Duncan Greive interviews Emily Edrosa as Street Chant’s long-delayed second album Hauora is released, and discusses the often-grim realities of life as a woman in the New Zealand music industry. Content warning: contains discussion of sexual assault. I met with Emily Edrosa twice in April. We went to a pub near my office, and each time she was wearing a Street Chant t-shirt. … Read more
During the New Zealand International Comedy Festival, ‘Behind the LOLs’ will reveal the inner workings of some of our finest comedy talent. Today, Hamish Parkinson reveals his four-step process for comedy success. Book tickets to 2015 Billy T Award winner Hamish Parkinson’s NZ International Comedy Festival Show: Moon Baby
Compiling the best reading of the week from your friendly local website. Tim Murphy: What happens when you appear before a judge you called a c*** on Facebook? “A man named Troy LaRue found the story on social media, and made an uncomplimentary remark about Roberts’ appearance. Unluckily, he was summonsed to the court for unpaid traffic fines a few … Read more
The latest episode of our bi-weekly pop music chat for umusic, shot and edited by The Spinoff’s own José Barbosa. It involves two pop rookies – The Spinoff’s Alex Casey and bFM’s Joseph Harper – listening to state-of-the-art pop music and having a chat about it. Simple. This week they discuss Alessia Cara, DJ Snake, Rihanna, … Read more
A mysterious TradeMe listing offering a GOLD MINE of a magazine for potential investors piques Steve Newall’s interest – but why won’t they tell us its name? A mysterious listing on Trade Me teases an “Iconic Magazine for Sale”. Beside it, an image alluringly screams GOLD MINE. Oddly, there’s no mention in the listing of what it’s actually … Read more
The Beauty Spot is Zoe Scheltema’s weekly column that dissects the world of beauty and fashion. This week she reviews the new unisex clothing range by Zara. The market for gender neutral clothing is expanding, and retailers are catching on quick fast. The largest fashion name to recently do so was Zara (who are coming … Read more
There’s been a major push to keep the Pop-up Globe in Auckland. Sam Brooks says it’s deeply misguided. If you’ve been lucky enough to walk around Central Auckland over the past three months, then you’ll have seen a large white silo building sitting in the carpark that you might’ve tried to park in when the Civic … Read more
After two days of ‘cunts’ on The Spinoff, Jessica Williams has had enough. You can always rely on Steve Braunias to start a conversation. This week The Spinoff published a column of his that was too outrageous even for Metro to print. It was about the word “cunt” – and how Steve had suffered as … Read more
Tim Murphy brings you perhaps the finest court transcript in New Zealand’s long and glorious judicial history. On January 12 2016 Taranaki Judge Allan Roberts announced his retirement, as reported by the Taranaki Daily News. A man named Troy LaRue found the story on social media, and made an uncomplimentary remark about Roberts’ appearance. Unluckily, he was summonsed to … Read more
Compiling the best reading of the week from your friendly local website. Alex Casey and Duncan Greive: ‘I will come forward’ “At 11pm, in her inner city Auckland flat, a 26-year-old product manager named Bridget read Allison’s Facebook post. They’d known one another for 14 years, but she had been unaware of Allison’s history with Tidball. It … Read more
Madeleine Chapman employs some good old fashioned nepotism to talk to Christel Chapman about the Pop Up Globe, relating to Juliet, and mispronouncing Shakespeare. The number one blessing and curse with having nine siblings is that you experience a lot of second-hand emotions that you wouldn’t otherwise be exposed to. When a sibling is hurt, … Read more
This Saturday marks the return of Record Store Day, the annual international celebration of independent music retail. What started as a fun way to support your local record store has become an orgy of price-gouging and corporate greed, says Alan Perrott. We must destroy Record Store Day to save Record Store Day. Which, frankly, is … Read more
We fixed Larry Williams’ abominable ‘ban the beggars’ column. For the most part, all it took was replacing the words ‘beggars’ and ‘begging’ with ‘boomers’. It started with Bob Jones. Then the virus spread. A Wellington mayoral contender called for begging to be banned, in an edited Facebook post that originally called addiction a “lifestyle choice”. A … Read more
The latest episode of our bi-weekly pop music chat for umusic, shot and edited by The Spinoff’s own José Barbosa. It involves two pop rookies – The Spinoff’s Alex Casey and bFM’s Joseph Harper – listening to state-of-the-art pop music and having a chat about it. Simple. This week they discuss loose office burritos, Mike … Read more
