Debate | Issue Five | Music

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, Aiwa Pooamorn

Debate Editor drops FIRE NZ Music Industry Diss Track

(dave dobbyn to respond ??)

Happy Aotearoa Music Month, everyone! Music from this silly little country is my prime yapping topic, and I’ve already written a feature dedicated to my favourite music venue in Tāmaki Makaurau on page x, so I’ll try to keep this editorial brief.

The music industry and community in New Zealand is in a fucking weird place right now. On one hand, the sheer volume of incredibly high-quality gigs, singles, and LPs being released is staggering. Every week, I’m blown away by another incredible new album from our shores, and the people behind the music - both making it, and independently organising it - continue to be some of the loveliest people I’ve ever met.

The problem is, all the passion in the community is carried out in the face of an industry that is thoroughly broken. It’s nigh impossible to make music and go on tour without losing money - let alone actually making any cash from your mahi. This is partially the fault of the devaluation of music and art in wider society - with the shift to streaming, nobody is buying music these days (unless you’re a pretentious cunt with a record collection, like me - add me on Discogs @nesnahmail). The profitability of live music is also hit or miss; while gigs at small venues can sell out, promoters will undersell tickets just as often, leading to incredible festivals with lineups spanning the best of Aotearoa music becoming a financial burden on small promoters.

It’s true that music doesn’t always need to be made for profit. One of the biggest benefits of New Zealand’s independent music culture is the fact that there’s no pressure to outsell anyone, and a realistic lifestyle of balancing music creation with other work is celebrated and encouraged, rather than looked upon as a failure. But there needs to be some form of profit going around - venue spaces need to cover rent, touring bands need to afford gas, and media outlets need to pay their writers. If the pillars that keep Aotearoa music flowing can’t afford to exist anymore, the entire community will fall apart.

While stronger government funding for the arts and a fundamental change to our economic system (read: commie revolution) would help get the industry back on

its feet, there are steps you can take to support our music community. If you aren’t going to local gigs, you should stop reading this editorial and flick to our gig guide on page 46. You may think you aren’t a concert person, but if your experiences of live music start and end at Spark Arena, then you don’t know what Tāmaki Makaurau is capable of. Figure out what sort of music you like, go to undertheradar.co.nz, and trawl through their gig guide until you find something that sounds like a bit of you - or something that you’ve never heard of! Who knows, maybe hyper-skramz and jazz-punk are the brain-scratching genres you’ve been looking for?

This same approach can be applied to the digital music website Bandcamp - find a genre you like, filter it down to artists from Aotearoa, and discover your new favourite artist. From there, you can follow them, share their music with your mates, buy their merch, and discover more artists from around Aotearoa. Over time, you will become a part of the scene, making lifelong friends in communities of misfits, hearing soundscapes of music inspired by the same places you grew up in, and eventually you might just get the itch to write some tunes of your own.

The playlist for this issue consists of some of my favourite tunes to come out of Aotearoa over the years. I’ve started up a little Spotify playlist, so you can have a listen to these and all of my previous recommendations if you scan below.

Illustration By Cameron McCurdy (she/her)

DJ MESSIE’s (Almost Messy) Situation

A conversation with MESSIE, her passport, and the Department of Internal Affairs.

The last time Tessa Hills, aka DJ MESSIE, had previously left New Zealand, she was five years old on a family visit to Thailand. Her passport picture from then shows a young Hills with a short black bob, bangs swept across her forehead, staring straight into the camera with a slight smile.

Little did the up-and-coming DJ know that the next time she’d be leaving the country would be almost two decades later, and it would be for touring alongside UK DJ Fred Again to perform in front of 35,000 people.

Upon the announcement of four surprise shows spread across Auckland, Wellington and the Coromandel, Fred Again called for Kiwi DJs to submit their samples for a chance to play at his pop-up show at the Coroglen Tavern in Coromandel.

Luck took a chance on Hills after she was selected to play at the Coromandel gig; the opportunity came after she had initially missed out on tickets to the Wellington show - an experience she recalls as "criminal."

Fred Again was so impressed by her talent that he invited her to join him across the ditch to Perth to support him at his biggest show ever.

The week was shaping up to be a dream come true for Hills, a dream that briefly turned into a nightmare as she realised she didn’t have a passport and her flight was in three days.

“When he offered me to come to Perth I said yes, it was only the next moment that I went ‘Oh shit..’

She immediately texted Fred Again’s team on WhatsApp informing them about her lack of a passport situation. Shortly after, Fred Again posted to social media: “Please please can anyone help us with this!” he took to his Instagram story, tagging the New Zealand government.

Many fans of Fred Again noticed the cry for help on social media, including the son of the deputy chief executive of Internal Affairs, Maria Robertson.

After being made aware of the urgency of the situation, Robertson responded to Hills via email and passed Hills’ application onto a colleague. Robertson stated that she was not involved in the actual application and that the standard process was taken.

Robertson then privately messaged Fred Again over Instagram to confirm that Hills’ passport was getting sorted: "My son got in touch with Tessa after seeing your post, Tessa got in touch with us, she's made her application and we are sorting it with her. We love your music and are thrilled you are backing one of our own to support your gig."

Robertson stated to Newshub that she did not personally intervene with the application, and denied the claim of operating on special interest.

"It would be a problem if people believe that somehow we have delivered a different service because of who they are. We have not".

Fred Again’s post on social media post even caught the attention of Wellington Central MP Tamatha Paul. “If you don’t get it sorted, let us know,” Paul messaged Hills. “The whole city is proud of you!”

Despite the flurry of support and assistance, the young DJ also faced criticism from the Minister of Internal Affairs, Brooke van Velden.

Although Hills’ passport was approved through traditional processes, controversy stirred over the influence that Fred Again had over getting the passport granted speedily.

Van Velden said she was pleased that Hills would receive her passport in time, however, the minister also expressed concern that a citizen's privacy might have been violated due to the public sharing of details. Van Velden stated she would probe into the chain of events leading to Hills' passport approval.

"I do not believe that it's appropriate for any official within a passport office to be letting other members of the public know about passport applications… Every citizen should have the same rights, no matter how famous they are or what their status is in our community," the minister told reporters during Question Time at Parliament.

Chief Executive of the Department of Internal Affairs, Paul James, told Debate Magazine in a statement that the department agrees with the minister’s remarks and that they are working to meet her expectations.

“DIA staff are required to follow our Social Media Guidelines and PSC Guidance for public servants’ personal use of social media. The use of personal accounts for work activity is nuanced. The expectation is official accounts should be used as default, and personal channels should be avoided for official business.”

Paul James added that urgent passports are an important service the department offers for New Zealanders. “I am proud of the work our Passport Office does to process urgent passports every day, which makes a real difference in people’s lives.”

Amidst the panic, Hills remained calm. “I wasn’t stressed about it at all,” she says. “It was honestly Fred posting it on his story that kind of stirred the pot.”

Hills states that her experience with the Department of Internal Affairs was “honestly fine.”

“That’s their job to go through the emergency applications and see who needs to be approved urgently,” Hills says. “And I think it was urgent in the sense that this could put New Zealand on the map.”

Hills and her new passport plan to continue repping Kiwis. She currently has multiple shows she’ll be performing over the next few months across Aotearoa, and will be playing at music festivals at the end of the year.

Written By Nabeelah Khan (she/her)

Aiwa Pooamorn (she/her)

Illustration By

The Best Kiwi Music Reminds Us of How Funny We Are

Written By Ricky Lai (he/him) @rickylaitheokperson CONTRIBUTING WRITER

Kiwis love being funny. It’s one of our cultural codes. If we’re not anthemically singing through things, we’re laughing them off. New Zealand is obviously far too young a country to claim ‘humour as a coping device’ as one of our special little inventions, like pavlova or 1080 poison, but for better or worse, our need to broach deeply repressed issues through tactical laughs has developed a pattern unique to us. Our smiles aren’t just hiding something – they’re essential. In our music, this is a lot more ingrained than you may have realised. The best Kiwi music isn’t just funny – it specifically reminds us of how funny we are, and how vital that sense of humour becomes as a respirator when faced with an infallible truth.

Believe me, this theme goes far back! Think the Sir Howard Morrison Quartet – which I’ll admit isn’t quite gevting the room shaking these days – but listen to their greatest performance, ‘The Battle of Waikato’ (1959) and ask yourself if the tone, in spite of the subject matter, reminds you of honest Kiwi glee. Search up the live recording on YouTube – you won’t regret it. Handclaps, crowd hollers, hearty trumpet backings – it’s enough to distract you from the seriousness of New Zealand’s land war history. Morrison, who typically spun off old American folk songs, adapts Jimmy Driftwood’s ‘The Battle of New Orleans’ to tell the perspective of a Māori soldier with self-effacing ‘look back and laugh’ humour, speaking on behalf of an entire culture that was subsumed by their colonisers, and implicitly acknowledging what isn’t actually funny by spinning the folktale as if it is. Its final verse, by which the audience’s laughter can usually be heard, can be taken as either freeze-frame or gasp: ‘We stood quite still till we’d seen their faces well / Then we ran out and faced ‘em and we really gave them– well…’

A similar irony scathes in Auckland post-punk band Blam Blam Blam’s ‘There Is No Depression in New Zealand’ (1981). The year is vital. Muldoon was prime minister; the economy was tanking; it was the time of the Springbok tour. Don McGlashan (perhaps the country’s greatest rock lyricist) knows too well that New Zealand is in denial of itself, and loves to believe itself as a safe, restful country free of racism, sexism, and so on. This chorus is beyond tonguein-cheek: ‘There is no depression in New Zealand / there are no sheep on our farms.’ McGlashan plays this trick again on The Front Lawn’s ‘How Are You Doing’ (1989), rapping back and forth with Harry Sinclair like a casual yarn between neighbours about nothing in particular. (‘Oh yeah, it’s Kevin isn’t it?’ ‘What did you call me?’ ‘Kevin?’ ‘Yeah John.’ ‘Mike.’ ‘Mike!!!’ ‘Oh, ha ha ha!!’) The ridiculous convo briefly threatens to open up about sincerely hurting inside when Mike – or is it Kevin? – mentions he just lost his job, and that he’s not actually doing very well. ‘Emotional problems’, he calls it. The song immediately tangents after this, and the men start ping-ponging guesses with what city he now lives in: ‘Hamilton? Wellington? Palmerston North?’ ‘Grey Lynn.’ ‘Oh! Nice out there!’ Quite literally, the men are laughing off their problems, holding back from breaking character; not primed to speak meaningfully about their lives and instead through normative ‘Kiwi dad’ phrases.

Need I describe the glee of OMC’s ‘How Bizarre’ (1995)? That guitar melody? The ‘one crazy summer’ feeling? The Pasifika specificality of the storytelling – and pure love for the way we speak – that makes ‘Brother Pele’s in the back / Sweet Zina’s in the front’ arguably the best opening lines to a hit song from Aotearoa? It really feels like a yarn that you’d share over drinks, and I’m always charmed by the way Pauly Fuemana refuses to elaborate on what happened next. (‘Wanna know the rest – buy the rights!’) Some things really can only be experienced best through that specific pair of eyes, and the story’s proximity to the police force and the news media circus dictate exactly how you may choose to fill in the blanks depending on your identity as a ‘Kiwi’. It’s also just the sort of thing you’d say in a real convo. ‘Oh, trust – you had to be there!’

