there are few confirmed photographs of her. Seemingly just two at best. It's believed that she was of the Gullah people in Georgia and South Carolina and it's... > Read more
Cat Power: Sings Dylan; The 1966 Royal Albert Hall Concert (digital outlets)
4 Dec 2023 | 1 min read
Reports from Bob Dylan's sold out North American tour are almost unanimous in their acclaim: at 82 Dylan is in good form, sometimes speaks to the audience (rare), mixes up older songs or deep cuts with his last studio album Rough and Rowdy Ways and in many places pays tribute to a local hero by singing one of their songs: Leonard Cohen's Dance Me to The End of Love in... > Read more
WAR ON DRUGS, REVIEWED (2023): Thunder but no hurricane
3 Dec 2023 | 6 min read | 1
If there's a recession, then no one told Auckland's “squeezed middle” out looking for entertainment this weekend. On Friday there was the Hansel and Gretel ballet at the Aotea Centre (music by Claire Cowan), the Others Way festival which took over various venues on and around K Rd, Lloyd Cole at the cathedral in Parnell and Kraftwerk at the Spark Arena.... > Read more
Bob Dylan: The Complete Budokan 1978 Live (digital outlets)
30 Nov 2023 | 2 min read | 1
There's plenty of evidence to support the view that when Bob Dylan considers “popular music” (as opposed to pop music) he thinks of the songs before Elvis. And his idea of rock music is formed by the notion of electric country music more than Led Zeppelin. It's also noticeable that after he retreats into the past to find inspiration he re-emerges with... > Read more
THE MERSEYMEN, AT AUDIOCULTURE (2023): Well shake it up baby now . . .
30 Nov 2023 | 2 min read | 1
You probably had to be there. Because it wasn’t about the hair, the boots and the suits. And it wasn’t only about the music either, although that certainly drove everything. It was the sheer excitement of the time, the thrill of being young in the early 60s and having a music of your own which was upbeat, fresh and just kept arriving. Not just from... > Read more
GHP: Rapture Riders (2004)
27 Nov 2023 | <1 min read
One of the most famous tracks by GHP (British DJ/producer and remixer Mark Vidler), this breakthrough in mash-ups was so good it was approved by both Blondie and the Doors (whose Rapture and Riders on the Storm it pulled together). It was even included on Blondie's 2005 Greatest Hits collection. GHP (Go Home Productions) has created more than 200 mash-ups using... > Read more
A YEAR THAT WAS: Building a house, a home and a family
27 Nov 2023 | 4 min read
It is only now as I remember and write that I've realised the events here occurred half a century ago. It was a busy and strange year 1973, but it was also about endings and beginnings. I was in my final year at North Shore Teachers College but only there for a few hours a day because I was knocking off another English paper at university. Paula and I with... > Read more
Chris Stapleton: Higher
27 Nov 2023 | 1 min read
When Elsewhere profiled singer-songwriter Chris Stapleton back in mid 2016 he was already an enormously successful artist and we noted he was in the lineage of crossover country artists like Garth Brooks in the Nineties. In many ways Brooks prepared the ground for a dozen “hat act” artists and Taylor Swift to move from country into the mainstream.... > Read more
Favourite Five Recent Releases
Glen Hansard: All That Was East Is West Of Me Now
27 Nov 2023 | 1 min read
For those who haven't followed the extensive solo career of Ireland's Glen Hansard, he was the barely memorable guitarist in The Commitments but better known as the one of the two central characters in the 2007 film Once where he played the aspiring singer-songwriter/busker in a rather charming love story. However he was also in bands, the Frames and Swell Season but... > Read more
Grayson Gilmour: Holding Patterns (Flying Nun/digital outlets)
25 Nov 2023 | 2 min read
For much of its lifespan the of Flying Nun could best be described as spluttering. In the first decade it outgrew itself within a couple of years – too many artists, too much music and not enough business smarts, organisation and forward planning. As the label's great helmsman Roger Shepherd observed in his book In Love With These Times, "In the ten years... > Read more
A Crude Mechanical: Discourse (Public Witness/digital outlets)
24 Nov 2023 | 1 min read
Now this is interesting: the solo, multi-tracked guitar, instrumental debut by Shane Warbrooke which is billed as “experimental”. But that's a word which will have some hiding under the bedsheets. So let's quickly sidestep that – and his “accumulated noise” description – to pin down a couple of more appealing and appeasing... > Read more
And We Bleed Metrics
ART ON THEIR SLEEVES, AT AUDIOCULTURE (2023): Album design in the 2020s
22 Nov 2023 | 1 min read
The resurgence of vinyl albums – which outsold CDs in 2021 – has meant local artists are now seeing that having their music on record can be as important as their social media profile. The record is an artefact in a way that CDs could never be: the art in a jewel case too small to have impact, liner notes or lyrics rendered microscopic. And lets not get... > Read more