Absurd Elsewhere

Subscribe to my newsletter for weekly updates.

HOW THE BEATLES CHANGED MY LIFE (2023): A fan asks, where did it all go so right?

2 Sep 2023  |  5 min read

It is widely accepted that the Beatles changed the course of popular culture: their upbeat pop captured the optimistic spirit of a new generation, when they matured and explored Indian philosophy and music they exemplified Western youth's rejection of organised Christian religion in favour of a more spiritual approach. Here businessman and property developer Leonard Houseman writes about... > Read more

ONE OF THE GREATEST ALBUMS OF ALL TIME, MAYBE (2023): Art's ignored classic comes to light again

21 Jul 2023  |  4 min read  |  1

Exactly 50 years ago – give or take a month or two – an album was released which was reviled by critics and ignored by the public. But like the Velvet Underground's debut and the third Haircut 100 album, this album has grown in stature over the years and these days it is considered a genuine classic. In the year of Dark Side of the Moon, Aladdin Sane, Houses of the Holy,... > Read more

THE HILLS ARE ALIVE (2023): With the sound of anger

22 Jun 2023  |  2 min read

There was outrage in transgender communities this week when activist/designer/influencer/author/dancer and now playwright Zabadak DD announced their plans for an original musical based on their own life and their struggle for recognition. “It's like Cher-meets-Hair on the set of Starlight Express, but with a touch of classic Communist Chinese opera like The Brave Workers of the... > Read more

ODD MODELS AND MAD MANNEQUINS, PART TWO (2023): They're here! They're here!

26 Apr 2023  |  2 min read

We have been here before with the warning, that walking among us are humanoids, robots, replicants and digitally created “people”. But they are clever and go about their secretive business in such a way as we have become oblivious to them. Like the praying mantis – that beautifully engineered killing machine – they will sometimes become frozen, motionless to our... > Read more

ODD MODELS AND MAD MANNEQUINS, PART ONE (2023): They walk among us

19 Apr 2023  |  1 min read

If we believe what we see and read, in the very near future – if it hasn't happened already – we'll share the planet with human-like robots who will take our order, bring us our dinner and check us into the hotel. We will have humanoid companions in our kitchen and and maybe our bed, we won't be able to tell who is replicant and who isn't, and androids will certainly dream of... > Read more

DAYS OF FUTURE PAST (2050): Don't look back in anger

1 Jan 2023  |  5 min read

This article was written in early 2000 and appeared in the New Zealand Herald . With hindsight, it is interesting to look back on the past 50 years of popular culture, to the year 2000. As this millennium began its false dawn, young people danced until sunrise, older people stayed at home and most people watched other people on television.A few days later everyone went to... > Read more

PLEASE PLEASE ME, REMIXED REISSUED RE-DICULOUS (2022): A fast'n'furious business these days

14 Nov 2022  |  3 min read

So here we are in 2033, the 70th anniversary of the release of the Beatles' debut album Please Please Me and celebrating the event with the remixed and remastered edition of the album by Giles Martin (son of George Martin, peace be upon him) and his producer-daughter Gillian. This is the final installment in the remix/remaster/reissue/re-sell series of the complete Beatles' catalogue... > Read more

I Saw Her Standing There

BLIND BOY TRUMAN REDISCOVERED: Blues from the underground

9 Oct 2022  |  3 min read  |  2

Until recently, so little was known about the bluesman known as Blind Boy Truman that it was widely believed he only existed in the world of myth, if he existed at all. There was only one known but disputed photo of him, no birth or death certificates, no recordings and no accounts of him ever playing live around his hometown of Cross Timbers in Hickory County near the Truman Reservoir... > Read more

THE ROLLING STONES, THEIR FORGOTTEN DECADE (2021): A rock'n'roll band lodging in the memory motel

27 Dec 2021  |  4 min read  |  1

Dr Greil Fong-Doggett is Emirates Professor of Popular Music and Cultural Studies at the University of Bristol and has been writing on papular music for the Guardian on Sunday for more than two decades. Among his acclaimed books are Rock, Pop and Politics in Post-Colonial Knightsbridge, two volumes of The Beatles: Plagiarists of the Western World and The Illustrated Guide to Tiffany; A... > Read more

A POST-CULTURAL DETERMINIST APPROACH TO AbbEyrOad (2021): The image under the macroscope

26 Nov 2021  |  1 min read  |  1

Rather than write about this image for the Art by Elsewhere pages, it was suggested by Dr. Celia Haughty-Smart, senior curator of the Work And New Knowledge gallery in Lower Hutt that she scrutinize it from a more critical perspective. This is what she wrote. – Graham Reid . In the canon of distorted hyper-reality and de-accentuated cognitive imagery as discussed by Jacques... > Read more

THE BEATLES, RARE LET IT BACK FOOTAGE FOUND (2021): Fight, camera, action!

