Absolute Elsewhere
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TOM WAITS INTERVIEWED (2011): Cutting through tough scrub
31 Oct 2011 | 10 min read | 1
As many who've tried will attest, you don't so much interview Tom Waits as ask a question . . . then hope for the best. His reply might be an oddball witticism which is funny but evasive, a yawning and uncomfortable silence, a strange but insightful analogy which makes better sense later or a mumbled “I dunno, you know”. Of course sometimes he is sharp and penetratingly... > Read more
New Year's Eve
GURRUMUL PROFILED (2011): Songs of the sacred world
27 Oct 2011 | 11 min read | 1
Geoffrey Gurrumul Yunupingu – known to his people as Gudjuk and in the wider world as simply Gurrumul – is an overnight sensation which has been about two decades in the making. The blind, self-taught, singer-songwriter from an Aboriginal community on the small and remote Elcho -- an island off the north coast of Australia near Darwin (population 2300) -- has toured Europe... > Read more
Gurrumul: Djarimirri
U2, ACHTUNG BABY TURNS 20 (2011): The handbrake turn
25 Oct 2011 | 3 min read | 1
In Dublin, at the end of the final U2 concert on the Lovetown tour in 1989 -- broadcast to 200 million in a live radio link up -- Bono said they would now “go away and dream it all up again”. From a scrappy post-punk band at the start of the decade they had delivered half a dozen albums which connected them with a global audience, and had written stadium anthems which are... > Read more
Zoo Station
JIMI HENDRIX IN 2011: Return to Winterland 1968
17 Oct 2011 | 5 min read | 1
From the moment Jimi Hendrix arrived in London in the early hours of September 24 1966 to his death in the same city just a few days short of four years later, he seemed to be constantly moving, playing and recording. He played his first jam in London the night he arrived, and a fortnight later -- after jamming with the Brian Auger Trinity, the VIPs at the famous Scotch of St James and... > Read more
Foxey Lady
BOB DYLAN: HIS THEME TIME RADIO HOUR (2011): What's the frequency, Bobby?
11 Oct 2011 | 3 min read
In the excellent DVD doco The Never Ending Narrative, a legion of rock writing worthies line up to discuss Bob Dylan's remarkable late-career reinvention. Nigel Williamson is both amused and slightly annoyed that not only did Dylan start making some of the best music of his career, but he also took on Williamson's area and proved to be one of the best writers about music (his autobiography... > Read more
Beatnik's Wish
DEAN WAREHAM INTERVIEWED (2011): His past is ever present
5 Oct 2011 | 7 min read | 1
Dean Wareham's many past lives are all existing parallel in his musical life these days. As founder of the much acclaimed Galaxie 500 in 1987 around Boston, he quit the band in '91 to form the Velvet Underground-influenced Luna which lasted until the middle of the following decade. More recently with his wife Britta Phillips (also in Luna in the latter days) he had played and recorded... > Read more
Ceremony
DAVE LISIK INTERVIEWED (2011): Ancient, contemporary and to the future
3 Oct 2011 | 5 min read
Even a cursory glance at the website for Canadian-born, American-educated and Wellington-resident composer/musician Dave Lisik is impressive for his work ethic. Aside from noting him being a teacher, trumpeter and theorist, his website lists eight albums under his own name since 2007 and another five where he was producer/director of various ensembles (from US percussion groups to a... > Read more
The Watchers
STEVE WILSON OF PORCUPINE TREE INTERVIEWED (2011): Setting controls to the heart of his prog
29 Sep 2011 | 12 min read
Steven Wilson doesn't sound remotely angry, just weary, when he says a major British newspaper declined to review his new album Grace For Drowning. They said he was too under-the-radar and no one knew who he was.“Well, that's frustrating,” he sighs, “because most of the music they write about is completely unknown and unheard. Without wishing to blow my own trumpet I've... > Read more
Index
PINK FLOYD, PART ONE 1967-72: Before the dark side
25 Sep 2011 | 8 min read | 1
When Johnny Rotten wrote “I hate” on a Pink Floyd t-shirt, he probably didn't have much room left to get into specifics. After all, even by 1976 when the Sex Pistols emerged there had been a lot of different Pink Floyds for him to hate. Nine album's worth in fact. There had been the brief period in '67 when Syd Barrett wrote the eccentric singles See Emily Play and... > Read more
Interstellar Overdrive
PINK FLOYD, PART TWO 1972 - 83: After Dark to the unkindest Cut
25 Sep 2011 | 9 min read
Despite the textual analysis possible on Wish You Were Here in 1975 and the gargantuan theatrics of The Wall (a largely unlistenable album and often as dull as its cover), it is always The Dark Side of the Moon where the Pink Floyd story pivots. That album -- 50 million sold, in the Billboard top 200 for more than 14 years after its release in March '73 -- captured the uneasiness of the... > Read more
