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
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Adam Hattaway and the Haunters: High Horse (digital outlets)
7 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
Tom Irvine Band: Under the Wharf (digital outlets)
5 Nov 2024 | 1 min read
For many decades – from Warren Cate and Warren Love back in the Nineties and early 2000's to Danny McCrum more recently – we've noted a strong thread of accomplished, mainstream pop-rock writers and performers who get very little traction at radio. In part that may be because they are often undemonstrative artists although their music would fit playlists on... > Read more
Love Gone Bad
WE ALL SHINE ON; JOHN, YOKO & ME by ELLIOT MINTZ
4 Nov 2024 | 4 min read
For a man who, by his own account, spent many hundreds of hours talking with Yoko Ono and John Lennon – on the phone, in person in LA, New York and on a trip to Japan – radio host Elliott Mintz isn't able to tell us much new in this conversational autobiography. In Lennon-Ono lore, Mintz is a storied off-sider who first came into their world (more correctly... > Read more
THEY ARE ALL THE WALRUS: The story of the Exotic Beatles series
4 Nov 2024 | 3 min read
Some people -- like Allan Rouse and Steve Rooke at Abbey Road studios who remastered the complete catalogue -- listen to an awful lot of Beatles' music. Others -- like Jim Phelan -- listen to a lot of awful Beatles' music. Phelan from London is the man behind the hilarious Exotic Beatles collections -- now up to Volume Four -- on which he compiles often... > Read more
I Want to Hold Your Hand
Springloader: Just Like Yesterday (Failsafe, digital outlets)
4 Nov 2024 | 1 min read
The excellent, on-going Failsafe reissue/release programme continues with this bright, blazing collection of disciplined, assertive and loud power pop with hooks so huge you could haul out a Great White with one. The band was a vehicle for Failsafe's Rob Mayes whose guitar playing here is something quite extraordinary. There's an interesting backstory to this album:... > Read more
All That I Want
The Nu Page: When the Brothers Come Marching Home (1973)
4 Nov 2024 | 1 min read
The Nu Page were a one-single group signed to the Motown subsidiary label MoWest which released songs by Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons, Thelma Houston and Tom Clay (whose version of Abraham Martin and John/What the World Needs Now is Love gave them a top 10 hit). Of Nu Page very little is known but this song -- celebrating the closing overs of American involvement... > Read more
Moana and the Tribe: Ono (vinyl, digital outlets)
4 Nov 2024 | 2 min read
It was so long ago when I first met Moana Maniapoto (Ngāti Tūwharetoa, Te Arawa) -- then Moana Jackson -- that I can only guess it must have been the late Eighties. It was at some unprepossessing venue in South Auckland and for the life of me I can't remember what it was all about. Maybe we were judging a band competition? I just remember her then-husband Willie... > Read more
Tū, with Jani Lauzon
Fat Freddy's Drop: Slo-Mo (digital outlets, vinyl)
4 Nov 2024 | 2 min read
In late September a column at Elsewhere titled The Groove In The Middle of the Road concluded with a consideration of the new album Waves by Toi, we noted how local artists seem to avoid contentious issues in favour of blandishments wrapped in a reggae-soul vibe and with uncontroversial lyrics. We said, “It is populist music which is undeniably popular because it... > Read more
Slo Mo
BLUR: TO THE END a doco by TOBY L
3 Nov 2024 | 2 min read
When Blur finally got to play at Wembley Stadium, the preeminent venue in Britain, it was very late in their career. It happened just last year, more than three decades after their debut album. The band had barely spoken to each other for a decade when they reconvened in early 2023 to record the intimate, downbeat album The Ballad of Darren, the least stadium-built album... > Read more
KINGMAKER by SONIA PURNELL
28 Oct 2024 | 5 min read
Pamela Digby did not marry well but she did, in a way, marry wisely. Everyone warned her off Randolph whom she had only been with a few times before she agreed to his proposal. Both wanted marriage: she because as a plain, dumpy redhead who had been passed over in her coming-out season; he because with the war coming he wanted to sire a son before he was sent off.... > Read more
THE TURTLES REVISITED (2024): Sometimes it ain't them babe
28 Oct 2024 | 6 min read | 1
