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
JIMI HENDRIX; ELECTRIC LADYLAND REMIXED AND EXPANDED (2018): Not such a slight return to the voodoo child
15 Nov 2018 | 6 min read
The notion of “the group” is firmly embedded in rock culture. From the Ronettes through REM and the Ramones to Radiohead, the concept of a small coherent unit is a cornerstone, even if in some instances – as with the Rolling Stones, Motown acts and famously Menudo – the moving parts may change. Think the alphabet: Abba, Beatles, Clash, Doors . . .... > Read more
Angel Caterina (1983) demo
EPs by Yasmin Brown
15 Nov 2018 | 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 BEATLES: THE WHITE ALBUM REMASTERED AND EXPANDED (2018): You say it's its birthday?
12 Nov 2018 | 11 min read
Half a century ago when The White Album appeared, large parts of the Western world and beyond seemed to be tearing themselves apart, just six months on from the incense'n'marijuana whiff of the Summer of Love. 1968 began badly and got worse: During the Tet Offensive in January Vietcong insurgents rose up all over South Vietnam and one unit got into the grounds of the US... > Read more
Good Night rehearsal
Al Fraser: Toitu te Puoro (Rattle)
12 Nov 2018 | <1 min read
About a third the way through these sometimes weightless, sometime deeply grounded taonga puoro instrumentals – which are spacious and evoke states of mind as much as environments -- I actually said aloud, “Wow, this sounds like classical electronica.” And at that very moment I turned the page in the excellent booklet to where one of the essayists Te... > Read more
Being-Non-Being
STEVE KILBEY OF THE CHURCH INTERVIEWED (2018): Having to go through all these things again
11 Nov 2018 | 14 min read
Whoever first said it, someone probably centuries ago, doesn't matter because the essential truth of it holds true: Be careful what you wish for because you might just get it. In popular music the wish is often that Big Hit which can lift a band or artist from the wings and place them on centre-stage where those things they've yearned for – money, fame and acclaim... > Read more
Reptile (from Starfish)
KIWI PSYCHE-ROCK AND POP RESURRECTED (2018): Do you think you're groovy?
11 Nov 2018 | 3 min read
Once again compilation enthusiast Grant Gillanders trawls the vaults, magazines and his very large contact book to bring another couple of installments of his usefully annotated collections of New Zealand music from a time when men's hair and collars were longer and bell-bottom trousers were de rigueur for both sexes. His on-going A Day in My Mind's Mind psychedelic rock... > Read more
The Wooden Box Band: Far Far Away (woodenboxbandmusic.com)
11 Nov 2018 | <1 min read
Formerly Paddy Burgin and the Wooden Box Band but now projecting the new band members and allowing Wellington guitar-maker Burgin to step back a little, this small ensemble recorded these 10 originals at Lee Prebble's Surgery studio. This is dialed down folk (trumpet, violin, mandolin, lap steel etc) where there sheer pleasure is evident in material like the softly jaunty... > Read more
Pitchfork
ZZ Hill: Someone to Love Me (1965)
11 Nov 2018 | 1 min read
Although he came to greater attention in the Eighties before his early death in '84, the great soul-blues singer Arzell Hill delivered some achingly beautiful songs right through the Sixties before his career started to slide in the Seventies. He came out of the gospel tradition in Texas but – like his role model Sam Cooke – he shifted to secular music while... > Read more
Tui Mamaki: Fly (digital outlets/tuimamaki.com)
10 Nov 2018 | <1 min read
Singer-songwriter Tui Mamaki was central to the slightly confusingly named Mamaku Project (subsequently just Mamaku) but with their two albums seven years apart and this solo project under her own name four years on from the last – and her having lived in Bulgaria for the past three years – most would be forgiven for not knowing her. Pity because this quietly... > Read more
Same Sun
LEW PRYME REMEMBERED, AT AUDIOCULTURE (2018): The silver Sixties star with a secret
10 Nov 2018 | 1 min read
It’s a measure of the popularity of singer Lew Pryme in the mid 1960s that he should appear in the John O’Shea directed music/comedy movie Don’t Let It Get You alongside Howard Morrison, the young Kiri Te Kanawa, the Quin Tikis, Herma Keil and then-hot Australian singer Normie Rowe. Pryme – with his chiselled looks, wide smile and... > Read more
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ONE WE MISSED: George Ezra; Staying at Tamara's (Sony)
10 Nov 2018 | 1 min read
