THE MAGAZINE FOR CURIOUS PEOPLE
Elsewhere is a concept and a place, and Graham Reid goes there for his wide angle travels, writing, music review and interviews with writers, musicians and artists.
Elsewhere is an on-line magazine for new music (we filter out the mundane and spotlight the more interesting albums), different travel, arts and more. It is dedicated to the diversity and possibilities of Elsewhere. It's an equal opportunity enjoyer. Subscribe here (it's free) for a weekly newsletter. Welcome . . .
Latest posts
CONTRIBUTOR LEX MILLER on coming to terms with Saved and Christianity
2 Dec 2024 | 5 min read
Sometime in the early 1980s I walked into a record shop on Queen St., Auckland and saw a bargain bin full of the fairly recent Bob Dylan release, Saved. The cover had a hand reaching down from the sky to touch the hands of the “saved”, although in later editions that cover was replaced by one with more palatable artwork. The shock of Dylan’s latest... > Read more
Saving Grace
Beth Hart: You Still Got Me (digital outlets)
2 Dec 2024 | 1 min read
When the big voiced blues-rock belter Beth Hart came to this country in 2000 on a promotional tour, we pushed her LA Song to the top of our charts, her first number one anywhere. To be honest I don't remember the song that much but I certainly remember her. As I said in my interview at the time, “On what felt like one of Auckland's most humid days of the year,... > Read more
Wonderful World
Kim Deal: Nobody Loves You More (digital outlets)
2 Dec 2024 | 1 min read
Many years ago the British music writer Pete Frame would produce meticulously researched Rock Family Trees tracing the various comings and goings in scenes and bands, creating vast branches for groups like Fleetwood Mac. If he ever did the influential Pixies branches would include the career of bassist Kim Deal who later founded the Breeders (with Tanya Donnelly of... > Read more
Crystal Breath
Norman McLaren: Rythmetic; The Compositions of Norman McLaren (digital outlets)
29 Nov 2024 | <1 min read
A few weeks ago we wrote about the late Scottish-born Canadian animator and film maker Norman McLaren and our distant relationship with him. We took the opportunity to do because of the Synchromy single/animated footage which appeared. It was one of those innovative pieces where McLaren drew the sounds on card and filmed them as . . . Better you just check it... > Read more
Dots
A NOT RECOMMENDED RECORD: The Beatles: Live in Stockholm 1964
28 Nov 2024 | 1 min read
From time to time we have a Recommended Record, an album which you deserve to have on vinyl because it plays better that way, has an especially interesting cover (gatefold sleeve, lyrics, credits etc) and it just feels right on record. This album of the Beatles live in Stockholm comes in an excellent cover but . . . We knew what we were getting in to because we read... > Read more
Father John Misty: Mahāśmaśāna (digital outlets)
25 Nov 2024 | 2 min read
The first three singles released in advance of this new album by Josh Tillman (Father John Misty) were so majestic they seemed to herald something special on his sixth album Mahāśmaśāna, which apparently means “the great cremation ground” in Sanskrit. There was the heroic, seven minute Screamland (with Low's Alan Sparhawk on guitar) which offered... > Read more
She Cleans Up
THE AMERICANISATION OF THE BEATLES (2024): The Capitol albums again
25 Nov 2024 | 3 min read
Although the scream-age fans fell at the Beatles' feet after The Ed Sullivan Show appearance in February 1964, they had a very strange and different understanding of their music. The US albums were mismatches of the original British album tracks and singles, songs dropped from one UK album would appear later, sometimes much later. These albums were the work of... > Read more
Ticket to Ride (movie mix)
TERRY RILEY: SHRI CAMEL, CONSIDERED (1978): Listening is easy with eyes closed
25 Nov 2024 | 2 min read
For most people, even if they haven't heard a note by him, their reference point for the career of Terry Riley is often distilled into just two words: In C. That was the title of his breakthrough, Sixties minimalist album (recorded for the first time in '68), a composition which allows for infinite flexibility. It has been performed by musicians from China and Mali,... > Read more
RECOMMENDED REISSUE: Ray Charles: Crying Time (digital outlets)
25 Nov 2024 | <1 min read