The Spinoff is shocked and awed to have received 11 nominations across nine categories in the 2016 Canon Awards. Finalists for the annual awards were announced yesterday afternoon, with The Spinoff vastly improving on its previous record of zero nominations. It received a nod in the prestigious “Website of the Year” category. Judges have to … Read more
Few of us can refrain from speculation when faced with a crime story like Making a Murderer and Serial – or Mark Lundy or David Bain. Elizabeth Beattie talks to New Zealand legal experts about the influence of social media on our most high profile trials. Had a conversation about Teresa Halbach’s RAV4 lately? What about Adnan … Read more
This is On the Rag, a podcast hosted by Alex Casey which looks at, laughs at and questions the state of women in pop culture, news and the world. To dissect March’s issues in The Spinoff boardroom, she is joined by comedian and author Michele A’Court and marketing guru and longtime good mate Zoe Scheltema. … Read more
The Beauty Spot is Zoe Scheltema’s weekly column that dissects the world of beauty and fashion. This week she trawls her Instagram feed to uncover some tips from the weird and wonderful world of “makeup hacks.” When used correctly, Instagram can be a one stop encyclopedia for all things. There is potentially no end to … Read more
Fifty years ago, Peter Arnett became the first, and only, New Zealander to win the Pulitzer Prize, for his coverage of the Vietnam War. Ben Stanley met Arnett at his Los Angeles home – and learned about the silent season of our greatest newsman. First published in the summer 2015 issue of Barkers’ 1972 magazine. … Read more
Last week the advertising world came together for its annual night of backslapping at the Viaduct Events Centre. But the Axis Awards are more than just an excuse for a booze-up, says an anonymous creative director – they can make or break careers. The Axis Awards show: the night when advertising creatives swap their Chuck Taylors … Read more
Auckland City Limits, the new festival headlined by Kendrick Lamar and The National, is as ambitious a live music project as New Zealand has seen in a decade or more. During its assembly Duncan Greive twice interviewed its promoter, Campbell Smith, who gave very candid insights into the business of music festivals. I first heard … Read more
The Otago Daily Times has called time on the great online giveaway. The big New Zealand publishers will be watching closely, writes Tim Murphy, former editor-in-chief of the NZ Herald. Its masthead describes it as the “Independent Voice of the South”. Others, affectionately, call it the Oddity. Now the Otago Daily Times lives up to … Read more
Mallory Ortberg is a founder of The Toast, and the kind of writer other writers lose their minds over. Superfan Hilary Beattie tracked her down during her visit for the New Zealand Festival. Mallory Ortberg is a beacon of light in this cruel, dark world. As the lead writer for the Toast, which she runs … Read more
How well do you know your New Zealand media? Take this difficult quiz to find out! On Wednesday NZME CEO Jane Hastings announced her resignation – an event sharply predicted by Scout in what was a legit scoop and probably the finest piece of journalism in the site’s short history. The moment is noteworthy for a … Read more
George FM’s latest celebrity signing has caused an uproar among dance music fans while garnering the station plenty of free publicity. But the Max Key fuss hides more serious issues at George, says DJ Tom McGuinness. Unless you’ve been living under a Herald-less, Stuff-less, Scout-less rock, you’ll be aware that Max Key, son of the … Read more
From an all-male radio station panel to a bad Paul Henry poll, Jessica McAllen digs through the shittiest New Zealand contributions to International Women’s Day. In case you missed the Beyoncé memes and “go girl” quotes clogging up social media, yesterday was International Women’s Day. In accordance with age-old tradition, many men and corporations marked the day with ill-advised … Read more
Duncan Greive interviews Vend’s Vaughan Rowsell, a tech titan trying to reset his industry’s notoriously problematic agenda. News broke a couple of weeks back that Vaughn Rowsell, the extravagantly moustached CEO of retail solutions startup Vend, was stepping aside as CEO to focus on the product side of the business. I thought the decision was interesting, and … Read more
Victoria University Chancellor Sir Neville Jordan is in a fight with Salient magazine over a “disgusting” 96-word satirical article about him, but is his anger evidence of a deeper issue? Sir Neville Jordan’s life story is inspiring. He started his working life at age 13 as a child labourer at a freezing works, and went on … Read more
Stop blaming TV commissioners for the quality of our local output, says Chris Hooper, who last year left TVNZ for a role at the BBC. It’s time to hold the Government’s feet to the fire. Part of an ongoing series assessing our publicly funded television. Read part one, covering the role of commissioners, here. People look upon … Read more