Writing in Elsewhere
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IN PERFECT HARMONY by WILL HODGKINSON
4 May 2023 | 3 min read | 1
First of all put aside any prejudice when you see the subtitle of this very large hardback: “Singalong Pop in '70s Britain”. Yes you will read about the New Seekers, made-up bands like Edison Lighthouse and Blue Mink, salacious songwriters like opportunist Jonathan King and, of course, Abba, Boney M, Carl (Kung Fu Fighting) Douglas and the Partridge Family. But this... > Read more
PULL DOWN THE SHADES, GARAGE FANZINE 1984-86, edited by RICHARD LANGSTON
17 Apr 2023 | 6 min read
The internet has robbed us of many things, mostly an intelligent dialogue and the ability to disagree without resorting to personal insults. But it also has opened the small corners of the world to us, so ideas, people, cultures, places and music we might not have known existed are now readily available. However there is a downside to that also, particularly in the world of popular... > Read more
THE McCARTNEY LEGACY VOL. 1 1969-73 by ALLAN KOZINN and ADRIAN SINCLAIR
8 Mar 2023 | 6 min read
The opening pages of this scrupulously researched and detailed, small print 700 page book offer an uncharacteristic image of Paul McCartney. He's throwing a bucket of slops and dinner leftovers at a photographer and journalist, and cussing them out angrily because they've found him at his remote farm High Park on the west coast of Scotland. It is November 1969 and the pair – after... > Read more
THE OTHER WAY by DAVID TRUBRIDGE
17 Feb 2023 | 5 min read
Some years ago I drove from Alice Springs to Uluru, a journey which is longer and more interesting than some might believe. Especially if – as I did – you detour to spend the night in a remote camp and stop frequently to walk through the ever-changing desertscape which is so easy to cruise past in air-conditioned comfort. Far from being an arid landscape of stony and dusty... > Read more
COLDITZ, PRISONERS OF THE CASTLE by BEN MACINTYRE
14 Jan 2023 | 4 min read | 1
The British inmates of Colditz – the fortress castle in the heart of Germany where the Nazis kept the most valuable prisoners and recidivist POW escapees – were mustachioed, stiff-upper-lip officers who planned their escape back to Blighty to have another crack at Jerry. Here the spirit of heroic Britain was kept alive and, although there was humour to be had in mocking their... > Read more
AROUND THE CORNER, OUT TO THE EDGE, a memoir by JONATHAN BESSER
4 Jan 2023 | 4 min read | 1
This is a very sad book. Not because of its melancholy contents. Far from it, there is fun and laughter throughout. But because Jewish New York-born composer Jonathan Besser – who moved to New Zealand in 1972 when he was in his early Twenties – died in February 2022. He never lived to see his interesting memoir published. It is sad too because the Auckland he... > Read more
Wellington Harbour, by Besser and Prosser
A MONTH AT THE BACK OF MY BRAIN by KEVIN IRELAND
28 Nov 2022 | 2 min read
When reading Kevin Ireland's 2021 collection of poems Just Like That, it was easy to imagine a mischievous twinkle in the author's eye as he alighted of phrase or line with a glissando between meaning and wit. Not so with this slim but dense and thoughtful third volume of his memoirs which explore memories, the passage of time, old friendships with some people long gone and still... > Read more
THE PHILOSOPHY OF MODERN SONG by BOB DYLAN
19 Nov 2022 | 5 min read
Anyone who had listened to programmes in Bob Dylan's Theme Time Radio Hour will doubtless hear his voice and cadences while reading this uneven collection of short essays on 66 diverse songs which he has, apparently, been writing for over a decade. What is immediately apparent is that the title of the book and many of the songs are like Hitchcock's MacGuffins, canny misdirections before the... > Read more
NIRVANA: THE COMPLETE ILLUSTRATED HISTORY by ANDREW EARLES and VARIOUS WRITERS
16 Nov 2022 | 2 min read
With Christmas looming this large format, exceptionally well-illustrated 200 page hardback might just be one for the young teen in the house discovering rock music, even if that music might be – like that by Nirvana – 30 years old. Here 11 separate contributors (whose comments and perspectives sometimes overlap) offer both an overview of the band's career starting with the... > Read more
Aero Zeppelin
NEEDLES AND PLASTIC; FLYING NUN RECORDS, 1981-1988, by MATTHEW GOODY
8 Nov 2022 | 4 min read
In the first few pages of this excellent, readable and informative book, the author Matthew Goody -- an assiduous researcher and clear writer -- outlines some of the problems when attempting this detailed survey of the early years of Flying Nun. Rather than an overview with anecdotes, Goody has drilled down into a chronological account of every release on the label in that period . . . but... > Read more
Anything Could Happen, by the Clean (1981)
CHARLIE'S GOOD TONIGHT by PAUL SEXTON
8 Nov 2022 | 3 min read
