Absolute Elsewhere
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JIM PEPPER, REMEMBERED (2024): A man comin' . . . an' too soon goin'
5 Feb 2024 | 3 min read | 2
It is a rare jazz musician who can score a rock-radio hit -- but saxophonist Jim Pepper was a very rare jazz musician indeed. Of Kaw and Creek descent, Pepper was born in Oregon in 1941 and described himself as an "urban Indian". He spent much of his early life between family homes in Oregon and Oklahoma and although he grew up listening to big band jazz and bebop he was also... > Read more
Ya Na Ho
LEATHER JACKET RECORDS, PROFILED (2024): Like a great big noisy hug
30 Jan 2024 | 5 min read
In the early Eighties, inspired by the punk DIY attitude and the proliferation of young bands, numerous local independent labels sprang up: Flying Nun, Ripper, Propeller, Pagan, Warrior, Failsafe . . . For the most part those at the helm of these labels were navigating unfamiliar waters without a compass. This was the notorious “here be monsters” world of antiquity where the... > Read more
Mercury, by Hannah Everingham
GRAHAM NASH, INTERVIEWED (2024): Can we get a witness?
29 Jan 2024 | 6 min read
At the end of last year 81-year old Graham Nash could add a new accolade to his long list of awards: he was presented with the ninth annual John Lennon Real Love Award. “Over many years,” he said, “I watched John and Yoko ‘fight the good fight’ for many whose voices were not being heard, a fight that Yoko continues to this day.... > Read more
AROOJ AFTAB, INTERVIEWED (2024): Music from and for the soul
29 Jan 2024 | 7 min read
As far as we can recall, it had never happened before until late last year: an artist whose two consecutive album ended up in our best of the year list. Arooj Aftab's Love in Exile was in the best of Elsewhere 2023 list and her previous one Vulture Prince was in the same list in 2021. And we had them both as a Recommended Record (albums to have on vinyl). So needless to say she has... > Read more
JOEY BURNS OF CALEXICO, INTERVIEWED (2023): Still wired after all these years
19 Jan 2024 | 6 min read
For a few minutes the well-groomed and otherwise articulate Joey Burns of the American band Calexico is lost for words. He, like me, has just learned of the death of the Pogues' Shane MacGowan. We resort to vague cliches: sad, so talented, not unexpected of course . . . Burns never met MacGowan but says he always admired his lyrics and . . . We trail off, the conversation about... > Read more
LOVE IS THE SONG WE SING; SAN FRANCISCO NUGGETS 1965-1970: Flowers and freak outs
15 Jan 2024 | 2 min read
Any box set or collection which tries to mop up an era, genre or decade is probably doomed to failure, not from lack of genuine effort but because some artists (the big ones) don't want to be included. So you can get a multiple disc, very inclusive set of the Eighties for example and it doesn't have anything by Madonna, Prince, Springsteen and Michael Jackson. That the Rhino label did such... > Read more
Salvation: Think Twice
TIM FINN, INTERVIEWED (1992): The art of always arriving
12 Jan 2024 | 1 min read
When there is time, Elsewhere will be sourcing a rich vein of its archival material which was published in various places during the Eighties and Nineties which are not available on-line. These will most often be reproduced as they appeared in print. Some may be a little fuzzy in the reproduction but we think the story or interview are worth it for researchers or fans. Best read on a... > Read more
HEAD LIKE A HOLE, INTERVIEWED (1994): The serious business of not being serious
29 Dec 2023 | <1 min read
When there is time, Elsewhere will be sourcing a rich vein of its archival material which was published in various places during the Eighties and Nineties which are not available on-line. These will most often be reproduced as they appeared in print. Some may be a little fuzzy in the reproduction but we think the story or interview are worth it for researchers or fans. Best read on a... > Read more
CRASH, AT AUDIOCULTURE (2023): The band that was, the album that wasn't.
