Music at Elsewhere
Subscribe to my newsletter for weekly updates.
Dave Alvin and the Guilty Women: Dave Alvin and the Guilty Women (YepRoc/Southbound)
22 Jun 2009 | <1 min read
Dave Alvin appeared at Elsewhere recently as the man behind the all-star tribute to his friend and accordionist in his band The Guilty Men, Chris Gaffney. This album owes its origins to the death of Gaffney in 2008: Alvin's Guilty Men weren't working after Gaffney's death but there was a gig scheduled so he needed to put something together and started with dobro player Cindy Cashdollar. One... > Read more
Dave Alvin and the Guilty Women: Potter's Field
Various: Man of Somebody's Dreams: A Tribute to Chris Gaffney (YepRoc/Southbound)
15 Jun 2009 | <1 min read
The late Chris Gaffney was not only a member of the justifiably acclaimed Hacienda Brothers (whose albums What's Wrong With Right? and Arizona Motel have been Elsewhere favourites), but he was a gifted songwriter who could write across many Americana idioms from country to norteno polka, rock'n'roll to soulful r'n'b. He also made a lot of friends as he toured relentlessly, among them... > Read more
Tom Russell: If Daddy Don't Sing Danny Boy
Beck: One Foot in the Grave (XL)
15 Jun 2009 | 1 min read
For a very brief period in the early Nineties Beck was hailed as the Dylan of his generation (another in the "new Dylan" lineage which began back with Donovan, Loudon Wainwright III etc in the mid Sixties) and it was because of music like this from '94, an indie album which was recorded before Mellow Gold but released after the success of that album. Its (release) position between... > Read more
Beck: Hollow Log
Iron and Wine: Around the Well (SubPop/Rhythmethod)
15 Jun 2009 | 1 min read | 2
As a nom de disque/stage name Iron and Wine seems as inappropriate and unhelpful as a product description as Mojave 3. Don't know about you but Iron and Wine sounds a bit on the metal side of mayhem to me. Of course Sam Beam who is Iron and Wine is anything but noisy, he's one of those quiet and considered and sometime eccentric singer-songwriters in the alt.country/neo-psychedelic poetics... > Read more
Iron and Wine: Carried Home
Rodriguez: Coming from Reality (Light in the Attic)
15 Jun 2009 | 2 min read | 2
Seventies cult singer-songwriter Rodriguez appeared at Elsewhere when his terrific debut Cold Fact got a long overdue reissue. He's the kind of person you know and love, or simply don't get at all. Oddly enough he was "got" in South Africa and Australia back in the day, although his two albums -- Cold Fact and Coming From Reality -- virtually died in the States. After the... > Read more
Rodriguez: Climb Up On My Music
Hikoikoi: Hikoikoi (Hikoikoi)
8 Jun 2009 | 1 min read
In a country which has so many pressing social issues it has always struck me as interesting that reggae -- often the voice of the disenfranchised and dispossessed -- has, in this nation, most often erred to the more gentle and less controversial end of the spectrum. Perhaps it is emblematic of our country that we prefer "consciousness" reggae rather than the confrontational kind.... > Read more
Hokoikoi: Children a Delight
The Middle East: The Recordings of the Middle East (Spunk)
8 Jun 2009 | <1 min read | 2
Okay this is odd: this seems to be a belated five-song EP taken from an album of the same name from early last year by an Australian band (collective?) which has broken up **. So this sampler seems well after the fact, which is disappointing because their alt.folk style would certainly appeal to people with a taste for Espers, Fleet Foxes, Grizzly Bear, recent Bonnie "Prince"... > Read more
The Middle East: The Darkest Side
The Checks: Alice By The Moon (Pie Club)
8 Jun 2009 | 1 min read | 3
If this was "the difficult second album" for local rock'n'roll darlings The Checks it certainly doesn't sound it: it struts with well placed self-assurance and if in places the song-craft isn't quite what we might expect you have to hand it to them, they have broadened their palette from that British r'n'b rock '65 sound which was their hallmark. Here they cannon off into thick... > Read more
The Checks: God Birds
Simon and Garfunkel: Live 1969 (Sony)
6 Jun 2009 | <1 min read | 1
They certainly don't look like this these days (but who does look like their 40 year old photos?) but it isn't impossible that in concert they will sound sufficiently similar, maybe just pitched down an octave or so. Back in '69 when the songs on this album were recorded during their last tour together for well over a decade, the hit-machine that was Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel had recorded... > Read more
Simon and Garfunkel: Bridge Over Troubled Waters (1969)
Fat Freddy's Drop: Dr Boondigga and The Big BW (The Drop)
31 May 2009 | 1 min read | 1
I was among the seven people in the country who wasn't totally besotted with Fat Freddys' debut Based on a True Story (although perhaps a more appropriate title might have been Based on a Best Seller). Didn't it quickly turn into dinner music for people too cool for Norah Jones? So given that, maybe my opinion on this long awaited follow-up counts for nowt. But here goes. I... > Read more
