Music portfolio

 

I became a regular contributor to music and pop-culture magazine Real Groove from late 2004 until its unfortunate closure in 2010. As one of two major music publications in New Zealand at the time, it presented me with some incredible interview opportunities with some of the world’s biggest musicians and artists. I’ve also lost count of the many CD reviews I contributed to the magazine over that timeframe. Below is a small sample of some of my work with Real Groove. Please forgive the visual quality of these pieces (and the small, barely readable font size), as these are actually scans from the physical magazines as opposed to digital copies! If you’re having trouble reading them in your browser, you can right click the links and “save link as” to your desktop to view them in an easier-to-read size.

 

Interviews/features

• System of a Down interview – June 2005: A State of Mind
• Foo Fighters interview – December 2005: Fighting Fit
• The (International) Noise Conspiracy interview – April 2006: Caustic Soda Pop
• Pennywise interview – September 2006: A Light That Will Never Go Out
• AFI interview – October 2006: Logical Progression
• Rise Against interview – November 2006: The Political Becomes Personal
• New Zealand punk and hardcore label profile – August 2006: Music from Under the Floorboards

 

I began to contribute to Groove Guide, New Zealand’s major street-press publication, around a year or so after I first came on-board with its then stablemate Real Groove. It’s undergone a number of style and format changes over its lifetime, and very recently it almost joined its now-defunct big brother in the growing pile of magazine closures. Thankfully, someone came to Groove Guide’s rescue, and New Zealand’s free street press soldiers on. Here are just a few of my contributions to Groove Guide over the years.

 

• Agnostic Front interview: Hardcore family
• Coheed and Cambria interview: Coheed and Cambria
• Strike Anywhere: Strike Anywhere

A number of my reviews for both Real Groove and Groove Guide are now hosted online and can be found here.

 

Shortly after graduating with my Diploma in Journalism, the folks at bi-monthly magazine NZ Musician gave me my first real job in the industry, for which I’m forever grateful. More of a magazine for musicians than it necessarily is for music enthusiasts, NZ Musician still charts and profiles some of the country’s greatest existing and emergent talent. I can’t understate how valuable my time with this magazine was, not to mention the crash course in New Zealand musical history I experienced in undertaking my first major assignment: in celebration of its 100th issue, I was tasked with the coordination of that issue’s main feature, which sought to catch up with every single artist to feature on the cover of NZ Musician over its 17-year lifetime. With the help of two other contributors, I contacted and profiled some of New Zealand’s biggest and most-revered musicians.  I continued to contribute to NZ Musician for some time afterwards, and even worked part time administering the content on its website for a year or so. Again, here are but a few of my contributions.

 

• NZ Musician 100th-issue celebration – April/May 2005: page one, pages two and three (please note, this is only a sample of a feature that ran over many, many pages).
• Kitsch interview – August/September 2005: Back on the Burning Ground
• The WBC interview – June/July 2006: Ska Fees pages one and two, page three
• Bleeders interview – December/January 2008: Lessons Learnt Through Bleedin’ Experience

From the web (formerly magazine content):

The Sneaks interview: Betting It All on London Success

The Mark of Man interview: Eight Foot Good, Two Legs Bad

Cobra Khan interview: Shedding the Cobra’s Punk Skin

Collapsing Cities interview: Ambition is the Elixir

The Twitch interview: Changing for the Future