Absolute Elsewhere
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HERBS; WHATS' BE HAPPEN? (2015): The hard truths from the street
14 Apr 2015 | 2 min read | 1
History, according to Napoleon (among others), is written by the winners. True in one sense. But if the losers are still out there they are often so forgetful of their history as to be worthless and absent witnesses. Many buy into the narrative of the winners, whom you might have thought would be their adversary. Take the New Zealand reggae band Herbs for example: Their Very Best Of... > Read more
Whats' Be Happen?
MEL PARSONS INTERVIEWED (2015): And the road goes on forever
13 Apr 2015 | 7 min read
On a wet Monday morning in Wellington, Mel Parsons takes a break from rehearsals in the Surgery studio with her band and, cheerful as ever, talks about her new album Drylands which she is taking to the country with starting on Wednesday in Auckland (see dates below). “It's exciting actually, just nice to have a new body of work to be touring with and be... > Read more
Get Out Alive
DON McGLASHAN INTERVIEWED (2015): This time it's personal
13 Apr 2015 | 14 min read | 1
In late January I was approached to write a brief biography for Don McGlashan to accompany the release of his new album Lucky Stars album. At the time I wasn't available but was sent an advance download of the 10 songs . . . and because the album release was some way off and many of the songs sounded so self-revelatory I made the time in early February to interview Don – whom I... > Read more
The Waves Would Roll On
JIMMIE DALE GILMORE INTERVIEWED (2015): A mind with a mind of its own
8 Apr 2015 | 8 min read | 1
Jimmie Dale Gilmore – speaking from his country home 45 miles outside of Austin, Texas – takes a stab at what his most popular song on Spotify might be. “Now let's think. I would suspect it might be Dallas, that's the best known one,” he says referring to his bitter-sweet paean to that Texas city which includes the lines “Dallas is a jewel, Dallas is a... > Read more
Dallas
THE GRATEFUL DEAD CONSIDERED (2015): If you can remember the Sixties . . . they were there
6 Apr 2015 | 4 min read | 2
The word is "oxymoron": it means when words putting together seem to contradict each other. Like “honest politician” or “skinny bass player”. Or “The Best of the Grateful Dead”, the title of a new double CD. Most people would say there can't be a “best of” a band which started its career half a century ago and has divided... > Read more
Ripple
LED ZEPPELIN REVISITED, PART THREE (2015): More graffiti scribbles
1 Apr 2015 | 1 min read
As we have now learned to our (literal) cost, the Jimmy Page remastering of Led Zeppelin albums plus a "bonus disc" of uneccesary "mixes" is little more than a PR job to flog more product. The previous reissues and remasters of the actual albums are excellent, but this nonsense about rough mixes or a different mix from a different studio elevates discarded versions.... > Read more
Sick Again (early version)
POKEY LaFARGE INTERVIEWED (2015): The past is alive and well and living in the present
26 Mar 2015 | 15 min read | 2
In a stylish blue shirt buttoned to the neck and topped by a red neckerchief, blue dungaree jeans with turned up cuffs above his sturdy and well polished lace-up boots, Pokey LaFarge cuts a very interesting figure in this downtown Auckland hotel room. He may look like someone from the better-scrubbed end of the Thirties – and his music certainly steeped in traditional jazz,... > Read more
Underground
MIKE SCOTT OF THE WATERBOYS INTERVIEWED (2014): The nearest thing to hip . . .
26 Mar 2015 | 8 min read
About 15 months ago Mike Scott of the Waterboys released a whopping seven CD set of the sessions which lead to the band's two-years-in-the-making breakthrough album Fisherman's Blues. The band had enjoyed success prior to this particular channeling of Celtic music, rock'n'roll and American gospel – notably with the singles the Big Music and Bang on the Ear – but... > Read more
I Can See Elvis
BETH HART INTERVIEWED (2015): Coming home to herself at last
24 Mar 2015 | 6 min read
After repeated efforts – I have been the wrong international codes – I finally get through to Beth Hart who it turns out is in Pattaya, Thailand. “It's rock'n'roll and we're supposed to be late,” she laughs when I explain my delayed phoner. No, we are supposed to be punctual because we are older and know better, I say.... > Read more
Tell Her You Belong To Me
TYSON KELLY INTERVIEWED (2015): He is the walrus
11 Mar 2015 | 8 min read
If we were in England – and believe me, he does an excellent Liverpudlian accent – then we might say, in the phrase much favoured by British bobbies, that Tyson Kelly has some “prior form”. Kelly from LA, who plays John Lennon in the acclaimed stage production Let It Be which opens in Auckland soon (see dates below), has been playing Lennon for years in various... > Read more
THE EASYBEATS REMEMBERED (2015): I got hit songs on my mind . . .
