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
GUEST WRITER RICHARD FOSTER unravels the bewildering debut album The New Sound by Geordie Greep
5 Oct 2024 | 7 min read
One of the driving themes of Anthony Powell’s roman-fleuve, Dance to the Music of Time, is the contrast between those characters driven solely by power and those more in tune with life’s more sensual pleasures. Inevitably, time and fate catches up with each protagonist and the reader can ponder if their fates are justified or not. The New Sound,... > Read more
Holy Holy
Geordie Greep: The New Sound (digital outlets)
4 Oct 2024 | 1 min read
Most genres of music have their identifiers: in country it can be beer, Jesus, Elvis and/or a pick-up truck; in death metal a guttural rumble which is Satan bellowing at you . . . Anyone who feels much popular music simply defaults to these easy tropes and is lacking in risk, adventure and wit – and there are many of us who do – should push themselves to... > Read more
Blues
Taka Nawashiro: Lifescape (digital outlets)
4 Oct 2024 | <1 min read
Now mostly based in New York where this album was recorded, guitarist Nawashiro from Saitama, Japan won the John Coltrane Award when he graduated from The School of Jazz and Contemporary Music in 2020. He has a smooth, swinging and inventive style although the namechecking of Pat Metheny in his PR doesn't quite stack up. There is a beautiful fluidity to his playing... > Read more
6 to 11
IN PRAISE OF THE MIDDLE-SIZED (2024) The pleasures of the 10 inch record
1 Oct 2024 | 5 min read
As a vinyl format, the 10'' (10 inch) record was a tasty thing between the 7'' 45rpm single and the 12'' 33rpm album. And you could get a lot onto the 10'' when the playing speed was 33. In the Forties and Fifties it was the favoured medium for many jazz artists – especially vocalists and bands, not so much the bebop crowd. And early rock'n'rollers discovered... > Read more
Perseus, by Diem Redux (Nic Roughan mix)
Ezra Collective: Dance, No One's Watching (digital outlets)
30 Sep 2024 | <1 min read
Britain's jazz-cum-world music ensemble Ezra Collective have gone from strength to strength in the past three years, their 2022 album Where I'm Meant To Be won the Mercury Prize which I believe the first time a jazz group has picked up that award. Guests on that album included Sampa the Great and Emile Sande. On this double album – after a short dubby intro... > Read more
Shaking Body
DURANS, CLARY, STUART, GLADYS AND ME: Talent with talons
30 Sep 2024 | 3 min read
Press conferences are a waste of time and no sensible journalist entertains them. Ask your best question and everyone else gets the great answer. And if you are a print journalist those lazy slime from television go to air that night with it and you can wait a day to see it in the paper. And then your mates think you copied it from them. As a journalist I... > Read more
The Rainmakers: Let My People Go-Go (1986)
30 Sep 2024 | 1 min read
Bob Walkenhorst of Kansas City's Rainmakers had a good line about his fellow Americans' willingness to get out of it. "The generation that would change the world is still looking for its car keys." The smart line came from the song Drinkin' on the Job off the band's self-titled, major label album in '86 ("Everybody's drunk, everybody's wasted,... > Read more
Paul Turney and the Human Condition: Thoughts and Prayers (digital outlets)
30 Sep 2024 | 1 min read
A couple of weeks ago we posted a major interview with Paul Turney, not just because he was interesting but also because his life showed you how far music can take you: in his case the unexpected journey from playing with post-punk/New Wave band Flight X-7 out of Auckland to now living in lovely Cirencester, England where he has his own company cleaning up archival... > Read more
Another World
MJ Lenderman: Manning Fireworks (digital outlets)
30 Sep 2024 | 1 min read
Sometimes you feel a weird connection with an album that you kind of adopt it, tell friends who stop listening the second you mention the unfamiliar name of an artist or just listen to in private wonder what it would take for this artist to become more than a cult act. We leave you with the names Howe Gelb, Julia Jacklin, the Unforgiven and the Shoes. And now MJ... > Read more
She's Leaving You
Nick Lowe and Los Straitjackets: Indoor Safari (digital outlets)
30 Sep 2024 | 1 min read
Over the decades Elsewhere has interviewed many, many hundreds of musicians: some have been smart and funny (David Bowie, PJ Harvey, Lulu), others fascinating (Bjork, Ornette Coleman, Linton Kwesi Johnson), a few surprising in their candour (Miles Davis), some troubled (Townes Van Zandt), some political (Steve Earle, Chuck D) . . . and occasionally there's someone like Nikki... > Read more