22 Dec 2023 | 1 min read
By the late 1990s, amidst the turmoil of local guitar bands which emerged in the wake of Guns ’N Roses’ hair-metal and angst-fuelled grunge, Auckland band Crash would seem to have as good a shot as any against peers like Push Push, Dead Flowers, The Feelers, Pluto, Zed and many others. Formed in 1991, Crash hit student radio with their single... > Read more
THE BEST OF ELSEWHERE 2023: THE READERS' CHOICES
18 Dec 2023 | 10 min read | 1
Following Elsewhere posting its choices for the Best of Elsewhere 2023; The Editor's Picks and The Year in Reissue (And Such) we invited Elsewhere readers to tell us what they were impressed by this year. . . . because we only chose from what we had written about, and a lot went past us. Here is what people told us . . . and where Elsewhere had reviewed the album we have highlighted it with... > Read more
PETER GABRIEL, THE RETURN AT LAST (2023): Bright, dark and inside/outside
18 Dec 2023 | 3 min read
Age shall not weary them? Guns'N Roses' 2008 album Chinese Democracy arrived 17 years after their previous album of original music and was so long-promised that some suggested China would get democracy before we'd get the album. The Rolling Stones' recent Hackney Diamonds appeared 18 years after their last album of original material (A Bigger Bang in case you had forgotten). And now... > Read more
THE BEST OF ELSEWHERE 2023: THE EDITOR'S PICKS
11 Dec 2023 | 8 min read | 2
When Joe Strummer sang “no Elvis, Beatles, no Rolling Stones in 1977” he couldn't have anticipated what 2023 would hold. All of those artists had albums remastered, reissued or released this year, the Rolling Stones roaring back to life after gap of 17 years since their previous album of original songs. Was it any good? Well, let's see . . . because here are Elsewhere's... > Read more
THE BEST OF ELSEWHERE 2023; THE YEAR IN REISSUES (AND SUCH)
11 Dec 2023 | 5 min read
In recent years with the extensive programme of reissues (with additional songs) or the release of albums you never knew existed, the vaults of record companies and recording studios seem like Aladdin's Cave. Here we just single out 10 which we found important and interesting, just the ones we wrote about. We have set aside the Beatles' Red and Blue albums but you can read about them here.... > Read more
ELSEWHERE'S PEOPLE OF THE YEAR 2023: The young and the restless
11 Dec 2023 | 4 min read
We've never done this before, but the thought occurred that while the Beatles and Rolling Stones gained lengthy coverage this year and the list of musicians and other celebrities who had died just kept getting longer and more depressing (see the collage here), the year was dominated by two artists, diametrically different in musical style, gender, age and profile. We are talking about... > 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 which has allowed... > Read more
Punk Nuns, by Thee Golden Geese
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 The Beatles, but... > Read more
ADAM GRANDUCIEL of WAR ON DRUGS, INTERVIEWED (2023): On the road again
20 Nov 2023 | 5 min read
Our call finds Adam Granduciel, mainman of the American band War on Drugs, back home in Los Angeles for a couple of months with his wife Krysten and 4-year old Bruce after being on the road through Europe. He's a couple of weeks into two months of downtime with family although sometimes pops into the much-cherished home studio (“it's the greatest”), where he is now, to work... > Read more
1968: SAY YOU WANT A REVOLUTION (2023): The world on a short fuse
15 Nov 2023 | 19 min read | 1
1968: THE YEAR THAT ROCKED THE WORLD? "Somehow Sgt Pepper did not stop the war in Vietnam. Somehow it didn't work. Somebody isn't listening" -- David Crosby of Crosby Stills and Nash, 1970 "Rock stars believed that they possessed the latent power to effect political and cultural change: one anthem and the walls of the citadel would crack, like Jericho under... > Read more
THE BEATLES' 1962-1966 AND 1967-1970 COMPILATIONS, RE-COLLECTED (2023): More red and blue for you
11 Nov 2023 | 5 min read | 1
The two 1973 Beatle double albums 1962-1966 and 1967-1970 were far from the first Beatle compilations. In fact, there's a case to be made that most of their US releases – albums cobbled together British singles, EPs and album tracks – were compilations more than the coherent albums the band and EMI intended. There had been a number of interesting, if somewhat wayward,... > Read more
Taxman
THE BEATLES' LOVE ME DO (2023): And before the beginning of the beginning
7 Nov 2023 | 8 min read
The release of the Beatles "final" song Now And Then came with -- on CD, vinyl and digital release -- a reminder of where they started, the 2023 remix of their first single Love Me Do. For decades it has seemed a modest beginning but . . . To understand why the Beatles were such a breakthrough in popular music we need only look at the year before their arrival in 1963... > Read more