Writing in Elsewhere
Subscribe to my newsletter for weekly updates.
THE WAGER by DAVID GRANN
12 Aug 2023 | 4 min read
A decade ago Peter Fitzsimons published his extraordinary book Batavia, an almost forensically detailed account of a 17th century shipwreck when the Batavia – on its maiden voyage for the Dutch East India Company – hit a reef off the coast of Australia and its survivors struggled onto a small island group, some on separate patches of barren rock and sand. As gripping as... > Read more
1964: EYES OF THE STORM by PAUL McCARTNEY
8 Jul 2023 | 3 min read
When the Beatles flew to balmy Miami from wintry Washington DC in February 1964 they were taking a week-long and well-deserved break. If 1963 had been a year of incremental fame in Britain, 1964 had – even at this early stage – seen a youthquake of hysteria in the US which would ripple around the globe. In early January they had been in London, later in the month they were... > Read more
She Loves You, by Barry Markwick
SONGS FROM THE FRONT LAWN by MATTHEW BANNISTER
29 Jun 2023 | 7 min read | 1
The Bloomsbury Academic imprint 33⅓ is an interesting and useful series of small format books in which specialist writers undertake the challenge of writing about a specific album. Sometimes these take the form of a close focus on the record in question, at other times writers take a broad, wide and deep analysis of albums as emblematic of something in popular culture or the... > Read more
LEON RUSSELL by BILL JANOVITZ
5 Jun 2023 | 4 min read | 1
As many researchers and journalists discovered, lockdown wasn't all bad: it allowed studies to continue uninterrupted and – when it came to writing about musicians – they were off the road, sitting around the house and happy to be interviewed by phone or Zoom. It wasn't like they were going anywhere. So Covid worked in favour of writers like Bill Janovitz (of Buffalo Tom)... > Read more
Lady Blue, from Signature Songs, 2001
SPACE WALTZ by IAN CHAPMAN
4 Jun 2023 | 6 min read
For a band which enjoyed a hit single, recorded just one album then fell apart almost 50 years ago, many myths, much misinformation and numerous questions surround Auckland's Space Waltz. Not the least, were they even a band? They were introduced as such on September 1 1974 when they appeared on the New Faces television talent show performing Out on the Street, an outrageously... > Read more
Hard Work, from Victory
THE BEATLES 1963; A YEAR IN THE LIFE by DAFYDD REES
29 May 2023 | 3 min read
Earlier this year a remarkable and unexpected discovery was made, a tape of the Beatles performing live at a boy's school in Buckinghamshire on April 4, 1963. Six decades on this hour-long tape not only captured the band before the mayhem started – it happened two weeks after the release of their debut album Please Please Me and before Beatlemania kicked in – but was of a... > Read more
DON'T TELL ANYBODY THE SECRETS I TOLD YOU by LUCINDA WILLIAMS
25 May 2023 | 3 min read
Distilled from hundreds of hours of recorded interviews and conversations, this slim but insightful and revealing memoir by one of America's greatest living songwriters cuts straight through the fat, scrapes through sinew and gets down to the bone. Lucinda Williams is unsparingly honest about growing up itinerant with her father (an aspiring poet taking new teaching positions every couple... > Read more
WANDERLUST by REID MITENBULER
21 May 2023 | 3 min read
This exceptional biography of the Danish explorer, author and actor (and much more), Peter Freuchen opens with him as a young man buried under snow in the Arctic wilderness with little air and even less energy, unable to dig himself out. It ends with his sudden death at age 71 in Anchorage, Alaska as he was preparing for another adventure – a flight over the North Pole. Between... > Read more
IN PERFECT HARMONY by WILL HODGKINSON
4 May 2023 | 3 min read | 1
First of all put aside any prejudice when you see the subtitle of this very large hardback: “Singalong Pop in '70s Britain”. Yes you will read about the New Seekers, made-up bands like Edison Lighthouse and Blue Mink, salacious songwriters like opportunist Jonathan King and, of course, Abba, Boney M, Carl (Kung Fu Fighting) Douglas and the Partridge Family. But this... > Read more
PULL DOWN THE SHADES, GARAGE FANZINE 1984-86, edited by RICHARD LANGSTON
17 Apr 2023 | 6 min read
The internet has robbed us of many things, mostly an intelligent dialogue and the ability to disagree without resorting to personal insults. But it also has opened the small corners of the world to us, so ideas, people, cultures, places and music we might not have known existed are now readily available. However there is a downside to that also, particularly in the world of popular... > Read more
THE McCARTNEY LEGACY VOL. 1 1969-73 by ALLAN KOZINN and ADRIAN SINCLAIR
