Writing in Elsewhere
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LINTON KWESI JOHNSON INTERVIEWED 2OO4: The poet speaks of tings and times a-changin'
1 Nov 2010 | 8 min read
They were the happiest days of my life, the poet recalls as he sits in winter-blown London."I was born in a little town called Chapelton in rural Jamaica," he says with what could pass for wistfulness. "My parents were peasant farmers and my mother went to live in Kingston and eventually came here. During that time I stayed with my grandmother. I loved the country living. We... > Read more
LKJ: Come Wi Goh Dung Deh
NEIL YOUNG; LONG MAY YOU RUN, THE ILLUSTRATED HISTORY by DANIEL DURCHHOLZ and GARY GRAFF
4 Oct 2010 | 1 min read
Neil Young has hardly been short on books covering just about every aspect of his life: there have been biographies, his dad wrote a book about their relationship, there is the collection of articles from the files of Rolling Stone . . . And the man has often beeen autobiographical in song. But this beautifully presented, full colour, 225 page hardback -- with exceptional photos,... > Read more
Neil Young: Cortez the Killer (from Weld, 1991)
LOST IN MUSIC, by GILES SMITH
27 Sep 2010 | 3 min read
Pop obsession can be tragic stuff: those long days in record shops searching for an obscure Flock of Seagulls 12-inch; the nights spent putting all your albums into alphabetical order (do solo projects by Roddy Frame go with Aztec Camera or get their own space?); the decisions to be made when moving in with someone (do you pool your records and trade in the duplicates? And if so, whose... > Read more
MAGICAL MYSTERY TOURS by TONY BRAMWELL: Not only a northern song
20 Sep 2010 | 3 min read
Tony Bramwell -- who sounds like great man to have a martini with -- has had an extrordinary life, and not just because he was a childhood friend of the Beatles, became their manager Brian Epstein's off-sider, and -- as their road manager and CEO of Apple Records and Films -- was one of a small inner sanctum around the band until they went their separate ways. His extraordinary life... > Read more
I WANT TO TAKE YOU HIGHER: THE PSYCHEDELIC YEARS 1965-69 edited by JAMES HENKE AND PARKE PUTERBAUGH
19 Sep 2010 | 5 min read
Somewhere among my old photographs at home is one of me standing beside John Lennon’s psychedelic Rolls Royce. It was London in late ‘69 and -- aside from revealing the embarrassing affectation of a black cape -- it‘s most interesting for what is in the background: a Morris Minor of the kind that was considerably more common than Rollers painted like gypsy caravans. It all... > Read more
Notes from the Underground: Why Did You Put Me On (1968)
INVISIBLE REPUBLIC; BOB DYLAN'S BASEMENT TAPES by GREIL MARCUS:
12 Sep 2010 | 1 min read
When Bob Dylan skidded off his motorcycle in upstate New York in mid-1966, it allowed him an extraordinary career hiatus. Before his accident - which some Dylan bores still insist never happened - he’d been a Woody Guthrie wannabe, a folk troubadour and protest singer. Then, by plugging in an electric guitar and touring with a group which would later become the Band, he turned... > Read more
BLOOD & RAGE: A CULTURAL HISTORY OF TERRORISM by MICHAEL BURLEIGH: We who are about to die . . .
11 Sep 2010 | 3 min read
President Barack Obama’s recent speeches directed at the Islamic world – coded or clear – are an obvious attempt to defuse (or perhaps simply diffuse) the flashpoints between the West and the Muslim world. Many argue this overdue hand of friendship and a willingness to engage in dialogue will assuage the current climate of mistrust and fear which has lead to disaffected people... > Read more
Bruce Springsteen: You're Missing (from The Rising, 2002)
LISTENING TO VAN MORRISON by GREIL MARCUS
6 Sep 2010 | 1 min read | 3
Music writer Marcus is so well ensconced in the pantheon of great rock writers that his books are universally hailed on publication. But this one -- a series of essays on Morrison's music which, confusingly, comes in the same cover photo as another similar Morrison book and appears in the US and UK entitled When That Rough God Goes Riding -- will be more frustrating than illuminating for... > Read more
ROCK ME AMADEUS by SEB HUNTER: One man's journey into classical music, and out again
5 Sep 2010 | 2 min read
For those who have grown up within rock culture, author Hunter is the courageous advance guard into the world of classical music. A self-confessed addict of popular music who buys rock magazines such as Mojo, Uncut, and Record Collector (and NME although he hides that inside the Guardian so people don’t think he’s a paedophile), the lank-haired and sartorially unfashionable Hunter... > Read more
CAN'T BE SATISFIED, THE LIFE AND TIMES OF MUDDY WATERS by ROBERT GORDON
30 Aug 2010 | 3 min read | 2
When McKinley Morganfield’s grandmother named him Muddy after the nearby Mississippi and he later took the surname Waters, there seemed something oddly symbolic in it. Here was man who wasn’t born in the year he said he was, claimed a town he wasn’t born in as his birthplace and carried a name he wasn’t born with. These are muddy waters indeed. Yet in that there... > Read more
