Absolute Elsewhere
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ACID DAZE PART TWO: A Day in My Mind's Mind Vol 2; Fantasies, Polka Dots and Flowers
25 Jun 2011 | 2 min read
Rather than essay this second collection of Kiwi psychedelic songs from '67-'72 -- subtitled "Fantasies, Polka Dots and Flowers" -- why don't I just reproduce below the liner notes I wrote for it?.................. The exciting thing about this on-going series of psychedelic music from New Zealand in the late 60s and early 70s is not just that it brings back some great songs and... > Read more
The Music Convention: Bellyboard Beat
PAUL McCARTNEY 1970 AND 1980 (2011): Lowkey at each end of his first post-Beatles decade
20 Jun 2011 | 5 min read
In a few months Sir James Paul McCartney, age 68, will premier his new work, a major orchestral piece for the New York City Ballet entitled Oceans Kingdom, written in conjunction with American composer John Wilson. This ambitious career move in the classical world follows his Liverpool Oratorio, Standing Stone and Working Classical with the London Symphony Orchestra in the Eighties,... > Read more
Paul McCartney: Coming Up (live, 1979)
TOWNES VAN ZANDT INTERVIEWED (1988): Say hello and wave goodbye
16 Jun 2011 | 7 min read
You hate to say lt, but Townes Van Zandt had probably already written his own obituary - many times. Try this as a sample of his cut-to-the-bone, white knuckle lyrics: “There ain’t much I haven’t tried -- fast llvin’, slow suicide, I try to tell myself I’m fine but it just aln’t so.” Van Zandt has always lived on that knife edge of self-doubt, a man... > Read more
Townes Van Zandt: You Are Not Needed Now (live, 1985)
NICK CAVE, FROM OUTSIDER TO AUTEUR IN THE NINETIES: Let Love In to No More Shall We Part
2 Jun 2011 | 4 min read
From the early Nineties, Nick Cave -- ever so slowly -- ceased to be a preoccupation of those who immersed themselves in the gloom of his raw and dirty blues-based music and became a respected, almost mainstream figure. You could mention him in most conversations and people would know who you meant. Songs like Straight To You, Christina the Astonishing, Papa Won't Leave You Henry... > Read more
Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds: Stagger Lee (from Murder Ballads)
STEVE IGNORANT OF CRASS INTERVIEWED (2011): A working classy act
1 Jun 2011 | 4 min read
In Dan Le Sac Vs Scroobius Pip's pointed but very funny rap on Thou Shalt Kill four years back, Scroobius rolled out a catalogue of groups noting after each one they were were “just band”. And so it goes: “The Sex Pistols, just a band; the Clash, just a band; Crass, just a band; Minor Threat, just a band . . .” Hold up. What's the punk-era Crass doing in such... > Read more
TINY RUINS INTERVIEWED (2011): Some were meant for greatness
31 May 2011 | 6 min read
Hollie Fullbrook – who performs as Tiny Ruins – laughs with slight embarrassment, tells of how she came to her stage name and asks I not mention it because it sounds pretentious. It doesn't actually – unless you think mentioning Jean Paul Sartre's Nausea and the forties singer/band leader Tiny Bradshaw in the same anecdote qualifies as pretension. But that is... > Read more
Tiny Ruins: Adelphi Apartments
HOWE GELB INTERVIEWED (2011): The price and pay-off of the path less traveled
20 May 2011 | 22 min read | 1
Howe Gelb of Tucson, Arizona is one of the long distance runners. He's been in for the long haul with his band Giant Sand (two dozen albums since the mid Eighties) and diverse solo projects under his own name (around 18 which range from gospel in Canada to flamenco desert-rock in Cordoba, Spain on his new release Alegrias). And there are other albums as OP8, the Band of Blacky... > Read more
Howe Gelb and A Band of Gypsies: Cowboy Boots on Cobble Stone (from the album Alegrias)
STEVE WINWOOD PROFILED (2011): From teen-soul boy to mainstream man
19 May 2011 | 4 min read
When the salty bluesman Howlin' Wolf growled “the men don't know, but the little girls understand” on the 1961 Willie Dixon-penned Back Door Man we know he was talking about something more earthy and sexual than pop singers like Justin Bieber. But when Bieberfever arrived to what appeared to be the surprise of anyone over 16, there were many music writers bewailing his... > Read more
BEN WATERS INTERVIEWED (2011): One more time for the boogie woogie man Ian Stewart
11 May 2011 | 13 min read
When he was just nine – 26 years ago – Ben Waters briefly saw something in a pub which changed his life. He was at his auntie and uncle's 25th wedding anniversary in the Wynyard Gap in Somerset, just across the border from his home county of Dorset, and the great pianist Ian Stewart was a family friend who sat down and played some boogie-woogie. “It was the first live... > Read more
Ben Waters with PJ Harvey: Lonely Avenue
RUTHIE FOSTER (2011): A Southern soul sister rises
3 May 2011 | 4 min read
When the once-great B.B. King recently played in Auckland it was my unhappy task to write the review of his sad, disappointing and uncomfortable performance. The man is clearly past it -- the singing but a spark of its old self, his guitar work now woeful, the "performance" mostly rambling and often distracted talk -- and you had to wonder why he was still doing this. I suggested... > Read more
