Ahead of Jeremy Wells’ return to television tonight, David Farrier looks back at some of his favourite moments from the deadpan broadcaster. I feel passionately about Jeremy Wells. When I heard the official announcement from TVNZ that he would be joining Hilary Barry (another excellent broadcaster) on Seven Sharp, I felt a pang of joy I … Read more
Fazerdaze, the current incarnation of 24-year-old Amelia Murray, released her debut album Morningside back in May. Since we wrote about the build-up to that record, Murray has had a whirlwind year, finally catching her breath back in New Zealand for Christmas. “I do it for selfish reasons,” laughs Amelia. I’ve asked her why she insists on … Read more
Originally conceived to notify you of important breaking news, news alerts in New Zealand have morphed into something altogether stranger. David Farrier reports. I’ve been in America a lot this year and it’s felt like I’ve slowly been descending into madness. I’ve found myself in a dark place where each day I’m reminded that the … Read more
A Sunday night in Ponsonby revives the Bashford Antiques saga, with revelations it’s still unlicensed and still clamping – now for a scarcely believable amount. David Farrier investigates. I was reminded of the Bashford Antiques Saga™ (you can find that here and here) when I was driving past Bashford Antiques at around 10pm on Sunday night. I … Read more
Why, if David D’Amato is dead, does Jane O’Brien Media and the world of Competitive Endurance Tickling live on? The filmmakers behind Tickled address the conspiracy theories, and reveal a new side to the story – and lawsuits – that simply won’t go away. A Spinoff Exclusive. A precursor: This article contains spoilers for both … Read more
For the Shortland Street 25th anniversary week, we’re reissuing David Farrier’s phenomenal 2014 ‘Real Talk’ interview series with two of the soaps’ biggest stars and thinkers – Ben Mitchell and Cam Jones. Today, the trio discuss their favourite conspiracy theories. “It sounds a bit hippy and I don’t like hippies. They annoy me.” Click here … Read more
For the Shortland Street 25th anniversary week, we’re reissuing David Farrier’s phenomenal 2014 ‘Real Talk’ interview series with two of the soaps’s biggest stars – Ben Mitchell and Cam Jones. Today, the trio discuss the origins of life. “The pyramids: how the f- did they get there? Who put them there?” This content, like all … Read more
Chris Cornell died this week. David Farrier writes about what Cornell’s music meant to him, and the day he met his hero. I hadn’t had wifi or cell reception because I was deep inside a weird forest in Japan, but when I switched my phone back on, it was to a flood of messages about … Read more
On YouTube, every conceivable interest is catered to, including the brutal power of top quality, highly engineered swords. David Farrier talks to Lynn Thompson, founder of sword, knife and viral video makers Cold Steel. “The pig is the closest thing to a human, in terms of flesh consistency, arrangement of organs.” Welcome to the violent, … Read more
The international music community is beginning to take notice of Amelia Murray, who has been releasing music as Fazerdaze since 2014. After seeing her play in April last year, David Farrier followed Amelia Murray over the following year as she completed her album, Morningside, and prepared her band to take on the world. “Who is Fazerdaze?” … Read more
David Farrier was sucked into a tickling vortex back in 2014, and spent the next few years immersed in the world of Competitive Endurance Tickling. Throughout 2016 he took the resulting film, Tickled, to festivals around the world and followed it up with The Tickle King on HBO last month. After three years he was … Read more
News broke overnight that David D’Amato, the antagonist of David Farrier and Dylan Reeve’s Tickled documentary, has died. The film-makers have issued a plea for respect over his passing The star of Tickled is David Farrier, the dogged and dazed New Zealand journalist who started pulling a thread online and found it attached to an array of characters, … Read more
Tickled director David Farrier talks to Reggie Yates, the TV host turned documentary extraordinaire behind TVNZ documentaries Life and Death in Chicago and Extreme Russia, over breakfast in LA. Reggie Yates wants to meet for breakfast at a trendy boutique hotel called The Palihouse. He’s staying somewhere quite close, doing LA things like taking meetings … Read more
Hayden Donnell went to the jaw-dropping opening of the New Zealand Church of Scientology on Saturday – you can read his account here. At the event Scientologist-in-chief David Miscavige spoke directly to the crowd. Here, top NZ Scientologist David Farrier attempts to explain what Miscavige is on about in extracts from his address. Dave M: … Read more