Of course, the new generation has words on the matter. Power-pop band The Beths might best appeal to millennial and Gen-Z Auckland as the product of a younger, self-effacing generation of underachievers intimidated by the prospect of professional adulthood. Getting wine-drunk, learning not to be too harsh on yourself, texting on public transport – all very real arbitrary matters in their prose. But ‘Expert in a Dying Field’ (2022) is their masterstroke. The narrator’s story – of studying a field that is slowly slumping out of relevance – is the perfect ‘student life’ metaphor for a breakup, but the song has a secondary layer about studying and the workforce that’s been haunting me. The narrator of the song has clearly been hurt by a broken relationship to the point that they’ve refrained from engaging with love until they’ve studied the field of romance; taken notes, memorised the right beats; but the wiser of us know that love is no studious degree. Like most careers, you learn the things on the way; it’s practical, not just theoretical! The Beths have created the perfect song that satirises Auckland’s careerist ‘live to work’ attitude and spears the irony that fussing over the permutations of human emotion, in fear of actually experiencing it yourself, will only distance yourself from becoming the better person you know that you would like to be. ‘Plausible deniability – I swear I’ve never heard of it!’

Here’s the reassuring thing: it’s always been like this. We’ve been venting our concerns with humour for decades, and those concerns haven’t changed. My last example is the simplest, and my favourite. Those of us sweating grievance over the cost of living – and especially of groceries! – will perhaps be humoured by Max McCauley’s adorable country hoedown ‘The Bluff Oyster Song’ (1969). The sound is fuzzy, and the guy doesn’t hide his accent. The bloke’s from Southland, and he seems just as local as either you or I, enjoying his innocuous pastime of eating yummy oysters and washing them down with a glass of stout; a hobby that he’s having trouble entertaining lately because the prices are too high to afford both! ‘My stomach thinks my throat’s cut / Well, what a way to be!’ Geez, I mean – anybody else?

Music streaming platforms began in the year 1999, when Napster became a popular MP3-sharing site used primarily by American college students. From there streaming services developed further, becoming places artists could upload their music and get listeners from all around the world. Nowadays the most notable streaming platforms are ones such as Spotify, Apple Music and Soundcloud.

Streaming from these services is one thing, but what is it like on the artist’s end? Well, as an amateur artist myself, it’s tough. A lengthy process awaits for those who wish to release music. So what are the main steps? What makes this difficult?

Recording Music

Recording the music is honestly my favourite part of the process. It can be pricey and you may not receive those funds back, but it is definitely the most fun part of releasing music on a platform. You’ve written a song, recorded it with a band or by yourself and boom! After some mixing and mastering, your track is ready to upload.

Uploading Music

just starting out it is more important to keep up consistent promotion after release. Our attention span as a collective is very short. If there isn’t an easy-to-click link straight to the music, we’ll likely forget. There’s no point in hyping up a small snippet of a song when the listener then has to wait a month for it to be released. Promotion is by far the hardest part of being an artist - finding your own creative flair that keeps your content interesting, while also growing your audience. It is a hard line to skate across and takes a lot of trial and error.

Artists will need to choose a distribution company that deals with shipping your music off to various streaming platforms. Ever wondered where the music on Instagram or TikTok comes from? That music is uploaded by those sites after they receive it from distribution companies. There will usually be a small cost to use these services but nothing that breaks the bank. It’s best to go into uploading music with a lot of knowledge about your tracks on hand, otherwise, the process can become drawn out and tricky. You don’t want to end up postponing the release date because the uploading process took too long!

Promoting Music

Most artists and marketing managers will agree that unless you have amassed a following that eagerly anticipates your every move, heavy promotion of your song or album before the release is not necessary. Pre-saves can help guarantee listeners at the very beginning of release. However, if you are

Seems easy so far? Here’s the catch: Even if you do these steps perfectly, get a jump on promotion, gain an audience and write some very catchy music, your main source of income is rarely going to be from those streaming services. Spotify for example, only pays $0.003-0.005 per stream. For context, 30k streams would equal approximately $90, which would immediately be cut due to the fees your distribution company takes away from them. Not to mention, it would take billions of streams to make back half of what you probably spent making the music. The majority of artists will make most of their income from merch and live performances.

I know it sounds bleak and discouraging when put this way; however, I encourage artists to release music. Releasing music provides people with access to your unique sound, as well as helping grow your reach to other parts of the world. I only write this article to warn those who may have been disillusioned into thinking releasing music is a lucrative act - it is not as of yet.

My own music is out on said platforms if you’re curious and want to have a listen, under “HIRI” or @hiri_music on Instagram, I’d appreciate the support!

Written By Hirimaia Eketone (they/them) CONTRIBUTING WRITER

Aotearoa currently has variations of Bachelor of Music programmes on offer at Waikato, Victoria, University of Auckland, Otago, Massey and Canterbury. Some of these universities even offer post-graduate programmes. Other tertiary institutions include Vision College, Matapuna Training Centre, Wintec and others. AUT is notably absent, despite similar courses and a strong reputation in creative arts.

Lawrence Xu-Nan, tertiary spokesperson for the Green Party, spoke about the impor tance of arts degrees, including visual arts, during his recent maiden speech in parlia ment. He stated the “significance of arts and humanities cannot be overstated in our society” in a time where we have “reduced humanity to numbers and statistics, rather than remembering that they are individuals with their own struggles, their own hopes and aspirations.”

Xu-Nan described attending university as the breaking point for his illusion that politics didn’t impact him. His belief that he was not impacted by what the government was doing was “crushed by the drastic decrease in university funding, particularly in the arts and hu manities in the early 2010s.”

University students today might be able to relate to this experience. Victoria University recently closed down its Greek, Italian, Latin, geophysics, and physical geography subjects, and AUT’s reputation is still recovering from a controversial 2021 plan to cut 170 staff. These are only a few examples, but it’ll be no surprise that music programmes are especially at risk, as arts degrees are not afforded the same status as the revered STEM subjects. Spokespeople from universities such as the New Zealand School of Music have expressed concern about budget cuts. This is while National and Labour Party investment in tertiary education has centred around medical schools and technology.

Hirimaia Eketone (Ngati Maniapoto), known professionally as HIRI, recently dropped their music degree at the University of Auckland. They said it drained them of “creative freedom and inspiration” and contributed to burnout. They noted the industry is a male-dominated field, and that there was a clear lack of Māori and Pasifika students during their time.

A spokesperson for AUT told Debate that “performing arts have not featured prominently at AUT” and this is partly because research has found there is not sufficient demand for this form of tertiary study. The last time AUT offered anything close to courses that could make up a music degree was 18 years ago. This was run by Te Ara Poutama, and was a level 4 certificate called Kawa Ake, which included music and

However, for many reasons, AUT should be embracing an opportunity to expand into music. AUT has course offerings in Sound Production and Sonic Cultures leading the country. Music is only a natural extension of courses already on offer, and in high demand from industry employers.

Te Auaha, Te Pukenga’s creative campus in Wellington, has closed many of its music programmes. Music schools at major universities, including at the University of Auckland, have been at risk through the massive restructuring done in recent years. Music is not seen as the most profitable degree, but that doesn’t mean it’s worthless. As students look for institutions still investing in their visual arts programmes, the University of Auckland shouldn’t be their only mainstream study option in Tāmaki Makaurau.

When I spoke to Lawrence Xu-Nan about the merits of the music degree, he emphasised the benefits for AUT. “AUT has a real opportunity to expand its Visual Arts programmes. AUT’s programmes are top-of-the-line in the context of Aotearoa, and give people the practical element that the University of Auckland lacks.”

Xu-Nan, who describes arts as “what brings people together” emphasises the previous government’s emphasis on STEM subjects as being important, but lacking. Arts degrees, including music, look at interpersonal relationships while STEM fails to achieve this. When STEM says can we even do it, arts asks should we do it?

About Eurovision’s elephant in the room

I cannot say I am surprised at the decision from the EBU (European Broadcasting Union) to let Israel participate in this year’s Eurovision. I must, however, convey deep disappointment.

Anyone who knows me personally knows my relationship with Eurovision. Growing up in a sports country while never being interested in it wasn’t easy; I never had any strong, consistent interests I could follow each year.

And so, after discovering Eurovision in 2019, won for the Netherlands by a starry-eyed Duncan Laurence, I was enthralled.

From there, getting to follow the leadup to each year’s contest was an engaging affair. The revealing of each entry. The ebb and flow of betting odds. Getting to discover all sorts of music you never would have expected to encounter. It was the sum of these that drew me in. Besdies, across both the sonic and visual planes, much of the art that has had a shot on a Eurovision stage, or any of the national selections prior to the main contest, has proven a great inspiration for me as a fledgling creative. And so, it truly is shameful that the desire for revenue over celebration of art has tainted this year’s contest.

It’s safe to say Israel’s participation was always the elephant in the room.

Upon reading into the occupation of Palestine, every piece of news regarding their participation left a persistent bitter taste in my mouth. The taste, a stinging irony of sending queer acts as representatives to try to justify their place as some democratic haven in the Middle East, when not only is anti-LGBT sentiment rampant there, but gay marriage is still outlawed. Their 2023 entry masqueraded itself as a feminist anthem; however, beyond the surface-level interpretation of the lyrics, it acted more as a defence of the Zionist worldview. The lyrics referring to “if you’re gonna do it, don’t do it” and “history caught in a loop” were evidently written more from the viewpoint of nullifying foreign criticism, and the justification of their actions in occupied Palestine respectively. And after multiple revisions, the 2024 Israeli entry, originally titled “October Rain” will continue this trend. It takes very little comparison between the lyrics of “October Rain” and the approved submission, entitled “Hurricane” to see the latter for what it is: a barely restructured composition, with much of the propagandist messaging still clearly attached. There is an unwavering lump in my throat that no display of art, music or unity could overcome, as such an inclusion is entirely dismissive of a national broadcaster that has consistently proven itself to be complacent in the erasure of an entire people.

An erasure evident with the story of Palestinian artist Bashar Murad.

Murad was announced as one of the shortlisted artists to represent Iceland at the 2024 contest. His entry “Wild West” was not only hotly tipped to win the national final, but also provide Iceland with a strong result, even propelling them to the top of the winning odds even before the national final. This was, however, never to be; despite making the top 2 of the selection, Murad was narrowly beaten by Hera Björk, losing out on the Eurovision ticket. The result came with allegations of irregularities within the voting, and news of an Israeli-led campaign to vote for Hera Björk to prevent Murad from winning emerged.

The parties both complacent and guilty in clear-cut genocide get to parade around a contest so strongly associated with peace and art.

