Writing in Elsewhere
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THE JESUS PAPERS by MICHAEL BAIGENT: Abandon hope, all ye who enter here
30 Aug 2009 | 3 min read | 1
When the court case between two of the authors of The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail and Dan Brown, author of The DaVinci Code, was being played out in London a couple of years ago, commentators noted the obvious difference between their books: one was -- purportedly -- a work of non-fiction research and the other was a mystery-thriller novel. What no one commented on was how much Holy Blood,... > Read more
STEVE McCURRY PHOTOGRAPHER INTERVIEWED: Portraits of the diverse, damaged world
2 Jul 2009 | 5 min read
The old man emerges from a halo of half-shadow, golden light catching his white beard, pinpoints of sun creating white flares in his penetrating eyes. Like an Old Testament prophet or a portrait from Rembrandt, he seems to come from beyond time. “It was late afternoon and we were in one of the big forts with mud walls,” says photographer Steve McCurry. “Low light came... > Read more
Emmanuel Jal and Abdel Gadir Salim: Ya Salam
THE DIRTY DOZEN; THE BEST 12 COMMANDO COMIC BOOKS EVER! edited by GEORGE LOW
19 Jun 2009 | 1 min read
Those weary of the on-going acclaim for sophisticated graphic novels -- essentially comic books for adults with layered novelistic narratives and innovative graphic design -- will welcome this fat, old school collection of a dozen 60s comic books from the Commando series chosen by the magazine’s longtime editor George Low. Here are simple yarns of derring-do from the Second World War... > Read more
BIG QUESTIONS IN HISTORY edited by HARRIET SWAIN: Puzzlers and problems
17 Jun 2009 | 1 min read
History is, as a wise man once observed, just one damned thing after another. But we remain endlessly curious about it: each new generation or political ideology seeing it through its own prism and interpreting events accordingly. Pity then the editor -- in this case Swain, deputy features editor of the Times Higher Education Supplement -- who tosses out 20 big questions to various academics... > Read more
THE BIRTH OF BEBOP -- A SOCIAL AND MUSICAL HISTORY by SCOTT DEVEAUX
14 Jun 2009 | 1 min read
Suggesting that this engrossing, historically investigative and anecdotally amusing book should be reviewed because it asked the question, "Was bebop jazz a revolution or simply a musical evolution?" drew the response: "Yep, that's a question that keeps most people awake at nights." Fair enough. But in these scrupulously annotated, occasionally academic 450 pages, this... > Read more
Charlie Parker: Lester Leaps In (1952)
ROLLING WITH THE STONES by BILL WYMAN: Every picture tells a story
8 Jun 2009 | 2 min read
There's a widespread belief - peculiarly pervasive among rock writers, oddly enough - that Bill Wyman's Stone Alone autobiography of the Rolling Stones was boring, as if this was a surprise. Wyman, the bassist who quit in late '91, was always the odd man out. Seven years older than Mick Jagger and born with the superbly Dickensian name William Perks, Wyman stood apart from the... > Read more
The Rolling Stones: The Singer Not the Song (1965)
ACCORDING TO THE ROLLING STONES edited by DORA LOEWENSTEIN AND PHILIP DODD (2003): Voices off . . .
7 Jun 2009 | 3 min read
The Rolling Stones have had quite a marketing profile in their 40th-anniversary year: the reissue of all their early albums through to the mid 70s; the 40 Licks double-disc hit-stacked compilation; the 40 Licks global jaunt (billed as their "farewell tour" in some circles) which has been more musically and financially successful than any previous one; the new DVD live set; and now -... > Read more
The Rolling Stones: Come On (1963)
STONED by ANDREW LOOG OLDHAM: Would you let your daughter meet Andrew?
24 May 2009 | 2 min read
Andrew Loog Oldham enjoyed considerable notoriety in the early Sixties as the young manager/producer of the Rolling Stones. He hit the headlines in his own right for his liner notes to a Stones LP (which appeared in New Zealand as The Unstoppable Stones, an Essential Elsewhere album) in which he advised fans who didn't have the money to buy it to knock a blind man on the head and steal his... > Read more
The Rolling Stones: Under My Thumb
ONLY ANARCHISTS ARE PRETTY by MICK O'SHEA: Pretty vacant, really
18 May 2009 | 2 min read
Before the whirlwind of success hits, there are often significant moments in the early careers of famous rock musicians: a teenage Elvis walking into Sun Records’ studio in Memphis to record a birthday song for his mother; the young Paul McCartney being introduced to a drunk John Lennon at a village fete; Mick Jagger and Keith Richards meeting on a bus . . . Such stories, with... > Read more
Sex Pistols: God Save the Queen (Neil Barnes dance mix!)
KHOMEINI'S GHOST by CON COUGHLIN (2009): The spirit of the departed
10 May 2009 | 4 min read
Within weeks of Ayatollah Khomeini returning to Iran in 1979 after almost 15 years in exile, the Islamic Revolution he had envisioned and agitated for was complete and a ruthless, fundamentalist theocracy had been installed in Tehran. One of the many strictures imposed was the banning of Western music which the clerics saw as a corrupting influence. When asked by an interviewer if that... > Read more
Din Mohammad Zangeshahi: Ya Ghows
ELLIOTT SMITH AND THE BIG NOTHING by BENJAMIN NUGENT: A friend in need is a . . . pain?