8 Mar 2023 | 6 min read
The opening pages of this scrupulously researched and detailed, small print 700 page book offer an uncharacteristic image of Paul McCartney. He's throwing a bucket of slops and dinner leftovers at a photographer and journalist, and cussing them out angrily because they've found him at his remote farm High Park on the west coast of Scotland. It is November 1969 and the pair – after... > Read more
THE OTHER WAY by DAVID TRUBRIDGE
17 Feb 2023 | 5 min read
Some years ago I drove from Alice Springs to Uluru, a journey which is longer and more interesting than some might believe. Especially if – as I did – you detour to spend the night in a remote camp and stop frequently to walk through the ever-changing desertscape which is so easy to cruise past in air-conditioned comfort. Far from being an arid landscape of stony and dusty... > Read more
COLDITZ, PRISONERS OF THE CASTLE by BEN MACINTYRE
14 Jan 2023 | 4 min read | 1
The British inmates of Colditz – the fortress castle in the heart of Germany where the Nazis kept the most valuable prisoners and recidivist POW escapees – were mustachioed, stiff-upper-lip officers who planned their escape back to Blighty to have another crack at Jerry. Here the spirit of heroic Britain was kept alive and, although there was humour to be had in mocking their... > Read more
AROUND THE CORNER, OUT TO THE EDGE, a memoir by JONATHAN BESSER
4 Jan 2023 | 4 min read | 1
This is a very sad book. Not because of its melancholy contents. Far from it, there is fun and laughter throughout. But because Jewish New York-born composer Jonathan Besser – who moved to New Zealand in 1972 when he was in his early Twenties – died in February 2022. He never lived to see his interesting memoir published. It is sad too because the Auckland he... > Read more
Wellington Harbour, by Besser and Prosser
A MONTH AT THE BACK OF MY BRAIN by KEVIN IRELAND
28 Nov 2022 | 2 min read
When reading Kevin Ireland's 2021 collection of poems Just Like That, it was easy to imagine a mischievous twinkle in the author's eye as he alighted of phrase or line with a glissando between meaning and wit. Not so with this slim but dense and thoughtful third volume of his memoirs which explore memories, the passage of time, old friendships with some people long gone and still... > Read more
THE PHILOSOPHY OF MODERN SONG by BOB DYLAN
19 Nov 2022 | 5 min read
Anyone who had listened to programmes in Bob Dylan's Theme Time Radio Hour will doubtless hear his voice and cadences while reading this uneven collection of short essays on 66 diverse songs which he has, apparently, been writing for over a decade. What is immediately apparent is that the title of the book and many of the songs are like Hitchcock's MacGuffins, canny misdirections before the... > Read more
NIRVANA: THE COMPLETE ILLUSTRATED HISTORY by ANDREW EARLES and VARIOUS WRITERS
16 Nov 2022 | 2 min read
With Christmas looming this large format, exceptionally well-illustrated 200 page hardback might just be one for the young teen in the house discovering rock music, even if that music might be – like that by Nirvana – 30 years old. Here 11 separate contributors (whose comments and perspectives sometimes overlap) offer both an overview of the band's career starting with the... > Read more
Aero Zeppelin
CHARLIE'S GOOD TONIGHT by PAUL SEXTON
8 Nov 2022 | 3 min read
Given his circumspect nature, reluctance to engage with the expectations of the rock'n'roll lifestyle and his preference for staying at home rather than touring, you don't hold out much hope for a biography of Rolling Stones' drummer Charlie Watts who died in August 2021. Even an authorised one with family cooperation as this is– by longtime British music journalist Sexton, who most... > Read more
Down the Road Apiece, by the Rolling Stones (1964)
NEEDLES AND PLASTIC; FLYING NUN RECORDS, 1981-1988, by MATTHEW GOODY
8 Nov 2022 | 4 min read
In the first few pages of this excellent, readable and informative book, the author Matthew Goody -- an assiduous researcher and clear writer -- outlines some of the problems when attempting this detailed survey of the early years of Flying Nun. Rather than an overview with anecdotes, Goody has drilled down into a chronological account of every release on the label in that period . . . but... > Read more
Anything Could Happen, by the Clean (1981)
THE DARK CRACKS OF KEMANG; THE BAJAJ BOYS IN INDONESIA by JEREMY ROBERTS
6 Nov 2022 | 4 min read
When Elsewhere previously wrote about Jeremy Roberts it was 2015, on the publication of his poetry collection Cards on the Table. At that time the former Auckland poet/performer was back living and teaching in Jakarta. We can say “back” because this thick memoir covers, in much detail and with digressions, his first year there in 2013. Single again after the end of a... > Read more