The Famous Elsewhere Questionnaire
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THE FAMOUS ELSEWHERE JAZZ QUESTIONNAIRE: Jonathan Crayford
29 Apr 2017 | 5 min read
New Zealand pianist/composer is among this country’s most consistently impressive jazz artists – his most recent album East West Moon is a finalist in the album of the year at this year’s jazz awards – but he has just announced a series of concerts which are something rather different. For some shows with drummer Ross Burge (as Spanner) he straps on electric... > Read more
Dark Light, from Dark Light (2014)
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THE FAMOUS ELSEWHERE PRODUCER QUESTIONNAIRE: Levi Patel
7 Apr 2017 | 4 min read
Composer/producer Levi Patel has just released one of New Zealand's most beautiful and sophisticated debut albums with Affinity. After two EPs – Forms three years ago, and Of Sleep And Time in 2015, their titles hinting at their dreamlike ambient qualities – his debut album incorporates acoustic instruments alongside his signature synth and electronica sound. The... > Read more
Something Still
THE FAMOUS ELSEWHERE QUESTIONNAIRE: Kornelia Binicewicz
3 Apr 2017 | 2 min read
Kornelia Binicewicz came to our attention as the smart curator behind the excellent Uzelli Psychedelic Anadolu collection which brought together out-there Turkish rock and folk from a decade starting in the mid Seventies. It was music the like of which we hadn't heard before. When we did a web search her equally excellent website Ladies on Record; 60s and 70s Female Music came up.... > Read more
Oksuruk, from Uzelli Psychedelic Anadolu
THE FAMOUS ELSEWHERE SONGWRITERS' QUESTIONNAIRE: Ant Beard of Caravana Sun
30 Mar 2017 | 3 min read
Australian band Caravana Sun may not be well known on this side of the Tasman, but that will doubtless change with their forthcoming tour (see dates below) and once songs like Whale Song start to stick. Whale Song is from their third album Guerrilla Club (recorded in Freemantle with producer Joey Quartermain of Eskimo Joe fame) and songs like Open Up on the album connects the... > Read more
THE FAMOUS ELSEWHERE JAZZ QUESTIONNAIRE: Michael League of Snarky Puppy
30 Mar 2017 | 3 min read
Few jazz groups today command the massive audience which Snarky Puppy have. Many of their pieces have multiple million plays on Spotify. The Grammy-grabbing collective – which picked up best r'n'b performance in 2014 and best contemporary instrumental album the following year for Sylva which was a collaboration with the Holland's Metropole Orchestra – can call on a roster... > Read more
Tarova
THE FAMOUS ELSEWHERE JAZZ QUESTIONNAIRE: Andy Sugg
24 Mar 2017 | 3 min read
Saxophonist Andy Sugg is Melbourne-based and touring regularly across Australia and to Europe and the US. But he hasn't made it to New Zealand . . . yet. In April he brings his band here to promote his new CD Wednesday's at M's (dates and venues below) which was recorded in New York last year with some expats and New Yorkers, including drummer Nate Wood (Snarky Puppy) and pianist Sean... > Read more
Hemispheric Part 2
THE FAMOUS ELSEWHERE QUESTIONNAIRE: Lord Echo
13 Mar 2017 | 2 min read
Some people chose excellent names for themselves, as has this Wellington producer/DJ with Lord Echo . . . because he brings to world of Jamaican and African styles together in a techno/disco-soul mash-up. And when we say he's “big in Japan” it isn't a bad joke. Check the clip for his 2015 tour there and get the groove-vibe. He's got albums and disco singles out there... > Read more
THE FAMOUS ELSEWHERE QUESTIONNAIRE: Swan Sisters
10 Mar 2017 | 2 min read
The Swan Sisters are Amiria Grenell and Amy Grace, an acoustic folk duo who have each had independent and highly successful careers, much of it offshore from New Zealand. Grenell – who answered a different questionnaire previously and is daughter of respected country singer John – won a Tui folk award for her second album Three Feathers in 2012 and was a finalist in the... > Read more
THE FAMOUS ELSEWHERE QUESTIONNAIRE: Baynk
9 Mar 2017 | 3 min read
A case of mild-mannered engineering student by day, cool musician by night? Two years ago Jock Nowell-Usticke – who performs as Baynk – was studying at Canterbury when he released his first single Sundae, an impressive slice of slinky slow-building electronica. And on the back of that he was picked to play Laneway, had his follow-up Could You on Vice and now –... > Read more
THE FAMOUS ELSEWHERE SONGWRITERS' QUESTIONNAIRE: Jackie Bristow
8 Mar 2017 | 4 min read
As a singer-songwriter, Jackie Bristow, formerly of the South Island, found her natural home in Austin many years ago. Her excellent Shot of Gold album of last year confirmed her as a writer of depth and stature, and a persuasive singer, and in producer/guitarist Mark Punch she found someone empathetic to her sound. We had in our best of the year list. Bristow and Punch are... > Read more
