The Famous Elsewhere Questionnaire
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THE FAMOUS ELSEWHERE QUESTIONNAIRE: Elliott Hammond of the Delta Riggs
25 Feb 2017 | 2 min read
Further down in this interview, Elliott Hammond of Australia's Delta Riggs describes himself as "a peculiar dude". He's not really but his musical tastes to reflect a rare openness (Harry Connick Jnr to Iggy Pop) . . . and that is reflected in Delta Riggs' enjoyable and sometimes witty guitar-driven funk rock. Their recent album Active Galactic is an unapologetic meltdown of... > Read more
Never Seen This Before
THE FAMOUS ELSEWHERE QUESTIONNAIRE: Silver of Push Push
23 Jan 2017 | 2 min read
Here's a true story from the battleground of fun. It was the very late Eighties and the young man was carrying a skateboard and hitchhiking on Onewa Rd in Northcote, heading into central Auckland. When he got in the car and we started talking I asked him what he was going to be, or some dumb question like that. He said without hesitation, “a rock star” . . . and... > Read more
THE FAMOUS ELSEWHERE SONGWRITER QUESTIONNAIRE: Candice Milner
2 Dec 2016 | 3 min read
No musician just appears out of nowhere . . . although Candice Milner, now 18, comes pretty close. Her single Run For It won the audience.co.nz monthly chart in June and that set her on the path to her debut album Evergreen. Recorded in her hometown of Lyttelton with Ben Edwards and a band of sympathetic players, Evergreen is an impressively diverse collection of songs which ease... > Read more
Gallery
THE FAMOUS ELSEWHERE SONGWRITER QUESTIONNAIRE: Rachael Price of Lake Street Dive
28 Nov 2016 | 2 min read
You only needed to see Lake Street Dive's You Tube of them singing The Jackson' Five's I Want You Back on street in Boston four years ago to realise they were pretty special. The quartet had met at the New England Conservatory of Music and had bonded over a love of Motown and classic Sixties pop with touches of country. They'd taken their time: in late 2014 when we spoke with... > Read more
THE FAMOUS ELSEWHERE QUESTIONNAIRE: Troy Kingi
21 Nov 2016 | 2 min read
With his debut album Guitar Party at Uncle's Bach, Troy Kingi arrived with a crash. It is a beautifully packaged double disc attributed to Troy Kingi and the Electric Haka Boogie. It seems like the 32-year old Northland singer-guitarist came from nowhere but he co-wrote the hit Aotearoa with Stan Walker and he's played with Mara TK (Electric Wire Hustle) and as an actor he has... > Read more
Cold Steel
THE FAMOUS ELSEWHERE SONGWRITER QUESTIONNAIRE: Anna Coddington
21 Oct 2016 | 3 min read
Some things you may not know about New Zealand singer-songwriter Anna Coddington, whose third album Luck/Time is released today: That she is -- and we quote the press release here -- the face of Trilogy Skincare, has an MA in Linguistics and is a second Dan Black Belt in karate. Oh, and runs marathons, wrote all but one of the 12 tracks on Luck/Time (the other a co-write) and produced all... > Read more
Without a Fight
THE FAMOUS ELSEWHERE SONGWRITER QUESTIONNAIRE: Ben Morley of Mice On Stilts
26 Sep 2016 | 2 min read
It's fair to say that we probably haven't seen or a heard a band like Auckland six-piece Mice on Stilts for decades, perhaps even ever before. Their expansive music owes debts to atmospheric prog-rock and romantic classic music with touches of introverted folk and . . . You get the picture? Elsewhere was very enthusiastic about their debut EP An Ocean Held Me and first album... > Read more
The Hours
THE FAMOUS ELSEWHERE QUESTIONNAIRE: Ross Mullins
26 Sep 2016 | 3 min read
It has been more than a wee while – he says 17 years in the liner notes to his current album – since we have heard new music from Ross Mullins, once the unofficial Musician-in-Residence in his home suburb of Devonport. From the mid Eighties with his acclaimed debut album State House Kid, songwriter-singer and keyboard player Mullins – who fronted the band Last Man... > Read more
Koromiko Road
THE FAMOUS ELSEWHERE JAZZ QUESTIONNAIRE: Florian Ross
26 Sep 2016 | 3 min read
German pianist and composer Florian Ross has done it all, from solo piano recordings through to big bands with a little organ-fronted trio along the way. He studied in Cologne, London and New York, has taught in a number of German academies and universities, and has released a dozen albums. He's played alongside Kenny Wheeler, Vince Mendoza and John Scofield . .... > Read more
THE FAMOUS ELSEWHERE JAZZ QUESTIONNAIRE: DeWayne Pate
26 Sep 2016 | 2 min read
Jazz bassist DeWayne Pate from San Francisco has played with some of the most famous musicians of the past 30 years, and across an impressive musical spectrum: bluesmen like Duke Robilliard and Charlie Musselwhite, pop and rockers like Pat Benetar and Huey Lewis, country legend Sneaky Pete Kleinow, Boz Scaggs . . . Jazz of course remains his first love and as a technically gifted player... > Read more
Goin' Home
