Absolute Elsewhere
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THE AMA (NEW ZEALAND) HALL OF FAME INDUCTEES 2021: The five essential ingredients in a melting point of talent
12 Dec 2021 | 24 min read
There's a circularity about Annie Crummer, Dianne Swann, Margaret Urlich, Kim Willoughby and Debbie Harwood being inducted as legacy artists at this year's Aotearoa Music Awards. As the group When the Cat's Away in the late Eighties they enjoyed hits, tours, music awards, a best selling live album and an award-winning documentary. But as Urlich told the Listener in January 1990,... > Read more
WHAM BAM, THANK YOU GLAM, 1970-75 (2021): From pop music to Roxy Music
6 Dec 2021 | 7 min read | 1
"the men don't know, but the little girls understand" -- from Back Door Man by Willie Dixon (sung by Howlin' Wolf, 1961) THE RISE OF GLAM ROCK Marc Bolan (T.Rex) "At nine years old I became Elvis Presley" -- Marc Bolan "Long before David Bowie, Gary Glitter or even Alvin Stardust tightened a single pant, brushed on the first load of... > Read more
THE BEACH BOYS: FEEL FLOWS, THE SUNFLOWER AND SURF'S UP SESSIONS 1969-1971 (2021): Sunset on the beach
30 Nov 2021 | 1 min read
There's always been talk that the Beach Boys didn't mean that much after the seminal Pet Sounds and the lesser Smiley Smile in the late Sixties, and yes, they did seem a bit directionless. But by the early Seventies they were steering a more confident course through the Sunflower and Surf's Up albums which mixed pop and their signature harmonies with songs which had a... > Read more
THE BEATLES' GET BACK DOCUMENTARY (2021): The truth, the whole truth and nothing but another truth
22 Nov 2021 | 4 min read
When George Harrison quit the Beatles on January 10, 1969 it was surprisingly undramatic: “I'm leaving . . .” John Lennon stops playing guitar: “What?” “The band, now,” says Harrison, although adding waspishly on the way out the door later, “see you 'round the clubs”. That night he wrote in his diary, “Got up went to Twickenham... > Read more
JOHN HANLON, HARD, CRUEL AND NAKED TRUTHS (2021): No country for old men?
18 Nov 2021 | 3 min read
It's an interesting measure of the landscape of popular music that many -isms are called out (racism, sexism, etc) but older artists are marginalised, or worse, ignored completely. Yes, a few get through (Leonard Cohen, Bill Fay) and if 71-year old Tom Waits released a new album you know it would be reviewed. People remain curious and even keen to hear new music from Dave Dobbyn and Don... > Read more
Muriwai Road
NEAL CASAL, REMEMBERED IN TRIBUTE (2021): It feels just like a dream now . . .
17 Nov 2021 | 3 min read
When a depressed Neal Casal took his own life in August 2019 he was 50 and left a wide legacy of musical associations and compositions. Born in New Jersey, he came to attention during a four-year stint as the lead guitarist in the Southern rock band Blackfoot in the late Eighties/early Nineties. But it was his subsequent time in Ryan Adams' Cardinals (notably on the acclaimed albums... > Read more
KAITIAKI RECORDS, STRAIGHT OUTTA WANAKA (2021): In the jungle, the mighty jungle . . .
14 Nov 2021 | 3 min read
About five months ago, the newly formed Jungle label Kaitiaki Records in Wanaka began its ambitious project of bringing distinctive local artists to attention through a series of EP releases on bandcamp. As label founder Tom Zeinoun says on the label's website: “Kaitiaki Records started off as an idea when I came down to Wanaka seeing all the great talent we have around here.... > Read more
ABBA IN THE 21st CENTURY (2021): On a voyage to nowhere
5 Nov 2021 | 5 min read
In the Abba museum in Stockholm, visitors can experience a disconcerting Dorian Gray moment. Here you stare into the twinkling eyes of the band who stand, life-size, as mute as wax and preserved just as they were at the height of their fame four decades ago. In a flip to the other side of Oscar Wilde's mirror we imagine the lustrous but reclusive Agnetha – now 71, blond hair flecked... > Read more
THE BEATLES. LET IT BE, THE EXPANDED REMIXED DELUXE EDITION, CONSIDERED (2021): You and I have memories . . .
25 Oct 2021 | 4 min read
There are two ways of considering the Beatles recording sessions in January 1969 when, very much nudged by Paul McCartney, they convened – just months after The White Album had been released and two days into the new year – in a bleak Twickenham film studio to ostensibly rehearse, record and then perform an album of all new material. As an idea it was interesting, innovative and... > Read more
All Things Must Pass rehearsal
SHIHAD AND ALIEN WEAPONRY ALBUMS, REVIEWED (2021): Significant sound and fury?