I can’t say that will ever sit right with me. And so, it is for that reason that despite my initial high expectations for the contest, and the incredibly diverse lineup, I cannot see myself watching the Eurovision Song Contest this year, especially one hosted in socially progressive Sweden, where I have staunch roots myself. Those in charge have prioritised the profitability of the contest over its morals and guiding sentiments, even if that means shamelessly letting blatant propaganda grace the world stage.

There is no good way to finish this piece, other than to reiterate that I am deeply disappointed with the EBU’s stance. Let it, too, be known that my critiques of Israel and the Zionist movement are not reflective of my views on the entire Jewish population, both by ethnicity and religion, and in doing so I would also like to add that many Jewish folk oppose the actions of Israel. Even if it sounds wishful given our current predicament, I believe that, as a collective, we can still use grassroots power to change that which is not right in this world, whilst condemning the powers that latch onto our voices to bring forth harm rather than progressive change. And one of those steps is to ban Israel and the Zionist entity from partaking in Eurovision.

Written By Wolfe Ta’amai (them/use name)

WRITER

It’s not hard to predict what the music issue of to look like. I’m imagining shoutouts to impressively niche artists, guides to Auckland’s underground music scene, and stories of how music has changed people’s lives. Let’s be clear: this is awesome. However, I’m much too musically ignorant to comprehend any of it. For this reason, I’ve decided to cater to my strengths. That’s right, folks, I’m making a list of my top 10 white people songs.

There are a few things I want to address right off the bat. My qualifications as a white person are far-ranging. If the butter chicken isn’t mild, I don’t want it. When I get sushi, I extend my clammy hand past the chopsticks and grab a fork. Upon walking up a flight of stairs or carrying a mildly heavy box, I like to say, “Well, that’s my workout for the day.” Need I say more?

How do you define a white people song? I’m defining it as any song that elicits a cacophony of audible approval when played in a room full of us. Perhaps a pleasantly surprised “oooooooooh” or an “mhmmmmmm.” Maybe, if you’re lucky, a nod from Dad like the one at the end of The Dark Knight Rises. Also, the numerous subgenres of white people music, such as white girl songs and most classic rock, make it difficult to narrow it down to ten individual songs. A lot of certified (suburban neighbour)hood classics are going to miss out…

10. “Gimme! Gimme! Gimme! (A Man After Midnight)” by ABBA

A key measure of the quality of a white person song is its ability to raise the roof at Bar101. “Gimme! Gimme! Gimme!” is sure to get the entire club of future tax accountants and real-estate agents bouncing up and down. We’re holding up one arm with the index finger extended as the hand bounces with the beat; united. I first heard this song from my mum’s ABBA CD. She’d hate me saying that because she says it’s embarrassing. “ABBA’s not cool,” she said. I say be proud of it. ABBA put out some truly timeless bangers.

“A key measure of the quality of a white person song is its ability to raise the roof at Bar101. “Gimme! Gimme! Gimme!” is sure to get the entire club of future tax accountants and real-estate agents bouncing up and down.”

Written By Luke Fisher (he/him) @lukefish7__

CONTRIBUTING WRITER

9. “Come on Eileen” by Dexys Midnight Runners

This song is less of a Bar101 classic and more of a family BBQ classic. “Somebody get a towel! It’s come on, Eileen!” the weird uncle exclaims, to a painfully awkward silence. Inappropriate jokes (told from the third person to avoid responsibility) aside, listening to this song genuinely warms my soul. Despite only knowing the lyrics: “Come on Eileen”, “at this moment”, and “TOORA LOORA TOORA LOO RYE AY”, I will always belt this bopper from the top of my lungs when it comes on.

8. “Classic” by MKTO

This one comes from what I see as the golden age of pop music. Listening to it makes life seem as simple as it was when it was released in 2013. I can still hear it, blasting through massive speakers at the Weetbix TRYathlon. I’ve just finished my race. I’m wandering around with my best friends, collecting ASB-branded wrist brands and getting photos with my medal. Life doesn’t get better than this.

“I don’t listen to this song much, but when I do, I feel a primal urge to chew wheat straw and start line-dancing.”

7. “Cotton Eye Joe” by Rednex

I don’t listen to this song much, but when I do, I feel a primal urge to chew wheat straw and start line-dancing. While many people, including me, think of the 1994 Rednex version, the song has a rich history that pre-dates the American Civil War. You might also be interested to learn that the Rednex is a Swedish techno group, although they hired people acting as stereotypical hillbillies to portray them in interviews. The hillbillies claimed they were rescued from a village in Idaho before discovering their passion for music in Sweden. Top-tier marketing.

6. “Sweet

Caroline” by Neil Diamond

Another feel-good song, “Sweet Caroline”, is an absolute stalwart of English sporting events. It’s one of the great stadium songs; nothing can unite 60,000 people quite like “Sweet Caroline”. I first heard Neil Diamond play on an episode of the Graham Norton Show. Much to my parent’s surprise, I was an instant fan. It makes me feel like I’m dancing beside a fireplace with my own Caroline. In reality, I’m sitting scrolling Instagram with an empty Word document in front of me and Dorito crumbs on my belly.

5. “I Write Sins Not Tragedies” by

Panic! At The Disco

I can’t say I can identify much with emo culture, but that’s ok because many insist that this song is “not real emo.” All I know is that it’s an all-time great white people anthem. The variations in pace are part of what makes this such a bop. It begins like an eBook with a slightly over-the-top backing track and then just explodes. The song is infectious and fun to sing. I find yelling about “closing the goddamn door” incredibly cathartic. It’s a signal to cut loose.

People complain that this song is overplayed, but it’s popular for a reason. It’s adored by the mayonnaise-loving masses.

“People complain that this song is overplayed, but it’s popular for a reason. It’s adored by the mayonnaise-loving masses.”

4. “Piano Man” by

Billy Joel

Billy Joel simply had to be featured on this list. As rateyourmusic.com user ‘lunatikkrazieasylum’ puts it, “Billy Joel is probably the king of white people anthems,” and that “Piano Man” is “drunk white people singalong-core.” It’s just another one of those songs to which we all know the lyrics. I sometimes give myself whiplash by snapping to attention when I hear the first few piano notes.

Each character in the song is based on a real person. When we look deep inside, past our badly sunburnt skin (it was 18 degrees and cloudy, how did this happen?), we can all see some of ourselves in “Piano Man”. Some may be John at the Bar, who is jovial and loved by all but is looking for more in life. Perhaps you’re Paul, the real-estate novelist, struggling to find time for your personal life. Or maybe you’re the businessman, grateful to not be drinking alone.

3. “Unwritten”

by Natasha Bedingfield

This could be controversial, but this is my favourite white girl song. I can’t believe it was released in 2004. For me, it’s one of those songs that makes you feel like a million bucks; you can do or be anything you want. In the Guardian, Bedingfield speaks about the huge pressure on young people to map out their futures. She developed the idea that every child is a “blank page and can write their own future.” As I listen to it now, I begin to believe in a future in which this listicle is no longer unwritten.

2. “American Pie”

by Don McLean

Despite being the longest song on this list at 8 minutes and 36 seconds, “American Pie” is the song I’m most confident at reciting. Impressive, right? Sometimes I like to demonstrate this talent on first dates. They often leave the restaurant immediately to go home and contemplate, overcome with awe after what they’ve just witnessed. “American Pie” would often come on during long car rides with Dad to and from cricket. I could be feeling anxious about the game ahead or crestfallen and tearful in the wake of yet another sporting failure, but “American Pie” would make me forget about it all for a while, both the song itself and the lore Dad would drop about its origins. Thanks, Dad.

1. “Mr Brightside”

by The Killers

This icon sits at the summit of all Caucasian whizzpoppers. It is truly the magnum opus of low-melanin-lustre. There are few better feelings than belting this banger out in a room full of teen drunks united by a song about infidelity. It’s curious how several songs on this list have fairly sad themes, yet they make us feel euphoric. “I Write Sins Not Tragedies” involves cheating, the characters in “Piano Man” have depressing themes, and “American Pie” is born from the death of musician Buddy Holly in a plane crash. Perhaps sad songs resonate with us the strongest.

“Mr Brightside” played during my first clubbing experience at Sugar, a nightclub that makes Bar101 seem like a sanitised laboratory. I burnt all the calories I consumed that night simply by jumping. I was glowing, not only from jumping on a floor covered in years worth of long whites but also from the radioactive RTDs I’d consumed throughout the night. The only negative? A video now exists of this moment, yet another addition to the less-than-desirable digital footprint I’ve developed over the years. But it’s just the price I pay.

Honourable Mentions

Any Taylor Swift or Katy Perry song, “Pump Up The Jam” by Technotronic, “Party Tonight” by Mordecai and the Rigbys, “Sweet Home Alabama” by Lynyrd Skynyrd, “Never Gonna Give You Up” by Rick Astley, and “Axel F” by Crazy Frog.

Illustration By Sahana Vijayaraghavan (she/her)

the early days of social media: you just had to be there to know what it was like. When The Red Shoes came out in 1948, it was peculiar for a film to be made about ballet. The ballet was viewed as high art, and to diminish the prestige of the dance by turning it into a technicolour film was sacrilege. But, The Red Shoes is a trendsetter and introduced the world to the genre of ballet dramas.

The film opens with an opulent theatre being raided by excited youth. Their faces are full of smiles as they push and shove each other to get the best seats, eagerly waiting for the show to begin. The conductor taps his baton, the orchestra starts, and the grand curtain is raised. The Ballet Lermantov has begun.

In the audience, our main characters watch. Victoria Page, aka Vicky, is the daughter of a countess and a promising dancer. Her eyes are transfixed on the ballet. Meanwhile, musical student Julian Craster storms out, realising his professor has plagiarised the composition being conducted.

From the beginning, directors Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger and cinematographer Jack Cardiff show the effect music has on us. For Vicky, it is about the enrapturing, hypnotising power of music, dcnce, and story. On the other hand, Julian sees music as a technical display of ability and talent. Julius is shown at the start to dismiss dance and even think of it as less than music.

Our characters encounter the sly and alluring Boris Lermontov. The owner and operator of Ballet Lermontov. He propels our characters towards what they always dreamed of—conducting and dancing. Julius and Vicky increasingly become entitled as they are given opportunities, hinting at their compulsive addiction to being successful artists. Their shining moment is encapsulated in the play

The Red Shoes, based on a book of the same name. A play that was tried and failed. Yet, the talent of our characters makes the ballet and their careers a triumph.

A recurring theme within The Red Shoes is the struggle between the asymbiotic relationship between art and life. The film provokes the audience to ponder on what is usually portrayed as inspiring each other. The film starts drab with browns and beiges to symbolise the hard work both Julian and Vicky put into their respective passions. As the film progresses, vibrant sunkissed colour explodes onto the screen. The milieu is covered in bright, floral motifs, with dialogue scenes in rococo-styled opulent rooms.

The cinematography screams life to the audience while the story soothes them with the narrative of the grand performative art of ballet. The film transitions to scenes at night, with shots becoming dark and an overwhelming sense of emptiness accompanied by a serious tone. The focus moves away from the art of ballet and now onto the passion of life, shown through close-ups of emotional displays of anger and love.

