Tales of a Young Terrorway
The period 1977-78 has become clouded in myth … the first stirrings of that beast called "Punk Rock” … At that point the Auckland scene was less t...
David Gapes
Nash Chase
Rod MacKinnon
Hallelujah Picassos
Rip It Up 101: the New Zealand covers
The first 101 issues of legendary music magazine Rip It Up are now on line at Papers Past, digitally scanned to ensure the photos are well reproduc...
Auckland, 1980s: the Brian Murphy archives
For years, Brian Murphy was the guy who carried a camera everywhere, capturing his musician and artist friends as they performed, practised and par...
The Poles Apart
"The Poles Apart is not the most impressive venue in Auckland,” Playdate reporter Tom McWilliams noted in 1967, reviewing the club's opening night....
Rip It Up at 10, 1987
On the 10th anniversary of Rip It Up the magazine looked through its back pages for its coverage of New Zealand music. The first 101 issues – from ...
Auckland Tonight, 1960
Auckland, 1960: There are over 20 night clubs in the city and many of them feature floor shows. Playdate's after-dark prowler visited some of them ...
Women in New Zealand music, 1980s
In 2010 Debbie Harwood considered the status of New Zealand women songwriters in the 1980s, and how that had changed. For me, the music industry ...
Songwriter's Choice: Samuel Flynn Scott
With these types of lists I often choose my friends and contemporaries, because I truly, deeply love their music, but also because I don't want...
Malcolm Black
Debbie Harwood
Wellington alternative music venues 1978-82
In Roger Watkins' book on the Wellington bands of the 60s and early 70s, When Rock Got Rolling, there's a map showing the locations of all the club...
Psychedelic Id
It was 1967, the Summer of Love, LSD and Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. For the Fourth Form at Onslow College in Wellington, it was the...
Rick Bryant’s glory days at the Gluepot
For musicians, playing the Gluepot meant you'd made the grade. When you actually live in pubs for a period of years, moving every couple of days, w...
The Captain Cook Hotel
The Captain Cook Hotel did not impress the great New Zealand writer Maurice Duggan in 1960. Duggan, spending the year in Dunedin as Burns Fell...
The Gladstone Hotel
Some venues just find their time and place. And for Christchurch's Gladstone Hotel, that only took a century. The site on the south-east corne...
Shayne Carter on Bored Games
The following story first appeared in Mysterex magazine No. 3, February 2004. –– At the tail end of the seventies, The Enemy played at our school...
TrueBliss revisited
Before "Our image is kind of like naughty but nice.” Once upon a time in 1999 Peter Urlich sat sipping wine in one of Auckland's "better esta...
Netherworld Dancing Toys
Shayne Carter
Honky Tonk Heroes – Ritchie Pickett & The Inlaws
Fuelled by a massive sponsorship deal with Jim Beam, Ritchie Pickett & The Inlaws burnt brightly and partied hard for a short period of the 198...
Bandstand: New Zealanders on Australian TV
Video may have killed the radio star for the MTV generation, but during the 1960s in Australia, radio stars became household faces when they appear...
dDub
Barry Saunders
Ten moments in New Zealand funk
AudioCulture writer Alan Perrott reveals his "highly subjective and personal” top 10 moments in New Zealand funk. -- First sighting of Mark Willi...
Barry Saunders: South into Winter
Taihape, 1998: Barry Saunders is on the move. His album Magnetic South is out in a few days and, restless until then, he goes for a long drive. He ...
Invercargill marches on
Mention music and Invercargill and – Keith Richards's slur notwithstanding – a rich tradition comes to mind. Many have been honoured in recent year...
Caroline Easther
Brothers and Sisters, 1992
NEW ORLEANS, April, 1992 – "I'll give you a quote for your magazine.” Cyril Neville puts his arm around me. He has a broad grin on his face, which ...
Moana and the Tribe
One of the most powerful and politically pointed performances at the 2014 Womad festival in New Plymouth came from Moana and the Tribe who – to thu...