JOHNNY CASH AT FOLSOM PRISON;THE MAKING OF A MASTERPIECE by MICHEAL STREISSGUTH
30 Aug 2010 | 2 min read | 1
A hip comedy club, New York, late 1980s. The stand-up delivers a one-liner which has the smart set baying: "Does anyone know why Johnny Cash still wears black?" At the time Cash's career was in one of its periodic lows. In the 90s it would be turned around with the spare and elemental albums under the genre-defining banner American Recordings, and by the time of his death... > Read more
VINYL HAYRIDE; COUNTRY MUSIC ALBUM COVERS 1947-89 by PAUL KINGSBURY
23 Aug 2010 | 1 min read
The purest strain of American country music -- not the pop-schlock of Shania Twain or the credible singer-songwriters out of Texas -- bewilders most people. It can be cornball, sentimental, blindly patriotic, hypocritically conservative, and often just plain strange. It is also, to cite Nick Tosche's excellent studies of it, "the biggest music in America" and "the twisted roots... > Read more
THE VELVET UNDERGROUND: AN ILLUSTRATED HISTORY OF A WALK ON THE WILD SIDE by JIM DeROGATIS: When the whip comes down
22 Aug 2010 | 5 min read
In 1976 the musician/producer and music theorist Brian Eno said to Punk magazine of New York’s the Velvet Underground: “I knew that they were going to be one of the most interesting groups and that there would be a time when it wouldn’t be the Beatles up there and then all these other groups down there. “It would be a question of attempting to assess the relative... > Read more
The Velvet Underground: Venus in Furs
ELVIS: A CELEBRATION by MIKE EVANS
16 Aug 2010 | 2 min read
In a recent interview with Elsewhere, Memphis author Robert Gordon, who has often written on Elvis Presley, had a smart rejoinder when asked if the King might not become like Marilyn Monroe, an icon better known for his image than what he did. "Well, Marilyn Monroe didn't have the Sun sessions," he said, referring to those classic rock'n'roll sessions of '54. But Gordon also... > Read more
DOWN AT THE END OF LONELY STREET by PETER BROWN and PAT BROESKE: The rise and fall of the King
16 Aug 2010 | 2 min read
With the second volume of Peter Guralnick’s definitive two-part biography of Elvis, Careless Love: The Unmaking of Elvis Presley there would seem little reason to be interested in this more modest paperback subtitled with blunt literalism The Life and Death of Elvis Presley. However, Brown and Broeske have done their homework and cite numerous personal interviews with major... > Read more
MIND OVER MATTER: THE IMAGES OF PINK FLOYD by STORM THORGERSON AND PETER CURZON: Memorable lapses of reason
9 Aug 2010 | 2 min read
For many Pink Floyd fans the name of photographer/designer Storm Thorgerson conjures up an image of some Scandinavian psychedelic traveller, hair blowing in the breeze as he traverses landscapes of the subconscious and alights on startlingly personal visions which then become public proprerty. Thorgerson is the man with a mainline to the images which have long been associated with this... > Read more
Pink Floyd: Astronomy Domine
SLEEPING WITH GHOSTS by DON MCcCULLIN: War -- and something approaching peace
6 Aug 2010 | 2 min read
In one of those excellent but buried television programmes, various photographers who were in the Vietnam killing zones told of the stories behind some of those images imprinted on the collective memory of a generation. That shot of the young girl running down the road, her back on fire from napalm? It was initially rejected because it showed frontal nudity. The policeman... > Read more
20TH CENTURY DREAMS by NIK COHN AND GUY PEELAERT: A life less ordinary
2 Aug 2010 | 2 min read
Max Vail was an extraordinary character. Part-Zelig and part-Chauncey Gardiner, he was seen in the company of the great and famous throughout last century. He counted among his friends Andy Warhol, John Lennon, Rudolph Nureyev, Truman Capote and all the important Kennedys. His funeral in 2000 - he died at age 100, his life spanning the century that he somehow defined -- was attended by... > Read more
BIGGLES SHOT DOWN: But not by the Boche this time
23 Jul 2010 | 5 min read
The thrilling air adventure of Biggles in World War One flew pretty close to reality. Take the case of the Belgian aerial observer whose balloon shared the skies with glue-and-matchstick flying machines flown by heroic young adventurers. His balloon caught fire and he slid back to earth 3000 feet down the steel mooring cable -- and lived. William Earle Johns, creator of the legendary... > Read more
CLEOPATRA; HISTORIES, DREAMS AND DISTORTIONS by LUCY HALLETT-HUGHES
19 Jul 2010 | 2 min read
It seems curious that Madonna, who has had the unerring instinct to reinvent herself in the image and iconography of others (yesterday Marlene, today Marilyn) has never – at least not yet – alighted on Cleopatra for inspiration and a new dress code. Here, at least in myth, is a wannabe seductress and style-setter for the modern era. The life of a steamy... > Read more