Stephanie Acraman & Liam Wooding – Life is a cabaret, old chum
On the latest Rattle label release two Kiwis interpret the slyly witty cabaret songs of an obscure American songwriting duo.
Songs From The Front Lawn by Matthew Bannister
Just in time for Don McGlashan’s latest tour comes a book about one of the singer-songwriter’s least-known projects. GARY STEEL reviews it.
Matthew Bannister goes to the movies
GARY STEEL has a sneaky listen to Matthew Bannister’s best album in years and declares it a qualified success.
Far Out – tripping the light fantastic
Twenty years ago GARY STEEL interviewed Trevor Reekie and Tom Ludvigson of Trip about their Pretty Cool album.
Forty years ago: Wellington’s legendary Primitive Art Group
Anthony and Stuart of Primitive Art Group explain the complex simplicity of their group’s explorative terrain to GARY STEEL.
40 years ago: Grammar Boys
It’s still NZ Music Month so GARY STEEL continues the excavation of his mouldering story scrapbook. Today's travesty: Grammar Boys.
The Gordons: Free birds with massive tweet
To celebrate NZ Music Month GARY STEEL excavates a 1983 interview - 40 years ago! - with legendary noisemakers The Gordons.
40 years ago – The Kiwi Animal
It’s New Zealand Music Month, so GARY STEEL digs up a 40-year-old story he wrote about NZ musical duo The Kiwi Animal.
40 years ago: Wellington’s Tin Syndrome
It’s New Zealand Music Month and for the occasion, GARY STEEL digs up some musical skeletons from his past. Today it’s Tin Syndrome’s turn.
Forty years ago: the slow-cooked post-punk of Unrestful Movements
For NZ Music Month GARY STEEL dips once again into his archive of interviews. From May 1983, here are Unrestful Movements.
Forty years ago – Philbo keeps a low profile
To celebrate New Zealand Music Month GARY STEEL reaches far back into his archives for two pieces he wrote on musician Phil Bowering.
Forty years ago – This act ends with a bang
GARY STEEL loves interviewing obscure and entertaining NZ bands. Back in 1983 Moving Targets had big plans. Where are they now?
Space waltzing back in time
Musings on a week of listening, watching and the rest of it. This week GARY STEEL reads a couple of entertaining Kiwi music books.
Smelly Feet – The great Kiwi outsider finally gets an album
In 1981 “Smelly Feet” travelled the length and breadth of Aotearoa performing his confronting tunes to perplexed audiences and hawking his home-made singles. GARY
Flying Nun, definitively.
Sometimes it takes an outsider to tell a story properly, writes GARY STEEL. Here’s the definitive tale of the first eight years of the
We want the world and we want it now! The counterculture in NZ
It was us against them and the dirty longhairs were going to overthrow (or at least throw up on) the establishment. GARY STEEL looks
Stick three musos in a hotel room and what do you get?
Stick three improvising musicians in a hotel room for some spontaneous action and what do you get? Something special, writes GARY STEEL.
Dreamscapes echoing to infinity
GARY STEEL falls in love with a surprising album of evocative dreamscapes from a musician famed for his more rootsy work in The Bads.
Easy listening art music – Darren Pickering’s Small Worlds
Sometimes musical contemplation is just what the doctor ordered and Small Worlds massaged GARY STEEL’s aural cavities in just the right way.
1001 Albums You Must Die Before You Hear – Shihad’s Beautiful Machine
MATT KELLY finally finds a Kiwi group to name and shame, and he reckons that this is easily the Wellington band's worst record.
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