Jazz Kane attends an intimate invite-only Black Seeds show to celebrate the release of their new album Fabric and interviews band leader Barnaby Weir about how things have changed over the band’s long career. Arriving at Caroline Bar in Wellington for the release show for The Black Seeds’ new album Fabric, a couple of drinks … Read more
Former radio host, current Jono and Ben man and Billy T winning comic Guy Williams has just released a half-hour stand-up special for free on the internet. He spoke with Duncan Greive about a variety of things. The first time I saw Guy Williams live was a co-headliner with Rose Matafeo at the Grey Lynn community … Read more
With the sixth and final season arriving exclusively to Lightbox today, we bask in the top celebrity cameos to ever feature on The Mindy Project. For a woman who wears her shambolic heart on her bound-to-be-extremely-colourful sleeve, there’s really not a lot of intel out there about what we can expect from the sixth season … Read more
Bryan Bruce’s documentary Who owns New Zealand now? – which screened on Three last night in primetime – is a deeply problematic sequel to Labour’s ‘Chinese-sounding names’ fiasco of 2015, writes Duncan Greive. “There’s been about a trillion dollars that has left China in the last year or so,” intones the voice-over ominously, over flowing strings … Read more
The Real Pod team assemble in the board room of dreams to talk reality TV and real life in New Zealand, including a great week for lookalikes and a scary new addition to the KFC menu. This week Jane Yee, Duncan Greive and Alex Casey delve deep into almost every element of Toni Street’s surprise … Read more
Labour’s non-commercial RNZ+ multi-media network is a brilliant idea – but it makes no sense to keep it and retain public ownership of TVNZ, argues Duncan Greive. Labour: [We will] develop a new public digital media service… [including] a free-to-air noncommercial television service. The working title is ‘RNZ+’ Also Labour: TVNZ will remain in public … Read more
Jane Yee tackles the eleventh week on The Block NZ, including giant eclairs, pergolas and a Jason Gunn cameo for the ages. A pergola. Four and a half hours of my life this week revolved around an effing pergola. “The fact that you’ve moved it puts it under the recession plane, and I can’t see … Read more
Superfan Tara Ward counts down the top ten moments from the triumphant return of Outlander season three. Contains spoilers, obviously. Outlander is back! #Droughtlander is over, the never-ending tartan thirst is gone and we can once again drown in a hot ginger monsoon of time-travelling drama and adventure. I want ginger kisses! I want mashed potatoes! … Read more
Nine-piece Auckland band Magic Factory name-check ZZ Top and Creedence Clearwater Revival as cornerstones of their music. Ahead of their US tour, Hussein Moses sits down with Rory Treadaway and Scot Brown from the group to find out how they got hooked on such a throwback sound. It’s lunchtime on a cloudless Auckland day when … Read more
With the latest season of My Kitchen Rules NZ enlisting international heavyweight judges Pete and Manu, Alex Casey finds another celebrity lurking in the contestant line-up. Let’s be honest: it’s been a really huge couple of days for New Zealand celebrity lookalikes everywhere. Mr Bean had a killer time at the rugby. Ryan Gosling did … Read more
Calum Henderson watches Common Sense, a reality show that asks real people for their real reckons on current events. Who hasn’t watched the vox pops on the news and thought: these random people on the street should have their own show? In Australia, that dream has become a new reality series called Common Sense. A spinoff … Read more
The Clean have been announced today as the latest inductees into the New Zealand Music Hall of Fame. After turning down the offer twice, band member Robert Scott tells Hussein Moses what it was that made them finally change their mind. While there’s been a bunch of talk lately about who’s not in the New … Read more
José Barbosa has watched the Election 2017 debates in his bunker and slaved deep into the night fuelled by only canned tuna and the odd dart to bring you this special report. This content, like all television coverage we do at The Spinoff, is brought to you thanks to the excellent folk at Lightbox. Do … Read more
Negotiating skinheads, inflatable crocodiles, vegan snacks and the ghosts of Marx and Engels, Tom, Justin and Luke of Auckland hardcore punk band Master Blaster recounts their recent tour of Europe – 18 shows across 7 countries in 27 days. And there’s a music video to prove it. The further we headed east in Poland, the hairier … Read more