The film invites its audience to think of the place art has in their lives. Acting as a cautionary tale, The Red Shoes warns against making idols out of what we love, lest we lose who we are and our humanity. Though The Red Shoes is a film over 75 years old, the messaging, design, story, and cinematography have inspired filmmakers since its release. The Red Shoes is an example of an everlasting story with iconic shots that continue to inspire and entertain nearly a century later.

Written By Nathan Cosmic (he/him) | @nathan.cosmic | Letterboxd: GevnKlytusEyes | CONTRIBUTING WRITER

Public transport

Fares are changing for under 25s from 1 May Register now for at least 20% off travel for tertiary students

The government is ending funding for free travel for 5–12 year olds and half price fares for 13–24 year olds on 30 April.

But Auckland Transport still has discounts available of at least 20% for full time Tertiary Students. There are also discounts available for Community Service, Total Mobility and Blind Low Vision NZ card holders. See if you qualify and register before 1 May to avoid paying full price fares.

To find out more visit AT.govt.nz/farechanges

An Interview with SJD (AKA My Dad)

Sean James Donnelly, known as SJD, is a musician based in Tāmaki Makaurau. He’s also my dad. He’s spent decades in the music industry, writing and producing many solo albums, as well as music for film and television. When he’s not telling me to rinse my dishes, or giving me hap-hazard relationship advice, he’s creating soulful music and writing lyrics more poetic than they have any right to be.

His latest album, Sweetheart, is a semi-lockdown album which covers themes of isolation, loneliness and depression, while also being tonally beautiful and heartwarming to hear. Featuring on the album are many other talented NZ artists including Julia Deans, Tami Neilson, Don McGlashan, James Milne, and more.

So, as I’m no musician myself, I decided to cosy up on a rainy Saturday and ask my ol’ papa some questions about his career, his thoughts on the music industry, and some advice for up and coming artists:

As someone who has been in the music industry for several decades, what advice would you give to aspiring musicians who are just starting out?

I think that right from the start it’s good to realise what you’re in it for, and what your metric of success might be. Because only very few people are able to make it to the point where they can make a living out of it. That’s pretty rare. So, you gotta do it for the love of it. And you’ve got to - it sounds like a cliché - but you’ve gotta find your own way of doing it, and find out what it is that you do alone that other people don’t do.

How do you approach the songwriting process?

It’s subtly different each time, but I guess the thing that I’m always looking for is a seed. Whether it’s a sound, lyric, melody, rhythm, chords, or whatever. It’s something inside you that, if you explore it, you can open it up or see something growing out of it. It’s good to not force the process too much, which isn’t a problem for some people. But it can be a challenge because if you don’t start doing it, then you might never do it. As much as possible I just create. Everything that has to do with effort and forcing things to happen goes into creating the conditions in which songwriting can occur, as opposed to putting effort into the actual action itself.

How did being a parent of three kiddos influence your music?

Well, um, it probably meant that from the beginning I had a limited amount of time in which to make music, so I’d do it when you were at school. That’s for a start.

You’re supposed to say that we inspired you, that we were your muses!

I haven’t finished yet! There’s always crazy little things that you guys do, your ways of looking at the universe, and your speech patterns. I’ve got heaps of nifty little ideas. It wasn’t even original but it’s original to me, like Sam’s (my brother) “Make a wish on a satellite”. He was talking about making a wish on a star, and somebody said “That’s not a star, that’s a satellite”, and he said, “Well, I’ll make a wish on a satellite, then”.

Do you think New Zealand’s landscape or culture has influenced your songwriting?

Yeah, heaps. Particularly the geography. I found that in Dunedin, the geography of the place and the landscape definitely affected what I was

doing. In a way that’s hard to quantify, but I guess it affects the form [of the music] very much. And the culture obviously, in terms of language, again, in the way language is used. I think my music has a New Zealand-ness about it, but I find with lyrics if a term has a very New Zealand colloquialism or whatever, I’ll take it out, because it just sounds too… Not because of culture-cringe but because it sounds too pointed, sounds almost contrived.

Which New Zealand artists or bands have had a significant impact on your taste and the kind of music you make?

A person that was a big influence on my writing was Don McGlashan. I was a big fan of his music. And he’s done a lot of things, I mean he did Front Lawn, Blam Blam Blam, Mutton Birds, From Scratch, and his solo work as well. All those things were important to me. His lyrical conceits, and the angularity of his melodies all had a big impact on me. And that idea of just taking unusual and colloquial subject matter and turning it into pop songs.

That’s what I love about Front Lawn.

Yeah, see that’s pointedly New Zealand, but in a way that they’ve mastered. And to me, if I try to replicate that, it sounds like I’m doing a Front Lawn impression or a Flight of the Conchords impression. I think obviously Flight of the Conchords owe a lot to Front Lawn.

How have you seen the music scene in New Zealand change over the years you’ve been working in it?

Well, there never stops being amazing artists coming up and doing things. And there’s always been a fight between art, and the commercial imperative, an industry that - living under a capitalist regime - needs to make money. I think it’s proven a long time ago that commercial pop music, or alternative, or just weird-arse stuff can foot it anywhere in the world and that never changes. I just feel we’re going through a bit of a phase at the moment where people are obsessed with trying to make commercial pop music. And like everywhere else in the world, because of Spotify and the commodification of music, and the decreased income potential that it has, I think people probably spend rather too much of their time having to second guess algorithms and produce content that is not the music, and learn how to promote. It’s very understandable but it’s a bit of a sad state of affairs as far as I’m concerned.

Do you think there are any positives about this digitalisation?

Yeah, it’s a wildcard, isn’t it? Lots of artists, who maybe 50 people might have bought their record, have gone online and there’s been some virality to what they do, and they might have millions of listeners. Weirdly enough, probably the income hasn’t changed that much. Do you know Salvia Palth? A New Zealand artist, who did one album, it’s on Spotify, with something like five million monthly listeners. On something that would have been completely obscure. Having said that, it really does mean that for most people achieving that level of virality or success is just odds on impossible. Just because there’s so many people doing it and not everybody can achieve it.

The way that algorithms work is they encourage people to listen to things that they’ve previously liked, generally speaking. Which

means it’s just the same part of the brain every time gets teased by a piece of music. I like music that takes you somewhere different that you haven’t really heard before, or somehow combines elements of familiarity with things that are unfamiliar.

Yeah, it sucks putting on an Elliot Smith album and then having Spotify show you every sort of guitar indie-folk song that they can think of that you might like as well.

Yeah, as opposed to somebody that might have the spirit of Elliot Smith but makes music with modular synthesisers, or whatever.

You often collaborate with a variety of other artists. Can you talk about the role collaboration plays in your creative process?

I guess most of what I do is 80-90% me, and people will quite often come in at the end of the process and help me finish something or see it through. But I enjoy collaborating; the beauty of it (even if you don’t create anything) is that you can do anything with it. It rejuvenates you, gives you ideas, encourages you, and helps you keep your chops. And then you get the unique melding of sensibilities which creates not the combination of the one and the two, but a new chemical reaction, or new substance.

Looking back on your 30-odd years as a musician, what are some of the most memorable moments and experiences that you’ve had?

I think I want to generalise on that. Like, a big one is when you have a really good gig. Like, I mainly think about recording music, and creating recorded music, and that’s chiefly what I do. But going out and playing

live and taking your songs to a group of people. And then those times when you get a good reaction out of it, it’s so encouraging and inspiring. It’s a very necessary part of the process as far as I’m concerned.

SJD’s music spans a wide variety of genres, there is a little something for everyone. I’m personally a big fan of my dad’s music, maybe because I’ve been hearing it ebbing through the floorboards my whole life, but I like to think I’d be a fan regardless. So if you’d like to listen to songs written in between changing my dirty nappies, or driving me to school, check him out under SJD on Spotify, Bandcamp, or YouTube, and on Instagram under @sjd_musick. There are also vinyl copies of his latest album Sweetheart available at most of your indie record stores.

Interview By Tashi Donnelly

What The Hell is Japanese Jazz Fusion & Why You Should Drop Everything And Listen To It Now

If you’re a fan of vaporwave, future-funk, lo-fi, video game soundtracks, or just looking for funky beats to add to your “dancing in the kitchen” playlist - you came to the right place, In this article I’m going to enlighten you on the bizarre yet beautiful world of Japanese jazz fusion, the kind of music that sends you dancing deliriously after only hearing the first 5 seconds of the song. I’ll briefly tell you all you need to know about its historical background, where you might’ve heard it before and why you should care about it.

So, you know 70s? When disco, funk, soul, R&B and jazz were still popular? Well, some awesome guys like Herbie Hancock, Miles Davis, Chick Corea and others decided to mix it all into one genre and it turned out to sound pretty banging.

As you can probably tell from its name - jazz fusion is a subgenre of jazz fused with, well, literally anything.

Rock, funk, disco, electronic, psychedelia, Mongolian throat singing - you name it. Okay, maybe not Mongolian throat singing, but anyways.

When a huge wave of Western music hit Japan, some Japanese jazz artists heard American fusion and thought: “Hey, this stuff is pretty awesome!!! Maybe we should try doing it too??!” and what they did was so cool that fusion became popular all over Japan, mainly among teens and young adults. Jazz fusion suddenly became a big thing in Japanese television, fashion, culture and even video games. Talking of video games, did you know that the soundtrack for the first and second Gran Turismo games was composed by a pioneer fusion band T-Square? Or that Nintendo’s legendary composer, Koji Kondo, still samples fusion songs in his soundtracks? Even the Super Mario Bros. theme is very, very, very heavily influenced by T-Square’s song “Sister Mariyan”. So, yeah, say thanks to jazz fusion that old video game OSTs are so catchy and funky.

Although Japanese fusion artists were extremely popular in their motherland, they were hardly ever distributed overseas, so their music wasn’t really known abroad. Only in the late 90s when the internet entered our world, people outside Japan started paying attention to Japanese fusion music. The genre remained widely known in the indie circles, as it was a great material for sampling, but never got as popular again after its peak in the 80s.

Lots of famous artists sampled Japanese fusion compositions, like Grimes, Mac Demarco, Nujabes, including tons of other artists of various genres like lo-fi, future-vunk, hip hop, rap, electronic, etc.

You think that would be it for Japanese fusion, until in 2017 YouTube algorithms randomly started recommending people 70s Japanese pop in their feeds.

This is when the majority of people outside Japan learned about Japanese jazz fusion, including myself! Very random, I know, but it was probably the best thing that ever happened to Japanese fusion, as the interest around it got so big, that whole lost albums were rediscovered thanks to the effort of people online. Now you can sometimes hear fusion songs on TikTok and Instagram, which makes me quite happy.

Okay! Let’s say you got to this part of the piece and are thinking “That’s cool and all, but how do I actually get into Japanese jazz fusion?” Luckily for you, fusion library is now as acceptable as ever on Spotify and other music services, and I have great recommendations for you, too:

All of Me - Masayoshi Takanaka

Flying Beagle - Himiko Kikuchi

Casiopea - Casiopea

Funky Stuff - Jiro Inagaki & Soul Media

Scenery - Ryo Fukui

These are my absolute favourites, but I’d recommend you embark on your own fusion journey, listen to anything you think you might like on Spotify and YouTube, and most importantly, not be afraid of checking out anything bizarre or weird. Sometimes weird things are the best.