There are any number of great Ray Charles albums (notably the two volumes of Modern Sounds in Country and Western Music) and numerous compilations, but this seminal album from 1966 has just been remastered and reissued so we bring it to attention. It included the slightly notorious (and hit) Let's Go Get Stoned but it is the Buck Owens title track with strings which is... > Read more
Crying Time
Steeleye Span: Cam Ye Oer Frae France (1973)
25 Nov 2024 | 1 min read | 1
As with Fairport Convention (which included Richard Thompson), Steeleye Span were in the vanguard of the British folk-rock movement of the late Sixties. Unlike Fairport however, Steeleye Span didn't move as often and as far from the roots of folk and frequently drew on Francis Child's text The English and Scottish Ballads for inspiration and source material -- a book which... > Read more
Wicked Chicken: soul funk for the barbecue
25 Nov 2024 | 1 min read
Many years ago Rhino Records -- a reissue label out of LA -- put out a booklet-cum-CD package of old soul and funk with an eating theme, specifically food for barbecues. Tracks on the CDs included Hot Barbecue by Brother Jack McDuff, Grits (James Brown), Chicken Strut (the Meters), Jambalaya on the Bayou (Fats Domino) and so on. You get the picture: tasty music and, in... > Read more
Arthur Ahbez: Arthur Ahbez and the Flaming Ahbez (digital outlets)
23 Nov 2024 | 1 min read
We have it on sort-of reliable authority that Arthur Ahbez is this local artist's real name, not a homage to the fascinating proto-hippie Eden Ahbez who wrote, among other things, the jazz standard Nature Boy. If Eden was proto-, Arthur sounds more post- because this album roams freely through psychedelic pop, country, folk-rock and more. It's quite a trip and if the... > Read more
A Simple Medication
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Adam Hattaway and the Haunters: High Horse (digital outlets)
22 Nov 2024 | 1 min read
No one could accuse Ōtautahi Christchurch's Adam Hattaway of coasting. Since his 2018 debut album All Dat Love with the Haunters, they've released five albums of Hattaway originals and co-writes, 2021's Rooster a double. They've ranged from swaggering Stones-like rock'n'roll and dancefloor disco-rock to power-pop and alt.country. The compilation... > Read more
Mercy for the Weak
SHAWN PHILLIPS, REDISCOVERED AGAIN (2024): Music business' best kept secret
18 Nov 2024 | 3 min read
Recently when writing about Tucker Zimmerman we observed that no matter how much archive digging you do, there will always be someone you'd never heard of – like Tucker – who suddenly appears to your delight. Shawn Phillips, born in Texas, isn't like that to us – we've had his Faces album since it was released in 1972 -- but he's probably unfamiliar to... > Read more
As All is Played
RECOMMENDED RECORD: Dwight Yoakam: Brighter Days (Via Records/digital outlets)
18 Nov 2024 | 2 min read | 1
From time to time Elsewhere will single out a recent release we recommend on vinyl, like this double album in a gatefold sleeve with lyrics and track credits and in a classy cover. Check out Elsewhere's other Recommended Record picks . . . . In the rush to embrace new alt.country or young mainstream artists it's easy to overlook the career of... > Read more
If Only
Fazerdaze: Soft Power (digital outlets)
18 Nov 2024 | 1 min read
One of the most deceptively clever and memorable local pop songs of recent years was the Lucky Girl single by Amelia Murray (aka Fazerdaze). It had a gleaming and upbeat sound but a close listen revealed layers of uncertainty within it. It was on her excellent 2017 debut album Morningside where the classy, mostly upbeat guitar-driven pop belied a downward arc of... > Read more
Cherry Pie
Nick Lowe: Dig My Mood (1998)
18 Nov 2024 | 3 min read
It is coming up close to three decades since Nick Lowe -- once a laddish and witty figure in British rock in the immediate post-punk days -- decided to take the long view on his career and reposition himself. As he told Elsewhere late in 2011, “Back when I first got noticed in the Seventies it was for being rather irreverent and popping bubbles, and I was a... > Read more
You Inspire Me
Chris Clark: I Want To Go Back There Again (1967)
18 Nov 2024 | 2 min read | 1
Of the few white acts on Berry Gordy's Motown label, Chris Clark -- with platinum blonde hair, pale skin and a kind of Marilyn Munroe appeal -- was undoubtedly the whitest. "Getting my singles played on radio was difficult," she said later. "Once [DJs] found out I was white they thought Motown had tried to trick them. "I always hesitate to say any... > 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... > 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,... > Read more