Something Elsewhere
Short stories, satires, thinking-out-loud stuff and nonsense for your enjoyment, amusement . . . or otherwise. Just utterly Elsewhere.
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MUSIC GOING HITHER AND ZITHER: Who was that man?
15 Sep 2025 | 2 min read
Every now and again a new instrument will appear in popular music. Although some were aware of the Indian sitar, it wasn't until George Harrison introduced it on the Beatles' Norwegian Wood in 1965 that it penetrated mainstream pop music. How far did it penetrate? The sitar became synonymous with psychedelic music and there's actually an 11 CD box set (Electric... > Read more
The Harry Lime Theme
CRIME AND THE CITY SOLUTION (2025): Movie posters to shock and seduce
8 Sep 2025 | 1 min read
Yes, we have been down this path previously with motorcycle outlaw movies, trippy hippies on the screen and horror films. But the posters for these sub-genres are often so lurid that we can't help but go there again. Maybe one day we will get to classic foreign films or greats like Citizen Kane. But this is not that day. For a little while we look at the menace in the cities in... > Read more
Femme Fatale, by Nico (live)
FIVE ODD ALBUMS I'M FOOLISH ENOUGH TO OWN: Hey! Ho! Let's . . . not go there!
8 Sep 2025 | 4 min read
You know how it happens. An album leaps out you from a dump bin in a secondhand record store (or dumped out in some strange neighbour's rubbish when they are moved on by the landlord ) and you think . . . why not? To Elsewhere's shame (and secret pride) we have more than our fair share of such stuff (see the links at the end of this embarrassment for... > Read more
THE HORROR! THE HORROR!! (2025): Shock movie posters from the Fifties and Sixties.
1 Sep 2025 | 2 min read
Every now and again Elsewhere passes this way: we've had a piece about classic biker movie posters and another about hippie-era posters. All good solid B-grade stuff. But nothing says life at the drive-in like all those cheap monster, terror and horror films which were cranked out as if by machines, and often included people like the young Dennis Hopper. One day we'll check out... > Read more
Teach You to Rock, by Johnny Devlin
MONEY DON'T GET EVERYTHING IT'S TRUE: What it don't get, I can't use
24 Aug 2025 | 2 min read
In a Mumbai bar a guy from Amsterdam tells me (from New Zealand), about an American television programme. Despite the cultural collisions of that, he's got a good story. Apparently the host – Jimmy Kimmel or maybe Conan O'Brien, he couldn't remember – went into the street and asked passers-by whose face was on the dollar bill. Rather than admit they didn't know –... > Read more
You Never Give Me Your Money, the Beatles
THOSE TRIPPY HIPPIES ON THE SCREEN (2025): Posters for psychedelic films of the late Sixties and beyond
20 Aug 2025 | 1 min read
For our own amusement recently we showcased posters for biker movies which all promised menace and general badness. Now we turn our attention to the subject of hippies and how they were portrayed in quick-fire cash-in movies of the late Sixties and early Seventies. Sort of menace and general badness, but in more colourful clothes. So here we go, let the posters speak for themselves... > Read more
Within You Without You, by Spottiswoode
THE RIVINGTONS, RESURRECTED: And why not Mama-Oom-Mow-Mow, Papa?
14 Aug 2025 | 2 min read
Weirdly, we work our way back to the madcap Rivingtons' song Mama-Oom-Mow-Mow from the Ramones. In their heyday the bruvvers from New York recorded their version of Surfin' Bird, adapted from two songs by the Rivingtons doo-wop group of the early Sixties. In 1963 the song had had already been reconstructed and revived by the garageband the Trashmen a year after the... > Read more
