Elsewhere is a concept and a place, and Graham Reid goes there for his wide angle travels, writing, music review and interviews with writers, musicians and artists.
Elsewhere is an on-line magazine for new music (we filter out the mundane and spotlight the more interesting albums), different travel, arts and more. It is dedicated to the diversity and possibilities of Elsewhere. It's an equal opportunity enjoyer. Subscribe here (it's free) for a weekly newsletter. Welcome . . .
Latest posts
TRAVELS IN THE TIME OF COVID #10 (2022): Hubris, arrogance and autocrats
25 Apr 2022 | 2 min read | 1
There are few places quite as dispiriting as the broad moor outside Inverness which takes its name from the nearby Scottish village: Culloden. Here in 1746 the short-lived Jacobite rebellion came to a bloody end when the weary followers of 24-year old Bonnie Prince Charlie faced the government troops lead by the Duke of Cumberland, who’d celebrated his 25thbirthday... > Read more
Dorothy Perkins black & pink dress
25 Apr 2022 | <1 min read
At 71, the great reggae singer Horace Andy needs no House-like rediscovery because he always been active, most familiarly through guest appearances on Massive Attack albums. He brought his stentorian style to their One Love (on Blue Lines) but he also possesses a gentle lovers’ rock style which burnishes his harder edge. Although he has released dozens of... > Read more
Son House: Forever on my Mind (Easy Eye Sound)
25 Apr 2022 | 1 min read
When Mississippi-born Son House was rediscovered in the early 1960s, he was 62 when researchers tracked him down, working as a cook, on the skids through alcoholism, didn’t own a guitar and hadn’t played music for years. But the renewed interest saw him touring again – with medication to control his senile tremors and after having been re-taught his own... Echo Design Parvani Tablecloth 60in x 120in Oblong
Elsewhere Art . . . the Beatles
25 Apr 2022 | 1 min read
Because there is a finite number of studio recordings by the Beatles, just for my amusement I sometimes make up my own and write about them under the Absurd Elsewhere page. Given the title of that page and the uttery improbable albums I invent (not all by the Beatles as you may see if you look: Taylor Swift, Lorde and Jimi Hendrix are not immune) it always surprises me... > Read more
RECOMMENDED RECORD; Aldous Harding: Warm Chris (Flying Nun)
25 Apr 2022 | 4 min read
From time to time Elsewhere will single out a recent release we recommend on vinyl, like this one which comes with the lyrics and a gatefold sleeve. Check out Elsewhere's other Recommended Record picks . . . . One of the most defining if divisive moments in Aldous Harding’s international career came when she appeared on Jools Holland’s... > Read more
Flow: Call (Neda) (2010)
25 Apr 2022 | <1 min read
So, what are the first words which come to mind when you hear the word "Iran"? Probably not hip-hop, heavy metal, folk-rock or blues. Or Pink Floyd, as in this piece by the Iranian band Flow. This tribute is to the 26-year old music student Neda Agha-Soltan who was killed in student demonstrations in Tehran during June 2009 and became a symbol of... C9 by Champion sports bra S
Elsewhere Art . . . Japanese ambient artists
25 Apr 2022 | <1 min read
When the very beautiful collection Kankyo Ongaku: Japanese Ambient, Environmental and New Age Music 1980-1990 arrived in 2019 it was so seductive and engrossing that it was quite transporting. Not to the busy Japan of streets and markets or the oppressive highrises that are so familiar, but the quieter interior spaces in offices and homes and temples. This collage... ADIDAS MOTO HOODIE
Clara Engel: Their Invisible Hands (bandcamp)
18 Apr 2022 | 1 min read
Clara Engel from Toronto – whose preferred reference is to they/them – is Elsewhere's kind of artist: they are prolific and self-starting, and very polite in e-mails. The latter goes a long way. Far enough to make us check out this new album which delivers wonderfully crafted songs along the haunting, ethereal drone-cum-alt.folk line.... > Read more
I Drink the Rain
Hallelujah Picassos: Perfect (1995)
18 Apr 2022 | 1 min read
Thanks to the enthusiasm of former member Peter McLennan, Auckland band Hallelujah Picassos -- once a fixture on the New Zealand music scene in the late Eighties to mid Nineties -- were given their dues through a series of reissues in the 2010s. First out of the blocks was the compilation disc Rewind The Hateman (here) and then an 11 track collection of their covers... > Read more
Elsewhere Art . . . the Modern Jazz Quartet
18 Apr 2022 | <1 min read