Written By Ilya Kurilyak (he/him) @kurilyaak

WRITER

Although, upon inspection of our long male-dominated music industry, I’ll really take anything at this point.

The issue is we’re not short on talent. I can name countless talented female Kiwi musicians. Whether they’re taking the big stage, the small stage or performing in their bedroom, they’re everywhere. It’s not only that festival lineups or the top charts are dominated by male talent, it’s the niche scenes too. Gig culture, not only in Tāmaki, but across the motu is still heavily male. Try to deny it but the conservative Kiwi attitudes of long ago still persist today - and they’re stubbornly hanging onto the music scene for dear life!

A couple of years ago for her first-year fashion assignment, my flatmate decided to make a pair of jeans inspired by punk music. Let it be noted that the most punk thing about this flatmate was her tendency to wear Doc Martens every day (albeit they’re mary-janes). For weeks she poured over the history of punk, getting so heavily into the project that she would only listen to punk music while she sewed. At this point in time, eighteen-year-old Harry-Styles-obsessed me decided to ask what she was listening to. “The Slits”, she said. That was the start of a slippery slope. I am by no means a huge punk fan - my Spotify Wrapped won’t feature it in my top five genres - but what really sparked my sudden and intense interest in The Slits and female punk as a whole was the entire philosophy around it.

Misogynist attitudes towards women entering the punk scene in the 70s were so extreme that Ari Up, singer of The Slits, was stabbed while walking down the street. Why? She was a woman doing what she wanted. Bands like The Slits were an instigator for a much bigger movement to come. Although the band had a great impact in their short time, the success of female bands ebbed and flowed for the next decade. This pattern of girl bands rising and falling in popularity and number presents itself throughout time and continues today. That’s the stark difference between the typical male band, and their female counterparts doing largely the same thing. The maleness of the scene has been ever-present, and although genres come and go, gender remains staunch.

For what the 80s lacked in girl-powered rock, the 90s made up for - big time. 1991 brought the emergence of Riot Grrrl. Riot Grrrl was a movement. A community. A mark on history for women to come.

It’s New York, 1991. Women are tired (aren’t we always). Tired of not having a space to have their art appreciated. So, a group of feminist activists and musicians begin to form their own bands to go against the macho attitudes of rock. An independent record label, K Records, organises a punk festival. They take a chance and decide to feature an all-women line-up on the first night, dubbed ‘Girls Night’. History will anoint it as the beginning of a movement.

The band Bikini Kill features as one of the headliners and they go on the become the face of the Riot Grrrl movement and the leading female punk band of their time. The movement spreads using zines. Women write, create, and distribute feminist zines that speak to each

other throughout the country. They are beginning to spread overseas. Soon the movement has stretched its way up to Europe, the UK and is rapidly spreading itself all the way down under to Australia as well.

Throughout the nineties, hundreds of bands sprung up across the world, associating themselves with the label of Riot Grrrl. Thirty years later, Bikini Kill visit Aotearoa for the first time. Thirty years after their peak, thirty years on from the movement that had the rest of the Western world in such a chokehold.

This led me to wonder, did Riot Grrrl never quite make it over the ditch?

1991, Aotearoa. Most of the music topping the charts isn’t even from New Zealand, and the stuff that is reeks of the lingering leftovers of 80s classic rock. After scouring the internet, music archives, books, and articles I thought that I had come to a complete dead end in finding evidence of the same Riot Grrrl movement. But in a last-ditch attempt to scrounge something up for this article, I cast my search back a little earlier. Only five years earlier, 1986, in Te Aro Wellington, a woman called Ania Glowacz had begun what would soon become a widespread craze back in the US. She had started publishing her very own feminist punk fanzine, with ‘a taste for hard punk rock’. A trailblazer if you ever heard of one.

The sentiment was drawn from the seventies punk scene of the UK, and the execution was eerily similar to the way the Riot Grrrl movement operated. Four years earlier, in 1982, the ‘nexus of independent artists, feminism and the post-punk DIY ethos’ came together to form an album comprised of female artists. They became the Web Women’s Collective. Why? Because, in their words, “Women weave the world”.

Despite this scene of empowered, talented women coming together to carve a place for themselves in Aotearoa’s music scene, a movement as established as Riot Grrrl never quite managed to flourish. But after my extensive googling, I had realised that it wasn’t that Aotearoa had any less talent than overseas, but instead, these women were living in an environment that had no idea how to embrace it.. I’ll circle back to it; this country is conservative as fuck. 30 years on, however, I hope that the scene is shifting. Perhaps Bikini Kill’s willingness to finally set foot on Kiwi soil is a marker for big things to come?

Because in my opinion, it’s high time all the incredible girl bands waiting in the wings are given the space and encouragement they deserve. To rip open the curtains and take to the stage!

Written By Evie Richardson

“Hysterical” and “obsessed” are two words commonly used by society when they see fangirls at concerts or music festivals. Yet sports fans, who are as excited as fangirls, are seen as “passionate” instead. Because of the stereotypes that fangirls are often female, and sports fans are usually male, gender stereotypes play a role in this discussion.

As someone who has attended both concerts and sports games, I thought I’d share some of my experiences. In 2019, I attended a Shawn Mendes concert in November. About halfway through the concert, I was told by another concert goer, “Please stop singing because we cannot hear him”. As this moment meant a lot to me, I started crying but brushed it off and kept singing. A couple of minutes later, I was told the same thing again. In 2023, I attended the Ed Sheeran concert at Eden Park. My sister and I were standing and having fun listening to the opening act when we were told, “Sit down we cannot see” from the people behind us. I tried to explain that we were just enjoying the concert, to which they replie, “Sit the fuck down, I will not say it again.”

Going out to watch football matches has been something I’ve done with my dad since I was young. The familiarity of that space gained from these memories likely led me to where I am now, having worked at both rugby and football games. During my shifts, I see the same thing happen every time – the men scream, shout, and swear at the players. It’s also not uncommon for fans to throw stuff on the pitch. Sometimes, there are even fights outside stadiums when particular teams don’t win. I don’t understand the point of that, but regardless, it’s from a place of support.

All I wanted to do was enjoy the concert, sing my heart out and lose my voice, yet I was ridiculed for it. At sports games, no one is told to shut up or sit down, yet it is the same experience. People go to support other people. Typical experiences for fangirls include lining up in the morning for concerts and getting merchandise, which is always way too expensive, but despite that, gwe et them either way. Fangirls often also share their opinions online through fan accounts on various social media apps, such as Instagram, TikTok, YouTube and X (formerly known as Twitter). These are all common experiences and they are not harmful to anyone. I know this because sports fans do similar things. They too will go to extreme lengths like getting up before sunrise to be at the front of the grass area in a For mula One Grand Prix to meet the drivers. Sports fans get new merchandise every year when their team releases their equip ment for the new year, or when an F1 driver switches teams. They share their opinions on Instagram/X accounts such as 433, clubs’ official accounts, the players’ accounts as well as fan accounts.

Why are fangirls looked down on? Why are they seen as childish? Why are sports fans seen as reasonable and justified in their actions, but not fangirls? Both groups engage in similar behaviour and activities, yet only one of them is ridiculed.

It all seems to come down to gender roles and societal expectations. Women are generally seen as inferior

Crazy!

and less powerful than men. They are seen as childish, weak, and sensitive. Any time women are faced with a challenge, it’s expected that men will save them. It’s in the books, TV shows - everywhere. Women are expected to stay at home to cook, clean and be there for their husbands who can do as they please. When they move outside these expectations, they are rebelling. It is commonplace for women to be described as “difficult” in these cases. I believe that no one should be shamed for wanting to be different or have a desire to stand out. Everyone deserves to be an independent individual.

On the other hand, the patriarchy (which was also created by men) has created the framework that entails men to be assertive, strong, and the “breadwinner”. They’re expected to be dominant and take control of situations. They are supposed to be tough and not show emotion. They’re applauded for being loud, and on the contrary, when they deviate from the expectations, they are seen as “brave” instead. They are praised for being different.

These gender roles play a big part toward the contrasting reactions between fangirls and sports fans. Once girls develop into women, concepts such as “girliness” and being “over-emotional” are looked down upon and seen as a form of weakness. When these aspects are mirrored in fangirls, the flawed perspective held by a significant portion of society decides to put them down. To mock them. Ridiculing them for being excited about something they are allowed to be excited about! Listening to terrible pop songs. Crying with your friends at midnight. Eating your feelings away. Supporting each other. Being there for each other. It’s all centered around girlhood and nostalgia. Festivals and concerts are supposed to be a time of coming together as one to support artists. So, what if someone lines up to be at the barricade for a Harry Styles concert? What if they buy VIP tickets just to meet their idols? Yeah, they’re a fangirl. What’s it to you?

The world likes to promote equality, yet in many cases, there is no equality seen. The same actions, yet women and men are given different reactions (this does not even touch on those outside of the gender binary, but that’s a piece for another time). It’s ridiculous that women have to minimise their reactions for things they are passionate about. No one should be put down for having interests. Does this negative attitude make anyone feel better? Because I for sure did not – why should I be having a panic attack at a concert instead of enjoying their music?

It’s a fact - fangirls are obsessed. But is that a bad thing when sports fans can be just as boy-crazy?

Written By C. Fonseca (they/them) CONTRIBUTING WRITER

Illustration By Neena Contreras (she/her) CONTRIBUTING ILLUSTRATOR

Ryuichi Sakamoto: 12—A Transcendent Goodbye

It’s not hyperbolic to say that the career of Japanese musician Ryuichi Sakamoto was remarkable. 12, his final solo studio album, was released months before the artist died of cancer in 2023. Sakamoto knew that this work would be his last. The album is an audio diary produced while he was convalescing from surgery, but even while recovering, Sakamoto knew that for the rest of his life, he would be living alongside cancer - a cruel, malignant presence.

Unlike Blackstar by David Bowie or Carrie & Lowell by Sufjan Stevens, 12 doesn’t reckon with mortality headon. There are no lush, dramatic flourishes but rather a hauntingly sparse and stark soundscape. Sakamoto’s laboured breathing is heard over long, minimal, intimate etudes of piano and synthesiser notes. A meditation on finality, each track is titled and sequenced in order of when they were recorded. We start with “20210310”, a track featuring a sobering low synth that falls and rises like a tree fluttering in the wind.

“20220202”, the fifth track, is heart-achingly icy. Sakamoto’s soul is fraught with anguish as he comes to terms with the existentialism and uncertainty of death. The composition is simple but deliberate - its clarity showers the listener with a foreboding ambient soundscape of droning synths. Somewhere in the distance, a bell clangs. As Sakamoto toils with

human impermanence, he does not attempt to reflect on his legacy or to have a final conversation with loved ones. 12’s diaristic aural texture is not a knowing swansong but a tracing of how a grieving artist confronts the inescapable: death.

