Absurd Elsewhere
Subscribe to my newsletter for weekly updates.
LOCUS AND LOCATION: THE SOCIO-GEOGRAPHY AND POST-COLONIAL DISCOURSE IN DON McGLASHAN'S DOMINION ROAD
30 Jun 2018 | 4 min read | 3
Don McGlashan is one of New Zealand's most respected and successful songwriters. He been awarded the Apra Silver Scroll for songwriting 47 times and has been given honorary doctorates from many New Zealand universities which allow him to practice medicine. He has turned a keen eye onto New Zealand society in songs like There is No Depression in New Zealand in which he hailed the cautious... > Read more
RINGO STARR; THE KNIGHT . . . AS A DAME? A psycho-sexual biography by Dr CHRISTOPHER JORGENSEN
17 Jun 2018 | 7 min read | 5
The subtitle of this remarkable, penetratingly insightful and revisionist biography – The Drummer in the Beatles, The Woman in the Drummer – posits a bombshell theory. That during his Beatle years Ringo Starr, now Sir Richard Starkey, grappled with his sexuality and was drawn so much to his feminine side that he actually wanted to be recognised as a woman. The author, who... > Read more
UNRELEASED HENDRIX STUDIO SESSIONS DISCOVERED (2018): Young man blowing his horn
15 Jan 2018 | 4 min read
When Jimi Hendrix confidante and studio engineer Eddie Kramer told Elsewhere back in 2013 that there were no more studio sessions by Hendrix to be released what he really meant to say was, actually there were more to be released. The new collection Both Sides of the Sky apparently completes the posthumous trilogy started by Valleys of Neptune and People Hell And Angels. Mixed by... > Read more
LORDE: REISSUED ALREADY? (2018): Lorde's business is big business
7 Jan 2018 | 4 min read | 1
Pop picking is a fast'n'furious business these days and, as Art Garfunkel memorably sang on his Graceland album, “Every generation throws a hero up the pop charts”. But just as important to an artist as a hit single streamed for free or a YouTube clip which can be viewed a billion times (also for free) is the reissue of their classic album with extra tracks. These... > Read more
THE BEST MUSIC OF ELSEWHERE IN 2018: The shape of things that came
19 Dec 2017 | 7 min read
Rather than wait a year to look back at the best albums to come out in 2018, Elsewhere though it would get a jump on the game and reflect back on the year to come and single out the best ever of the greatest albums. ZiLcH xXx: The Presumption of the Poly-Agonal Para-dime Breakthrough artist of the year was undoubtedly Detroit's ZiLcH xXx (Charles Monfort-Jones), the eldest son... > Read more
THE BEATLES, THE RISHiKESH ALBUM (2017): A lost album found at last
31 Jul 2017 | 5 min read | 1
The discovery last week of a previously unknown Beatles' studio album from 1968 – recorded at EMI Studios in New Delhi (formerly known as Delhi) in India – has prompted the band's many researchers and experts to reassess the Beatles' catalogue. And it has sparked excitement among fans that the recordings – 14 songs, only three previously familiar but on the Rishikesh... > Read more
THE FIVE MOST RARESTER BEATLE ALBUMS EVER: A place where nothing is real
19 Jun 2017 | 5 min read | 3
Although the Beatles appeared to have a finite recording career (1962-69) and that everything they ever did has been released, remastered and/or remixed, for the abject Beatle fan there is always going to be the need for more. Of course the famous Carnival of Light track may never come to the surface but some rightly hold out hope for an expanded edition of the Get Back/Let It Be... > Read more
THE BEATLES . THE WHITE ALBUM REISSUED AND REMIXED (2017): A pale shade of whiter
29 May 2017 | 4 min read | 2
When the founder of Wikileaks Julian Assante released 150,000 secret files last week to celebrate the Spanish court dropping rape charges against him, one small corner of that internet world got very excited but the buzz went largely unnoticed by the mainstream media. While CNN, the Fox Network, Aljazeera and TV3's The Project all focused on the aspects of Middle Eastern policy, those... > Read more
Back in the USSR (from the White Cage version)
DEATHBED CONFESSIONS: Reality television to die for
28 Jan 2017 | 3 min read
