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
WORDS AND MUSIC FROM THE PACIFIC NORTHWEST (2024): The strange magic of Jeff Parkhurst, at last
12 Aug 2024 | 2 min read
This year Elsewhere can reflect on a 20 year relationship with the music of the Pacific Northwest. Not Jimi and grunge which we'd been there for, but with more recent artists just off the radar for most people in this hemisphere. It started in 2004 when, just before going to Seattle, a friend asked if we'd be seeing Green Pajamas when we were there. “Never... > Read more
Another Portrait
Status Quo: When My Mind is Not Live (1968)
12 Aug 2024 | <1 min read
For the past 50+ years, Status Quo have been a heads-down boogie band in denims and "rockin' all over the world". So it's hardly surprising people would know them for nothing more than that enjoyably reductive style. However . . . For a few years in the late Sixties the original band (with the inevitable line-up changes) flirted with trippy hippie rock... > Read more
Bilders: Dustbin of Empathy/Nictate (digital outlets)
11 Aug 2024 | 3 min read
It would be a brave or foolhardy soul who attempted to write the biography of Bill Direen. Even just a discography would be a Sisyphean task: no sooner had you made the last entry than overnight he has recorded another album which arrives, perhaps even with a book of poems. Or in the case of this new collection, a 15-song album Dustbin of Empathy (digital and on... > Read more
The Weevil, from Dustbin of Empathy
THE PETER NELSON STORY (2024): From Chch beat to HK soul
11 Aug 2024 | 3 min read
In some ways Peter Nelson's story is familiar: the Christchurch singer fronts a number of bands in the pre-Beatles era (the Metronomes, the Diamonds) playing covers at weddings then takes over the spot vacated by Ray Columbus and the Invaders who moved to Auckland. But as Peter Nelson and the Castaways they found their feet in late '64 and Nelson's tough, soulful voice... > Read more
Runaway Child, by Peter Nelson and Renaissance
3 SHADES OF BLUE by JAMES KAPLAN
9 Aug 2024 | 2 min read
The opening sentence here is the kind of summation which would normally appear at the end of a review, but let's get it out of the way quickly. If you only buy one book on jazz this year, make it this one. Subtitled “Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Bill Evans and the Lost Empire of Cool” it is by James Kaplan who delivered the magisterial two volumes on Frank... > Read more
The Famous Elsewhere Questionnaire
THE FAMOUS ELSEWHERE INNOVATORS QUESTIONNAIRE . . . The Patron Saint of Hummingbirds
8 Aug 2024 | 3 min read
As we mentioned when we reviewed the new album Environmental Music Vol 2 by Brandy Eve Allen (aka The Patron Saint of Hummingbirds), this was ambient music with some real thought behind it, not just nod-off music for bath-time with candles. Brandy – who grew up in New York and spent three years in Italy – is an environmentalist, photographer and the kind of... > Read more
Koto Meditation
Jack White: No Name (digital outlets)
5 Aug 2024 | 1 min read
In the 13 years since the end of the White Stripes it was possible to lose touch with Jack White as he moved through the Raconteurs and Dead Weather, made various appearances, and ran a parallel solo career. Oh, and he started his own Third Man label and shops. But here we are again, acknowledging this searing, garageband blues rock collection which has reference... > Read more
What's the Rumpus?
