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
JOHN LENNON'S MIND GAMES, REISSUED (2024): Remixed and Revisionist
18 Jul 2024 | 6 min read
The recent release of Paul McCartney's l974 live-in-the-studio set One Hand Clapping – and, more particularly, the very detailed book The McCartney Legacy, Vol. 1 1969-1973 – served to remind just how chaotic and unfocused his career was in the immediate post-Beatles period. In many ways his former partner's was even more so. John Lennon had already... > Read more
You Are Here, Elemental Mix with guitarist Sneaky Pete Kleinlow
FAN CLUB, PROFILED (2024): New kids on the block
15 Jul 2024 | 2 min read
Back in the late Eighties/early Nineties there was a very popular synth-pop dance band called Fan Club. Because of the background of their singer Aishah and tours there, Fan Club were also successful in Malaysia. Their joyful single Sensation damaged the charts here and their subsequent dance-pop proved club-friendly as well as also making the charts. They didn't... > Read more
Beach Weather
PAUL McCARTNEY'S ONE HAND CLAPPING (2024): Back in the Abbey
15 Jul 2024 | 2 min read
No less than John Lennon, Paul McCartney's immediate post-Beatles career was messy and frequently critically derided. His 1970 McCartney album was widely dismissed and the circumstances around it – the notorious self-interview which effectively announced the end of the Beatles – tainted it even further. His follow-up – in its orchestral... > Read more
SAM COOKE, GOSPEL INTO POP: The change was always gonna come
15 Jul 2024 | 4 min read | 1
At this distance, we can’t be expected to understand what the death of Sam Cooke in the sleazy Hacienda Motel in ’64 meant to black Americans. The former gospel singer was found slumped against a wall – naked except for an overcoat and one shoe, gunned down by the motel owner after a woman he’d picked up in a bar had fled his room claiming he... > Read more
Somewhere There's a Girl (1961)
Matt Langley: As Real As You Want It To Be (digital outlets)
15 Jul 2024 | 1 min read
It has been many many years since we heard from singer-songwriter Matt Langley whose previous albums were praised far and wide (at Elsewhere, by Nick Bollinger, Simon Sweetman and others). But eight years on from his acoustic album Winterdust, and from Japan where he now lives, Langley has been back in touch because . . . He has teamed up with his former... > Read more
Waking Dream
DORY PREVIN, REFLECTIONS IN A MUD PUDDLE, CONSIDERED (1971): Death, pain, disasters and really nice songs
15 Jul 2024 | 4 min read
Any number of women artist from the Sixties and Seventies – Vashti Bunyan, PP Arnold, Doris Troy and others – have undergone a career revival or rediscovery in recent years. But Dory Previn – who died in 2012 aged 86 – still seems to be overlooked. Could it be because she wrote lyrics which even by today's hip-hop and r'n'b standards would be... > Read more
Surf Mesa: ily/I Love You Baby. (2019)
14 Jul 2024 | 1 min read
One of the reasons for joining a gym is to listen to the relentless beat-driven, repetitive banger pop they play by people you've never heard of. The musical standard is so low that anything you choose to play at home, no matter how appalling your taste, will be far superior. Most of what I hear at the gym is music where the singer finally gets the pleading... > Read more
Bonny Light Horseman: Keep Me On Your Mind/See You Free (digital outlets)
14 Jul 2024 | <1 min read
This is a weighty 18 song double album of heartache mixed with some of life's pleasures which is best when judiciously sampled, otherwise this can feel like a long ride with the Horsemen which only occasionally breaks into a canter. The Horsemen are a folk-Americana semi-supergroup – solo artist/singer-songwriter Anaïs Mitchell, multi-instrumentalists Eric D.... > Read more
When I Was Younger
BRIEF ENCOUNTER: And a pause for thought
13 Jul 2024 | 2 min read | 1
This is Dry July. It's the month when some people stop drinking and instead get on social media to announce their alcohol-free virtue to whoever is out there. They join others who, whatever the month, will write “Now eight years sober” and watch as friends and strangers respond with “good one, hun” or “well done, just three years for... > Read more
ME AND MR JONES by SUZI RONSON
12 Jul 2024 | 3 min read
In the early Seventies, Suzi Fussey was living a conventional life at 96 Cumberland Road in suburban London with her mum, dad and brother. She'd quit school at 15, took a course at Evelyn Paget College of Hair and Beauty in Bromley, got a job in Beckenham, sees bands like the young Pink Floyd and Georgie Fame and the Blue Flames, likes to get a bit creative with... > Read more