This art was just absurd . . . as absurd in a way as the fact the buttoned-down, besuited and ineffably cool Modern Jazz Quartet would briefly appear on the Beatles' Apple label for two albums in the late Sixties. The American group seemed incongruous on a label launched the wake of Sgt Pepper and which was scooping up oddballs or releasing Lennon and Harrison's vanity... > Read more
TRAVELS IN THE TIME OF COVID #9 (2022): Lessons from history
15 Apr 2022 | 2 min read
In a museum deep below the soaring Gothic majesty of Yorkminster, down where the pillars of the Roman garrison fort in York are still visible, there are remarkable objects on display. Among them a horn from about 1030 presented by the Viking nobleman Ulf to the Christian church as a symbol of his gift of lands. It also represents an extraordinary confluence of cultures.... > Read more
JACK WHITE, RETURNS (2022): White, black and red, now blue
15 Apr 2022 | 2 min read
The free CD which comes with the current issue of Mojo, the British rock magazine, is Hello Operator: The Songs Jack White Taught Us. However many of the magazine’s readers would have been familiar with the songs by bluesmen Son House (his spooky Death Letter Blues), Blind Willie Johnson and Robert Johnson, as well as Johnny... > Read more
Stir-fry noodles with chicken and macadamia nuts
13 Apr 2022 | <1 min read
To be honest I can't remember quite where this one came from but the hand written and much stained recipe reminds me how often we have used it. Dead simple. Sort of meal-in-a-minute stuff. INGREDIENTS noodles (hokkien seem to work best) 250g chicken breasts skinned and sliced into strips a few onions a red capsicum roasted macadamia nuts sesame... > Read more
10 ODD UNPLAYED ALBUMS IN MY COLLECTION (2016): Get back on the shelf!
13 Apr 2022 | 10 min read
Charlie Watts once said of Keith Richards that he was someone music liked being around. Records seem attracted me in much the same way because they just keep turning up. Mostly it has been my fault, $20 could go a long way in the Real Groovy bargain bins just five years ago and so strange records would follow me home. But then there are a swag of... > Read more
Donna Summer, Bad Girls (1979)
11 Apr 2022 | 5 min read
In musical arguments, as with political ones, the area of grey between the black and white can be as big as the other two combined. History books say you were either a Beatles or a Stones fan, but my friends and I liked them both -- and the Four Tops, the Dave Clark Five, Lou Christie, Sam the Sham, Paul Revere and the Raiders, Roy Orbison and Dusty Springfield. ... > Read more
Dim All the Lights
Mae West: A Guy What Takes His Time (1933)
11 Apr 2022 | 1 min read
Hard to believe from this distance, but Mae West -- who was born in 1893 and lived long enough to be in a movie with Ringo Starr, Keith Moon and Alice Cooper (the forgettable Sextette in '78, released two years before her death) -- was once a young woman. Those who came to her career late just knew her as that blonde bombshell old lady who had been famous for her one... > Read more
Elsewhere Art . . . Chet Baker
11 Apr 2022 | 1 min read
Chet Baker was -- like Dean Martin -- a man whose gifts came so easily he took them for granted and was casually dismissive of them. Dean would walk into a recording studio or onto a film set, do what was required with the minimum of effort and then head for the golf course or, later in life, to the same restaurant. The gift was just there to to be rolled out when... > Read more
THE ROLLING STONES AT 60 (2022): And then there were two
8 Apr 2022 | 1 min read
There are many ways to measure the longevity of the Rolling Stones: since their formation in 1962 they’ve rocked on through 14 US presidents, 13 British prime ministers and almost 30 James Bond movies. The only two original founding members – Sir Michael Philip Jagger, net worth about $800 million, and Keith Richards – have outlived half the Beatles,... > Read more
TRAVELS IN THE TIME OF COVID #8 (2022): Travails of travel
7 Apr 2022 | 2 min read | 1
Because I’m not a scientist, I can’t confirm that irritability is a side effect of Covid. But that – and a blinding headache every time I coughed – was certainly evident. Perhaps that’s just a local variant brought on by trying to negotiate Bristol’s one-way streets, roadworks, dead ends and traffic changes. It’s a remarkable... > Read more
Various Artists: See You on the Horizon
7 Apr 2022 | 1 min read
There’s been a long and illustrious history of local compilations, from the Loxene Golden Disc collections in the late 60s and early 70s through seminal post-punk albums such as AK 79, Class of ’81, Flying Nun’s “Dunedin double”, Goat’s Milk Soap and others. Compilations from a single label... > Read more