I Don't Want to Come Down
THE FAMOUS ELSEWHERE QUESTIONNAIRE: Elliott Hammond of the Delta Riggs
25 Feb 2017 | 2 min read
Further down in this interview, Elliott Hammond of Australia's Delta Riggs describes himself as "a peculiar dude". He's not really but his musical tastes to reflect a rare openness (Harry Connick Jnr to Iggy Pop) . . . and that is reflected in Delta Riggs' enjoyable and sometimes witty guitar-driven funk rock. Their recent album Active Galactic is an unapologetic meltdown of... > Read more
Never Seen This Before
THE FAMOUS ELSEWHERE QUESTIONNAIRE: Silver of Push Push
23 Jan 2017 | 2 min read
Here's a true story from the battleground of fun. It was the very late Eighties and the young man was carrying a skateboard and hitchhiking on Onewa Rd in Northcote, heading into central Auckland. When he got in the car and we started talking I asked him what he was going to be, or some dumb question like that. He said without hesitation, “a rock star” . . . and... > Read more
THE FAMOUS ELSEWHERE SONGWRITER QUESTIONNAIRE: Candice Milner
2 Dec 2016 | 3 min read
No musician just appears out of nowhere . . . although Candice Milner, now 18, comes pretty close. Her single Run For It won the audience.co.nz monthly chart in June and that set her on the path to her debut album Evergreen. Recorded in her hometown of Lyttelton with Ben Edwards and a band of sympathetic players, Evergreen is an impressively diverse collection of songs which ease... > Read more
Gallery
THE FAMOUS ELSEWHERE SONGWRITER QUESTIONNAIRE: Rachael Price of Lake Street Dive
28 Nov 2016 | 2 min read
You only needed to see Lake Street Dive's You Tube of them singing The Jackson' Five's I Want You Back on street in Boston four years ago to realise they were pretty special. The quartet had met at the New England Conservatory of Music and had bonded over a love of Motown and classic Sixties pop with touches of country. They'd taken their time: in late 2014 when we spoke with... > Read more
THE FAMOUS ELSEWHERE QUESTIONNAIRE: Troy Kingi
21 Nov 2016 | 2 min read
With his debut album Guitar Party at Uncle's Bach, Troy Kingi arrived with a crash. It is a beautifully packaged double disc attributed to Troy Kingi and the Electric Haka Boogie. It seems like the 32-year old Northland singer-guitarist came from nowhere but he co-wrote the hit Aotearoa with Stan Walker and he's played with Mara TK (Electric Wire Hustle) and as an actor he has... > Read more
Cold Steel
THE FAMOUS ELSEWHERE SONGWRITER QUESTIONNAIRE: Anna Coddington
21 Oct 2016 | 3 min read
Some things you may not know about New Zealand singer-songwriter Anna Coddington, whose third album Luck/Time is released today: That she is -- and we quote the press release here -- the face of Trilogy Skincare, has an MA in Linguistics and is a second Dan Black Belt in karate. Oh, and runs marathons, wrote all but one of the 12 tracks on Luck/Time (the other a co-write) and produced all... > Read more
Without a Fight
THE FAMOUS ELSEWHERE SONGWRITER QUESTIONNAIRE: Ben Morley of Mice On Stilts
26 Sep 2016 | 2 min read
It's fair to say that we probably haven't seen or a heard a band like Auckland six-piece Mice on Stilts for decades, perhaps even ever before. Their expansive music owes debts to atmospheric prog-rock and romantic classic music with touches of introverted folk and . . . You get the picture? Elsewhere was very enthusiastic about their debut EP An Ocean Held Me and first album... > Read more
The Hours
THE FAMOUS ELSEWHERE QUESTIONNAIRE: Ross Mullins
26 Sep 2016 | 3 min read
It has been more than a wee while – he says 17 years in the liner notes to his current album – since we have heard new music from Ross Mullins, once the unofficial Musician-in-Residence in his home suburb of Devonport. From the mid Eighties with his acclaimed debut album State House Kid, songwriter-singer and keyboard player Mullins – who fronted the band Last Man... > Read more
Koromiko Road
THE FAMOUS ELSEWHERE JAZZ QUESTIONNAIRE: Florian Ross
26 Sep 2016 | 3 min read
German pianist and composer Florian Ross has done it all, from solo piano recordings through to big bands with a little organ-fronted trio along the way. He studied in Cologne, London and New York, has taught in a number of German academies and universities, and has released a dozen albums. He's played alongside Kenny Wheeler, Vince Mendoza and John Scofield . .... > Read more
THE FAMOUS ELSEWHERE JAZZ QUESTIONNAIRE: DeWayne Pate
26 Sep 2016 | 2 min read
Jazz bassist DeWayne Pate from San Francisco has played with some of the most famous musicians of the past 30 years, and across an impressive musical spectrum: bluesmen like Duke Robilliard and Charlie Musselwhite, pop and rockers like Pat Benetar and Huey Lewis, country legend Sneaky Pete Kleinow, Boz Scaggs . . . Jazz of course remains his first love and as a technically gifted player... > Read more