Toi Te Kupu, Toi Te Mana, Toi Te Whenua – Dalvanius: the Te Reo Manifesto
Winter, 1986 - Dalvanius Maui Prime insists a Rip It Up writer visits Hawera and Patea so he can explain his philosophy about te reo. It's anot...
So You Wanna Be A Music Photographer?
A step-by-step guide to making a prize-winning music photograph. Grab your camera Cameras aren't hard to come by these days, but there was a time...
The Plague (1970s)
Dylan Down Under
Few songwriters have heard their music covered as widely as Bob Dylan, who turns 80 on 24 May 2021. When local Dylanologist Bill Hester set out to ...
HMV in the 1960s: the Barry Clothier collection
Many of the best-known images of New Zealand pop bands and solo acts from the 1960s emerged from the camera of a Lower Hutt photographer and jazz b...
Ginny Peters
Kiwi Music Convention, 1987
In the mid-1980s, the mainstream New Zealand music industry was in crisis, mostly caused by a lack of support for local music from radio stations –...
Tama Waipara
Christchurch Record Stores
Like some species of native bird, the extinction of the Christchurch record shop – known as "record bars” in the 1960s and 70s and then "record and...
Neill Pickard
Photography as performance art
Photography and pop music are natural bedfellows: show-offs need an audience, and the camera lens loves a show-off. Image is crucial; in any era, t...
Christchurch’s jazz school: legacy in action
Enterprise might begin with conviction, but it requires practicality, dogged determination and the art of gentle persuasion to turn an idea into re...
Fane Flaws’ Underwatermelon Man
At age four Fane Flaws was given an illustrated storybook about a magic carpet that took its owner on fantastical journeys. The book vanished years...
The Bats
The extraordinary teenage eye and lens of Anthony Phelps
The number of regular live music photographers working around New Zealand in the pre-digital era was small. It was an exclusive club, not only beca...
Kevan Moore on early NZ music television
"When I was doing C'mon, the guy who was in charge of the Broadcasting Corporation, the Director General, was Gilbert Stringer – an old radio accou...
New Zealand Gold Guitar Awards
The first staging of the New Zealand Gold Guitar Awards in Gore in 1974 was just hours old when it encountered a stumbling block. The country music...
Noisy Neighbour: Michael Gudinski and New Zealand music
When you look for key patrons of the Aotearoa music community, one loud Australian, Michael Gudinski, is a top contender. The founder of Mushroom R...
The North Shore Invasion part 1 – building bridges
In the early months of 1980, Auckland's inner city was invaded. It was an invasion that influenced the city musically for several years, filled the...
The North Shore Invasion part 2 – Class of 81
In 1980 I was managing Taste Records in High Street, had a new record label, Propeller, and a friendship with Rip It Up's Murray Cammick. My first ...
Miriam Clancy
Dawn Raid Entertainment in photos
These photographs capture some notable moments in the history of the Dawn Raid label over the decade following their first release in 2000. They ar...
Hollie Smith
Rockin’ the Tron: Hamilton in the 1980s
Music photography not only crystalises a moment in the history of a band's development, it captures a sense of time and place in relation to their ...
Concord Dawn
Radio With Pictures: history 5
Independent music video productions The previous part of this series on the history of Radio With Pictures covered music videos produced by TV...
Radio With Pictures: history 6
The ‘Moneyless Economy’ for Video Production Video clips shot at Avalon might have suffered from budget and time restrictions, and there was v...
‘Stranded in Paradise’ – Australia, 1980
In May 1980, researching for Stranded in Paradise, I made the first of three extended trips across the Tasman, and there were another half dozen sh...
Knightshade – a photo album
Knightshade was arguably Hamilton's biggest band during the 1980s. Local photographer Karen Ford first met Knightshade's frontman Wayne Elliott thr...
Mitchell Froom and the Brothers Finn
Los Angeles, April 1989 – Even on a Monday night, Hollywood's hip come out to play. Dressed in black leather and teased hair, impenetrable shades a...
Graeme Downes
‘Stranded in Paradise’ – Auckland, 1980
1980 was a pivotal year for New Zealand music with the demise of a number of trailblazing bands, the successful forays into the international marke...
The Spelling Mistakes
The Gang of Three – The Verlaines interview, 1985
The last time the Verlaines played in Auckland, it was, as I recall, a rip-roaring affair. The dancefloor was a sweaty jumble, on the stage the thr...
Jim Hall
Christchurch underground, 1964-69
Rumble & Bang, a documentary on 1960s Christchurch band Chants R&B, produced and directed by Simon Ogston and Jeff Smith in 2011. It wa...
Joel Little
Dawn Raid Entertainment
Terence O’Neill-Joyce and Ode Records, 1987
In New Zealand there is only a handful of independent record companies, and even fewer who release more than one or two titles per year. Ode Record...
Ten moments in modern NZ country music
New Zealand country music has certainly come of age in the 2010s, with women leading the charge. South Islanders Mel Parsons, Kaylee Bell, Jack...