The Spinoff’s resident nail enthusiast Sam Brooks dives into nail salon reality show Boss Nails and finds someone to model his messy life after. I love two things: Getting my nails done. There’s something relaxing about handing your hands over to someone for an hour or so and getting them to look pretty and shiny. Especially if … Read more
Alan Holt remembers Celia Patel, better known as Celia Mancini of King Loser, who died yesterday. Last night I learned that my friend Celia Patel had passed away. If you do not know Celia she is best known as one of the driving forces behind the band King Loser. She was a force of nature, … Read more
Every week Chartlander travels back through time, landing in a different year on the official New Zealand singles chart in the hopes of (re)discovering forgotten Top 40 gold. Today we continue our tour of classic general elections at the dawn of MMP. The date is the 12th of October, 1996, and today New Zealanders will … Read more
When future-historians look back at life in New Zealand in the early part of this century, there’s one pop cultural artifact that, in three-and-a-half minutes summed up the aspirations of a changing nation: Gold Medal Famous’ masterpiece ‘We Bought A House’. We’ve been waiting for it for years – a cultural work which encapsulates our … Read more
Lucy Zee counts the many ways the Transforma Ladder infomercial impressed audiences everywhere, from its multitude of uses to its dapper salesman. Imagine you’re a kid, home alone, feeling smug because you managed to convince your parents that you were too sick to go to school today. Jokes on you, because your brother locked the … Read more
On a Friday at the Upper Hutt Cosmopolitan Club, John Summers saw Elvis. Or, sixteen of him. Elvis was Māori. He was Pākehā. He was young. He was usually fairly old. He was drunk, possibly, or maybe just feeling nervy. He was blind, helped to his cane when stepping off the stage. He looked remarkably … Read more
Alex Casey watches Collection Intervention and comes away with some key learnings for fellow hoarders collectable enthusiasts. When I die, my body will be buried with hundreds of plastic E.T. figurines. Not because I love them and want them to stay with me forever, just because I’m certain I won’t be able to fucking get … Read more
The good news is that The Real Pod team are back to talk some guff about reality TV and real life in New Zealand. The better news is that Mayor Phil Goff is listening (?). This week on The Real Pod, we continue our hot streak as The Spinoff’s most hard-hitting political podcast by doing … Read more
Everyone is talking about which party leader ‘won’ the first round of major leaders’ debate, but nobody is asking which debate ‘won’. Until now. Unlike every other audience trend in traditional media, the numbers actually increased on 2014 when the 1 News Leaders Debate aired last week. Drop your e-readers, stop the Snapchats and put down … Read more
With a line-up boasting everything from Miyazaki to Spike Lee, Dan Taipua suggests you look no further than Māori Television for the best in free-to-air movies. When Māori Television launched back in 2004, it brought to the viewing public a new channel for the promotion of te reo Māori me nga tikanga Maori (Māori language … Read more
Last Friday night, The Others Way festival took over almost every music venue in the K’Rd area. Henry Oliver and Don Rowe were there. This is what they can remember about it. Henry Oliver: I arrived late, delayed by a busy parenting schedule and not-as-tired-as-they-should-be children, to see Tiny Ruins play at Galatos. She was … Read more
Tonight on Three at 8.30pm, Jacinda Ardern and Bill English meet again, in the first leaders’ debate since the other day. It’s a feature-length 90 minutes tonight, so here’s something to keep your energy up. We strongly advise using apple juice. Take a sip when you hear/see: Gower guffaws “Paddy” “The fact of the matter” … Read more
With the third season of Scottish time-travel romance Outlander swooping back to Lightbox next Monday, The Spinoff assembled a handy recap video to get you up to speed. One week to go until Outlander does the highland fling back onto Lightbox. Watch the two previous seasons exclusively below:
Jane Yee takes a hammer and nails to week 10 on The Block NZ, including bum tattoos and twin peaks/troughs. “Apparently a certain nationality quite likes it on the outside of the toilet” This is just one of the many lessons I learned during Entrance, Stairwell and Powder Room week on The Block, as well … Read more
As Bill English and Jacinda Ardern battled it out during TVNZ1’s debate last night, Emily Writes was left extremely confused by a sexy candy ad. I never watch free-to-air television on an actual television. I’m not sure why in 2017 you would. So last night’s TVNZ leader’s debate was the first time in a long … Read more