Just when the genre of reality television seemed to have run its course, the doyen of the style, Christie Julian, has, for want of a better phrase, given it a new lease on life with Deathbed Confessions, a series she describes as "a great leap forward which places emphasis on the 'reality' part of the equation". Speaking on her departure for the United States, where she is... > Read more
THE AMBER RILEY-THOMPSON SAGA, PART THE FIRST (2003-04): A child's Christmas and wails
19 Feb 2016 | 4 min read
THE AMBER RILEY-THOMPSON SAGA, PART THE TWO (2004): More miss adventures
19 Feb 2016 | 19 min read
A little background to these stories which appeared in the New Zealand Herald . . . Late in 2003 Russell Baillie, the Herald’s entertainment editor, and I were talking about having something light-hearted in the paper over the holiday period. I came up with the idea of following a snotty, stroppy, ungrateful, surly 14-year old girl of the kind you see in shopping malls -- or... > Read more
THE MUSICIAN: A Fairly True Tale
12 Apr 2013 | 1 min read
The young man settled himself into the chair and placed his new guitar case on the floor beside him. His face raised into a natural if boyish smile, the outline of his cheeks rimmed by a flat, soft beard of the kind that many young men grow briefly and self-consciously in their eighteenth year. His hands clasped his knees in a juvenile gesture of delight. The man he was sitting beside... > Read more
JOHN LENNON INTERVIEWED (1995): I hear you knocking
14 May 2012 | 1 min read | 1
Former mop-topped pop singer and dead megastar John Lennon has given a “thumbs up” to the latest Beatle single Free as a Bird which his former chums in the band have released. “It’s a great song and the lads have really done me proud,” said Lennon earlier this week. “I originally wrote it for the Rutles but to have me old mates do it was a real... > Read more
THE RAMBLERS ENCOUNTERED: It's only rock'n'roll, and I survived it
1 May 2012 | 12 min read
A few years ago at the Herald, to amuse ourselves and readers over the Christmas season, it was decided I would write a piece about a band of roadies who were playing a rare gig. That part was true (hence them mention of real person in what follows). The rest was made up. Sort of. Some of it was drawn from long experience, sometimes shameful, of hanging out with a band. What... > Read more
New Deal
IN AND OUT OF FASHION: The Style Council Deliberates
1 Sep 2011 | 5 min read
When Auckland model Renata and actress Alicia-Anne Crawford stepped out last week at Une Enveloppe to announce the opening of "Fashion Month'' -- Blair Trader's new eatery on Auckland's fashionable Sandringham Road -- there were audible whispers and faux-gasps in the room. Both were wearing outfits -- "consembles'' as Auckland couturier Stef Britta wittily observed -- in the style... > Read more
THE POWER OF SPEECH: A Short Story in a Strange Tongue
14 Jun 2010 | 2 min read
I recently spent a rather distressing luncheon engagement with a moderately well-known author. Aside from hearing much invaluable gossip about better known writers than my friend, I was also treated to a complex deconstruction of language and literary theories that I did not think interesting or even appropriate over a long lunch. For our first cocktails my friend was diverted into a... > Read more
THINKING OUTSIDE THE BOX: Out of a Clear Blue Sky
27 Apr 2009 | 4 min read | 2
Kevin Saatchi, CEO of the New York-based advertising and media company RobertsAndRoberts, said yesterday he was excited about his company being offered the contract to re-brand New Zealand for the 21st century. The five-year contract for RobertsAndRoberts to rename and re-brand the country came at the invitation of the government which has expressed increasing frustration with issues over... > Read more
SNAPSHOTS OF STRANGENESS: A Collection of Odd Anecdotes
7 Jul 2007 | 6 min read
Walt Disney Regrets Last week I spent a morning in the company of a woman who has a curious obsession: she collects soundtracks to those Walt Disney nature programmes which occasionally still appear on television. Or more correctly, she collects correspondence about those soundtracks. I shall call her Sybil because that is what she calls herself. Her story goes something like this.... > Read more