THE FAMOUS ELSEWHERE SONGWRITERS QUESTIONNAIRE: Skyscraper Stan
23 Sep 2016 | 5 min read
And they call him Skyscraper Stan because . . . At a height which means ducking through doors, Stan Woodhouse stands a little bit taller than most New Zealand musicians . . . and through his rough-hewn, folk/blue and country-influenced music stands apart too. When he was 20 he went off to Melbourne to ostensibly study zoology but also honed his songwriting and started playing... > Read more
Elvis
THE FAMOUS ELSEWHERE WORLD MUSIC QUESTIONNAIRE: Moana Maniapoto
20 Sep 2016 | 3 min read
Few New Zealand artists have the stature, musical longevity and long-term political commitment of Moana Maniapoto (Ngāti Tūwharetoa/Tūhourangi-Ngāti Wahiao). So it is hardly surprising that she should be this year's inductee into the New Zealand Music Hall of Fame. She will be so honoured at this year's APRA Silver Scroll awards in Auckland on Thursday, September 29.... > Read more
THE FAMOUS ELSEWHERE JAZZ QUESTIONNAIRE: Nick Williams of After 'Ours
16 Sep 2016 | 3 min read
As one half of After 'Ours – with pianist/composer Michal Martyniuk – the multi-instrumentalist/producer Nick Williams has made a big impression with their debut album Odyssey, released today. Their music sits along the edge of cool LA fusion of the Seventies coupled to soulful and contemporary r'n'b. It also comes with a number of stellar guests like saxophonist Nathan... > Read more
Day After Day
THE FAMOUS ELSEWHERE PRODUCER QUESTIONNAIRE: Paddy Free of Pitch Black
5 Sep 2016 | 5 min read
Pitch Black – Paddy Free and Mike Hodgson – have been in the vanguard of New Zealand electronica, dub and dance for more decades than even they care to recall. They brought hi-tech light and sound to their performances and over a series of albums stretched the boundaries and possibilities of the sonic range of electronica. Outside of Pitch Back which has been an... > Read more
Without the Trees
THE FAMOUS ELSEWHERE JAZZ QUESTIONNAIRE: Tom Ludvigson of Trip to the Moon
29 Aug 2016 | 3 min read
As one half of the production of the new Trip to the Moon album A Traveller's Tale – with Trevor Reekie – Tom Ludvigson brings a wealth of playing, writing and production experience. The keyboard player and programer in TTTMoon, Ludvigson is also a jazz player of immeasurable skills so the improvised, ambient nature of Trip's music is a zone in which he is entirely... > Read more
Sana Monica Stroll
THE FAMOUS ELSEWHERE SONGWRITER QUESTIONNAIRE: Wayne Hussey of the Mission
26 Aug 2016 | 2 min read
You have to tip your hat to the Mission fronted by Wayne Hussey (formerly of Dead or Alive with Pete Burns and then the Sisters of Mercy). They emerged out of Britain's Goth cult and – despite line-up changes and a few periods of inactivity – they are still with us, 30 years on. And their forthcoming album Another Fall From Grace (with guest Gary Numan, released September... > Read more
THE FAMOUS ELSEWHERE PRODUCER QUESTIONNAIRE: Trevor Reekie of Trip To The Moon
25 Aug 2016 | 5 min read
When trying to explain to radio listeners recently just who Trevor Rekkie is and why he's so important, it quickly became clear that he was too big a subject to encapsulate with any economy. He has record labels (Pagan and Antennae) which were launching pads for Bic Runga, Greg Johnson, the Warratahs and many others; he is a musican (Car Crash Set's elelctronica to playing guitar on albums... > Read more
Indra's Pearl from A Traveller's Tale
THE FAMOUS ELSEWHERE SONGWRITER QUESTIONNAIRE: Steve Abel
1 Aug 2016 | 3 min read
Singer-songwriter Steve Abel is extremely well-known and highly regarded by fellow New Zealand musicians and a loyal following, but perhaps completely unrecognised beyond that world. That he doesn't release albums often is in no doubt part of his low profile, but after an absence he returns with his laconic, melancholy alt.folk on a new album Luck/Hope (released August 5 on his own... > Read more
Sidewalk Doves of NYCity
THE FAMOUS ELSEWHERE JAZZ QUESTIONNAIRE: Jay Power
1 Aug 2016 | 4 min read
Although Australian singer Jay Power isn't perhaps strictly a "jazz" singer as some might define it, she is appearing at the Bay of Islands Jazz and Bues festival later this month at the end of a short New Zealand tour (dates below). Her soul-coloured r'n'b style has infuences from jazz and its a genre she knows her stuff about, as her answers below show. Back home she has... > Read more
Heaven Mixed with Hell
THE FAMOUS ELSEWHERE SONGWRITER QUESTIONNAIRE: Andrew Keoghan
29 Jul 2016 | 2 min read
Expat New Zealand singer-songwriter Andrew Keoghan -- formerly based in NYC, now in LA -- won massive plaudits for his previous album, the Elsewhere favourite Arctic Tales Divide of 2011. That album had him in the running for a Taite Award and his new one Every Orchid Offering -- more subtle in places, sonically more eclectic -- might just see him in the same company. The 10 songs... > Read more