Absolute Elsewhere
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THE POSIES, KEN STRINGFELLOW INTERVIEWED (2006): Power pop to the top
26 Oct 2009 | 4 min read | 1
For a man about to go on stage in Holland, Ken Stringfellow sounds as if he’s got his feet on the desk and thinking about getting home for a night in front of the tele. The relaxed Stringfellow has spent a large part of the past 25 years facing audiences: with the neo-psychedelic outfit Sky Cries Mary out of Seattle in the late 80s; in the past decade as a member of REM’s... > Read more
The Posies: Conversations (from the album Every Kind of Light, 2005)
LLOYD COLE INTERVIEWED (2000): This changing man
23 Oct 2009 | 4 min read
Lloyd Cole, the Derbyshire-born pop singer-songwriter who sprang to attention in the mid-80s for his introspective literate lyrics with his band the Commotions, quit Britain for New York in 1988 for six months - and has now stayed for 12 years. With his American wife and two children, he lives in the wilderness three hours north of New York and two hours west of Boston. He has a... > Read more
LLoyd Cole: Are You Ready to be Heartbroken? (from Rattlesnakes)
JORDAN REYNE INTERVIEWED (2009): Tales from the dark side
22 Oct 2009 | 11 min read
Jordan Reyne is one of New Zealand’s most challenging and innovative songwriters. Whether it be on albums under her own name or as Dr Kervorkian and the Suicide Machine, Reyne has pushed sonic and lyrical boundaries, pulled together electronica and acoustic instruments, explored noir-narratives and personal emotional states . . . and largely gone without an audience. Which might... > Read more
Jordan Reyne: Passenger (from the album Passenger, 2004)
JUDEE SILL (1944-79): The disappearing crayon angel
18 Oct 2009 | 4 min read | 1
There seem an alarming number of women musicians written out of popular culture: Doris Troy, Minnie Ripperton, Laura Nyro, Judy Henske, Mireille Mathieu, folk-rocker Cindy Lee Berryhill . . . And who these days even cites Janis Joplin either as an influence, or simply as someone worthy of serious critical or popular attention? These (and dozens of others) were all women who made, if not... > Read more
Nicolai Dunger: Soldier of the Heart
THE FLAMING LIPS' WAYNE COYNE INTERVIEWED (2004): In search of the miraculous
17 Oct 2009 | 8 min read
Wayne Coyne of the Flaming Lips is in his kitchen in Oklahoma City saying he likes that rock'n'roll is a broad church. It allows alternative music to co-exist with MTV and pop radio. "I don't want the world to be just made up of music like the Flaming Lips, White Stripes and Yeah Yeah Yeahs. I like that rock'n'roll is an uncontrollable beast throwing away great artists and celebrating... > Read more
The Flaming Lips: All We Have is Now (from Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots)
GREG JOHNSON INTERVIEWED (2009): The song, not the singer
16 Oct 2009 | 6 min read
The first call catches Greg Johnson and his wife Kelli somewhere in the empty landscape of Texas heading for Shreveport, Louisiana with a fuel gauge hovering near “Empty”. “We’re looking for gas at the moment,” he says slightly anxiously, and there follows a brief and fraught discussion in the front seat. They are turning back rather than run out of petrol.... > Read more
Greg Johnson: You Stay Out of Your Life
BIG STAR REISSUED AND REVERED (1992): The Great Lost American Pop Band - found!
13 Oct 2009 | 4 min read
The reputation and influence of some artists far outstrips their sales figures. Dylan – even at his various peaks – was hardly shipping out albums by the crate load and Van Morrison’s seminal/essential/classic (pick your own adjective) Astral Weeks clocked up sales of only a quarter of a million copies in the States. The trickle-down of the Sex Pistols and Velvet... > Read more
Big Star: Thirteen
LOU BARLOW INTERVIEWED (2003): Dinosaur walking again
12 Oct 2009 | 5 min read
As a cruel ploy it was also kind of funny. When guitarist J. Mascis and bassist Lou Barlow in Dinosaur Jr got to the point that they couldn't even talk to each other, the end was inevitable. They'd had a good few years, but in 1989 Mascis told Barlow he was breaking up the band. The following day he reformed it -- without Barlow. Barlow was miffed, to put it mildly (his song The Freed... > Read more
J. MASCIS INTERVIEWED, AND CONCERT REVIEW (2002): No time for talking
12 Oct 2009 | 8 min read
J. Mascis is the Silent Bob of rock. Look at any of the few interviews on the internet and you can see large blocks of type (the question) followed by a paltry line or two (the closed answer which seldom allows for a follow-up). Mascis, once of Dinosaur Jr and now out on a solo career with the occasional band The Fog, is a man of formidably few words. Judge for yourself from this... > Read more
J Mascis and The Fog: Someone Said
RY COODER INTERVIEWED (2009): Dry, wry and moving right along
5 Oct 2009 | 11 min read | 2
Ry Cooder -- if a slightly flinty 15 minute conversation with someone who rarely gives interviews suggests -- gives the clear impression of someone who doesn’t like to waste his time. His answers can sound abrupt, he barely laughs even when he makes a mild joke, and bristles at some questions. The other problem in talking with Cooder is simply this: at 62 he has such a long... > Read more
