A Clothesline Conversation, 1985
Mahina Tocker – musician, singer, songwriter, lesbian mother – is of Ngāti Raukawa and Tainui descent. Most of her music is directly about her bein...
Inside the Hair tribe, 1972
I was a teenager with my head in the clouds and Dylan songs on my brain and guitar when I first heard this chorus on the radio: "Gliddy glub gloo...
Hair on trial
The New Zealand premiere of Hair opened to great fanfare at His Majesty's Theatre in Auckland on Saturday, 26 February 1972. It had been a long tim...
Nathan Haines
Mahinaarangi Tocker
Richard Eriwata
Beat Rhythm Fashion
Andy Morton
Dogs in NZ music: barking up the right tree
You are in a pub, or at a dinner party or a social event anywhere in New Zealand and someone starts a conversation about the nation's five or six d...
Neon Picnic: no free lunch
Introduction With 30 years' hindsight, the failed Neon Picnic festival of January 1988 can be seen as the Fyre festival of its day. It was a flaw...
Neon Picnic: the clean up
The Neon Picnic location at Pukekawa, 66km south of Auckland, was "eerie” when Chrissy Duggan drove in to set up a women's space. Discussions with ...
Malcolm Black
Greg Fleming
Leo de Castro
Splore
Like Entrain, The Gathering and a hundred smaller parties, Splore was the product of the global dance music boom being brought home to ferment in l...
Stoned Guitar: 10 New Zealand acid rock albums
Introduction The 1960s saw the guitar emerge as the pre-eminent instrument of rock music. English and American guitar heroes such as Eric Clapton,...
Bill Fairs' rock'n'roll photo album
Many bands have an in-house archivist, the member (or proud parent) who keeps posters, tickets, clippings, photos and such. Such people are i...
Aotearoa Reggae Timeline
The Civic
The Sunrise of the New Show World was the fitting title for the very first show at the newly opened Civic Theatre in Auckland in late December 1929...
BFM - the first ten years
Like Radio Hauraki before it, the station we now call 95bFM began at sea. During capping week in 1969, a group of University of Auckland students g...
BFM - the pirates
The story of Radio B's pirate broadcasts in the 1970s has been all but lost until now – in part because the pirate adventures were officially nothi...
Peter Posa: hostage to the beat
In early 1998 RCA released The Best of Peter Posa: the Album. It was the first time that New Zealand's guitar hero of the 1960s had been released o...
Strawpeople - part one
Paul Casserly is most comfortable behind-the-scenes in all his media guises, but it's his foray into music that has nudged him, however unwillingly...
Peter Blake on music TV - part one
The 1980s could be described as a golden age of music on New Zealand television. An unprecedented amount of shows devoted to music found their way ...
Peter Posa
Peter Blake on music TV - part two
In 1981, Peter Blake took over the producer role for Ready to Roll and Radio with Pictures and continued to produce local clips and concert coverag...
Katchafire
Ria Hall
The Pictones
Tala
Christchurch Indie: Us Against the City, part one
Christchurch has long had a reputation as a dull and conservative place, though there has always been a cultural undercurrent that cuts at that pre...
Christchurch Indie: Us Against the City, part two
In the first part of this story I looked at how the mix of underground and DIY guitar bands collided with Christchurch's throbbing dance scene to i...
Urban Disturbance
Toy Love in Australia
Introduction In 1979 Terence Hogan was an Auckland-based writer and graphic artist involved in comics and music. He contributed to the comics peri...
Music from the Long White Cloud
First published in Rip It Up, August 1986. It was Māori Language Week when Ardijah, Aotearoa, Dread Beat & Blood, and Herbs played the last ...
Toy Love make Toy Love
As a group I think most of us shared a healthy scepticism towards life, but there was a palpable excitement at the prospect of Toy Love finally rec...
Taranaki time machine
New Plymouth and Taranaki have a long musical history that goes back well before the Bell Block, the White Hart, the Magogs' clubhouse, and the Ima...
Dusty Spittle
Mark Williams: the Australia years
By 1977, after two massive No.1 New Zealand hits, and a high profile thanks to touring and television, Mark Williams had outgrown the local market....
