Absolute Elsewhere
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THE JAZZ BUTCHER REVISITED, PART III (2022): A farewell to the Fish
7 Mar 2022 | 1 min read
Although Elsewhere profiled Britain's Jazz Butcher (the vehicle for singer-songwriter Pat Fish) in 2017 and 2018, it's likely that Fish's extraordinary output has meant almost nothing in the Antipodes. Perhaps the first some had heard of him was when he died of a heart attack in late 2021, a couple of months short of his 64thbirthday. A literature graduate inspired by the freedom and... > Read more
LOU ADLER PROFILED (2022): What a wonderful world his would be
21 Feb 2022 | 2 min read
In '69 the producer, songwriter, film producer, club owner and impresario Lou Adler - because he could -- took a bunch of soulful musicians into the studio to record a bunch of Bob Dylan's songs in a gospel style. That long forgotten item -- The Brothers and Sisters, Dylan's Gospel -- was reissued in 2014 and so Lou Adler's name went back into the wider world as reminder of what... > Read more
Oh No, Not My Baby
THE ELECTRIC PRUNES 1966-1969, REVISITED (2022): From high times to High Mass
21 Jan 2022 | 2 min read
As with the Blues Magoos, LA's Electric Prunes were in the vanguard of psychedelic pop-rock with their singles I Had Too Much to Dream Last Night and Get Me to the World on Time, the latter reflecting them being a bridge between garageband and psychedelia. It's likely most people would be happy with just those two songs by them (both on their self-titled debut album, Dream on the original... > Read more
Get Me to the World on Time
THE DREAM SYNDICATE, REVISITED: (2022): Fifty-one shades of Grey
16 Jan 2022 | 2 min read
In mid-'86, the LA indie-rock band the Dream Syndicate released their third album Out of the Grey. The critical consensus had it as their best to date – and in retrospect still their finest studio moment – but as so often happens, it didn't sell as expected. And expectation was high because songwriter Steve Wynn (who went on to a very creditable solo career after the band broke... > Read more
Dying Embers
I'D LOVE TO TURN YOU ON (2022): The psychedelic year of 1967 in Britain
12 Jan 2022 | 9 min read | 1
"Tune in, turn on, drop out" -- LSD advocate Dr Timothy Leary THE MUSICAL JOURNEY FROM MARIJUANA TO LSD: '66 TO THE SUMMER OF LOVE IN 1967 after years of British dominance in the middle of the decade as we noted in this article, the focus moves back to the US Psychedelic music inspired or influenced by the consciousness changing drug LSD aka acid becomes a dominant style.... > Read more
THE BEATLES AS CHANGELINGS and MID-SIXTIES POP, 1965-66. (2022): The pivotal period from pop to rock
10 Jan 2022 | 15 min read | 2
"I've met them. Delightful lads. Absolutely no talent" -- actor/writer Noel Coward on the Beatles. "The thing with them is that almost every track on each of their albums is memorable. When they arrived at the beginning of the Sixties there was a lot of dross in the charts, and the Beatles legitimised coming from England in the face of all this brilliant American... > Read more
WEST SIDE STORY. THEN, AFTER, NOW (2021): Something's coming, and it just kept on coming
24 Dec 2021 | 3 min read
In her 2021 autobiography Last Chance Texaco, Rickie Lee Jones wrote about her affection for the musical West Side Story, a film she saw when she was only nine. She loved the drama of the Jets and Sharks street gangs, from her Arizona-distance she was seduced by the romance of Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet star-crossed young lovers relocated to tough inner-city New York, and found... > Read more
Maria, by PJ Proby (1965, from In Town, Elsewhere vinyl remix!)
THE BEST OF ELSEWHERE 2021: THE EDITOR'S PICKS
20 Dec 2021 | 10 min read
What an odd year in music when the discussion points were the new chart-topping but mundane Abba album, something from Elton John again and the Beatles who – thanks to Peter Jackson – invited us in to their recording sessions 52 years ago. We just needed a new Sir Cliff album to have a retro-fitted villa full of period charm. Nice to have Adele and Tony Bennett back though.... > Read more
THE BEST OF ELSEWHERE 2021: THE READERS' CHOICES
20 Dec 2021 | 8 min read
Yep, a lousy year for many, especially those like us who endured a seemingly endless and dull second lockdown in Auckland. But we should count ourselves lucky. Very few of our fellow citizens died and, although many fell ill, the message finally got out and people got vaxxed up to protect themselves and their families . . and by extension their fellow citizens. We also had books, TV and... > Read more
BEST OF ELSEWHERE 2021, THE YEAR IN REISSUES (AND SUCH).
