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
The Famous Elsewhere Questionnaire
THE FAMOUS ELSEWHERE JAZZ QUESTIONNAIRE . . . Chelsea Prastiti of Skilaa
27 Jul 2024 | 4 min read
The debut album by Auckland's Skilaa defies easy description: it swings into jazz, lets some R'n'B and soul into the hip-hop influenced sound and breaks out into scat and . . . Singer Chelsea Prastiti who studied at the jazz school of Auckland Uni rests easily with the “psychedelic R'n'B” description. She grew up with flamenco and Greek music, mainstream... > Read more
Solos
Louis Armstrong: Louis in London; Live at the BBC (Verve/digital outlets)
27 Jul 2024 | 1 min read
For a man considered a genius of jazz, who radiated humour and goodwill, and recorded one of the most enduring songs of the Sixties (Wonderful World which topped charts after the Beatles' Lady Madonna), the great Louis Armstrong has been a figure who divides assessment. To some he became a mugging populist Uncle Tom with a grin who squandered his gifts on lesser... > Read more
Mack the Knife
Beechwood Sparks: Across the River of Stars (digital outlets)
26 Jul 2024 | <1 min read
Looking for that album which brings to mind the Byrds, Flying Burrito Brothers, the solo careers of Roger McGuinn and Gene Clark, maybe even some of Tom Petty's country-flavoured Southern rock? Then Beechwood Sparks out of California are your band because they recognise that the wheel is pretty serviceable as it is and doesn't need reinventing. With jangling country... > Read more
High Noon
Justin DeHart: Towards Midnight; New Zealand Percussion Vol 2 (Rattle/digital outlets)
22 Jul 2024 | 1 min read
American composer and percussion player Justin DeHart – currently an associate professor at the University of Canterbury – is taking New Zealand percussion music to the world through this series on Rattle of works he has commissioned and performs. If the title of his previous volume Landfall suggested the Allen Curnow poem Landfall in Unknown Seas (and... > Read more
Infinite Mind Part II: Noam
NUCLEAR WAR: A SCENARIO by ANNIE JACOBSEN
22 Jul 2024 | 3 min read
Good evening and welcome to the world's most terrifying pub quiz. Strap yourself in because this is going to be a white-knuckle ride. Your starter for 10 . . . In 1946 a year after the bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki the USA had nine atomic bombs. How many did it have six years later in 1952? a] 19 b] 89. c] 501 d] 841 Good... > Read more
Infinite Mind, by Justin DeHart
GRAHAM PATERSON REID (b. Melbourne 1913 – d. Auckland 1985): The big man with the quiet voice
22 Jul 2024 | 13 min read | 1
This piece first appeared in Metro magazine in 1985 under the title The Bach. The Beach was always “only an hour away” according to my father. And back in the early Sixties when we first started going regularly, it was. Thirty miles from our home in Mt Eden to the door of the bach at Stanmore Bay. And my father, always a careful driver, just “took... > Read more
The Fall: Fiery Jack (1980)
22 Jul 2024 | <1 min read
This character-driven rant-cum-diatribe came to attention again recently on the massive post-punk Moving Away From the Pulsebeat compilation. Singer/declaimer Mark E Smith sounds a bit young to be delivering this piece from the viewpoint of a damaged, angry 45-year old who rails against the world while fighting his corner as someone under the bottle, living off... > Read more
The Famous Elsewhere Questionnaire
THE FAMOUS ELSEWHERE HIGHLY PERSONAL QUESTIONNAIRE . . . Holly Arrowsmith
22 Jul 2024 | 4 min read
Country singer-songwriter Holly Arrowsmith first appeared at Elsewhere as far back as 2015 with her album For the Weary Traveller, but the last time we caught up with her was 2018 for her album A Dawn I Remember. Her song Desert Dove just picked up best country song at the APRA awards (her second such award) and Rolling Stone picked out Neon Bright and Blue Dreams as... > Read more
Gracie Abrams: The Secret of Us (digital outlets)
22 Jul 2024 | 1 min read
The internet is a cauldron of hatred, cruel comments, racism (most -isms in fact) and poison. And that's just the comments it lets you see, there is so much worst floating around in the dark corners, feeding like minded nasty bastards, conspiracy morons and lunatic political or religious groups. It even infects the most ordinary of aspects of culture, like pop music... > Read more
Blowing Smoke
Linda Thompson: Proxy Music (digital outlets)
22 Jul 2024 | 1 min read
People of “a certain age” speak of Linda Thompson with some approaching awe and reverence. Her albums with her former husband Richard Thompson – who has appeared frequently at Elsewhere in reviews and interviews – are the stuff of legend: marriage, love, separation all distilled into songs. However you read it, albums by the Thompson entitled I... > Read more
Or Nothing at All
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
RECOMMENDED RECORD: PAUL McCARTNEY'S ONE HAND CLAPPING (2024): Back in the Abbey
15 Jul 2024 | 3 min read
From time to time Elsewhere will single out a recent release we recommend on vinyl, like this reissue which comes as a double album with an insert of album credits etc. Check out Elsewhere's other Recommended Record picks . . . . No less than John Lennon, Paul McCartney's immediate post-Beatles career was messy and frequently critically derided. His... > Read more
Soily
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