In this exclusive excerpt from Uniform magazine issue two (launching tonight), Kiran Dass interviews English post-punk legend Martin Bramah, on the eve of his former band The Fall’s New Zealand tour, about his life in drugs and music. “The only way out is up,” bellows Martin Bramah on the psyched-out 1982 Blue Orchids song ‘Dumb … Read more
The seventh episode of our 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 Halsey’s Biggie rebellion, Tom … Read more
The merging of NZME’s news teams from its various operations in print, radio and online into one all-purpose news gathering is due to be completed by the end of the year. As we’ve previously noted, the great smooshing of 2015 has already begun with a handful of journalists and columnists for The New Zealand Herald now … Read more
This morning, rather than using those excellent new electric trains, I drove to work in a Suzuki Swift. It’s an import without a band expander, and thus locks me below 90 on my FM dial. Being a newsy sort of a guy in a newsy sort of a mood, that meant gritting my teeth and … Read more
A recent Scout video purported to be a peek inside the home of Julie Christie, one of the most powerful people in New Zealand media. But the house was built on land obtained at a bargain price, and Christie admits that she never lived there – raising questions about the nature of the transaction, writes Duncan … Read more
The sixth episode of our 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 why Disclosure should slow … Read more
Leonie Hayden was editor of Rip It Up until its sale to Grant Hislop in 2013. She writes about the experience of watching a publication she once loved disappear from view – until it published an already-infamous review of the film Dope. Rip It Up has long been redundant as a pop cultural touchstone. Many will argue that has … Read more
The fifth episode of our 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 water safety, Ellie Goulding … Read more
After the second death in three years at Australia’s Defqon.1 music festival, Charlie Scott started thinking about the first time she encountered the hardstyle electronica subculture. It was mid-afternoon and the festival was well underway. I was packed tightly between sweating, pulsating Dutch, and thought I was fitting in rather well. I gathered that you just bent … Read more
José Barbosa listens to the debut of First Person, John Campbell’s new podcast series for Radio New Zealand. Whatever Radio NZ ends up doing with John Campbell you’d hope, possibly pray, his old mate Carol Hirshfeld would get him out into the world. Campbell standing in a field somewhere navigating the tributaries of the Solid Energy collapse … Read more
Simon Wilson writes about the October issue of Metro magazine – his last as editor. What’s a magazine for? All the things that any other media are for, of course, but also, to give readers something they can hold in their hands and love. It’s an artefact: a thing you craft with all the skill and … Read more
The fourth episode of our 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 whether or not John … Read more
The third in an occasional series commending excellent New Zealand journalism. I often get irked when I hear or read criticism of the Herald, so I’m bracing myself for an extra long period of irkdom over the next few weeks, as news of the redundancies starts to ripple out from journalists into the company’s wider readership. The complaints – … Read more
Today Women’s Refuge announced that MediaWorks has accepted their invitation to undergo domestic violence awareness training. This comes after one in a series of damaging instances of sexism on their radio stations, the latest of which occurred last week, when George FM’s Thane Kirby and Kara Rickard were suspended for naming and slut-shaming New Zealand women … Read more
It’s been a year of massive change at the New Zealand Herald: Editor-in-Chief Tim Murphy stepped down, and a raft of columnists have departed, including the likes of Peter Calder, Paul Casserly, Dita De Boni and James Griffin. Today the NBR broke the news that time has been called on a number of staff members as … Read more
The third episode of our 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 Justin Bieber’s cool guy … Read more
Here at The Spinoff there’s no Scout feature we anticipate more than ‘Mile High Diaries’ – the definitely true tales of animal lust conducted at 40,000 feet. We were pleasantly surprised to receive an anonymous submission to the series of our own this week… I buckled in safely just as the plane was about to take … Read more
Today, SCOUTS New Zealand used their social media channels to actively distance themselves from Rachel Glucina’s new gossip website SCOUT. “The website scout.co.nz is not connected, associated nor authorised in any way with our positive youth empowerment organisation. We wish to distance ourselves and our strong, established brand from that site.” Well, colour me confused. … Read more
Former Metro contributor Duncan Greive sits down with Simon Wilson, Metro’s departing editor, to discuss his time running Auckland’s city magazine. “You’re addicted to journalese… You need to throw away the phrasebook… I’m not even sure what that means… You need to front up to this too… It’s a weak ending.” A few choice phrases … Read more
The second in an occasional series commending excellent New Zealand journalism. Today we reissued Josh Drummond’s brilliant recollection of the time Rachel Glucina came to Press Club. I was in the audience that day, and it remains the most extraordinary of those occasions I’ve witnessed. Not the best: that would be the extraordinary Mihingarangi Forbes … Read more
Today marks the launch of Scout, the new entertainment news site forged in MediaWork’s basement furnace by Rachel Glucina, the twisted firestarter of New Zealand gossip. Today she emerged: charred and smokey, holding Mike Hosking’s petite vacuum cleaner in her hands. Whatever you think of the website: there’s no denying that this is a moment in New … Read more
Three or so times a year, media luminaries from all over New Zealand gather in a kind of Hellfire Club – based, of course, in Hamilton. Food is eaten, drink is drunk and a speaker – usually a High Luminary or occasionally Winston Peters speaks. Steve Braunias (newly crowned Books Editor of The Spinoff!) curates the whole shindig; everyone … Read more
On George FM this morning, Breakfast producer Noel resigned during the broadcast, one celebrating Kara and Thane’s fifth anniversary on air. “I quit: how’s that for your happy birthday,” he says live on air, “I’ve got nothing positive to say to you.” Thane responded by suggesting they get a refugee in on work experience to … Read more
This year has been the most turbulent in MediaWorks’ history. They’ve farewelled one nationally beloved broadcaster so clumsily that it threatened to sink the ship for a moment there. But they’ve also launched three new news products in less than six months in Story, Newsworthy and Paul Henry. There are mutterings about the role of … Read more
Rachel Glucina’s new “Entertainment + Celebrity News” website Scout goes live on Monday. To get us foaming at the mouth and subscribed up to MediaWorks’ salacious new gossip arm, they’ve posted a teaser video to the site … So what can we expect? A weirdly specific list of possibilities is flashed before our eyes – … Read more
Today we turn one, and debut a new iteration of The Spinoff, a little TV website which has lately been nursing big dreams. We relaunch today with five new categories and eight new staff to help run them. It’s been a wild few months: first figuring out what exactly to do, then how we’d fund … Read more
The second episode of our 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 Nick Jonas’ shredding situation; … Read more
Alex Casey catches the Men’s Panel on Good Morning, where four men dish their tips on how to deal with grumpy women. “And coming up next on the Men’s Panel: taming the tetchy – our motley crew are going to share their advice for dealing with grumpy women” Jeanette Thomas says, as I sit bolt … Read more
The first episode of our 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 being drunk in a … Read more