Slaughter on Tenth Avenue, by Mick Ronson
Favourite Five Recent Releases
Skilaa: Tiger in the River (digital outlets)
8 Jul 2024 | 1 min read
Now this is very interesting and something very different by this ensemble of local artists, many of whom met at the University of Auckland jazz school. As did the Beths. But they took their interest into indie.rock and Skilaa use jazz vocals, scatting and hip-hop and soul as their stepping off point. So imagine early Arrested Development who grew up with Sarah... > Read more
Bite Like That
THE DAY SHIFT: Faces and names
8 Jul 2024 | 3 min read | 2
Big Mick was the size and shape of a steel door. As strong too. He had broken teeth – although he rarely spoke and never smiled – and one side of his forehead bore the scar of a deep wound from long ago. Someone said he was an ex-cop and had been bashed about the head a few too many times. Whatever had happened to him he was an imposing, silent... > Read more
The Beatnix: Woman (1994)
8 Jul 2024 | 1 min read
As they like to say, “there's a lot to unpack here”. At the height of Beatlemania, Lennon and McCartney were knocking off songs for others to cover – notably McCartney although Lennon is credited with saying “Let's write a swimming pool” because he saw there was money in it. McCartney was prolific and offering exceptional songs like Step... > Read more
Favourite Five Recent Releases
Anna Coddington: Te Whakamika Loop/digital outlets)
8 Jul 2024 | 1 min read
From time to time Elsewhere will single out a recent release we recommend on vinyl, like this album which comes in a striking cover and has an insert sheet of credits and some explanatory notes by the artist. Check out Elsewhere's other Recommended Record picks . . . . On an album where the title alludes to showing appreciation, respect or paying... > Read more
Kātuarehe
Peggy Gou: I Hear You (digital outlets)
8 Jul 2024 | <1 min read
We should know Peggy Gou better: her humid dancefloor hit (It Goes Like) Nanana has had more than 466 million Spotify streams and she lounges in fashion magazines. Born in South Korea, currently Berlin-based and an eclectic electronica artist, DJ and fashion icon, Gou comes across as the hippest woman in the club and the go-to gal for Kylie Minogue (whose Can't Get You... > Read more
1+1= 11
Jian Liu: Where Fairburn Walked (Rattle)
6 Jul 2024 | <1 min read
On a few occasions, Elsewhere defaults to merely introducing music without putting on the reviewer's hat. This is usually because – even though we like what we are hearing, and it is most often in the classical realm – we simply don't feel qualified enough to make critical comment. All of which is introduce this very enjoyable, wide sweeping three CD... > Read more
An Idyll, by Gordon McBeth
Kuljit Bhamra/Various Artists: Namaste Bombay (ARC Music/digital outlets)
4 Jul 2024 | 1 min read
One of the advantages of being open to what we call "world music" is that you can usually guarantee a surprise that familiar genres (rock, alt.rock, pop, indie.folk or whatever) doesn't often give anymore. Very little can prepare you for the music of Azerbaijan or that from the Pamir mountains. Some world music has become quite familiar of course,... > Read more
Tu Jab Mila, by Priti Kaur
UNDER A ROCK; A MEMOIR by CHRIS STEIN
3 Jul 2024 | 3 min read
There's a widespread and understandable belief that the chasm between San Francisco's hippies in the late Sixties and the New Wave kids hanging out at New York's CBGB's in the late Seventies was so wide as to be unbridgeable. Two culture separated by a decade and very different ideas. Yet Chris Stein of Blondie – one of the most successful of the skinny tie,... > Read more
Ken Nordine: Roger (1957)
1 Jul 2024 | <1 min read
Ken Nordine looked like an ad executive in the Fifties: buttoned down, horn-rimmed glasses and hair neatly bushed and oiled. Sounded like one too with a confident and stentorian baritone which was often used in radio advertisements. But something very strange ticked inside him, a weird intellect capable of surreal juxtapositions of ideas and imagery. He invented... > Read more
Johnny Cash: Songwriter (digital outlets)
1 Jul 2024 | 1 min read
In his thorough Johnny Cash: The Life biography in 2013, the writer Robert Hilburn didn't flinch from pointing out that for a couple of decades before the American Recordings series, Johnny Cash was in a wilderness of pills, ill-health, poor decisions and pretty lousy albums. As Hilburn notes, “In the 23 years since he cut his first record at Sun, Cash's resume... > Read more