Fat Freddys Drop: Wild Wind
Grizzly Bear: Veckatimest (Warp)
31 May 2009 | 2 min read
The only problem New York's Grizzly Bear have as far as I can tell is that they are part of rock culture and, as with Fleet Foxes, are clearly a world away from any expectation that the word "rock" still carries. While stumbling towards descriptive phrases for this album some writers have alighted upon "baroque pop", "psychedelic folk" and so on. So here's the... > Read more
Grizzly Bear: About Face
Daby Toure and Skip McDonald: Call My Name (Proper)
30 May 2009 | <1 min read
Given that singer/guitarist/bassist Skip McDonald is somewhat of an Elsewhere favourite in his Little Axe guise and here get assistance from drummer Keith LeBlanc, McDonald's fellow traveller in the Sugar Hill Band, then later with On-U Sound and working with everyone from the Rolling Stones to Living Colour, it would be good to like this more. But this six track EP never quite rises to... > Read more
Daby Toure and Skip McDonald: Time Has Come
Melanie Pain: My Name (Cartell/Border)
30 May 2009 | 1 min read | 2
While Phil Spector was being charged with murder there were any number of stories of how he would wave guns around, but rather fewer people noted that back in 1962 he'd recorded the rather dodgy He Hit Me (And It Felt Like A Kiss) -- penned by Gerry Goffin and Carole King curiously enough with lyrics that run "when I told him I had been untrue he hit me and it felt like a kiss . . . he hit... > Read more
Melanie Pain: Everything I Know
The Calico Brothers: Tell It To The Sun (Double Happy)
30 May 2009 | 1 min read
These "brothers" from Auckland got a nice notice at Elsewhere for their debut EP God Left Town noting however that they seemed an amusing sum of influences such as the Traveling Wilburys (with Lennon not Orbison in the line-up), strum'n'sing Tom Petty and so on. Here those influences are slightly tempered -- although in the case of Is There Anyone There? they've borrowed so... > Read more
The Calico Brothers: Always Said I'd Do
Various: Simply the Best; New Wave (Rhino/Warners)
30 May 2009 | 1 min read
Billed also as "34 punk pop classics" this double disc illustrates just how bewildering but rewarding that period in the late Seventies was when the punk ethos (energy, short sharp songs) was given a slight sheen of musicianship and production values. Nothing here says "punk" to me as we understand that bristling UK movement spearheaded by the Sex Pistols, the Clash and... > Read more
Wreckless Eric: Whole Wide World
John Martyn: May You Never, The Very Best of John Martyn (Universal)
30 May 2009 | <1 min read
Sadly you suspect this compilation would not have appeared if John Martyn hadn't died in January 2009. The great British singer-songwriter had a troubled life but along the way created some exceptional music. His finest record -- and an Essential Elsewhere album -- Solid Air of '73 has been simultaneously reissued in a Deluxe Edition, and last year his dark, post-separation album Grace... > Read more
hn Martyn: Small Hours
Jarvis Cocker: Further Complications (Rough Trade)
30 May 2009 | <1 min read
Chapter Seven: In which our hero in the company of producer Steve Albini undertakes a daring journey to his inner Bowie but cannot decide between the glam-rock of Ziggy or the avant-rock of Tin Machine -- so heroically aims for both simultanously, despite the absence of decent songs and Albini's crunching attack. Our hero manfully makes it to the end of the 11 tracks, but it is likely... > Read more
Jarvis Cocker: Caucasian Blues
The Vaselines: Enter the Vaselines (SubPop/Rhythmethod)
29 May 2009 | 2 min read
You'd have thought that by the Vaselines having Kurt Cobain as an uber-fan (Nirvana covered three Vaselines songs including Jesus Wants Me For A Sunbeam aka Jesus Doesn't Want Me For A Sunbeam) that this duo from Glasgow would have become huge. But rock doesn't work that way: Cobain was also a big fan of Daniel Johnston but as a major label found out after it signed him, that didn't... > Read more
The Vaselines: Slushy
Various: Playing for Change (Hear Music/Universal)
29 May 2009 | 1 min read
You leave yourself open to contempt and not supporting the good cause if you slag off a Save the Whales/Orphans/Poor concert if you observe "but the music was awful". So it is with this album. The worthy Playing for Change idea is that of a multi-media global movement which connects people through music and of course brings peace to the world. Healthy scepticism says they've got... > Read more
Playing for Change: One Love
Various: The Little Red Box of Protest Songs (Proper/Southbound)
24 May 2009 | 1 min read
Perhaps this three-CD box set (with a DVD and booklet) might be subtitled "Songs for the New Recession" as the songs here have an almost alarming resonance, despite them being sourced from the Wobblies of a century ago and making their way into the contemporary world via Depression days and then the likes of Pete Seeger who has kept their spirit alive. Seeger, who is 90, has come... > Read more