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
Ennio Morricone: The Good, The Bad and The Ugly (1966)
19 Nov 2018 | 2 min read
The relationship between some movie directors and composers is so close that it is hard to imagine certain films without their soundtracks: Hitchcock had Bernard Herrmann's gripping scores for Psycho and North by Northwest and others; Werner Herzog with the German avant-rock band Popul Vuh providing the eerie music to Aguirre, Wrath of God and Fitzcarraldo; and Sergio... > Read more
Ennio Morricone: La Carrozza dei Fanstasmi (Carriage of the Spirits)
The Famous Elsewhere Questionnaire
THE FAMOUS ELSEWHERE WORLD MUSIC QUESTIONNAIRE: Tui Mamaki
19 Nov 2018 | 2 min read
Although her name betrays her origins in Aotearoa New Zealand, we have offered Tui Mamaki a Famous Elsewhere World Music Questionnaire because musically and literally she inhabits a wider world than this place. Her Mamaku Project, later just Mamaku, embraced the sounds of gypsy and Middle Eastern music alongside some jazz tropes, dub and more. Her most recent project... > Read more
Snowfall (from Fly)
Ronnie Spector: Girl from the Ghetto (2006)
19 Nov 2018 | 1 min read | 1
Revenge is a dish best served cold -- and with a pointed, fuckin' still-angry-at-you-bastardfucker lyric. And Ronnie got her chance when her former husband Phil Spector was facing a murder charge. Ronnie Spector, the voice of the classic girl group the Ronettes of the Sixties which Phil produced, married the mad boss and spent years as a virtual prisoner in his mansion.... > Read more
Ronnie Spector: Girl from the Ghetto (2006)
SPACE FARM REMEMBERED, AT AUDIOCULTURE (2018): Reaching for the spiritual sky
17 Nov 2018 | 1 min read
Although Harvey Mann and Glen Absolum were not alone in embracing the spiritual philosophy of Krishna consciousness which emerged in the early 1970s, they were among New Zealand’s most visible adherents to this path of spiritual enlightenment. So much so that in May 1972 the New Zealand Herald reported on the phenomenon of the chanting, shaven-head Krishnas... > Read more
PRIME ROCKS; CARPOOL KARAOKE; WHEN CORDEN MET McCARTNEY (2018): You don't know how lucky you are, boy
17 Nov 2018 | 2 min read
It goes without saying that Paul McCartney is a clever one, but he's also canny and has a keen business sensibility. Aside from the misstep in letting Michale Jackson swoop in and grab control of the Lennon-McCartney catalogue (while he and Yoko were bickering about how much to pay, apparently) he has made very few mistakes in his his business dealings. And he certainly... > Read more
BIG PACIFIC, PRIME TV SERIES, and a book by REBECCA TANSLEY
16 Nov 2018 | 3 min read
There are maps which show us our world in different ways; the size of countries relative to population or poverty; the planet at night so we can see where people huddle under lights and so on. But few views are more dramatic and a reminder of our place on Earth than if you turn a globe so that just about everything you see is the Pacific Ocean. Over to one... > Read more
The Famous Elsewhere Questionnaire
THE FAMOUS ELSEWHERE QUESTIONNAIRE: DANIEL BARRETT of RACING
16 Nov 2018 | 4 min read
It has been a slow but steady build for Auckland-based indie rock band Racing but their stars have been well aligned: appearances at the Splore and Auckland City Limits festivals, a NZonAir showcase, their single Motel Pool holding down 32 weeks in the top 10 of the NZ rock airplay charts, live gigs and then a bit of quiet because . . . They recorded their debut album... > Read more
Mimi and Rivers: Simple Lives (digital outlets)
16 Nov 2018 | 1 min read
The Rivers here is Chris Baigent who is the singer-songwriter for the neo-folk band Rivers Edge and Mimi is his ex-partner Aimee Belton who here harmonise beautifully on these nine originals. There is delicacy here (Love Kills Fear brings extraordinary passion and acceptance to the threadbare phrase “I love you”) but these folk-pop songs also have real sinew:... > Read more
Rising Up
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
.png)
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