Given his circumspect nature, reluctance to engage with the expectations of the rock'n'roll lifestyle and his preference for staying at home rather than touring, you don't hold out much hope for a biography of Rolling Stones' drummer Charlie Watts who died in August 2021. Even an authorised one with family cooperation as this is– by longtime British music journalist Sexton, who most... > Read more
Down the Road Apiece, by the Rolling Stones (1964)
THE DARK CRACKS OF KEMANG; THE BAJAJ BOYS IN INDONESIA by JEREMY ROBERTS
6 Nov 2022 | 4 min read
When Elsewhere previously wrote about Jeremy Roberts it was 2015, on the publication of his poetry collection Cards on the Table. At that time the former Auckland poet/performer was back living and teaching in Jakarta. We can say “back” because this thick memoir covers, in much detail and with digressions, his first year there in 2013. Single again after the end of a... > Read more
THE ROLLING STONES; ALL THE SONGS, THE STORY BEHIND EVERY TRACK by PHILIPPE MARGOTIN and JOHN-MICHEL GUESDON
9 Oct 2022 | 2 min read
Let's be honest, who knew that there was a story behind every Rolling Stone song? Of course we can discern important themes, especially in their early years: Play With Fire (class consciousness); Get Off Of My Cloud (consumerism), Satisfaction (consumerism, sex), Under My Thumb (role-reversal, misogyny), Mother's Little Helper (prescription drugs) and so on. Later there would be Street... > Read more
The Under Assistant West Coast Promotion Man (1965)
JUMPING SUNDAYS; THE RISE AND FALL OF THE COUNTERCULTURE IN AOTEAROA NEW ZEALAND, by NICK BOLLINGER
11 Sep 2022 | 2 min read
In Greg McGee's 1981 play Foreskin's Lament, a central character bellows, “the effect of the Sixties on the great miasma amounted to an extra inch of whisker on the end a Taranaki farmer’s side-board.” This blunt refutation of a self-believing generation – now defined as “boomer” – doubtless gave uncomfortable pause to lapsed radicals and... > Read more
CULTURE IN A SMALL COUNTRY, by ROGER HORROCKS, REVIEWED (2022): The tyrannies of scale and isolation
29 Aug 2022 | 1 min read
In some small way, Nick Bollinger had it easy for his current and excellent Jumping Sundays: The Rise and Fall of the Counterculture in Aotearoa New Zealand. His subject was defined by what it wasn't. Auckland academic/writer/critic Roger Horrocks has it tougher with Culture in a Small Country: The Arts in New Zealand because his premise is so loaded and subjective it can be deployed into... > Read more
JUMPING SUNDAYS; THE RISE AND FALL OF THE COUNTERCULTURE IN AOTEAROA NEW ZEALAND (extract) by NICK BOLLINGER
26 Aug 2022 | 4 min read
Award-winning Wellington author, broadcaster, critic and the incoming Lilburn Research Fellowship scholar for 2023 Nick Bollinger has written an excellent book about a seemingly inchoate area in our recent history. It is Jumping Sundays: The Rise and the Fall of the Counterculture in Aotearoa New Zealand. It has been reviewed by Graham Reid at Kete Books here, but we are pleased to be... > Read more
Gimme Shelter
TRAITOR KING; THE SCANDALOUS EXILE OF THE DUKE AND DUCHESS OF WINDSOR by ANDREW LOWNIE
12 Aug 2022 | 2 min read
While there is understandable interest in the fame and foibles of the self-exiled Meghan and Harry couple, nothing they have done comes even close to the appalling former Edward VIII (who had been the British monarch for less a year when he abdicated, known to most as David) and Wallis Simpson, his new wife. As the Duke of Windsor, he chose her over royal duties but – as is clear in... > Read more
LENNON, THE MOBSTER AND THE LAWYER: THE UNTOLD STORY by JAY BERGEN
20 Jun 2022 | 2 min read
Although the author seems to possess that uncanny and unlikely ability to recall and quote lengthy conversations many decades after the events, this is still a fascinating account of the courtroom showdown between John Lennon and the old-school, Mob-connected record company grifter Morris Levy who ripped off artists, put his name on songs to get publishing credit and used the threat of... > Read more
SEASONS, by WILLIAM DIREEN
2 Jun 2022 | 2 min read | 1
One of Elsewhere favourite writers is the American poet, essayist and translator Gary Snyder, who is still with us at 92. Although sometimes considered a Beat Poet, Snyder always had a quieter and more reflective mind, much influenced by Buddhism and specifically the Zen poets and philosophers. He appeared as Japhy Ryder in Jack Kerouac's barely disguised autobiographical novel The... > Read more
MIKE McCARTNEY, PHOTOGRAPHER (2022): Pop history in the lens
24 May 2022 | 2 min read
Before he was Mike McCartney he was Mike McGear. But before that he was Mike McCartney. That brief interval when he went by the name McGear was when the band his older brother Paul was in started to get big. Very big. Wanting to separate himself from the light cast by Paul and the Beatles, and to stake his own claim, he was Mike McGear in the Liverpool group the Scaffold whose style was... > Read more