Absolute Elsewhere
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PINK MARTINI, THOMAS LAUDERDALE INTERVIEWED (2010): Sweet and sophisticated
27 Sep 2010 | 4 min read
Yes it's true, says Thomas Lauderdale, he was deeply involved in politics in his adopted hometown of Portland, Oregon and had worked in a number of civic positions. “I would love at some point to run for mayor. I'd have to write the tell-all book before I do of course,” laughs this man who knows all the drag clubs, strip joints and high camp hangouts around town.... > Read more
Pink Martini: Over the Valley
THE VIVID FESTIVAL, SYDNEY 2010: The laughin' Lou and lovely Laurie show
25 Sep 2010 | 5 min read
“This'll be my second old rocker today,” says the photographer. “I just did Peter Garrett this morning.” We're in a small foyer of the Sydney Opera House waiting for the married couple of “old rocker” Lou Reed and Laurie Anderson, who have co-curated the Vivid Live component of the annual Vivid festival. There's a sense of palpable anticipation... > Read more
Boris: Attention Please
LIL BAND OF GOLD (2010): The journey of swamp pop from past to present
20 Sep 2010 | 6 min read
C.C. Adcock has done a lot of living in his 34 years, from playing in bands around his hometown of Lafayette in southern Louisiana when barely into his teens to making a glam-metal noise in LA, then backing the late Bo Diddley and Zydeco legend Clifton Chenier to hanging out with the undead . . . Yes, these days Adcock's music is used in the steamy swamp drama True Blood to conjure up... > Read more
Lil Band o Gold: Teardrops
DEE DEE RAMONE INTERVIEWED (1998): Life in the grim lane
19 Sep 2010 | 8 min read
First, there is a moral here, honest. But there's a lot of drugs to get through first. So, let’s set the scene: the Chelsea Hotel on West Twenty Third, New York City, for decades home to the talented and the tragic. Within these thick walls Arthur Miller wrote three novels, a plaque outside acknowledges Dylan Thomas “from here sailed out to die” and upstairs Arthur C.... > Read more
The Ramones: Carbona Not Glue
TODD RUNDGREN INTERVIEWED (2010): Getting out his Johnson for you
19 Sep 2010 | 14 min read | 1
Todd Rundgren laughs as he predicts the end the current model of on-line music sales which will disappear like the Sony Walkman and vinyl singles: “Because some songs are priceless, some songs are worthless . . . and some songs are worth exactly 99 cents”. He should know. In a 40-plus year career he's made songs, and whole albums, in each category. However although he... > Read more
Todd Rundgren: Hellhound on my Trail (from Johnson)
THE NEO-FOLKIE BOHOS OF THE NINETIES: Talking New York City
13 Sep 2010 | 5 min read
In the early Nineties – three decades after the original urban folk movement in Downtown – there was a whole new neo-boho scene in New York. Michelle Shocked was just the first and copped the publicity but behind here were Kirk Kelly, Roger Manning and Cindy Lee Berryhill - all of whom dressed like fashionable alternative-Eighties types (black jeans), played like early Bob... > Read more
Cindy Lee Berryhill: Damn, I Wish I Were A Man
IAN McLAGAN INTERVIEWED (1999): Face, the music
13 Sep 2010 | 5 min read | 1
Ian McLagan bangs away at the hotel piano and, without missing a beat, offers an unpublishable aside. Politely translated, the music business being what it was then, he wasn’t financially rewarded for his tenure in the Small Faces, one of the classic British bands of the Sixties. The Small Faces enjoyed a string of hits and, in January 1968, endured a notorious tour of... > Read more
Ian McLagan and the Bump Band: Hello Old Friend
LIKE, OMIGOD! THE 80'S POP CULTURE BOX (TOTALLY) (Rhino box set)
12 Sep 2010 | 2 min read
The Eighties was probably no more different or diverse than any other decade, but it does seem weird on reflection: Ronald Reagan and the Rubik Cube; the arrival of CDs, CNN and MTV; personal computers and ghetto blasters; Olivia Newton-John and John Travolta; Ozzy eating a bat and suave Duran Duran; cocaine and Jane Fonda's workout videos; Thriller; the departure of John Lennon, Bob Marley,... > Read more
The Dream Academy: Life in a Northern Town
JAMES McMURTRY INTERVIEWED (1990): In from the wasteland
6 Sep 2010 | 9 min read
The literary landscape of the American south sets it apart from that of the rest of the country. The hard indifference of William Faulkner’s world is reflected in his lean poetic writing; the inhospitable, suspicious small towns and brooding menace stand stark in Eudora Welty’s stories, and crippling heat brings sweat and malice from every pore in Tennessee... > Read more
James McMurtry: I'm Not From Here
MEAT PUPPETS INTERVIEWED (1989): Disney avant-metal rock
5 Sep 2010 | 7 min read
It's an old truism and therefore probably quite false, but it goes like this; ask musicians their influences and you can pick their sound. It certainly doesn't hold up when you speak to Curt Kirkwood of the Meat Puppets from Arizona. After he’s ticked off The Beatles, Joe Walsh, Yes (!), and Black Sabbath, he then confuses things further by adding in the free-jazz group The... > Read more