By the second half of 12, Sakamoto had seemingly made peace with the permanence of his soon-to-come transition. Gone are the six-minute-plus ambient tracks; he replaces them with piano tracks inspired by his heroes: Chopin, Bach and Debussy. In the classical style, simple piano lines are repeated with eerie grace on the ivory. His laboured breathing remains in the background, a reminder that even in accepting his fate, the pain of the cancer remains. It’s distressing to imagine Sakamoto hunched over a keyboard, striking a key for the last time.

The album isn’t all doom and gloom. These piano tracks, while remarkably heavy, should also be appreciated as an outlet where Sakamoto could ease the pain he was going through. “20220302” is bittersweet. “20220404” features a flowery piano melody. There is light, despite all the darkness.

We go on a metaphysical journey through space and time with Sakamoto until “20220304”, a sudden last breath. With this track, there is no clear resolution to the album. A lone wind chime briefly dangles in the wind. Life is ephemeral. It could end at any time. 12 by Ryuichi Sakamoto, a star never meant for the spotlight, is a parting gift. The album may not be the finest in his oeuvre, but it’s a devastating glimpse into the final years of a master musician who transformed sound.

Illustration By Tashi Donnelly (she/her) @tashi_rd FEATURE EDITOR

Written By Thomas Giblin (he/him)

EDITOR

The Sounds of Southeast Asia

If there is anything I’ve learnt about music over the last few months on exchange in Singapore, it’s how limited my experience has been so far. Being an immigrant in Aotearoa, I was under the impression I had a decent amount of interest in music that pushed the boundaries of Western categories. It didn’t take long for me to realise there was still a lot for me to explore.

I used to think Auckland was quite the melting pot, but Singapore’s population is almost entirely made up of different ethnic groups from across Asia, and more specifically Southeast Asia. Malaysia, China, India and Sri Lanka are just a few of the larger ethnic groups that make up Singapore’s diverse cultural landscape. With such large numbers from different backgrounds, it’s no wonder Singapore’s inner social, art, and music spaces are a mosaic that reflects the talents of cultures across Southeast Asia and beyond.

I began to notice this diversity in the small things. The first grocery store I went to was playing music with lyrics in Mandarin. Other stores I went to played a mixture of Mandarin, Tamil, Malay, English and even a few Spanish or Arabic songs thrown in there. It was this simple exposure to multilingual music in public spaces that made me realise how accustomed I had become to only hearing English music or at least expecting a singular language and culture to be expressed.

This was of course only the beginning. As I visited some of Singapore’s cultural hot spots including Little India, Chinatown and Arab Street, I began to crave more experiences that spanned across different regions of the world. One way of doing this was looking for upcoming celebrations and festivals.

The first one I went to was Lunar New Year in early February. Celebrations of this national holiday stretched across different locations. Gardens by the Bay, Singapore’s landmark tree groves, held a special light show incorporating Chinese music and beautiful dragon decorations. Chinatown had a countdown with music, dance and firecrackers, not to mention the different communities and neighbourhoods that also put on their own performances. One thing I noticed as I walked through Chinatown’s busy streets was the crowd around me. The celebrations of this event had drawn people of all backgrounds. Some of the people I saw and spoke with were locals who celebrated the Lunar New Year, others were tourists who had come to experience a different culture. Many were also locals of other ethnicities who did not culturally celebrate the new year but often came down to join in on the festivities.

It became clear to me that in Singapore different cultural and religious holidays were celebrated by all locals. When I attend-

ed the Holi festival, I saw how even the organisers of these events acknowledged that it was common for those from other backgrounds to enjoy these festivals. Holi or the Festival of Colours is a Hindu festival celebrated across India with music and coloured powder that people smear on one another. The celebration I went to incorporated all of this, playing many Hindi and Bollywood classics, some of which even I knew. However, the DJ also added a few songs in other languages including some in Farsi and quite a few in Spanish.

It was a similar idea when I attended the Hari Raya or Ramadan Bazaars. The playlists at these busy markets were a mixture of Malay, Arabic, Indonesian and Hindi music. At one Bazaar they had performances by a Malaysian singer, who to my surprise began rapping in Malay after a few songs. At another, the group of Egyptian men running the shawarma stand were blaring Egyptian music that is often played at Egyptian events, especially weddings. As someone who is Muslim, I can say for a fact that this blending of cultures is not something I experienced when I celebrated Ramadan in Arab countries.

As wonderful as it was to experience these different cultural events in one little island, I also realised that there was more to this diversity than first meets the eye. Before going to Singapore, I had some knowledge that it was a diverse place, given that it has several official languages. But it was simultaneously praised as one of the more ‘Westernised’ countries in Asia. Much like the diverse cultural expression, westernisation is also blatantly apparent in Singapore. A simple example is tourist and city spaces in Singapore that played more Western music and displayed a significant number of Western styles and brands on its billboards.

Although some of the Western influence may not be negative, when it came to culture, I realised that the celebrations I attended existed in a country that was gradually and successfully being overtaken by Western trends. So, it’s become important for me to appreciate that the festivals, songs and dances I have come to enjoy here are not just for fun, they are not even done simply out of tradition. Instead, they are also a method of resistance by groups of people who refuse to be erased or forgotten.

Written By Rawan Saadi (she/her)

my best friends.

“THE VERY START”

When I was a sweet, petite, seven year old I borrowed a CD from the library called Taylor Swift. As soon as the first five guitar twangs of “Tim McGraw” hit my eardrums, I was mesmerised. I asked my mom to burn the album onto our home computer, and then onto another CD so we could listen to it, on repeat, in the car.

After that my childhood was a blur of guitar. Clearfiles overflowing with Taylor Swift chord charts, fighting with my sister over who got to keep our Swift CD collection in their room, and timing my showers by singing “The Other Side of the Door”. The song was the perfect length to keep my water usage to under five minutes. My very first concert was even the ‘Speak Now World Tour’.

After that my childhood was a blur of guitar. Clearfiles overflowing with Taylor Swift chord charts, fighting with my sister over who got to keep our Swift CD collection in their room, and timing my showers by singing “The Other Side of the Door”

Admittedly, I had a bit of a hiatus during the Reputation era. But her music wasn’t on Spotify and “Look What You Made Me Do” just didn’t seem to fit into my Fall Out Boy, Panic! at the Disco, Hamilton music fixations of 2017. Nevertheless, when I groaned awake on a random afternoon in 2020 and saw the folklore announcement, you bet your eardrums that album was my soundtrack to the remainder of that godforsaken year. And if this is not enough proof of my hardcore Swiftie status for you, we can 1v1 on a Taylor Swift Heardle competition.

“THE LUCKY ONE”

Despite my evident Swiftie superiority, after I realised I would have to break the bank for the Eras Tour, I was hesitant. It took a considerable amount of convincing from my best friend, and even my boyfriend (yes, he’s also a Swiftie) saying “I’m going with or without you” for me to agree to fork out the hundreds of dollars for this “experience of a lifetime”.

Three of us “blocked out our calendars” for the ticket buying operation: myself, and two of my Swiftie besties, Dani and Maisie. My work desk was set up with my computer, laptop, and iPad, all loaded up with the Ticketek waiting room. I even had all my lucky jewellery on. My phone was non-stop buzzing with messages on our “SWIFTIES ON TOUR” group chat. When one of my coworkers walked over to ask me something while I was waiting,

I passionately yelled “Not now!” so they would go away. The task at hand needed all my attention and a blessing from the Ticketek gods. And I must have had some sort of beginner’s luck because after only half an hour of waiting, I got through.

“DREAMING ‘BOUT THE DAY”

Then began the torturous eight month wait. Excitement came to me in waves. I’d message the SWIFTIES ON TOUR things like “can’t believe we’re going to hear this song live” with a link to “august” or “Cruel Summer”. We’d get delusionally excited every time there was a fan-fabricated new album rumour. I even found the perfect Debut album themed dress in the kids section of a Red Cross Shop for $4.

I couldn’t wait to experience the Eras Tour for the first time in person. And afterwards I wanted to be an inspired, ecstatic, emotional wreck on the MCG floor. I fully believed the live show would blow my cowgirl boots off, so I didn’t even watch the film version when it came out. I figured, it’s a stadium concert! It’s going to be best experienced in real life and in a stadium.

I couldn’t wait to experience the Eras Tour for the first time in person. And afterwards I wanted to be an inspired, ecstatic, emotional wreck on the MCG floor. I fully believed the live show would blow my cowgirl boots off

“MAGIC, MADNESS,” MELBOURNE

When we got to Melbourne, I realised my Eras Tour experience was not only going to be within the walls of the MCG. Everywhere you turned you could see people wearing friendship bracelets, dads wearing tour merch, shopping bags with glittery outfits peeking out. And my personal favourite, the public transport assistants were sneaking Taylor Swift song titles into their conducting scripts. “This tram is full but Shake It Off, there’s another one coming in two minutes!”

On the night of our concert, hordes of Swifties were sardined into trams. We were spilling out onto the streets in a flood of sparkles and cowgirl hats. There I was, in my faux denim corset, pastel pink tulle skirt, cowgirl boots and hat - a whole outfit

the sound mixing tent, the bar staff leaning against heir counters on the VIP floor. Of course I appreciated the mammoth operation, but I didn’t want to be thinking about that at that moment! My childhood musical inspiration was strutting and belting in front of my very eyes! I tried to tune my attention back to the stage, but it was proving difficult.

inspired by Taylor’s Debut album. We may not have been able to get on a tram, but I was striding towards the MCG with my besties and boyfriend in tow, nothing was going to stop me from having the absolute time of my life.

“A MARVELLOUS TIME”

After hiking through Kings Domain, crossing the Yarra river, and trudging up and down the stadium stairs to try find the elusive Level 2A, we were at our seats. Being on the third level was both elevating and dwarfing. It was exhilarating to be so high up and have a clear view of the stage, but at the same time I felt like a wee dot, in a glimmering ocean of thousands. Lady Gaga’s “Applause” started to play, and Dani let me know that this was the last track before the show officially began. The crowd swelled as we all stood, and the volume in the stadium swelled too. My eardrums were bursting, and Dani was bawling her eyes out next to me, but I stood there, still as a stone. I thought: “Everyone is so excited right now. I should be excited. Why am I not excited?”

I stayed a statue until the fifth song, “Lover,” where I expelled every drop of liquid in my body through my tear ducts. After that, I started to defrost a bit. The first chords of “Fearless” filled the stadium and suddenly I was swaying and screaming “I don’t know how it gets better than this” with my hands above my head in the iconic heart shape. I felt absolutely sure that Taylor could see me even though she was but a faraway fingernail clipping to me.

An hour into the show, and you’d think the crowd would have tired at least a little. But as the sky grew dark and we got into the Reputation set, the crashing screams around me reached a decibel that drowned out the concert itself. I jammed my fingers in my ears and thought, can everyone else hear the music except me? I felt strange. I was no longer absorbed in the sea of fans, but a raindrop suspended above the stadium, separate from the experience. I became aware of the cameras and their operators,

Relief came in the acoustic set. The enormous production suddenly shrunk down to an intimate concert with Taylor talking and playing to just me. I barely had enough time to process her introduction before she launched into “Getaway Car”. I thought of every time I had zoomed down the motorway belting “We were jet-set Bonnie and Clyde oh oh”. After she masterfully mashed “august” into the second half of the song, I thought it couldn’t get any better, but then I heard “With your face and the beautiful eyes” and I shrieked. She was singing “The Other Side of the Door,” the song I used to sing every day in the shower. I was euphoric.