9 Mar 2015 | 6 min read | 1
The edges of the vision are blurry but at the centre of the frame things are clear. I am a teenager, my friend Barry and I and perhaps a couple of others are stumbling down a dark road near what is now the Whangaparaoa shopping centre. We had just been at a movie – may have been kicked out – and are drunk on Blackberry Nip or McWilliam's Sweet Sherry. As we pass by the old... > Read more
She's So Fine
ADESOLA OSAKALUMI INTERVIEWED (2015): The fellah who is Fela
9 Mar 2015 | 11 min read
When the Nigerian military raided the compound of the outspoken activist and musician Fela Anikulapo Kuti in 1977, they beat him senseless, destroyed his famous nightclub The Shrine and threw his 82-year old mother to her death from an upstairs window. Yet Kuti – who died of Aids-related illnesses in 97 – just kept coming back, presenting and recording his incendiary music... > Read more
WOMAD ARTIST 2015: Richard Thompson
2 Mar 2015 | 7 min read | 3
Richard Thompson starts on the back foot. The legendary British songwriter whose career dates back to the seminal folk-rock group Fairport Convention in the late Sixties and whose admirers include the Finns, Bob Mould and latterly Jeff Tweedy of Wilco among many others, including Elsewhere – came to New Zealand's inaugural Womad at Western Springs Park in Auckland in '97, but hasn't... > Read more
The Snow Goose
MARC RIBOT CONSIDERED (2015): Cosmopolitan guitarist without portfolio
25 Feb 2015 | 2 min read
If there is a distinguishing feature of American guitarist Marc Ribot's style it is that you'd be unwise to attempt to attribute a distinguishing feature or style to it. In the words of Walt Whitman, he contains multitudes. And he can go anywhere with them. Which is doubtless why Tom Waits -- making his career turn in the mid Eighties -- called on Ribot to bring his angularity... > Read more
The Cocktail Party
AUSTIN BROWN OF PARQUET COURTS INTERVIEWED (2015): Future now but old school on many fronts
23 Feb 2015 | 5 min read
Anyone who has paid even just passing attention to New York-based Parquet Courts will get the connecting points: a guitar band with a keen ear for the past which includes bands like Television, Velvet Underground, Modern Lovers, the Strokes and so on. But add in some thought-provoking lyrics and songs which slow the tempos right down and you can hear that Parquet Courts aren't just... > Read more
Stoned and Starving
FRED FRITH CONSIDERED (2015): The prince of plinkety-plunk
13 Feb 2015 | 4 min read | 1
The term “prepared piano” – where the musician places objects onto the strings to get odd and often random sounds – is well known in the classical world. But few people know Johnny Cash got into “prepared guitar” when he recorded I Walk the Line back in '56. To get that clacking rhythm he placed a dollar bill under the guitar strings and got a sound... > Read more
Heat c/w Moment
PUBLIC SERVICE BROADCASTING INTERVIEWED (2014): Space is the place
9 Feb 2015 | 13 min read | 2
I know this is very wrong, but while talking to J. Willgoose – not his real name – who is the taller half of Britain's Public Service Broadcasting, I am picturing him as like the actor/writer Stephen Merchant. He has the same dry humour and delivery. And he's tall, with glasses. Willgoose and Wrigglesworth as PSB have created some of the most interesting music-cum-film... > Read more
Fire in the Cockpit
KIM RICHEY INTERVIEWED (2015): The writer on the road, again
9 Feb 2015 | 11 min read
Kim Richey pulls the car off into a gas station somewhere in Alabama to take the call from Elsewhere. She's halfway between Birmingham and her home in Nashville and is delighted to say before she comes to New Zealand she is going to spend time seeing the country. “I can't imagine coming all the way to New Zealand and not seeing it,” she says after telling how she put a... > Read more
Breakaway Speed
CHRIS ELDRIDGE of PUNCH BROTHERS INTERVIEWED (2015): The Radiohead of bluegrass
4 Feb 2015 | 8 min read
Towards the end of a digressive and interesting conversation with Chris Eldridge, guitarist for Punch Brothers, I ask if the description “bluegrass” -- which has most commonly been applied to their music -- has any relevance anymore. After all, they have edged their music towards art rock with classical references, have thrown in covers of songs by Beyonce and the Cars... > Read more
Julep
LISA MARIE PRESLEY REMEMBERED (2015): A child of her time
2 Feb 2015 | 2 min read | 1
Mercer Ellington did it, so did two of Sinatra's kids Frank Jnr and Nancy. Two Lennon's and George Harrison's son Dhani did it too (in fact every Beatle has a kid who's done it). So did a few Marleys, Judy Garland's daughter Liza Minnelli and Steve Earle's boy Justin Townes. They all went into the family business. If we suspend our scepticism about this we'd have to concede it's... > Read more