Meat Puppets: Sexy Music
LOU REED'S BETWEEN THOUGHT AND EXPRESSION: Boxed for you in '92
30 Aug 2010 | 3 min read
Blame Dylan for box sets. It was his Biograph in November ’85 (16 unreleased tracks among the 53 spread across five albums, later three CDs) which began things by reaching 33 on the American charts. Sure, there had been box sets before – but mostly for dead guys. Dylan and CDs together proved there was money in this market. Then his spectacular Bootleg Series in 91 set... > Read more
R.E.M.; THE EARLY YEARS: Mumbling into the future
19 Aug 2010 | 3 min read
When R.E.M sneaked up in the early 80s with their debut album Murmur, few could have anticipated what the band meant – and would become. Just as Talking Heads had become the banner-waver for emotionally distant New York art-rock a few years previous, R.E.M were the band which announced college rock radio could be as influential as mainstream stations. And that “alternative... > Read more
BURT BACHARACH IN 1995: The slow rehabilitation
16 Aug 2010 | 3 min read
Mainstream pop culture has witnessed some peculiar pairings, none more so than when Noel Gallagher, mastermind and songwriter behind the Britrock band Oasis, climbed on stage in London recently to perform with Burt Bacharach. Gallagher, a 29-year-old mouthy wide boy from Manchester, would seem to have nothing in common with the urbane, tanned 67-year-old Bacharach, the elder statesman... > Read more
Gene Pitney: Only Love Can Break A Heart
MEAT PUPPETS 1982-88: Acid rock baked by desert grunge
16 Aug 2010 | 4 min read | 1
In the more strange corners of the Eighties on the SST label there were -- between the dreadful Zappa-clown Zoogz Rift and solo projects by various Violent Femmes – thrilling bands like firehose, Black Flag and Husker Du. And the very wonderful Meat Puppets, a trio out of Phoenix, whose brains seemed completely fried by drugs, comics and the desert sun. And in that post-punk,... > Read more
Meat Puppets: No Longer Gone (from Forbidden Places)
MICHAEL JACKSON; LIVE IN '96: The man who fell to Earth
12 Aug 2010 | 6 min read
Somewhere around the midpoint of his often exceptional but undeniably messianic concert in Amsterdam 10 days ago, Michael Jackson fell to his knees and appeared to weep uncontrollably. Jackson -- whose stage craft was impeccable and dancing as exciting as expected -- remained hunched over and apparently sobbing on the enormous stage for what seemed a remarkably long time. But it... > Read more
PAUL JONES PROFILED: Can sing, can act . . . can do
10 Aug 2010 | 4 min read
Paul Jones has enjoyed a remarkable career in and – most rewardingly -- out of pop music. After only three and a half years with the Sixties band Manfred Mann, during which he sang their chart hits, Do Wah Diddy, If You Gotta Go and Pretty Flamingo, Jones walked away and into a solo career (hits High Time, I've Been a Bad Boy (which was used in the film Privilege in which he... > Read more
BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN AT 60: Still running through America
9 Aug 2010 | 2 min read | 2
Sometimes we forget just how huge Bruce Springsteen has been: between '75 and '85 alone he sold in excess of 50 million albums (one of them, The River, was a double) and although he deliberately turned from mainstream success with low-key albums like Nebraska (in '82) and The Ghost of Tom Joad ('95) that has hardly stopped his juggernaut. His Greatest Hits released in '95 notched up a... > Read more
Bruce Springsteen: You're Missing (from The Rising)
DEAN HAPETA'S 2002 UPPER HUTT POSSE REMIXES: Say The Word, and you'll be freed
2 Aug 2010 | 2 min read
Dean Hapeta was the mainman in the Upper Hutt Posse (which also included singer-songwriter Emma Paki), the group which recorded the first New Zealand rap single E Tu in 1988. It was a powerful (if thin-sounding) statement of Maori anger and unashamedly used te reo (the Maori language) to strident effect. See lyrics below. Hapeta - as Te Kupu/The Word - has since carved a distinctive... > Read more
BLAIR JOLLANDS INTERVIEWED (2004): Kiwi expat under a watchful eye
2 Aug 2010 | 4 min read
The Cafe Bangla restaurant in London's Brick Lane isn't too difficult to find - and it's worth the effort. It's a couple of doors along from the one with Prince Charles' photo in the window. Which is ironic because the chief feature of Cafe Bangla - aside from reasonably priced and generously sized Indian meals - is a mural of the face of Lady Di hovering over a landscape. It is... > Read more
Blair Jollands/El Hula: When the Devil Arrives at My Door
THE GRATEFUL DEAD: The Dead rise again
28 Jul 2010 | 4 min read
There are some pretty odd tribute albums out there lately - and they seem to be getting stranger by the day. A couple of years ago it was all sensible kind of stuff, artists getting together to play Byrds songs or salute Neil Young. That’s cool. These days, however, we are getting albums like the Manson Family Sings the Songs of Charles Manson(previously unreleased 1970... > Read more