I jammed my fingers in my ears and thought, can everyone else hear the music except me?

As the show ended, confetti sprinkled down around me, but I was a statue again. I vividly remember Dani saying, “I think that might have been the best night of my life.” And I struggled to wholeheartedly agree. I enjoyed myself, I screamed at the top of my lungs, I even cried, but only once. I cried more at a Taylor Swift DJ party on K Road back in 2022. As we began our pilgrimage out of the stadium, I kept feeling like I wanted more. The show was amazing, but my galaxy-high expectations had not been satiated.

I enjoyed myself, I screamed at the top of my lungs, I even cried, but only once. I cried more at a Taylor Swift DJ party on K Road back in 2022

“LONG STORY SHORT”

The headlines that describe the Eras Tour as an “eye-popping spectacle”, “unrepeatable feat of stamina”, and “simultaneously intimate and colossal” are true. And I believe a Swiftie of any level, or even a yet-to-become Swiftie, would have enjoyed themselves that night. But something I’ve realised since then, is that nothing is ever going to top the feeling of listening to Taylor’s music as the soundtrack to my showers, and the rest of my own, mundane life.

Illustration by Ann Mariya (she/her) | @yourloveannnn | CONTRIBUTING ILLUSTRATOR

Look In The Mirror: My Musical History

I started giving the local famous rock bands a listen at fourteen: Joy Division, The Smiths, Oasis, and Arctic Monkeys. “Fourteen is a sort of magic age for the development of musical tastes”, says McGill University’s professor of psychology Daniel Levitin. Wanting to connect more with Manchester’s culture, I spent my weekends catching the tram into the city centre as a young teen. I would stroll around the Northern Quarter, known for its diverse culture and authentic atmosphere. Street art, music, fashion, and unique cafes define the area. I would be eager to find some new funky street art in the alleyways whilst on my way to Afflecks Palace, an indoor market filled with independent traders selling art, jewellery, vintage clothes and more.

A year later, on a nondescript Wednesday in January, my mum told me we were moving to Aotearoa on Sunday. I replied, “Where’s that?” “It’s a country near Australia,” she said. Within four days, we packed away the whole house and said our goodbyes. I felt indifferent, not feeling sadness or excitement. It was such life-altering news that some people thought I was lying.

“Within four days, we packed away the whole house and said our goodbyes. I felt indifferent, not feeling sadness or excitement. It was such life-altering news that some people thought I was lying.”

After experiencing a slight culture shock to Aotearoa, the feeling of wanting to connect with my kāinga became stronger. I started immersing myself in the British TV series “Skins” and added waiata by Slowthai and Bugzy Malone to my Spotify playlist. They reminded me of home. My first large purchase here was an Arctic Monkeys concert ticket. Despite just attending their Manchester show, where I was also lucky enough to meet them, and having no one to go to the Tāmaki Makaurau show with, I was determined to go again as they reminded me of home. Seeing one of your favourite bands perform live in two cities might seem like the perfect start to moving countries, but not everything was sunshine and rainbows.

When I arrived in Aotearoa, it was Year 11. It was a rough time to join a new school. Everyone already had their friend groups established, and it felt like there were no vacancies. When I was shown around the school on my first day, a teacher told me that the silk rainbow scrunchie that tied my hair back was “too bright”. It was purchased from Afflecks Palace, a reminder of home.

Confusion and panic settled over me during my first break time. I realised that I had no friends to hang out with. I sat at an empty bench and contemplated this thought for a minute. I had a lot of friends back in Manchester. Here in Aotearoa, I had none. Tears soon began streaming down my face.

“This cloud of discontent was there to stay. I wasn’t enjoying home life, and my music taste slowly shifted to reflect this.”

This cloud of discontent was there to stay. I wasn’t enjoying home life, and my music taste slowly shifted to reflect this. I started listening to Lil Peep, XXXTentacion, My Chemical Romance and The Cure as a coping mechanism. My fashion also

Written By Amani Sadique (she/her)

changed to mirror this… # emo phase. The school was also not fond of my self-expression through ear piercings and purple-dyed hair. I’ll always remember the Lil Peep lyric: “I don’t wanna go to school, I don’t like that.”

This cloud began to dissipate the longer I lived in Tāmaki Makaurau. I finally felt settled and found a solid group of friends. I started to expand my taste in music. In my mid-teens, I had an indie and hip-hop phase, reflecting my newfound optimism for life. Waiata by Tame Impala, Declan Mckenna, Wallows, and Brockhampton were added to my playlist.

I struggled to figure out my next steps once I graduated high school. I considered moving back to the UK because I couldn’t afford to study as an international student in Aotearoa. I felt lost. Everyone around me had a secure plan for their future, but I didn’t. “Oblivion” by Grimes was my most-played waiata on Spotify that year. Her music was another form of self-expression. I was attracted to how she layered her voice alongside electronic instruments. I was also enamoured with the gothic-themed album cover of “Visions”. Grimes said that she created the album when she lacked stability in her life and that this project is a “good representation of the beginning of the future.”

After I graduated high school, it was the “beginning of the future.” I escaped the suburbs and moved to a central Auckland apartment. But, six weeks before the lease ended, my relationship with the person I was living with ended. I would have to enter the world of flatting alone and unprepared.

My love for electropop doesn’t stop at Grimes. “Let It Happen” by Tame Impala is rated my most-played track on Spotify. The theme of this waiata relates to this period of my life. Writer Saniyah Ayala describes “Let It Happen” as a track about “embracing change, accepting the chaos of life, and letting go of the need to control everything.” Tame Impala’s “Lonerism” album is also relatable. “It’s about the persona of someone who is really isolated – but not necessarily deliberately”, says Kevin Parker, the genius behind Tame Impala.

“In the car as a child, my dad would play “Ambitionz Az A Ridah” and my mum would play waiata from the “Beam Me Up Scotty” album. Now, as an adult I stroll down Queen Street, listening to these artists. I better understand my parents as people through the music they love.”

Tupac and Nicki Minaj are two of my top artists on Spotify right now. In the car as a child, my dad would play “Ambitionz Az A Ridah” and my mum would play waiata from the “Beam Me Up Scotty” album. Now, as an adult I stroll down Queen Street, listening to these artists. I better understand my parents as people through the music they love.

Informed by our life experiences we are constantly entering and exiting different music phases. Our musical assemblages are a roadmap of where we’ve been, where we are and where we’ll go. Life without curated background music would be dull. So, which songs and artists mirror your journey through life?

Illustration by Ann Mariya (she/her) |

CONTRIBUTING ILLUSTRATOR

IllustratIon By Ilya Kurilyak (he/him) @kurilyaak

A Love Letter To Rock ‘n’ Roll A Love Letter To Rock ‘n’ Roll

Written By Matt Bullock (They/Them) @mbb_247

CONTRIBUTING

WRITER

The first time I laid my eyes on her I knew that she was the only one I wanted to listen to.

You see, she’s got a young body but an old soul. Kind of like me.

Maybe that’s the reason.

I know she’s the one for me.

She talks in guitar rifts and drum solos depending on her mood she goes from mellow and psychedelic to full on heavy metal screamo and everything else in between.

She smells of crowded underground clubs filled with sweaty people head banging and fist pumping.

Her perfume has labels ranging from London to Seattle, Washington.

Her raven black hair waves in the wind as proud as the stars and stripes.

She wears a single bright blue highlight. People say it makes her seem too loud and confronting but I think it makes her all the more beautiful.

I remember when we first met, I saw her sitting on a CD rack she wore a shirt with a love heart grenade on it. She talked about how she didn’t want to be an American idiot anymore I agreed with her. We talked for hours about how much we hate the redneck agenda.

That was over a decade ago. I’ve now seen her in so many forms it’s hard to count from tie dyed shirts to bad hair days and even her angst filled stage.

People tell me it’s bad to be in love with such an older woman and I should get with the newer girls but they’re all so fake with their plastic faces and false boobs their just not my type.

Others tell me that rock’n’roll is dying but I know we’ll keep on trying. You see, she’s been written off before. But I know since the first time I laid my eyes on her I knew that she was the only one I wanted to listen to.

Two decades in, & The Wine Cellar still seems like a good idea

It’s difficult to consider any particular bar, venue, or place in general the hub of the Tāmaki Makaurau music/creative scene. Te Papaioea/Palmerston North has all ages venue/recording space The Stomach, Ōtepoti/Dunedin’s Woof! takes the cake for combining gigs and drinks with activism, and Smash Palace in Ōtautahi hosts an outdoor bar, occasional gigs, and record/zine store Ride On Super Sound towering over it all.

While Auckland City has wonderful spaces like Whammy Bar, Neck Of The Woods, and Ding Dong Lounge to venture into, you can’t really pop into any of these places unless you’re going to a gig. A city's creative hub should be a place you can drop in on almost any given night or day - not just to experience live music, but to connect with other weird people across our community. It should be accessible to as many folks as possible, and serve as a hub for those new to the scene to find themselves a home. The Wine Cellar, located underneath St. Kevins Arcade, is not just Auckland's creative hub - it’s a force of growth and inspiration in of itself, blasting experimental and innovative sounds from its small but mighty space to the rest of the city, country, and world as a whole.

True to its name, The Wine Cellar had its origins away from Tāmaki Makaurau in the Pūrangi Estate Winery of Te Tara-o-teIka-a-Māui/The Coromandel Peninsula. Rohan Evans, currently the founder and owner of Cellar and the son of Pūrangi founder Robert Evans, nearly embodied the classic tale of “rebellious kid leaves their family business for a new life of rock ‘n’ roll in the big city.” “I didn’t feel my place back in my hometown particularly strongly,” he tells me at Bestie Cafe - situated right above the venue he’s called home for twenty years. “I had this idea of opening a little bar in Auckland, initially to showcase some Pūrangi prod-

Written by Liam Hansen (they/them) @liamhanse.n EDITOR

ucts while following some weird aesthetic choices I had observed and absorbed in my time overseas.”

Having been a longtime gig-goer and fan of weird local music, Rohan slowly started to bring bands and live music into the den, having them play in the crowded bar without much of an idea of how to actually facilitate a performance space. “I’ve just spent the last twenty years learning what I didn’t already know about gear, sound mixing, and generally realising the space.” Now in 2024, Cellar has gained the reputation of being the place for up-and-coming musicians to begin their journeys into the scene. Zoë Larsen-Cumming, who performs as Babe Martin, manages Big Pop Records, and previously produced 95bFM Breakfast, considers it a second home of sorts; “I think because of the calibre of musicians that play there and have played there, I almost feel challenged by the space. It makes me want to do my best.”

