Music at Elsewhere
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John Mellencamp: No Better Than This (Rounder)
27 Sep 2010 | 1 min read | 1
The man they call "the poet laureate of the Interstate" (although he always sounds a backroads man to me) ha been on such a roll lately with Freedom's Road and Life Death Love Freedom) that the idea of him recording in mono with T Bone Burnett in Sun Studio, the Gunter Hotel in San Antonio (where Robert Johnson was committed to tape) and the First African Baptist Church in Savannah... > Read more
John Mellencamp: Easter Eve
Eric Clapton: Clapton (Reprise)
27 Sep 2010 | 2 min read | 1
It's fair to say Eric Clapton at 20, while playing with John Mayall's Blues Breakers, never gave much thought to a “career”. Yet with this new album he can reflect on more than 40 years in the game, of highs and lows, successes and mis-steps (most of the 80s). Inevitably Clapton at 65 doesn't have the fire which propelled the late 60s power-trio Cream or gave his desperate... > Read more
Eric Clapton: River Runs Deep
Jah Wobble: Welcome to My World (30 Hertz/Southbound)
27 Sep 2010 | 1 min read
Jah Wobble has been one of the most interesting and innovative musical explorers of the past few decades but, as I discovered in '96 at the time of this interview – he does it mostly without leaving home. Travel is for the middle-classes he said and a working-class geezer like himself, well . . . Anyway he'd done the touring thing, so . . . Fascinating man whose music... > Read more
Jah Wobble: London
Justin Townes Earle: Harlem River Blues (Bloodshot/Southbound)
27 Sep 2010 | 1 min read
Over three previous albums this son of Steve (and named for Townes Van Zandt) has cut an increasingly confident path with originals which are nominally country-Americana but refer to alt.rock, bluegrass, honky-tonk, ragtime and Hank Williams-styled truck-stop rock. His shows here have been popular and on this album he slips in the aching Christchurch Woman (with guitarist Jason... > Read more
Justin Townes Earle: Rogers Park
Luke Jackson: . . . And Then Some (Popsicle)
27 Sep 2010 | 1 min read
After a mention of the late Robert Kirby's string arrangements in a review of the Magic Numbers' The Runaway, this Canadian singer-songwriter with a well-stamped passport got in touch: he too had benefited from Kirby's smart touch. And he sent on a copy of this album which opens with a classic blast of power-pop (Come Tomorrow, the title even sounds like Badfinger/Raspberries/Big Star) . . .... > Read more
Luke Jackson: Come Tomorrow
Nina Simone: At Town Hall/The Amazing Nina Simone (Jackpot/Southbound)
26 Sep 2010 | 1 min read
Troublesome woman though she may have been -- angry, politically volatile, courageously self-obssessed -- there was never any denying her phenomenal, rare talent. Classically trained but with her heart also in gospel, r'n'b, jazz and blues, Nina Simone (1933 - 2003) crossed stylistic boundaries on piano as if they didn't exist, and her expression-filled vocals would occupy a lyric in a way... > Read more
Nina Simone: You Can Have Him
Various artists: The Cramps' Jukebox (Chrome Dreams/Triton)
26 Sep 2010 | 1 min read
The Cramps' passion for old rock'n'roll is well known: they are archivists for music styles, bands and old singles which might have otherwise been forgotten or lost. This double disc (with a useful backgrounder booklet) pulls together 30 obscure songs on one disc and on the other Lux Interior and Poison Ivy speak about their passions through a collection of interviews recorded from 1990.... > Read more
The Flamingoes: I Only Have Eyes For You (1959)
Yes: Keys to Ascension (CD/DVD, Proper/Southbound)
26 Sep 2010 | 1 min read | 1
San Luis Obispo isn't a name you readily associate with rock music. The picturesque coastal town in northern California -- near Hearst's castle -- still isn't on the radar despite it being the place where Yes -- the original line-up -- relaunched their career in '95. Well, "relaunched" might be overstating it, but they certainly re-formed in their San Luis Obispo studio (world... > Read more
Yes: Roundabout (live)
Mark Eitzel, Klamath (101/Southbound)
26 Sep 2010 | <1 min read
Eitzel was the former frontman for the very wonderful but poorly named American Music Club (probably still is, I think they have reformed) but this solo album dates from a retreat to a cabin (around Klamath Falls in central Oregon I guess) a year or so ago. As befits it origins this is very intimate music -- although far from the introspective Nick Drake-folk tag some have laid on it.... > Read more
Mark Eitzel: Remember
Bannerman: The Dusty Dream Hole (Rhythmethod)
20 Sep 2010 | 1 min read
Bannerman is New Zealand singer-songwriter Richard Setford whose purpose in life seems to be to confound those who would easily pigeonhole him. He appeared at Elsewhere previously with his quietly intense EP (here) which stood at some distance from his work with the roiling Batucada Sound Machine and the soulful One Million Dollars. For this debut album under his own nom de disque he... > Read more