13 Dec 2021 | 9 min read
As we sometimes remind, we can blame or thank Bob Dylan perhaps, after all it was his five record, 1985 Biograph box set of rare tracks and unreleased material which alerted record companies and the marketplace there was interest in such things. Five years later the first of his Bootleg Series box sets confirmed it. Since then it has been open slather. Here Elsewhere picks the best... > Read more
THE AMA (NEW ZEALAND) HALL OF FAME INDUCTEES 2021: The five essential ingredients in a melting point of talent
12 Dec 2021 | 24 min read
There's a circularity about Annie Crummer, Dianne Swann, Margaret Urlich, Kim Willoughby and Debbie Harwood being inducted as legacy artists at this year's Aotearoa Music Awards. As the group When the Cat's Away in the late Eighties they enjoyed hits, tours, music awards, a best selling live album and an award-winning documentary. But as Urlich told the Listener in January 1990,... > Read more
WHAM BAM, THANK YOU GLAM, 1970-75 (2021): From pop music to Roxy Music
6 Dec 2021 | 7 min read | 1
"the men don't know, but the little girls understand" -- from Back Door Man by Willie Dixon (sung by Howlin' Wolf, 1961) THE RISE OF GLAM ROCK Marc Bolan (T.Rex) "At nine years old I became Elvis Presley" -- Marc Bolan "Long before David Bowie, Gary Glitter or even Alvin Stardust tightened a single pant, brushed on the first load of... > Read more
THE BEACH BOYS: FEEL FLOWS, THE SUNFLOWER AND SURF'S UP SESSIONS 1969-1971 (2021): Sunset on the beach
30 Nov 2021 | 1 min read
There's always been talk that the Beach Boys didn't mean that much after the seminal Pet Sounds and the lesser Smiley Smile in the late Sixties, and yes, they did seem a bit directionless. But by the early Seventies they were steering a more confident course through the Sunflower and Surf's Up albums which mixed pop and their signature harmonies with songs which had a... > Read more
THE BEATLES' GET BACK DOCUMENTARY (2021): The truth, the whole truth and nothing but another truth
22 Nov 2021 | 4 min read
When George Harrison quit the Beatles on January 10, 1969 it was surprisingly undramatic: “I'm leaving . . .” John Lennon stops playing guitar: “What?” “The band, now,” says Harrison, although adding waspishly on the way out the door later, “see you 'round the clubs”. That night he wrote in his diary, “Got up went to Twickenham... > Read more
JOHN HANLON, HARD, CRUEL AND NAKED TRUTHS (2021): No country for old men?
18 Nov 2021 | 3 min read
It's an interesting measure of the landscape of popular music that many -isms are called out (racism, sexism, etc) but older artists are marginalised, or worse, ignored completely. Yes, a few get through (Leonard Cohen, Bill Fay) and if 71-year old Tom Waits released a new album you know it would be reviewed. People remain curious and even keen to hear new music from Dave Dobbyn and Don... > Read more
Muriwai Road
NEAL CASAL, REMEMBERED IN TRIBUTE (2021): It feels just like a dream now . . .
17 Nov 2021 | 3 min read
When a depressed Neal Casal took his own life in August 2019 he was 50 and left a wide legacy of musical associations and compositions. Born in New Jersey, he came to attention during a four-year stint as the lead guitarist in the Southern rock band Blackfoot in the late Eighties/early Nineties. But it was his subsequent time in Ryan Adams' Cardinals (notably on the acclaimed albums... > Read more
KAITIAKI RECORDS, STRAIGHT OUTTA WANAKA (2021): In the jungle, the mighty jungle . . .
14 Nov 2021 | 3 min read
About five months ago, the newly formed Jungle label Kaitiaki Records in Wanaka began its ambitious project of bringing distinctive local artists to attention through a series of EP releases on bandcamp. As label founder Tom Zeinoun says on the label's website: “Kaitiaki Records started off as an idea when I came down to Wanaka seeing all the great talent we have around here.... > Read more
ABBA IN THE 21st CENTURY (2021): On a voyage to nowhere
5 Nov 2021 | 5 min read
In the Abba museum in Stockholm, visitors can experience a disconcerting Dorian Gray moment. Here you stare into the twinkling eyes of the band who stand, life-size, as mute as wax and preserved just as they were at the height of their fame four decades ago. In a flip to the other side of Oscar Wilde's mirror we imagine the lustrous but reclusive Agnetha – now 71, blond hair flecked... > Read more
THE BEATLES. LET IT BE, THE EXPANDED REMIXED DELUXE EDITION, CONSIDERED (2021): You and I have memories . . .
25 Oct 2021 | 4 min read
There are two ways of considering the Beatles recording sessions in January 1969 when, very much nudged by Paul McCartney, they convened – just months after The White Album had been released and two days into the new year – in a bleak Twickenham film studio to ostensibly rehearse, record and then perform an album of all new material. As an idea it was interesting, innovative and... > Read more
All Things Must Pass rehearsal
SHIHAD AND ALIEN WEAPONRY ALBUMS, REVIEWED (2021): Significant sound and fury?
23 Oct 2021 | 3 min read
It has been more than 15 years since Dave Dobbyn sang Welcome Home, a song that spoke to our better selves as a people prepared to make a space for new migrants, many of whom had come from dire situations and had been confronted by racism here. As he noted, “out here on the edge, the empire is fading by the day” and that erosion of loyalty to Britain and the Commonwealth has... > Read more