Crying Inside
JT and the Agnostics: Yes More Blues (digital outlets)
30 Sep 2024 | 1 min read
This will be quick because this Waikato band have an album release coming up (see details below). First, they are honest: the album title, the band name with reference to the opener God's Mind. The band are as follows, and there are some familiar names here enjoying themselves on these originals: John Thomson (bass, vocals), guitarist Maciek Hrybowicz, Ben Gilgen... > Read more
Feeling for the Blues
INTRODUCING HERBIE HANCOCK'S BAND (2024): He headhunts the best
26 Sep 2024 | 3 min read
Among the many problems some people have with jazz is there seems to be no concept of “a band”. Players shift around constantly and the leader's name on the album cover is the only constant over a career: every album, new players. That's because in this demanding, improvised idiom – where the performer is simultaneously the composer – artists... > Read more
Manu Chao: Viva Tu (digital outlets)
25 Sep 2024 | 1 min read
Although he could comfortably slip onto our world music pages, French-born Manu Chao is popular in the Western world of folk and rock for his assemblages of sounds and styles as diverse as Algerian rai, the Clash, samba, Cuban music, reggae and more. His first band Mano Negra broke out of the world music sphere with their energetic shows and recordings. I... > Read more
Cuarto Calles
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THE GROOVE IN THE MIDDLE OF THE ROAD: It's where we are at
25 Sep 2024 | 3 min read | 2
New Zealand music has some interesting side roads and tracks off the main highway. But running right down the highway, securely in the middle of the road, is a wide path which many artists prefer. It's smooth driving and a popular route, it can also be mundane and the sights repetitive and dulled through familiarity. The vehicle is riding on an uplifting rail of... > Read more
We Got This, by Toi
THE MEN WHO KILLED THE NEWS by ERIC BEECHER
24 Sep 2024 | 2 min read
Anyone who watched the Succession series, is following the real-life replay as media mogul Rupert Murdoch goes to war against some of his children or found on a streaming service Faking Hitler (about the fraudulent “Hitler diaries”), will find this book a compelling account of the venal, manipulative and self-interested men who have controlled and corrupted the... > Read more
MUSIC ON THE MENU: The tasty promotion of Goodspace
24 Sep 2024 | 3 min read
With home studio computer technology and software programmes, it has never been easier to make your own music and, through digital platforms, get it into the public domain. However technology giveth and taketh away. Because everyone is doing it, it has also never been harder to gain attention in a world where literally tens of thousands of new songs are uploaded to... > Read more
AGE SHALL NOT WEARY THEM (2024): Why are the old folk still touring?
23 Sep 2024 | 2 min read
When British heavy metal legends Iron Maiden played Auckland's Spark Arena on September 16, its two founding members -- bassist Steve Harris and guitarist Dave Murray – were 68 and 67 respectively. Singer Bruce Dickinson was 66, which means he's been screaming “your soul's gonna burn in the lake of fire” (Can I Play With Madness) for more than three... > Read more
All Things Must Pass, by George Harrison (rehearsal)
Johnny Devlin and the Devils: Live in Christchurch 1959 (digital outlets)
23 Sep 2024 | <1 min read
Now here's something of more than just historical interest: New Zealand's first teenage sensation rock'n'roll star Johnny Devlin with his band the Devils proving that poor recording, barely functional playing and primitive rock songs can't diminish the excitement of the moment. Yes Max Merritt got there first in local rock'n'roll but Devlin toured, had the Elvis moves... > Read more
Twenty Flight Rock
Kokomo: Futura (digital outlets)
23 Sep 2024 | <1 min read | 1
If you haven't heard of Kokomo – and they have appeared at Elsewhere a few times – that is hardly their fault. Formed in 1991when Tauranga singer/guitarist Derek Jacombs hooked up with harmonica player Grant Bullot to play blues, they added members, played every festival possible from Sweetwaters 1999 to folk and jazz events, and along the way recorded more... > Read more
Something Funny Going On (Red Mix)
Dateline: It's All Downhill From Here (digital outlets)
23 Sep 2024 | <1 min read
Dateline's 2022 debut album had the self-deprecating title Dumb For My Age (“when will I learn?”) and songs included Don't Know What To Do With Me and Country Rock Emo (“the good days are few and far between”). This new album arrives with a similarly wry title (the opener is the New Wave pop of Please Knock Me Out) and delivers classic... > Read more