Ry Cooder and Ali Farka Tour: Bonde (from the album Talking Timbuktu, 1994)
NICK LOWE INTERVIEWED (2009): As times go by
5 Oct 2009 | 12 min read
It is one of the ironies of Nick Lowe’s life that -- despite producing the first three Elvis Costello albums, the success of his solo debut Jesus of Cool in ‘78 (retitled Pure Pop for Now People in the more sensitive American market), being in the dream team with Cooder and drummer Jim Keltner on the exceptional John Hiatt album Bring the Family in ‘87 and having delivered a... > Read more
Nick Lowe: What Lack of Love Has Done (from Dig My Mood, 1998))
SIR HOWARD MORRISON REMEMBERED (2009): Howard's way
29 Sep 2009 | 4 min read
It gives me no pleasure to note the coincidence, but earlier this week I started watching the three-part doco Once in a Lifetime, a Maori Television two-hour interview with the late Sir Howard Morrison (and family, friends and fellow performers). It had just come out on Rajon DVD. Among my notes on the first chapter where he speaks with self-deprecating humour about adolescent... > Read more
TIM FINN, A TIMELINE (2009): A solo, and sometimes solitary, man
24 Sep 2009 | 9 min read
Tim Finn is one of New Zealand's most gifted songwriters. If his long catalogue sometimes lacks the easy pop-rock polish of those songs by his brother Neil (with whom he has frequently written and played) or the sentimentality of Dave Dobbyn's more recent output, that is only to say Tim has gone his own way. From the idiosyncratic and innovative songs with Split Enz through a series of... > Read more
Tim Finn: Poor Boy (with Split Enz)
BEATLES FOR SALE, YET AGAIN (2009): Remastered and remarkable
9 Sep 2009 | 4 min read
A familiar Beatles’ song from a lifetime ago comes from the speakers then, after little more than 30 seconds, is faded. It begins again, but now there’s an energy and freshness about it, the vocals crisp and lively, the guitars and drums having a thrilling immediacy. “It’s as if a layer of grime has been removed, isn‘t it?” says longtime Abbey Road... > Read more
THE BEATLES ROCK BAND 2009: One, two, a-one-two-three-faaa
4 Sep 2009 | 2 min read
It is one of the many ironies of the Beatles Remastered project (which I have noted in this Listener article) is that these albums might not have even come out at this time were it not for the Beatles Rock Band interactive game. The remasters were finished some years ago and have been sitting around waiting for . . .? Some kind of marketing tie-in, the go-ahead from the remaining Beatles... > Read more
The Beatles: Rain
THE BEATLES AFTER THE REMASTERS (2009): And in the end . . .
31 Aug 2009 | 2 min read | 5
So are the remastered Beatle albums released on 09/09/09 ("number nine, number nine, number") the full-stop on a career which ended almost four decades ago? Maybe not. While at Abbey Road in June listening to the playback of some of these tracks (about which I wrote this), it seemed natural to ask engineers Allan Rouse and Steve Rooke -- who have each spent the past couple of... > Read more
The Beatles: Keep Your Hands Off My Baby (January 1963)
THE BEATLES REMASTERED, 2009 (EMI): Here, there and everywhere
31 Aug 2009 | 5 min read
The story behind the extensive and long overdue remastering of the most important music catalogue in pop has been well canvassed. Indeed, I have written this, a Listener article, Getting Better based on my experience of listening through to a large sampling of tracks while in Abbey Road in June. What that article doesn't address is the music itself. From "I want to hold your... > Read more
MOANA MANIAPOTO INTERVIEWED (2003): Kia kaha with a backbeat
8 Aug 2009 | 9 min read
The view from Moana Maniapoto's Grey Lynn apartment is spectacular. Beyond huge windows, which can be flung wide to offer the impression of floor-to-ceiling sky is a vista across rooftops to the Waitemata Harbour beyond. Outside the front door is a pile of kids' basketball boots - the carpets have just been shampooed - and inside tasteful artwork decorates the walls. In the office... > Read more
Moana and the Tribe: Treaty
TOM WAITS IN THE 21st CENTURY: Alice, Blood Money, Real Gone and Orphans
3 Aug 2009 | 12 min read | 1
Think about it for a moment: "Stirring my brandy with a nail". Delivered in Tom Waits' oaken croak, it has everything: the mean spirit of drinking, the bitter taste of melancholy, the sheer aloneness of it all. It is a great Waits line. But it was also a typical Waits image. If there was a surprise about Waits' Mule Variations in 1999 -- from which the line came -- it was... > Read more
Tom Waits: Road to Peace (from Brawlers)
NEIL FINN INTERVIEWED (2001): Man alone
12 Jul 2009 | 26 min read
Neil Finn gives the impression he's happier than he has ever been. This year he's been around the country playing solo shows in small venues with contributions by ring-in local musicians, billing them as the Band of Strangers. Soon he starts a five-night stand at the St James in Auckland with a guest list that includes Eddie Vedder from Pearl Jam, a couple of the guys from Radiohead, Johnny... > Read more