Ruthie Foster: Fruits of My Labor (from The Phenomenal Ruthie Foster)
RAY CHARLES 1954-1960: A soul brother movin' on
2 May 2011 | 3 min read
The word "genius" was used so often about Ray Charles that people probably ceased to believe it in this age where a minor sports figure is referred to as "an icon" and "awesome" has long since lost any meaning at all. But Charles was a genius -- "The only genius in our business," said Frank Sinatra -- because in the mid Fifties he started to reshape... > Read more
Ray Charles: I Want a Little Girl (1958)
ROY ORBISON 1960-65: The years of monumental pop
26 Apr 2011 | 5 min read | 1
Looked at one way, the great Roy Orbison (who died in late '88) had five separate careers, but he only ever changed musical direction once. "The Big O" -- or "the Caruso of Rock" -- as he was known, had long periods away from the spotlight and it would be fair to observe his defining work was done in an exceptional period of creativity which lasted just four years.... > Read more
Roy Orbison: In Dreams
JAYREM RECORDS (1975-2011): The independence movement
21 Apr 2011 | 3 min read | 1
Despite the decline in music sales, anyone starting a record company today has it relatively easy when considering what James Moss was up against when he launched his label in early 1975. CD technology -- cheaper to produce than vinyl -- was still more than five years in the future, labels were reliant on snail-mail postage, telephones were used rather than e-mails and all the possibilities... > Read more
Ngahiwi Apanui: He Whakapapa
BOB DYLAN: OFF THE BARRICADES (2011): The China syndrome
18 Apr 2011 | 4 min read
In 1971 -- at the height of the war in Vietnam, the rise of Black Panther activity and the revolutionary spirit sweeping across the US and Europe -- Joan Baez stepped onto a stage in New York and sang a new song. It put her old lover Bob Dylan right in the cross-hairs for him abandoning the peace movement and any political activity. The song was To Bobby (just in case you didn't get it) and... > Read more
Bob Dylan: Neighborhood Bully (from Infidels)
JIMI HENDRIX; SOUTH SATURN DELTA (2011): The sun rises again
18 Apr 2011 | 2 min read
As with Bob Marley's "catalogue", it seems only right that Jimi Hendrix's messy existence -- he seemed to a sign a contract at the drop of an offer, and would record with whomever when the mood took him -- should be reined in and given some coherence. So when the Hendrix family finally wrestled a measure of control after years of litigation we started to see "new"... > Read more
Jimi Hendrix: Midnight Lightning
BOB DYLAN: THE TROUBADOUR IN THE 21st CENTURY (2011): And the road shall not weary him
18 Apr 2011 | 4 min read
In his recent collection of essays Listen to This, the New Yorker music critic Alex Ross has an interesting and provocative piece on Bob Dylan. It opens, “America is no country for old men. Pop culture is a pedophile's delight” then he ask what – in this world of manufactured teen pop – we are to do with “a well-worn, middle-aged songwriter who gravitates... > Read more
DROPKICK MURPHYS INTERVIEWED (2011): Putting the bagpipes into punk
13 Apr 2011 | 5 min read
From the first enjoyably rowdy bars of the new Dropkick Murphys album Going Out in Style you can sense that here is a band whose time has come. With the rollicking outlaw roar of Hang 'Em High then the title track – an old Irishman considering a boozy wake and who he should invite – the sound of the band's Celtic-punk is roof-rattling and energetic. For the band –... > Read more
Dropkick Murphys: Hang 'Em High
LEON RUSSELL INTERVIEWED (2011): Ever the journeyman
13 Apr 2011 | 7 min read | 1
When Leon Russell left his home in Tulsa for Los Angeles after having played in teenage rock bands, a career in music wasn't what he was expecting. But in a couple of months he will receive two major awards: he will be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and the Songwriter's Hall of Fame. Russell – now 68 -- spent time as an anonymous session musician in the Sixties with... > Read more
Leon Russell and Elton John: I Should Have Sent Roses (from The Union)
ERIC CLAPTON, LAYLA 40 YEARS ON (2011): I don't want to fade away
28 Mar 2011 | 4 min read | 1
By the time Eric Clapton flew to Miami in 1970 to record what would become the Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs double album, he had spent six years in an emotional wringer: he was the acclaimed guitarist in the Yardbirds before he abruptly quit over dissatisfaction with their pop direction; took time out; joined John Mayall in his Blues Breakers for one album and was hailed in... > Read more
Derek and the Dominos: Have You Ever Loved a Woman?
GUY GARVEY OF ELBOW INTERVIEWED (2011): A homecoming to the top
26 Mar 2011 | 13 min read
The very personable Guy Garvey – songwriter and singer for the award-grabbing British band Elbow – laughs when he describes himself as “a rock star”, in part because at 37 he's getting a bit old for that game, but mostly because he knows he looks more like the plump Ricky Gervais than the buffed Ricky Martin. Garvey – self-effacing, good humored,... > Read more