Mama-Ooh-Mow-Mow
10 UNUSUAL ECM ALBUMS OF THE EIGHTIES I OWN: But there's no pattern to the pattern . . .
11 Aug 2025 | 8 min read
When Manfred Eicher founded his record label ECM (Editions of Contemporary Music) in 1969 it was, he told Elsewhere in a 1992 interview, with a view to recording jazz at the same high quality afforded to classical music. At that time however most of the key jazz musicians had found homes on important big or small American labels, so ECM was... > Read more
Chetu, from Bitter Funeral Beer
REVVED-UP REBELS (2025): The poster art of motorpsycho movies
30 Jun 2025 | 2 min read
It is one of the great lines in movie history, the teenage girl turns to Johnny and asks, “What are you rebelling against?” The leather-jacketed Johnny, all hooded eyes and sullen says, “Whaddya got?” Between Marlon Brando's moody and angry Johnny – leader of the Black Rebel Motorcycle Gang in the 1953 classic The Wild One – and to Easy Rider (1969)... > Read more
Born to Be Wild, by Steppenwolf
PACIFIC MUSIC AWARDS FINALISTS (2025): The sounds of our South Pacific
29 Jun 2025 | 4 min read
The finalists for the 2025 Pacific Music Awards were announced last week at the Mangere Arts Centre in Auckland, Aotearoa New Zealand. This year’s celebration of Pacific music marks the 21st anniversary of the event. And this year there are a record 34 finalists across 13 categories. Among the finalists are 15 first-time nominees - a testament to the incredible depth of... > Read more
MARLON WILLIAMS' TE REO LYRICS FOR THE ALBUM TE WHARE TIWEKAWEKA (2025): English translation offered
12 May 2025 | 15 min read
Marlon Williams' te reo album is an important milestone for the artist in that he has not only embraced his heritage but has woven his journey into a series of extraordinary songs which refer to many traditions of Māori music. As we noted in our review, "These original waiata, with lyrics by Williams and Kommi Tamati-Elliffe, present music rooted in Māori concert parties, choral... > Read more
Kōrero Māori
ROUGH TRADE CELEBRATES A SAPPHIRE JUBILEE (2025): Eight indies inna box
3 Apr 2025 | 2 min read
Okay we don't usually fall for press releases and we admit this one is about something rather specialised, but here goes . . . because we are excited even if it is capitalism capitalising on nostalgia. The influential British record label Rough Trade Records is going to release limited edition seven-inch singles boxsets to celebrate the label's 25 years in the game. The first of these... > Read more
Alternative Ulster, by Stiff Little Fingers
THE TAITE PRIZE FINALISTS (2025): The envelope please . . .
4 Mar 2025 | <1 min read
Now in its 16th year, the Taite Prize (named for journalist Dylan Taite) celebrates creative talent on independent record labels. This year saw a record 80 entries, the finalists voted on by Independent Music NZ members, musicians and an invited group of industry professionals. The winner picks up a tidy $12,500 and will be announced in an event at the Q Theatre, Auckland on April 15.... > Read more
A FAST 15 MINUTES: Sounds peculiar to me, pal
24 Feb 2025 | <1 min read
In this fast 15 minute programme we listen to the sound of unusual instruments like PVC pipes, flowerpots and other found objects. Peculiar. But in a good way. . For more of these fast 15 minute programmes covering power pop, songs that got away, pop hits in different languages and more go here > Read more
THE PLAY THAT GOES WRONG: Best intentions ending as farce
10 Feb 2025 | 1 min read
Well, if it's good enough for Joanna Lumley it's good enough for us. A pull quote from the great Lumley was above the entrance of the intimate Duchess Theatre in London's Covent Garden area. She loved it . . . and wasn't wrong. The Play That Goes Wrong opened in London more than a decade ago and since then has picked up numerous awards and played to packed theatres internationally.... > Read more
FIVE OLD ASIAN ALBUMS I'M SURPRISED I OWN (2022): Go East, young man
10 Jan 2025 | 7 min read | 1
There's going to an enjoyable amount of guesswork here, not just how or why I have these albums – among many other Chinese, Japanese, South East Asian records – but when I got them and why. And of course questions about who a few of them are by. Any further clarification on these gratefully received. We can start with an easy one however . . . . Beyond: The Best... > Read more
THE ALBUM ART OF EXOTICA (2020): Bachelor pad images from a time before this
6 Jan 2025 | 3 min read
It was long ago and – for many in the US, UK and the rest of the Western world – far away and rather exotic. Hawaiian music was enormously popular from the Thirties onwards and for many people the restful sound of lap steel guitars evoked palm trees swaying in the breeze, the lap of the waves against the side of the outrigger and other such cliches poured into a... > Read more
THE JB HI-FI GUIDE TO ESSENTIAL VINYL, VOL 5 (2024) Another 100+ records needing a good home
16 Nov 2024 | 1 min read
It is that time again when, for the fifth time, I look at the huge number of vinyl releases this past year and sieve out the best 100 or so that could deserve a place in your collection. As you may see it is once more a wide sampling of genres and artists across the decades because we have factored in the reissues alongside the new releases. And as I mention in the introduction below,... > Read more
Tricks of Light, by Sam Bambery (from Rubicator)
SHELVES OF SOUNDS (2024): Musician/producer and sound designer Eden Mulholland offers his sonic archive
16 Nov 2024 | 2 min read
Most readers of Elsewhere will have encountered the name Eden Mulholland who was part of the band Motorcade and has written for dance and theatre companies, and the World of Wearable Arts. He has won a number of awards for composition and was nominated for a Silver Scroll in 2009. More than a decade ago he – who has no formal musical training – told us, “I take things... > Read more
IS THIS THE MOST ANNOYING SONG EVER? (2024): The horror, the horror
24 Oct 2024 | 1 min read
As we've mentioned previously, there's no point in asking people to name the worst song ever because someone who thinks they are being clever will say “Anything by Taylor Swift”. These are people who generally don't listen to anything by Taylor Swift but recoil from her success. Previous generations have done it with Madonna, U2 and – back in my parents' day –... > Read more