The Front Lawn
So many of the greatest songs contain a story. The majority of these songs allow you to fill in the gaps, to complete your own story by deliberatel...
Jan Hellriegel: Sportsman of the Year
In 2019 Jan Hellriegel released her fourth studio album, Sportsman of the Year: A Suburban Philosophy, simultaneously with a book of essays of th...
Herbs: Whats’ Be Happen?
In early 1863, on the eve of the Waikato War, Ngāti Whātua chief Paora Tūhaere purchased the schooner Victoria for £1,400 and set off with 20 of hi...
Charlie Tumahai: Boot Hill to Be Bop and Back
"Boy is what they call me, but my real name is Charlie.” That was the catch-cry the cousins living in Kitemoana Street, Ōrākei, responded to as Cha...
Jan Hellriegel
Herbs: He Rata Kouru Nui
East Cape, 1987: "Men may come, men may go, but Ruatoria goes on forever.” Beneath the imposing portals of a wharenui, an elder from the Ngāti Por...
Suzanne Prentice
Herbs: Reflections on Ruatoria
Not a lot was said on the way home from Ruatoria. "Everyone was so overjoyed, they were speechless,” says Herbs' bassist Charlie Tumahai. "What I l...
Steriogram
Blue Smoke
If there is a "big bang” moment in New Zealand's music history, it was made by the gentlest of melodies. For a delicate song, ';Blue Smoke' carries...
Al Park
Ian Magan
Al Park talks venues, music, gigs
As solo performer, bandmember and booking agent since the early punk era, Al Park has had, and continues to have, an insider's view of Christchurch...
Mareea Paterson
The Juvenolians
Songwriter's Choice: Victoria Girling-Butcher
Body and Soul – Jenny Morris For my 11th birthday, my parents gave me a blue Sony Walkman and my best friend gave me a copy of Jenny Morris's...
Adeaze
Golden Dawn
As music venues go, The Golden Dawn should have been a non-starter. On Auckland's Richmond Road a few steps from the Ponsonby Road corner, its unco...
New Zealand Women in the NZ Top 10
Kirk Harding
Howard Morrison Quartet
Music World
Dennis Marsh
Gerry Merito
Max Cryer
Five wāhine toa of the industry
For New Zealand Music Month in 2019, arts website The Big Idea asked me to discover the string pullers, the influencers, the legends and the gritty...
Kim Paterson
Master
Hegan Entertainments
At dawn on the first day of the year 2000, a fleet of 2000 sea craft led by a flotilla of waka taua followed the convergence of the Sun's rays to A...
Sandy Mill
Ross France
Graeme Allwright
Mapping Auckland's venues: the 1970s
These maps provide a window into Auckland night life across the decades. For each venue, we've endeavoured to provide an image and a "Read More” l...
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...