A Rihanna logo inspired by death metal bands featured prominently at the VMAs this year. David Farrier followed some rabbit holes to locate the designer behind the whole thing. Originally posted September 7, 2016′ One of the best things that happened at this year’s VMAs was this: Rihanna has always been pretty amazing, but seeing her … Read more
David Farrier, director of docu-thriller Tickled, stumbles into another deeply disturbing instance of vulnerable people being exploited online – this time children, on YouTube. Editor’s note: While we have endeavoured to protect the identities of the children involved, we recognise that by publishing this story their privacy may be compromised. It is our opinion that privacy … Read more
For the past two years, director and weird news guy David Farrier has been living a bizarre cheese dream, following homophobic hate mail down a pink, fluffy rabbit hole and chasing it all the way to an Oscar nomination. With the resultant lawsuits still working their way through the court system, Farrier hit the tank … Read more
New Zealand’s biggest drum n’ bass band tell fellow metalhead David Farrier about their favourite Slayer and Pantera albums, and how playing with Tool inspired their heavier new direction. The release of their new album Stars seemed like a good time to talk to Shapeshifter about their love of drum ‘n’ bass, maybe touching on … Read more
To mark the release of a new online film about intelligence agencies and privacy, seven New Zealand artists reflect on self-censorship in the surveillance age. As many as 11% of Yahoo Chat conversations involve naked participants. That is what British surveillance agency GCHQ discovered while testing their surveillance powers in the operation “Optic Nerve”. While … Read more
A Rihanna logo inspired by death metal bands featured prominently at the VMAs this year. David Farrier followed some rabbit holes to locate the designer behind the whole thing. One of the best things that happened at this year’s VMAs was this: Rihanna has always been pretty amazing, but seeing her name in the style of … Read more
Yesterday we dived into the murky world of Bashford Antiques and the clamp-mad Michael Daniel Albert Organ. Today David Farrier and Hayden Donnell reveal the origin story of the mysterious Mr Organ. It was meant to be a story about some weird Facebook messages. Bashford Antiques had featured in a Story story after clamping every person who’d suffered a stray thought about parking outside … Read more
David Farrier recently spoke to Rhys Darby about appearing on his favourite show The X-Files. He follows up by chatting to perhaps an even bigger fan, and fellow X-Files guest star, Kumail Nanjiani. Kumail Nanjiani hosts one of my favourite podcasts, The X-Files Files. I think I love it because it’s done with so much passion and love. For … Read more
The owners of Bashford Antiques are in the news for aggressively clamping cars outside their Ponsonby store. But this story is much, much stranger than a simple parking dispute. David Farrier reports. Click here for part two of this weird saga. The only tweet I’ve ever been “forced” to delete was about Bashford Antiques. It happened about three years ago, when I was … Read more
Red-faced Transparent fans fess up with their embarrassingly delayed reactions to the double entendre of the show’s title. Raking in yet another pile of Emmy nominations last week, it’s no secret that the Amazon original series Transparent is one of the boldest and best television shows in recent years. Yes, it tackles issues of gender and … Read more
David Farrier and Dylan Reeve’s Tickled had its most gonzo moment yet when two of the film’s subjects dropped in for the Q&A. Joshua Drummond watched the chaos unfold on Facebook Live. “When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro.” David Farrier and Dylan Reeve are living the truth of Hunter Thompson’s famous saying after a Q&A … Read more
An early participant in the saga that became Tickled, Joshua Drummond recounts the online comments, threats and shadow-boxing in the leadup to David Farrier and Dylan Reeve’s acclaimed documentary. For me, it started with trolling. David Farrier had just left a message on the Facebook page of Jane O’Brien Media, a company that seemed to exist solely … Read more
Tickled documentary maker David Farrier pieces together his dreamlike memories of a week at one of the world’s most intense (and high-altitude) film festivals. They say that as you climb Everest, your body is dying. Humans are simply not meant to exist at that height. The severe lack of oxygen and freezing temperatures are actively … Read more
Calum Henderson watches Newsworthy every day for a week, to see how TV3’s late night current affairs show manages to balance both the credible, the incredible, and Gene Simmons. MONDAY Walking home from the bus stop, a long-haired orange cat followed me all the way to the front door. He wandered around the flat for a … Read more