The Temple: Vastness Vastness (digital outlets)
5 Aug 2024 | <1 min read
The Temple is the nom de disque (if we might come over all Paris Olympics) for Peter Liley, Nathan Carter (who performs as Alter Natural) and Jack Woodbury. Composer/producer Woodbury and saxophonist/composer Liley have appeared at Elsewhere with the excellent Unfathomed Waters on Rattle (which found a home in our Further Outwhere pages), Woodbury also with his... > Read more
Paul McCartney: Twenty Flight Rock (1974)
5 Aug 2024 | 1 min read
In the large and detailed book which came with the recent reissue/remixes of John Lennon's Mind Games, there is an interview with Lennon and Yoko Ono at the time. In it Lennon says what he misses in his solo career was just sitting down and playing with the group. And, as seen in the Let It Be/Get Back movies, when they got together their default position would always be... > Read more
Death and the Maiden: Uneven Ground (digital outlets)
5 Aug 2024 | 2 min read
The role of the critic is not – as some people think, and some critics do also unfortunately – to rip apart the work of an artist. Nor is it to offer “constructive criticism”. That role falls to, in the case of music, the manager, producer, record company or trusted advisors. Because the role of the critic is not well understood, some years... > Read more
The Only One
Holly Arrowsmith: Blue Dreams (digital outlets)
4 Aug 2024 | <1 min read
Because Holly Arrowsmith has appeared a number of times at Elsewhere – reviewed and in recent and archive interviews – we hope we can skim lightly over a lot of background, it is there in those interviews. But briefly then . . . Born in Santa Fe and raised in the South Island, Holly Arrowsmith arrived with her 2015 debut album For the Weary Traveller... > Read more
Mountain Lion
GERRY AND THE PACEMAKERS, COLLECTED (2024): We'll never turn you away
4 Aug 2024 | 2 min read
Life and pop music were cruel to this band who were running mates with the Beatles: they too played the Cavern and Hamburg, had their first hit with a song the Beatles turned down (How Do You Do It?), shared bills with the Beatles, were managed by Brian Epstein, made their own pop movie and, as much as the Beatles, made an indelible mark which wrote... > Read more
Walk Hand in Hand
Empire of the Sun: Ask That God (digital outlets)
3 Aug 2024 | <1 min read
Frankly, it's been so long that we've heard from this duo that we'd almost forgotten them: eight years since their last album which actually went past us. So a quick reminder if you'd forgotten them also: they are the popular and successful Australian, glamed-up electronic duo Luke Steele (an expat Kiwi of Sleepy Jackson) and Nick Littlemore (PNAU). And here... > Read more
The Feeling You Get
SUSS: Birds & Beasts (digital outlets)
2 Aug 2024 | <1 min read
Some years ago we stumbled on SUSS, a New York instrumental trio who create ambient widescreen guitar soundscapes as wide as the deserts and skies of California and Arizona. We loved it, wrote about it favourably and joined the long line of critics who also praised this band. Seems there was a much shorter line of those wanting to buy it however. SUSS are firmly... > Read more
Restless
LOVE'S UGLY CHILDREN, AGAIN (2024): Pump It Baby, one more time
1 Aug 2024 | 2 min read
Many bands are here for a good time, not a long time. But, despite the odds (line-up changes, the lifestyle), Love's Ugly Children from Christchurch managed a bit of both. The band of Simon Maclaren (guitar, vocals), Angela “Floss” Leslie (bass, vocals) and Jason Young (drums, vocals) emerged from a previous line-up (Maclaren, Leslie and others) with a... > Read more
Coming 4 You
Patron Saint of Hummingbirds: Environmental Music Vol 2 (digital outlets)
31 Jul 2024 | <1 min read
Elsewhere is not averse to ambient or atmospheric music, or even that stateless music which seems designed for relaxation massage centres. When we are writing something which requires concentration it can provide an interesting backdrop which puts a curtain between the focus and the noise of life outside. Patron Saint of Hummingbirds is the performance name of... > Read more
11.11
MARTIN PHILLIPPS, REMEMBERED AND RESPECTED (2024): Pop hits for those that still want them
29 Jul 2024 | 4 min read | 3
Like most people, I knew Martin Phillipps from a distance: me down there as just a face in the crowd and him up there under the lights, wringing out his songs with a passionate intensity or delighting in their uplifting pop quality. Martin wrote some of the most engaging and endearing songs in popular music, not just in this country but in the world. And the breadth... > Read more
Night of Chill Blue
Ernest Tubb: It's America, Love It or Leave It (1965)
29 Jul 2024 | 1 min read
The great patriot Ernest Tubb has appeared at From the Vaults before with his mind-numbingly awful It's For God and Country and You, Mom written by Dave McEnery. Ernest clearly like to keep things simple and in the same year he recorded this little pearler by Jimmy Helms. It became adopted as a satirical statement by those hippie draft-card burners who objected... > Read more
MUSIC TO SWEAT TO (2024): The inane that goes with the pain
29 Jul 2024 | 3 min read
Recently someone with time on their hands did the maths and announced that in the past four years there were only three weeks when bands had topped the British charts, one of them being the Beatles with Now and Then. Every other week it was a solo act (or probably ft. someone like Bulldog, remember him?). Further to that, in the week this very clever person was... > Read more
The Avener: Fade Out Lines (Marcapasos Remix)
Jyotsna Srikanth: Carnatic Nomad (ARC Music)
29 Jul 2024 | <1 min read
This prolific London-based Indian violinist has released at least nine albums in the past couple of decades -- including Carnatic Jazz and Carnatic Lounge, and Nordic Raga with a Swedish quartet – in addition teaching, touring and making time to pick up an MBE from King Charles last year for her services to music. With support from the paired percussion team of... > Read more