Somehow we missed this album when it came out way back in March, which is odd given we were so impressed by this British singer's showing at the Auckland City Limits festival just weeks earlier. At a festival – and indeed in a music culture in general – where most artists try to amplify their point of difference this 24-year old (he's 25 now) cleaved to... > Read more
Saviour (ft First Aid Kit)
The Famous Elsewhere Questionnaire
THE FAMOUS ELSEWHERE WRITERS' QUESTIONNAIRE: Louise Hayward
10 Nov 2018 | 3 min read
While those of us who write words for a living make it seem easy, for others who embark on a writing project, as Auckland writer Louise Hayward has done with her first collection of poetry As It Was, it can be troublesome journey of doubt and revision, reflection and reservation. Hayward, who has had a long career in banking (in London) and as music publicist back in New... > Read more
Racing: Real Dancing (digital outlets)
9 Nov 2018 | 2 min read
Elsewhere always hails pop-rock/whatever delivered by musicians who feel they've just invented it. Their enthusiasm is infectious and worth a dozen by weight of music from more senior and crafted writers. Auckland band Racing -- whose members have been around a couple of years – have released four singles, and here hit the sweet'n'energetic spot between excitement... > Read more
The Famous Elsewhere Questionnaire
THE FAMOUS ELSEWHERE QUESTIONNAIRE: Cato Van Dijck of My Baby
8 Nov 2018 | 6 min read
The Dutch-Kiwi band My Baby has appeared at Elsewhere previously when guitarist Daniel “Dafreez” Johnston answered a Famous Elsewhere Questionnaire in advance of their tour in early 2016, on the back of their 2013 album My Baby Loves Voodoo . Playing a blend of dance-directed roots, blues, funk and with touches of world music (gnawa, raga, desert blues etc)... > Read more
Orchestra of Spheres: Mirror (Fire/Southbound)
8 Nov 2018 | 1 min read
Although the Wellington progressive, psyche-improve ensemble Orchestra of Spheres have not previously been consistently impressive in their recordings, they have certainly refined their focus since their first outings. And here you have to admire their courage in opening with 10 minute drone-based piece which has a backdrop sounding evocatively Tibetan with chant poetry... > Read more
Black and White
TAMA RENATA REMEMBERED, AT AUDIOCULTURE (2018): Guitar Warrior
7 Nov 2018 | 1 min read
Directed by Lee Tamahori, the opening scene of the 1994 film Once Were Warriors is among very few viscerally powerful sequences in New Zealand cinema. The camera lingers on a picturesque scene of Aotearoa New Zealand scenery of a river and mountains … then pans down to reveal it is just a power company billboard beside a motorway slicing through urban blight. As... > Read more
Barbra Streisand: Walls (Sony)
7 Nov 2018 | 2 min read
Despite what many might wish to think, President Trump has actually managed to achieve a lot in his reign . . . like inspiring 76-year old Barbra Streisand to start writing her own songs again. As we noted previously, this remarkable voice has mostly been in the service of other writers but every now and again – and far too infrequently – she has written her... > Read more
Don't Lie To Me
BOB DYLAN: MORE BLOOD, MORE TRACKS, THE BOOTLEG SERIES VOL. 14 (2018): Songs blowing around his skull
5 Nov 2018 | 7 min read | 1
When David called Kevin on a freezing night in Minneapolis just after Christmas 1974 he had an unusual request. He was looking for a small-bodied Martin acoustic guitar and he thought Kevin, a brakeman on the railroad and part-time musician, may be able to help. Kevin, a guitarist, called his friend Chris who had a guitar shop in the northern district of Dinkytown... > Read more
You're A Big Girl Now (take 2)
XTC: Skylarking (1986)
5 Nov 2018 | 4 min read
Some time in the late Nineties my phone rang at the New Zealand Herald where I was a senior feature writer with specific interests and responsibilities in music. The young woman at the other end was from a record company with an interview request and seemed nervous, not because I ever made their lives particularly difficult but as the biggest paper in the country we... > Read more
WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT . . . JAMES REESE EUROPE: Taking dance music to war
5 Nov 2018 | 5 min read
When the 39-year old conductor/composer James Reese Europe was stabbed by one of his drummers, Herbert Wright, and subsequently died, it cut short an already remarkable career and one which seemed poised to go on the greater things. That was in May 1919 and 14 months before he and his black orchestra – the Hellfighters Band – had undertaken a five-week tour... > Read more