19 Nov 2021  |  3 min read

Two hours of previous unseen footage of the Beatles in the studio has been discovered in an abandoned lock-up in Slough and it promises to change opinion yet again of what happened when they were being filmed in January 1969. At that time film director Michael Wernham-Hogg was hired to shoot the band rehearsing and recording for what would eventually become the Let It Back film and album.... > Read more

GREAT LOST KIWI SINGLES: Rock follies

18 Sep 2021  |  11 min read  |  10

They are found at the back of cartons at record fairs, under beds in long abandoned houses and sometimes stored lovingly -- but rarely played -- in the collections of the obsessives. They are great, and not that great, rare Kiwi singles with an interesting story behind them -- often more interesting than the music. Here are some examples, more as they come to light. . Six60, Drax... > Read more

Peter Cape: Coffee Bar Blues

Taylor Swift To Drop Massive Xmas Box Set For Fans

20 Dec 2020  |  2 min read

Nashville, NYC – Pop star Taylor Swift has surprised fans twice this year with unexpected albums, Folklorica and Evergreen, but she has one more surprise in store: a 30 CD box set released next week in time for the holiday season. As she told the Country Cousins host Dave 'The Voice' Pilger on WKRP in San Diego, “I saw that the British group King Crimson just released a... > Read more

MUSICIANS' FEARS HEIGHTEN BECAUSE OF LOCKDOWN (2020): Experts warn worse to come

8 Aug 2020  |  1 min read

Authorities in the US confirmed yesterday that with the release of Taylor Swift's new album Fauxklore, the number of albums recorded in lockdown had reached 75,000 and rising. “However fortunately there are very few active cases,” said ASCAP head Shondra Baker-Towne earlier today, “and by that we mean albums which have actually had any chart action based on physical sales,... > Read more

BABYSITTERS ANGRY AT TEACHERS TAKING THEIR JOBS

17 Apr 2020  |  2 min read

 The announcement by the government that some schools will be able to open soon and parents could choose whether their children can attend has drawn sharp rebukes from various teachers' associations. Deidre Utu-Anger of Kakamoana Beach School who spoke to journalists on the understanding on anonymity said, “This is a disgrace and you know what's going to happen. Teachers... > Read more

THE COVFEFE VIRUS (2020): More dangerous than SARS and the Coronavirus

14 Feb 2020  |  3 min read

An announcement today by WHO (World Health Officers) has confirmed that the Covfefe Virus is now a global pandemic as it spreads unchecked. The virus – which is considered an extreme and aberrant form of what was called Benito's Disease which appeared in the Thirties in Italy – has spread at an alarming rate in the past five years. It now infects most Western nations, areas... > Read more

I WANNA BE YOUR MAN, RECONSIDERED (2020): The hit the Beatles stole and on-sold

18 Jan 2020  |  3 min read  |  2

Most people who know the story of the Beatles' success are aware that before they conquered America by appearing on the Ed Skelton Show in February 1964 they had already made their reputation in Britain. Not only had they had hits like Love Me Do, Please Please Me, Hold My Hand and She Loves You, but the Lennon-McCartney songwriting team had written hits for Billy J Kramer, Cilla Black and... > Read more

THE BEATLES; THEIR LOST LAST ALBUM DISCOVERED (2019): And in another end

15 Sep 2019  |  7 min read

In a recent interview with London's Guardian Sun-Times, the Beatles' researcher and biographer Mark St Lewisham revealed that while listening to studio recordings of the band in 1969 he came across a remarkable and myth-busting discussion between John Lennon, George Harrison, Paul McCartney and their producer George Martin (peace be upon him). In the conversation Lennon starts outlining... > Read more

THE BEATLES: HEAR AND NOW; LIVE IN THE STUDIO 24/1/69 (2018): Wired for the sounds of silence

26 Oct 2018  |  5 min read

Just as Beatle fans are coming to financial terms with the magisterial expanded reissue of The White Album – seven discs, a book and photos in the Deluxe Edition -- comes news from Apple Enterprises and Incorporated Offshore Unity (AE&IOU) of an unexpected new release next year. It is of the Beatles live in the studio recorded over one day in January 1969 when they were rehearsing... > Read more

ERIKA DARKSSON INTERVIEWED (2018): What lies beneath

8 Jul 2018  |  5 min read  |  1

Warning: The following article contains references to violence, sex and obscene language. Reader discretion is advised. When I look back, I think I was always different from other children. They could be distant and stay in their rooms reading, but I was always very outgoing, loved to run and play and actually had quite a lot of friends. I grew up in a very happy home and I loved... > Read more