23 Oct 2021 | 3 min read
It has been more than 15 years since Dave Dobbyn sang Welcome Home, a song that spoke to our better selves as a people prepared to make a space for new migrants, many of whom had come from dire situations and had been confronted by racism here. As he noted, “out here on the edge, the empire is fading by the day” and that erosion of loyalty to Britain and the Commonwealth has... > Read more
THE BEATLES' GET BACK BOOK (2021): The words around the music
18 Oct 2021 | 5 min read
As some wag noted on Facebook recently about the title of this large format hardback: “Did we ever leave?” We did not . . . Because the period these transcripts cover – January 1969 when the Beatles came together with the vague idea of being filmed recording an album and then performing it live somewhere – is replete with unfinished business. The resulting... > Read more
Across the Universal, rehearsal and jamming
THE VELVET UNDERGROUND & NICO, A TRIBUTE ALBUM (2021): Another look in the art-rock mirror
9 Oct 2021 | 4 min read
Has there even been an album whose cultural influence far outstripped it's commercial impact more than the debut by New York's Velvet Underground? Their 1967 The Velvet Underground & Nico – in that famously provocative banana cover by the band's champion and nominal “producer” Andy Warhol (a phallic pink banana revealed when the skin was peeled back) – arrived... > Read more
IT'S ALL IN THE GAME, CONSIDERED (2021): The singers and the song
6 Oct 2021 | 1 min read
In 1911 a guy called Charles Dawes -- who later became the US vice president -- wrote a very simple melody one afternoon at home and it was subsequently published as sheet music. It was entitled Melody in A Major. And it became very very popular indeed. But first let's talk about Dawes, baby. Born in 1865, he was of that type for whom everything was to be explored: he qualified... > Read more
DINNER WITH THE WAINWRIGHTS (2021): Loudon, Rufus and Martha giving thanks
4 Oct 2021 | 3 min read
American singer-songwriter Loudon Wainwright III – among many hailed as “the new Dylan” in the early 70s – has never been short of subject matter, be it high-minded or mundane. He wrote and performed songs about national and social issues regularly for National Public Radio, but also explored being lonely on the road, groupies, the murder of John Lennon, his... > Read more
BOB DYLAN , CHANGING SOMEONE TO A TIGHT CONNECTION (2021): His songs they are a changin'
3 Oct 2021 | 3 min read
Once again an instalment of the on-going Bob Dylan Bootleg Series throws the spotlight on how he changes his songs, not just lyrics but arrangements and tone. The current Bootleg Series Springtime in New York offers yet more takes of his '83 song Someone's Got A Hold of My Heart (an outtake from the Infidels sessions) and what it became, Tight Connection to My Heart (Has Anybody Seen My... > Read more
REB FOUNTAIN RETURNS (2021): Iris in the spotlight
2 Oct 2021 | 3 min read | 1
Despite Covid-19 roadblocks – and it being the year of Benee and the Beths – for many 2020 belonged to Reb Fountain. She was nominated for three music awards (best album, solo artist and alternative artist) and her album, being self-titled, seemed to announce Fountain's emergence as a different kind of artist, and one signed to Flying Nun. With critically acclaimed previous... > Read more
BOB DYLAN: SPRINGTIME IN NEW YORK 1980- 1985, THE BOOTLEG SERIES VOL 16 (2021): Five discs of outtakes, offcuts and clean cuts, kid
27 Sep 2021 | 9 min read
The early Eighties weren't the best time to be Bob Dylan, and not for anyone who'd had their head turned by him the mid-Sixties. Or in the mid-Seventies when he released that famous return-to-form album Blood on the Tracks. But after that latter highpoint there had been lesser returns. While they had their moments, neither Desire nor Street Legal (“utterly fake,” wrote Greil... > Read more
Seeing the Real You at Last (alternate take, 1985)
KAREN BLACK IN THE SEVENTIES (2021): The singer not the star
23 Sep 2021 | 3 min read
Karen Black had key roles in game-changing films in the late Sixties/early Seventies: a New Orleans hooker in Easy Rider; Jack Nicolson's working class, country music-loving girlfriend in Five Easy Pieces (she was Oscar-nominated for best supporting actress, won a Golden Globe and the New York Critics poll for it); and the object of affection in the messy Drive, He Said. In '75 she was the... > Read more
THE DESSNERS, BON IVER AND THE BIG RED MACHINE (2021): With a little help from their friends
19 Sep 2021 | 2 min read
The Dessner twins in the American band The National, certainly put themselves about a bit. Paris-based guitarist/producer Bryce is a Yale-graduate composer whose work has been performed by the Kronos Quartet, Paris' Ensemble Intercontemporain and various American orchestras. He's worked with Steve Reich, Radiohead's Jonny Greenwood (the National sometimes referred to as... > Read more
PERE UBU, REISSUED AGAIN. AND NOW AGAIN? (2021) The roads more or less traveled
12 Sep 2021 | 1 min read
Because we have always been very keen on the outsider sound of Pere Ubu (and have interviewed their mainman David Thomas a couple of times, here and here), just four years ago we wrote at length about their vinyl box set Drive, He Said 1994-2002 – the third in a reissue series -- which included the albums Raygun Suitcase, Pennsylvania, St Arkansas and a collection of jams and... > Read more