It hasn't been uncommon for musicians or bands to hide behind another name. The Beatles briefly flirted with the idea for an album before they ran out of energy for it (“We're Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band . . .”) and in the early Seventies the late Leon Russell recorded a very credible country album as Hank Wilson. And, although it was obviously... > Read more
Grim Reaper of Love
The King: Come As You Are (1998)
28 Oct 2024 | 1 min read
Although there aren't Elvis sighting in gas stations and supermarkets any more, there is still no shortage of lookalikes and impersonators around. While there seems no great call for Kurt Cobain and Mama Cass impersonators, those who swish their hair back and sneer a little seem to be always out there. One week I interviewed two of them and within days I had... > Read more
The Smile: Cutouts (digital outlets)
28 Oct 2024 | 1 min read
It only seems like yesterday (it was January) when we wrote about the new album by The Smile -- the band of Thom Yorke, Jonny Greenwood with drummer Tom Skinner – and acclaiming it as very strong independent entity outside the Yorke-Greenwood's original outfit Radiohead. That album Wall of Eyes (when added to their debut A Light For Attracting Attention) drew us to... > Read more
Instant Psalm
Jim Nothing: Grey Eyes, Grey Lynn (digital outlets)
28 Oct 2024 | 1 min read
It is no exaggeration to say that every week Elsewhere sees half a dozen singles from new young local artists being highly touted and almost the same number of album from those who have just started to make an impression. “It's a hard world to get a break in”, as the song says and unfortunately we'd observe the overselling a young artists' talents by... > Read more
Raleigh Arena
The Hard Quartet, The Hard Quartet (digital outlets)
28 Oct 2024 | 1 min read
It's strange to remember a time when musicians couldn't just guest on other people's albums, like Eric Clapton having to go uncredited on While My Guitar Gently Weeps and George Harrison appearing under a pseudonym on the Eric/Blind Faith album. These days rock is much more like jazz where players move to new bands, configurations or fellow travellers to extend... > Read more
Our Hometown Boy
THOM YORKE, REVIEWED (2024): The master conjures up solo magic
26 Oct 2024 | 3 min read
Just as the internet giveth, so it taketh away. It isn't uncommon for concert-goers to look up an artist's setlist before a show but, in my opinion, that takes away the element of surprise. Big acts doing stadia shows are dependent on co-ordinated lighting and effects, and those crouching guys in black who run on carrying another guitar. So the set list on the tour... > Read more
IS THIS THE MOST ANNOYING SONG EVER? (2024): The horror, the horror
24 Oct 2024 | 1 min read
As we've mentioned previously, there's no point in asking people to name the worst song ever because someone who thinks they are being clever will say “Anything by Taylor Swift”. These are people who generally don't listen to anything by Taylor Swift but recoil from her success. Previous generations have done it with Madonna, U2 and – back in my... > Read more
Favourite Five Recent Releases
Primitive Art Group: Primitive Art Group 1981-1986 (Amish Records/digital outlets)
21 Oct 2024 | 3 min read | 1
From the late Seventies to the mid-Eighties, the Primitive Art Group in Wellington carried the banner for improvised music sometimes, often erroneously, referred to as free jazz. Because they didn't tour and their albums – as well as records from the numerous spin-off projects by the group's five members – were in limited editions (300 copies), they didn't... > Read more
Lannie's Revenge
Duo Falak: Tira-Tira (digital outlets)
21 Oct 2024 | <1 min read
This could look a bit forbidding on paper but this half hour improvisation recorded in Tashkent by Russian guitarist Denis Sorokin and percussionist Shohin Qurbon should have considerable appeal for acoustic guitarists, those who like their jazz a bit different and anyone curious about world music. Some background then: the musicians interpret traditional Falak... > Read more
Tira-Tira Part 6
The Linda Lindas: No Obligation (digital outlets)
21 Oct 2024 | <1 min read
Few would claim this all-women quartet from California -- most of them stall in school -- do much that is original. But their enthusiastic, sometimes bratty, pop is infectious, works some familiar tropes with enthusiasm and they carve out some very good songs, usually with something to say. It's punk, power pop and just enough New Wave (Blondie) in the melodies to make... > Read more