Bannerman: She was a Mountainside
Robert Plant: Band of Joy (Decca)
19 Sep 2010 | 1 min read
In 2003 this former frontman for Led Zeppelin released Sixty Six to Timbuktu, a double disc retrospective of material from his solo years which was impressive in its scope: old blues and r'n'b to Zepp-framed stadium rock and his journey into music from North Africa. As a musical explorer Plant hasn't stopped: two years later came the exceptional album with his band Strange Sensation,... > Read more
Robert Plant: Monkey
JJ Grey and Mofro: Georgia Warhorse (Alligator/Southbound)
13 Sep 2010 | 1 min read | 1
Grey and his companions out of Florida have been pulling Southern funk, Memphis soul and dirty blues together for the best part of a decade now and their 07 Country Ghetto album should have gained them a lot of mainstream attention. But it didn't. This one – with guest vocalist Toots (of the Maytals), and hot young blues guitarist Derek Trucks laying sweet and spooky slide on... > Read more
JJ Grey and Mofro: Lullaby
Eels: Tomorrow Morning (Shock)
13 Sep 2010 | 1 min read
The story of Eels - aka E, or Mark Oliver Everett -- has been one of the most interesting, and often autobiographical, journeys to follow in recent years. There were many, rather too many, dark days in Everett's earlier life and he scrupulously recorded them in a way which made them universal. His candour and lyrical directness was not only courageous but affecting. He was also hard on... > Read more
Eels: Baby Loves Me
The Coral: Butterfly House (Shock)
13 Sep 2010 | <1 min read
Sometimes sounding like an odd collision in the studio of early Echo and the Bunnymen and America, Liverpool's the Coral here deliver their big songs (big on melody, choruses, drama and references) with enjoyable passion but never quite approach that frisson they had on their thrilling self-titled debut album of '02. However these lightly-delic and powerfully pop-conscious songs (produced by... > Read more
The Coral: Two Faces
Grinderman: Grinderman 2 (EMI)
13 Sep 2010 | 2 min read
The black wings beat at the window and there is a smell of sulphur in this dark southern land where crazed prophets and murderous mountain men walk . . . From a distance, through the leafless trees comes what sounds like the voice of judgement and doom. A man in black is declaiming filthy sex and raw passion, killing and redemption. Must be Nick Cave, right? Ever since he left the... > Read more
Grinderman: Kitchenette
The Yardbirds: Shapes of Things, The Best of the Yardbirds (Music Club/Triton)
13 Sep 2010 | 2 min read | 1
Aside from the obvious ones -- the Beatles, the Rolling Stones and arguably the Small Faces and perhaps the Animals -- was there any other group in the mid-Sixties which was such a magnet for, and breeding ground of, talent? And it's not just the roster of guitarists who passed through its ranks -- Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck and Jimmy Page -- or that in their closing overs (with no... > Read more
The Yardbirds: Happenings Ten Years Time Ago (1966)
Various Artists: Head Over High Heels; Strong and Female 1927-59 (Trikont/Yellow Eye)
12 Sep 2010 | 1 min read
Much as some might like to think strong females arrived with Madonna (or maybe in the late Sixties with feminism), there were always those independent, tough-minded and free-spirited women out there -- especially in the world of jazz and blues. This collection which opens with Pearl Bailey and You Can be Replaced (from her album Pearl Bailey Sings for Adults Only, 1959) and closes with... > Read more
Mae West: A Guy What Takes His Time
Various Artists: The Ideal . . . Dinner Party (Global Journey/Rajon)
12 Sep 2010 | <1 min read
And now for something completely different, just because we can. I spotted this series of CDs with recipes and they are absurdly cheap, so . . . This series by chef Bettina Samain offers you simple four course, themed dinner party recipes for Mexican, Italian, Chinese, French, Indian and Thai evenings. The recipes are alarmingly simple -- chefs among you will embellish, more chilli... > Read more
Generic Mexican music to eat to
Annemarie Duff: Music for Sleep and Creativity (Mmdelai)
12 Sep 2010 | 1 min read | 1
Because I confess a love for Brian Eno's ambient music -- and that what I call "massage music" isn't unfamiliar in my home (my wife does massage) -- I have heard my share of music which can be either vacuous or beguiling . . . and there's a fine line betweeen them. New Age spawned a lot of music which was also neither, it just was. But wasn't really. Duff out of Christchurch... > Read more
Annemarie Duff: Bark Sketches
Eru Dangerspiel: Great News for Modern Man (Loop)
6 Sep 2010 | <1 min read
The Eru Dangerspiel rock'n'rolling caravan of soul, funk, reggae and more is helmed by Riki Gooch, formerly of TrinityRoots and here, recorded live at the Auckland Town Hall in August '09, the whole huge ensemble invited you to "leave your shit at the door" and get down with their good time grooves. With an extraordinary line-up of talent -- Jonathan Crayord on keyboards, jazz... > Read more