Music at Elsewhere

BEST OF ELSEWHERE 2009 The Beatles Remasters (EMI)

17 Dec 2009 | <1 min read

Much as it is possible to love every crackle and piece of surface noise on the original vinyl albums which some still have or have inherited, the remastering brought out an energy and vitality in the Beatles catalogue which was undeniable. The music (and the Beatles Rock Band game) was much essayed at Elsewhere on release (I heard the recordings in Abbey Road back in June) but the truth is... > Read more

The Beatles: Happiness is a Warm Gun (from "The White Album", mono version)

BEST OF ELSEWHERE 2009 Various: Stroke; Songs for Chris Knox (Rhythmethod)

17 Dec 2009 | 3 min read | 2

There's an unstated but obviously very sensible practice that most critics adopt: you never review a show or album which is raising money for a good cause. If the show is lousy and you say as much then that can be misread as you not supporting the cause. Same goes for an album. Didn't like the kiddie choir at the Plunket show means you are anti-motherhood, right? That kind of thing. The... > Read more

The Mountain Goats: Brave

Gordon Gano and the Ryans: Under the Sun (YepRoc)

14 Dec 2009 | 1 min read

While the solo career of multi-instrumentalist Brian Ritchie has been the most rewarding of the Violent Femmes because of his interest in world music and the jazz of Sun Ra, as the Femmes vocalist Gano was always going to have a more distinctive profile. With the Femmes effectively disbanded -- Ritchie lives in Tasmania -- Gano steps out under his own name with the Ryans (guitarist Billy and... > Read more

Gordon Gano and the Ryans: Home

Tom Waits: Glitter and Doom Live (Anti/Shock)

14 Dec 2009 | 2 min read | 1

Barney Hoskyn's recent useful but flawed Waits biography Lowside of the Road ended with the writer going to see Tom Waits in concert on this brief tour which was widely acclaimed as the best of 2008. Waits hadn't been out live in some while (11 years since he'd last appeared in the UK) and as a result his cachet had grown and expectation was high. And Waits -- ever the entertainer -- didn't... > Read more

Tom Waits: The Part You Throw Away

Various Artists: Ten Guitars, the New Zealand Heartland Soundtrack (Universal)

14 Dec 2009 | 1 min read | 1

Walking in to a CD/DVD store recently I heard the most unexpected song playing, it was Amigo by Black Slate, a British reggae band which had a brief fliration with the charts at the dawn of the Eighties with this pop-reggae crossover single. They came to Auckland and played a Town Hall gig with Herbs and my recollection, seared in my memory actually, was of going to the gig and being one... > Read more

Patea Maori: Poi E

New and Noted

13 Dec 2009 | 3 min read

At this time of year -- Christmas but 10 days away -- there is a slew of releases and while no sane reviewer would want to deal with every Yuletide-themed album (Dylan's worthy outing doesn't get a mention at Elsewhere, you can figure that one out for yourself) there are still a number of albums clamouring for attention which at least deserve to be acknowledged. Here then are potted reviews... > Read more

Carla Bley/Stev Swallow: O Holy Night (from Carla's Christmas Carols, see below))

Linda Ronstadt: Hand Sown . .. Home Grown/Silk Purse (Raven/EMI)

13 Dec 2009 | 1 min read

Long before she was a country-rock cover star and dating California governor Jerry Brown in the late Seventies, Linda Ronstadt was a singer struggling to find her forte. Her albums with the Stone Poneys showed her folk-rock chops and their cover of Mike Nesmith's Different Drum gave them a hit but also signalled a solo career beckoning for Ronstadt. Her first two solo albums from '69... > Read more

Linda Ronstadt: Lovesick Blues (from Silk Purse)

Baskery: Fall Among Thieves (Glitterhouse/Yellow Eye)

13 Dec 2009 | 1 min read

Recently I flipped on yet another faux-country alt.folk album and listened to university educated people pretending they were Appalachian mountain dwellers imbued with a rural spirit and old time religion. I thought, "Spare me much more of this!" And then comes this album to reinvigorate my interest in a mighty crowded genre -- and of course they are the furtherest thing from... > Read more

Baskery: Haunt You

Lisa Germano: Magic Neighbor (Young God Records)

13 Dec 2009 | <1 min read

Given that the cover art here is by Auckland's West Coast artist Dean Buchanan, we might guess that singer/violinist/composer Germano encountered his work when she was in New Zealand in April 2001 for Neil Finn's 7 Worlds Collide project. Certainly Buchanan's dark and mysterious work is appropriate here because Germano's music is much the same: there is a surface loveliness hinted at but... > Read more

Lisa Germano: Snow

The Phoenix Foundation: Merry Kriskmass EP (Phoenix Foundation)

13 Dec 2009 | <1 min read

If you believe the anti-hype, this isn't exactly the Phoenix Foundation's cash-in on Christmas but has been inspired by The Krisk who is -- and I am just quoting here -- "a small stuffed white man who rides a reindeer". It is he who appears on the cover, has inspired this six-song EP (plus uncredited but uninteresting soundscapes buried away at the end) and is the subject of the... > Read more