Sheep (extract)
PINK FLOYD, PART THREE (1987-94): Cut straight to the toll of the Bell
25 Sep 2011 | 6 min read
When Roger Waters quit Pink Floyd in April '87 -- the band he had co-founded with Syd Barrett, Nick Mason and Rick Wright more than 20 years previous, and for whom he had largely written their last few albums including The Wall -- he probably quite justifiably expected the band's name would be folded away. He might have presumed the individual members, all wealthy aside from acid-damaged... > Read more
Learning to Fly
NIRVANA'S NEVERMIND 20 YEARS ON: Classic is as classic does
16 Sep 2011 | 4 min read
The past is not just another country, it is one with very different radio. Let's go back to a time when people wore strange clothes and listened to very different music. A place where Bryan Adams was writing himself into the Guinness Book of Records with the longest-running single -- 16 weeks -- on the UK charts with (Everything I Do) I Do It For You. In this yesteryear Guns N' Roses... > Read more
On a Plain
THE JAYHAWKS, MARK OLSON INTERVIEWED (2011): Today in the green grass again
5 Sep 2011 | 10 min read
Whenever anyone speaks of the No Depression movement – the alt.country and roots music which emerged in the early Nineties -- one band's name is always mentioned: The Jayhawks. Out of Minneapolis, the five-piece Jayhawks influenced bands such as Uncle Tupelo (which split to form Wilco and Son Volt) and their first two major label albums Hollywood Town Hall (1992) and Tomorrow... > Read more
Hide Your Colours
MAREKO INTERVIEWED (2003): The hard road from Samoa to South Auckland
4 Sep 2011 | 9 min read
Mareko is seated at one end of a stacked table in Dawnraid's South Auckland office. Piled high on the other end are boxes of T-shirts emblazoned with his name and that of his debut album, White Sunday. During a wide-ranging conversation, Mareko - aka Mark Sagapolutele - laughs about how much mileage he's been getting in the media lately. And his album isn't even out yet. He's had... > Read more
City Line
THE DIRTBOMBS INTERVIEWED (2004): Detroit's punk soul brothers
1 Sep 2011 | 3 min read
The Dirtbombs come from a city with a powerful rock'n'roll history: Detroit. The Motor City sprang Mitch Ryder and the Detroit Wheels, Bob Seger, Iggy Pop, and latterly the White Stripes, Kid Rock and the Von Bondies. The Dirtbombs' frontman Mick Collins formerly helmed the semi-legendary Gories but the unique two-bass, two-drums quintet Dirtbombs have been seriously rocking for... > Read more
I'll Wait
RATTLE RECORDS AT 20: Decades of delivering
1 Sep 2011 | 4 min read
Even producer Steve Garden, one of the prime movers behind Auckland's Rattle label, finds it hard to believe it has been 20 years since their first releases. Now with a catalogue of over 30 albums -- which includes those on their Rattle Jazz imprint -- Rattle is a significant player in New Zealand's musical landscape. It has recently launched the ia subsidiary label (Independent... > Read more
Part 8
CHICAGO SOUL, BLUES AND FUNK IN THE SIXTIES: Moving the Chess pieces
29 Aug 2011 | 3 min read
In 2002 after a Rolling Stones concert in Chicago I asked my friend, who lived in the city, to take me down to 2120 South Michigan Avenue, the old home of Chess Records. Aside from wanting to see this legendary place where Howlin' Wolf, Bo Diddley, Etta James, Chuck Berry, Muddy Waters and Willie Dixon once held court, I also half thought that Mick'n'Keith'n'Charlie might drop by. After... > Read more
Another Sugar Daddy
THE MOODY BLUES INTERVIEWED (2011): Voices in the sky
22 Aug 2011 | 12 min read
In the late Sixties, when the boundaries of pop and rock were being extended into jazz and quasi-classical areas, the Moody Blues were one of the most musically innovative and productive groups of the period. Their albums between Days of Future Passed in 67 and Seventh Sojourn in 72 – an extraordinary seven albums in five years following their hit single Nights in White Satin... > Read more
Legend of a Mind
PETER GABRIEL, THE SOLO FLIGHT IN THE SEVENTIES: Not one of us
15 Aug 2011 | 7 min read
In late '77 Peter Gabriel -- two years after quitting Genesis at their creative peak with the ambitious concept album The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway -- told NME "I felt that [Genesis] were just at a point of breaking through to the Big Time. "I just felt that if I'd stayed I would have got trapped into roles that I was beginning not to enjoy -- both within the band and within... > Read more
Family Snapshot
ILL SEMANTICS INTERVIEWED (2002): The meaning behind the theory
2 Aug 2011 | 5 min read
You know how it's supposed to be in hip-hop - the artists are kinda surly and mean, there's usually something about the struggle of "my people", some unspecified and unfiltered rage. That's how it's supposed to be: guys in beanies with a bad attitude, sistas glaring at you from behind impenetrable wraparounds. But it isn't like that on this sunny morning in the boardroom of... > Read more