10 television pop stars
New Zealand television had music from its first day in June 1960, with Howard Morrison among those who performed, but it took a while before the in...
Songwriter's Choice: LA Mitchell
Suddenly Strange – Bic Runga "Fire inside my shoes,” she said. I'm starting here with Bic Runga. Her album, Drive, was a lightbulb moment for me. ...
Nesian Mystik
North Shore Rock'n'roll: 2004-2010
The explosion of retro-influenced rock'n'roll groups from the North Shore around 2004-2010 was remarkable given the sheer youthfulness of the bands...
Founders Theatre
The appearance of New York's rock and roll animal Lou Reed at Hamilton's Founders Theatre in 1977 was one out of the box, even if – by necessit...
Karl Steven
On the Ball: New Zealand Rugby Songs part one
1887-1979 Rugby union is entrenched into New Zealand's psyche and is a major part of our collective DNA. A country that can boast three separate v...
Paint It, Black: New Zealand Rugby Songs part two
The 1980s and 1990s During the 1980s – a decade which generally has a lot to answer for – there was somewhat of a rugby song revival. One of our m...
Sound and Vision: Album Design 5
The relationship between popular music packaging and illustration is longstanding. As with book jackets there was an early recognition that attract...
Horrible Songs for Children: a primer
An introduction to 10 New Zealand musicians who produce music for older children. Fatcat & Fishface Fatcat & Fishface hail themselves as ...
Post Punk Christchurch 1981 - Getting Jumpy
Take a month, any month in 1981, in post-punk Christchurch, and you'll hit a vein rich with original music, rising bands and talented fly-by-nighte...
Inside the HMV pressing plant
In 1957 Morrie Hill – the Auckland Star's Wellington-based photographer – visited the record manufacturing plant of His Master's Voice (NZ) Ltd, wh...
Ritchie Pickett
Mahia Blackmore
The Arch
Freedom Express
The songs of Shortland Street
May 2017 marks 25 years since Shortland Street first appeared on New Zealand television. Music has always been in the mix at New Zealand's iconic, ...
The Blues Down Under
New Zealand can't claim to have produced any of the world's biggest blues stars. We are 12,000 kilometres from the music's Mississippi birthplace, ...
Jan Cooper
Songwriter's Choice: Charlotte Yates
Counting The Beat – The Swingers I liked Split Enz when Phil Judd was in it and Second Thoughts was the first pop record I proudly bought – albeit...
Ross Cunningham interviews Peter Jefferies
In December 2016 I travelled to New Plymouth to film an interview with Peter Jefferies. I'd seen him perform three times in the previous eight mont...
Dennis Huggard
Benny Staples
10 songs about faith
Here are 10 songs that tackle the subject of religious faith and managed to make waves in the wider culture. God Defend New Zealand Thomas Bracke...
Post Punk Auckland 1980 - First in Line - the first six months
It had been building for a while: an impatience with the linear rock and pop, black American forms and album-orientated rock of the late 1970s and ...
Post Punk Auckland in 1980 - All Dressed Up - the second six months
Auckland's young bands and gig-going population flooded the city's available venues in the second half of 1980. XS Café, Rumba Bar, New Station Hot...
Simon Grigg
Zodiac Records label artwork
The record labels created by Eldred Stebbing and his brother Phil at the start of the 1950s have endured now for almost 70 years, and in 2017 there...
Beaver
Songwriter's Choice: Jim Hall
Blimey. Where do I start? The truth of the matter is that, though I have worked exclusively as a composer/arranger/producer for over 40 years, I se...
Cian
Glyn Mason
Dead Flowers
Fred Dagg
Sound and Vision: Album Design 4
The grooves of a record might be where you find the show business, but the label is where you find the business. In days gone by, company, artist, ...