“I think because of the calibre of musicians that play there and have played there, I almost feel challenged by the space. It makes me want to do my best.”

She’s not wrong about the quality of Wine Cellar alumni - every major name to come out of Aotearoa independent music in the last decade, from The Beths to Princess Chelsea to Marlon Williams, played some of their earliest gigs at The Wine Cellar. The reputation that motivates Zoë to do her best at the venue seems to be encouraging everyone who passes through the doors to do their best - she reckons she hasn’t played or attended a Cellar gig that she hasn’t loved.

This energy partially comes from the way that Rohan and co have run the venue throughout the past twenty years. He says that “We try to make it easy to put on a show, where you don’t have to do everything yourself and you’re taken seriously.” It gives artists and bands an idea of what it’s like to play shows more regularly and allows them to avoid stressing about wrangling an engineer, gear, or lighting equipment and fully focus on honing their set.

This approach has created a community in and of itself, the culmination of which will be on display in their upcoming 20th anniversary mini festival taking place across the last week of May. This is essentially a miniature history of The Wine Cellar, taking you through the stalwarts of their time on Karangahape Roadthis includes their weekly musical improv collective Vitamin S on the Monday, a return to their rent party origins with a blues night in the bar on Tuesday, and insane free jazz group Trioglodyte playing with guests on Thursday.

Zoë will debut her first curated lineup on the Wednesday songwriters special (affectionately titled ‘Into The Grotto’), playing as Babe Martin alongside Louisa Nicklin, Kraus, Motte, and Samara Alofa. These artists highlight the intimate nature of The Wine Cellar and heavily reflect the venue's tendency to host acts that can make a room go silent with awe. That being said, it’s common for artists from all genres and styles to make themselves a home in the space - Zoë jokes that it’s almost like black box theatre, with the variety of ways the venue can be moulded to fit a particular artist's needs.

I’ve seen this first-hand, seeing two wildly different solo artists Zoë manages at Big Pop and its imprint Particle Recordings. Indie folk singer-songwriter Beth Torrance has slotted perfectly into the intimate end of Cellar artists - I booked her for a gig I put on earlier this year, and when I poked my head around the corner from managing ticket sales I saw the audience sitting cross-legged together on a concrete floor, entirely enamoured by Beth's songwriting. On the opposite end, pop artist Jason Parker has equally treated the space like a stadium, singing to a backing track with a stage presence that radiates pure energy and joy. These artists fit right in alongside the variety of jazz, hip-hop, dance, and punk gigs that take place at Cellar on a weekly basis.

To close out the Wine Cellar anniversary week, Rohan has curated a variety of classic bands and artists to play across the current venue space and Whammy Backroom (the bar's former venue space). Tāmaki Makaurau classics and beyond will be playing, including Hans Pucket, Dick Move, D.C. Maxwell, Pony Baby, Mokotron, Guardian Singles, Ammamelia, and many more. These are all particularly modern bands, who have been active for 5 to 10 years or so - meaning they’ve been playing at Wine Cellar through its ups and downs.

Back at the start of 2023, a proposed rent increase saw threats of the venue being forced to close its doors for good, after an already difficult period of trying to get audiences back in the space post-Covid. This period of turmoil saw much of Auckland’s music community come together to support the venue, with Princess Chelsea and Don McGlashan both hosting fundraising gigs there to help support the venue that has supported the scene for so long. While this was immensely difficult for Rohan to get through, he doesn't think this means the Auckland gig scene is doomed forever. “I think we run the risk of creating a golden age that was never there. Things weren’t perfect before the pandem-

ic, they aren’t perfect now, and that makes the collective psyche hesitant to embrace change. People need time to process what has happened, but we can’t hold on to the past. Change must come.”

“I think we run the risk of creating a golden age that was never there. Things weren’t perfect before the pandemic, they aren’t perfect now, and that makes the collective psyche hesitant to embrace change. People need time to process what has happened, but we can’t hold on to the past. Change must come.”

Despite the challenges, The Wine Cellar isn’t going anywhere soon and new people are walking through its doors every day. I often see bands who have come from the most recent all ages scene become absolutely psyched when they become old enough to play there - like it’s something they’ve been working towards, and preparing for their entire time in the community. It’s impossible to quantify the impact the venue has had on the Tāmaki Makaurau music scene - when I asked Zoë about it, she was at a loss for words in fear of underselling how much it meant to her and the community as a whole. To me, it’s just utterly cool - walking through the dive bar lit dimly red, chilling in the wide hallway between the bar and the venue where I’ve had some of the most interesting (and drunk) conversations of my life, and making my way up to the venue itself where there’s always, without fail, something interesting going on. The DIY spirit of The Wine Cellar has never been lost on any of its staff, musicians, or audiences, and as more people come through the doors, the reputation of such a small space can only get bigger.

After very legitimate and scientific-based research methods (my own unsolicited observations and judgements), findings show that how you listen to music correlates with your degree. Answer these niche questions to give us some insight into your preferred way of listening to music, and we’ll let you know what kind of AUT student you are…

Written

By Nabeelah Khan (she/her) |@nabeelahkhann| CONTRIBUTING WRITER

MAX presents Slow Rage

Every so often I’ll come across an artist who screams originality and genuine good vibes. Slow Rage (@slowrageofficial) has two of them, consisting of the superior Max, Max Hill (any pronouns) on vocals/ guitar and the insane speed demon Sam Hatley (he/him) on drums. If you don’t know them, then fix that and go check them out - you won’t regret it. Slow Rage is a genre bending band with attitude, who’s live shows hit a level few others achieve. For the past year they’ve been smashing it playing gigs most weeks, but now they are taking a year in the studio to work on new stuff, some of which will be out later this year. I’ve been shooting their gigs for a while now, so I caught up with them to learn more about the band’s origins, their sound, and if they think I’m their best photographer.

MAX

Hey, Sam and Max, how are things?

Sam

Heyyy. Things are good! Things are very good.

Max

Hello! Things are lovely. Things are amping up in terms of our creative process right now, and it’s something we’re very excited about to finally release some new stuff.

MAX

Is there a song that you guys recommend to people if they haven’t heard of you?

Sam

I would say Rat Poison and The Mirror!

MAX

So for those who aren’t aware, What is Slow Rage? Where the fuck did that come from?

Sam

We were always friends, and we’ve always loved music, but as things went along, Max had this solo project, which was Slow Rage, and we were doing another band separately.

MAX

Which shall not be named.

Max

Bananas in Pink. What. I didn’t say anything. Wow.

Sam Anyway! Yeah, so it was that, but I was thinking “why don’t we just merge the two”, since we’re making similar music anyway. So we did. That eventuated in ‘THE LOW-DOWN’ releasing, which was us figuring out what our sound was and how we worked together.

Max

Yeah, I think our musical chemistry depends on how close we are as friends a lot of the time. Last year, we became closer than we ever had, and so you can hear that in the quality and style of our new music. It just feels like two friends making shit that they love.

MAX

And making love?

Sam

And making love, AND making shit.

Max

Ahh I didn’t think you’d bring that up but ahh… yeah.

Sam:

The people need to know… [everyone laughing]

MAX

You’ve both played with other bands - Max with Coast Arcade and Sam with Back To The Hillside; has this changed how you two have made music together?

Max

Yeah, I mean, there’s only so much that you can learn from staying in one creative project. We were both very insistent on going out and doing other projects, and then taking that knowledge and applying it to Slow Rage. Coast Arcade was my first time with an “industry band” that does tours and festivals and stuff. Figuring out how that works was really good because with Slow Rage, we plan to do that kind of stuff as well, so I’ve kind of gotten the inside scoop on how we’re supposed to operate in that kind of environment. It’s also great working with other people, because I fucking hate Sam.

Sam

Boooo!

Max

Haha, nah! It’s just great to be in a room with different creative people.

MAX

Your shows feel almost choreographed in a sense, but you guys don’t write a set-list. How does that work?

Max

All it is, is trust. We trust each other to mentally prepare for the sets, just to have them in mind when we’re playing the shows.

Sam

When we rehearse, we just bang out a bunch of songs. And then if we want to swap something in the middle, I’ll be like, “Max! Can we do this?”

Max

He’ll just shout it out during the show. A big fun part of that is that we don’t always get encores, obviously, but we don’t plan encores either. During rehearsal, we just play a bunch of songs that we in no way intend to play. If people want another song, we ask “what do you guys want to hear?” And it’s been quite funny recently, because we’ve been practising a lot of our songs, except for this 100 gecs mash up that we do (editors note: this shit live fucking rips). We never practice it, and then it always gets asked at the show. So I feel like us doing it live is our version of practice. It’s slowly gotten less and less sloppy as time goes on.

MAX

Okay, so on the music side of things, I know both of you are heavily influenced by IDLES. Are there any other bands that reflect your own personal tastes?

Sam

Ugh, this is SUCH a fun question. [Sam proceeds to pull out his phone.]

MAX

Don’t look at your phone!

Max

He’s going on his phone in a fucking interview!

Sam

I was trying to look for bands!

Max

I think there are bands that we individually have our own connection with, and then there are others that we’re on the same wavelength

with. Drug Church is a great example! You mentioned IDLES Max, they’re basically like the American IDLES. Like IDLES are more…

Sam

English. Drug Church are more American.

Max

Probably cause they’re from there.

Sam

Yeah, yeah exactly. [Both laughing]

Sam

The next album is inspired a lot by dance music - we love Underworld. They were my “Oh, there’s more music than rock music!” band. I’m also really into hip hop, Spanish jazz like Arthur Verocai, and I started listening to African chanting music and shit. Punk, hardcore and rock has a lot to do with our band, but there’s a lot of other stuff that I listen to that doesn’t have anything to do with the music we make.

Max

We can sometimes be on different wavelengths, but then it comes together to form this cohesive sound. I’m more leaning towards hardcore, a lot of the time. When I first heard ‘Jane Doe’ by Converge, I thought it was the coolest album I’d ever heard. It was just so abrasive, and I was like, “Oh my god, music can be this insane and still listenable!”. Also, lately I’ve been listening to a lot of shoegaze. I’m really getting into Wednesday, and their guitar tones have influenced me a lot. In terms of my vocal style, it’s hard to pinpoint where I take inspiration from, but I listen to a lot of soul singers like Otis Redding and Marvin Gaye. Also Hayley Williams, but I can’t sing that high!

Written By MAX (they/them) @theundeadllama` CONTRIBUTING WRITER

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dear amateur craftsmen, do u rlly think u can scare me, with ur murder letter template? I’m impressed with the use of debate cutouts, but alas, i’m not scared. tho, my boss, Liam, told me we rlly should have a sudoku, so I raise u a quadoku We also had these haters when I was working across the ditch (over at Cr*cc*m), but a bad ass design bitch like me doesn’t flinch, mawma better luck next time, but u got what u wanted so don’t ever come after me again one of these days mawma i’m gonna put an intentional mistake in the sudoku to flip u lot off !!!!!!!!!!!!!

(also, I do write properly, I have 2 degrees, but do y’all deserve that gabbie ?? mawma never !!)

(not rlly) love, gabbie the graphic designer