The Music and Audio Institute of New Zealand — MAINZ — operated in Christchurch from 2002, training audio engineers, live sound technicians and electronic music producers at its High Street campus. Alumni include Joel Little, The Naked and Famous and Gin Wigmore. Its programmes transferred to Ara Institute of Canterbury on 1 January 2026.
C93FM was a Christchurch independent FM radio station that broadcast on 92.9MHz from 1986 to 2001. Founded as a classic rock station, it passed through several formats — 93FM Gold, Classic Hits, Adult Contemporary — before closing in April 2001. Its most significant contribution to New Zealand music was the 1988 Rockquest, a local band competition conceived by station employee Ron Kjestrup that grew, under new organizers, into the national Smokefreerockquest.
Heka is a New Zealand duo comprising Stephen Kilroy and Heath Te Au, who released their debut album Last Spiritual Gas Station Before The End Of Civilisation on Arclife Records in 2004.
The Foundry is Canterbury University’s live music venue, operating at 90 Ilam Road in Ilam since the 1970s. After the 2010 earthquakes closed the original student union building, The Foundry ran from a beloved carpark temporary venue for eight years — hosting acts including Savage, Hilltop Hoods, Machine Head, and Dead Kennedys — before settling into the new $27 million Haere-roa building in 2019.
Wax Chattels are an Auckland trio making confrontational, guitar-less post-punk, who released their self-titled debut album in 2018 through New York label Captured Tracks to international acclaim.
Clementine Valentine are New Zealand sisters Clementine and Valentine Nixon, formerly known as Purple Pilgrims, whose work weaves ancient mythology and folk tradition into critically acclaimed art-pop; their 2023 album The Coin That Broke The Fountain Floor marks the culmination of over a decade of restless evolution.
The former Sydenham Fire Station at 293 Colombo Street had two lives as a music venue: Wayne Manor from 1979, hosting Christchurch’s early punk and post-punk scene in a BYO cavernous station space, and The Firehouse Nightclub from 1985 — a more polished club that survived a bomb attack and a gunman before ironically being destroyed by fire around 1990.
Vor-stellen is a New Zealand trio featuring members of The Subliminals, avoid!avoid, and Faults, who released their debut vinyl Parallelograms on Flying Nun Records in 2023 before following up with Armature For A Painting on Feral Child Records in 2024.
Dick Move are a five-piece punk band from Auckland, New Zealand, formed in 2019 out of connections made at Karangahape Road’s Whammy Bar, known for their energetic live shows, socialist and feminist politics, and all three of their albums charting in New Zealand’s top 40.
FLASHBACK to July 2022 — Lawrence Arabia, Andrew Keoghan at St Michael.
The building at 124 Worcester Street was designed by Benjamin Woolfield Mountfort and opened in 1875 as Trinity Congregational Church, whose congregation included suffragist Kate Sheppard. Converted to the State Trinity Centre in 1975 — a theatre, bar and restaurant — it hosted The Axemen’s landmark recording session for Three Virgins before earthquake damage in 2011 closed it for over a decade. It reopened in 2023 as The Church Brew Pub, retaining Mountfort’s famous double barrel vault ceiling.
F In Math is the solo electronic project of New Zealand musician Michael Logie, releasing computer-generated music including the 2011 Couch EP on Flying Nun Records.
Auckland indie rock four-piece formed in 2014 by University of Auckland jazz graduates. Known for sweetly sung, self-deprecating power pop, they won the 2023 APRA Silver Scroll for ‘Expert In A Dying Field’ and have released four albums on Carpark Records and ANTI- Records.
FLASHBACK TO July 2022 — Thrill Collins, Log Horn Breed, Brian Luv at Darkroom.