The 2006 New Zealand Music Awards took place at The Edge Convention Centre in Auckland on October 18, with all the broad-ranging performances, questionable humour and on-stage melodrama we've come to expect from our own wee version of the Grammys. ...more

Down in the deep south, by the mouth of Rakaia River, in a town with a population of 85, camped in a hut built by her great grandfather, Annabel Alpers has spent a good part of the year living up to the name Bachelorette. ...more

Over the last three years 'A Low Hum' tours have become an integral component of the indie rock scene in New Zealand. The monthly tours which began in October 2003, were spawned from a photocopied monthly 'zine of the same name, first published in January that year and distributed free nationwide. For an extra $5 at the door the magazine could also be purchased at the gigs, with a compilation CD thrown in. ...more

This is a cautionary tale of cause and effect. It started not so long ago...It's midway through the year, I'm teaching 30 hours of private singing students a week with regular three hour jazz gigs on top - and in desperate need of a holiday. ...more

We pretend it's cheating us at times, but life is real. Life allows the music to bleed through the speaker and inspire the mind with the energy provided by one artist in one studio. One man, one mic, one crew. ...more

In late November the NZ Music Industry Commission (NZMIC) brought together four international music industry players for a series of free seminars in Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch. ...more

When I catch up with MC Patriarch (Mark Arona), he is relaxing by the pool in Gisborne after Ill Semantics played a gig to 200 local teenagers. They are down country promoting 'Good Musik', a new album out on their own Illegal Musik label, in association with Dawn Raid subsidiary Clientele Records. ...more

Little Bushman (the band) are "incredibly fussy buggers", at least according to drummer Rick Cranson and guitarist Joe Callwood. Two years after the band's inception, they've just released their debut album 'The Onus of Sand', but it required several tries to get it right. ...more

My first Pig Out experience was quite by chance. Attending a show at Auckland's King's Arms I was informed upon arrival that another band has been added to the bill. By luck this was Christchurch's Pig Out. ...more

A Christchurch-based web venture is looking to take Kiwi music to the world in a somewhat un-traditional fashion. The Royalty Free Music Factory aims to compile a substantial internet database of instrumental music that it will then sell to film and TV producers, radio and cinema advertisers, multimedia and website developers the world over. ...more

New Zealand's SonicAltar impressively took out third place at the 2006 World Battle of the Bands final in Hong Kong on November 24. The Whangaparoa-based five-piece hard rock band, which formed only last year, went unbeaten all the way to the world finals before being outpointed out by US winners Lojic and China's excellently named Voodookungfu. ...more

State of Mind have been tagged as the group bringing mainstream appeal back to the drum'n'bass scene of New Zealand. As I write the duo are midway through a massive national tour in support of their new album 'Take Control'. While their tracks still get played by DJs across Europe they leave listeners of their popular Thursday night show on bFM wondering when they'll return with their dance-floor filling sets. ...more

"It's just so good to have it out. I think five or 10 years from now if I went: 'Yeah, I was in this band and we never put out an album, but we always wanted to and it's still coming', it would kind of suck." Marcus Francis Joyce, bass player of the Demi Whores laughs about the band's long-awaited debut album, fittingly titled 'Volume One'. ...more