The Phoenix Foundation: Everybody's Money

Them Crooked Vultures: Them Crooked Vultures (Sony)

13 Dec 2009 | <1 min read

This will be brief for a couple of reasons: this genuine supergroup of Dave Grohl (Nirvana, Foo Fighters), Josh Homme (Queens of the Stone Age) and John Paul Jones (Led Zeppelin) has already been given wide-exposure, and that in this instance Elsewhere has been running a bit late. (Got waylaid by a Guy Clark album or somesuch) So the short of it is that this is usefully mature and loud hard... > Read more

Them Crooked Vultures: Spinning in Daffodils

Various Artists: s3d (ear and eye) Atoll CD/DVD

13 Dec 2009 | 1 min read

In 1996 Ellipsis Arts in the US released a CD and book package entitled Gravikords, Whirlies and Pyrophones: Experimental Musical Instruments. It was compiled by Bart Hopkin who had edited the journal Experimental Musical Instruments for over a decade at that point. The foreward was written by Tom Waits who had begun his career-changing journey into using odd instruments and machinery, some... > Read more

Yek Koo on cardboard record players

Various Artists: The Lennon and McCartney Songbook (EMI)

12 Dec 2009 | 1 min read

While there have been quite a number of such compilations in the past interest alights on this one in particular because it has been pulled together by EMI New Zealands in-house memoryman Bruce Ward who does a fine job on such collections -- and here writes the intelligent liner essay. The Lennon and McCartney team were giving away hits in their early career until about late '65 and a few of... > Read more

Bernard Cribbins: When I'm Sixty Four

Guy Clark: Somedays the Song Writes You (Dualtone)

7 Dec 2009 | <1 min read

Now in his late 60s -- he turned 68 in November -- this great Texas singer-songwriter is sounding very weak'n'weary in these 10 co-writes and his cover of Townes Van Zandt's If I Needed You. And that is its very strength. Clark brings a melancholy reflectiveness or quiet gravitas to these lyrics and whether it be considering the mysteries of the songwriting process ("you can search... > Read more

Guy Clark: Eamon

Bap Kennedy: Howl On (Lonely Street Discs)

7 Dec 2009 | 1 min read

After time in the Irish band Energy Orchard, Kennedy spent many years in the America he was obsessed with as a child. For this moving tribute to the America of his dreams -- and specifically the days of the Apollo Mission to the moon and Woodstock -- he gives concept albums a good name. Now back in Belfast after his Nashville period, he reflects on his recent passion for the moon landings... > Read more

Bap Kennedy: The Right Stuff

Strike: Sketches (Strike)

6 Dec 2009 | 1 min read

Don't know about you, but just out of curiosity I'd listen to a piece of music which featured "water nipple gong". That particular instrument -- and I'm not going to ask further -- is but one in the battery of percussion played by the New Zealand ensemble Strike: water vibes, spoons, PVC pipes, various bowls and flower pots (in the manner of Stephan Micus), plastic tubs and brake... > Read more

Strike: Hydrophonics

Fatcat and Fishface: Birdbrain (Jayrem)

6 Dec 2009 | <1 min read | 3

This irreverent outfit who sing songs ostensibly for children but with major adult appeal, have appeared at Elsewhere previously with their very silly The Bestest and Most Horriblest Songs for Children. They are more Spike Milligan and Monty Python than Teletubbies and Play School. This one is aimed rather further up the kiddie demographic than Bestest (8 to 14 would be my guess) because it... > Read more

Fatcat and Fishface: Kea

Brilleaux: Decade (Brilleaux)

6 Dec 2009 | 1 min read | 2

You -- well, I -- admire a rock'n'roll r'n'b band that names itself after the late lead singer of the British pub rock band Dr Feelgood whose Stupidity album from '76 is mandatory in any Essential Elsewhere collection. And this four-piece who make their energetic pub-rock sound at jazz and blues festivals (and I am guessing excellent parties), don't stray too far from the Feelgood... > Read more

Brilleaux: It Wasn't Me

Rupa and the April Fishes: Este Mundo (Cumbancha)

6 Dec 2009 | 1 min read

The implosion of Latin American party music, gypsy-swing, klezmer jazz and loping reggae is familiar enough in this country: from Kantuta, the Nairobi Trio and the Jews Brothers Band to the Mamaku Project and the somewhat questionable Benka Boradovsky Bordello Band we in New Zealand have been seduced, educated, charmed and dragged onto dance floors. We seem to like it, although the... > Read more

Rupa and the April Fishes: La Estrella Caida

Robyn Hitchcock: I Often Dream of Trains in New York (Yep Rock/Southbound DVD)

30 Nov 2009 | 2 min read

Robyn Hitchcock is one of those enjoyably intellectual, slightly eccentric English singer-songwriters who are either central to your life or barely come to your attention. He first made his name in the punk era with the folkadelic punk band the Soft Boys, and there were few bands of that era which wrote songs with titles such as It's Not Just the Size of a Walnut, Where are the Prawns?,... > Read more