30 Apr 2009 | 2 min read | 1
When American singer-songwriter Smith was found dead in October 2003 at age 34 it hardly came as a surprise to many of his small but loyal following. Smith’s lyrics had been suffused in gloom, and his depressive personality combined with intermittent drug addictions made his early demise seem all but inevitable. What did surprise however was the manner of his death: he was apparently... > Read more
Elliott Smith: Baby Britain
ONLY IN AMERICA by MATT FREI: The country they hate to love
17 Mar 2009 | 4 min read
Recently a well-known New Zealand columnist asked if, given the election of the new and popular president, it was possible to like America again. Perhaps the writer was being witty. But for many -- here, but more especially in Europe -- equating America’s political reach for the amorphous, diverse and often quite extraordinary country that is “America” seems common. Since... > Read more
Jake Shimabukuro: The Stars and Stripes Forever
GOODBYE 20th CENTURY: SONIC YOUTH AND THE RISE OF THE ALTERNATIVE NATION by DAVID BROWNE
4 Mar 2009 | 5 min read
When posting Sonic Youth’s Daydream Nation (1988) as an Essential Elsewhere album last year, I noted that it was as emblematic of its time as the Beatles’ Sgt Pepper’s. But, as with The Velvet Underground’s influential debut album, it also stood diametrically opposed to the prevailing mood of its period. If this was the alternative nation on the rise -- as this... > Read more
Sonic Youth: Renegade Princess (from NYC Ghosts and Flowers)
THE MADNESS OF ADAM AND EVE; HOW SCHIZOPHRENIA SHAPED HUMANITY by DAVID HORROBIN: The rogue within
4 Mar 2009 | 8 min read
The woman on the intercity bus to Seoul wasn't paying much attention to the film flickering on the television screen above the driver's head. It was a distinctly odd choice anyway: Brother Sun, Sister Moon, Franco Zeffirelli's hippie-period life of St Francis of Assisi, with fey music by Donovan. Even dubbed into Korean, it wasn't of much interest. But abruptly she leaned forward and... > Read more
31 SONGS by NICK HORNBY: The witty curmudgeon writes
22 Feb 2009 | 1 min read | 2
Famous and popular Brit author (High Fidelity, About A Boy, Fever Pitch) Nick Hornby writes about his 31 favourite pop songs. And we should care? But this is actually an extended, digressive, amusingly provocative essay -- and not all the songs and artists are his favourites. Of the earnest Seventies folkies Richard Thompson and his wife Linda, he says they looked like miserablists out of... > Read more
ENEMY COMBATANT by MOAZZAM BEGG
31 Jan 2009 | 2 min read
The impending closure of Guantanamo Bay prison will bring an end to an especially dark chapter in American history and geo-politics . . . But perhaps not to the Orwellian newspeak so many Americans in public life resort to: of the suicides of three detainees at Guantanamo prison in 2006 the American base commander referred to the deaths as “asymmetrical warfare”, a bewildering... > Read more
NIXONLAND: THE RISE OF A PRESIDENT AND THE FRACTURING OF AMERICA by RICK PERLSTEIN reviewed (2008)
18 Jan 2009 | 4 min read
If there is a sense of deja-vu about the current political landscape in the United States it is perhaps less Barack Obama being hailed as the inheritor of the mantle bequeathed by those golden martyrs John F Kennedy and Martin Luther King than it is in the presidency itself. This Bush (“Omega Bush” as some critics call him, as opposed to his father “Alpha Bush“) has... > Read more
DON'T LET ME BE MISUNDERSTOOD by ERIC BURDON
18 Dec 2008 | 4 min read
Eric Burdon -- frontman for Newcastle's ragged r'n'b band the Animals in the 60s -- tells a good story. In fact his life is a series of good stories, and before his New Zealand tour in 2001 he was spinning tales of rock yore down a phoneline from his home in California as if he was sitting at a beer-soaked table in a northern pub. And when he arrived in town to play with yet another line-up... > Read more
WRONG ABOUT JAPAN by PETER CAREY
30 Nov 2008 | 1 min read
The Japanese phenomena of manga (comics) and anime (animated films) have long commanded Westerners‘ attention: they are often violent and sexual graphic, some explore arcane myth, others are hopelessly romantic, and some are social documentaries. There have been numerous attempts at penetrating their layers of meaning (Frederick L Schodt’s Manga! Manga! from the mid 80s is... > Read more
INNOCENT WHEN YOU DREAM; TOM WAITS THE COLLECTED INTERVIEWS (2006) edited by Mac Montandon
30 Nov 2008 | 2 min read
The musical journey of Tom Waits -- from bohemian barfly poet with an affection for the Beat Generation and Raymond Chandler to the clank’n’grind noir-noise of his more recent albums -- has been one of the most rewarding in rock culture. Although immediately that needs qualification: Waits has been of rock culture but never part of it. As Luc Sante of the Village Voice notes... > Read more