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Tag: Christchurch

w artists

Wurld Series

Christchurch lo-fi collective founded by Luke Towart in 2012, recorded to four-track cassette. Members have included Brian Feary, Ben Woods and Adam Hattaway. Their 2023 album The Giant's Lawn was named one of the best New Zealand albums of the year by Rolling Stone NZ.

j artists

Jim Nothing

Christchurch lo-fi solo project of James G. Sullivan. Released cassette EPs from 2013 before debuting on vinyl with In The Marigolds (2022) and Grey Eyes, Grey Lynn (2024) on Melted Ice Cream.

h artists

Adam Hattaway

Woolston, Christchurch alt rock'n'roll band led by guitarist and singer Adam Hattaway (formerly of Wurld Series and The Eastern). Seven studio albums in seven years, from the 2018 debut All Dat Love through to Hot Variety (2025). Rooster (2021) reached #16 on the NZ album charts and was playlisted on 40-plus US radio stations.

p artists

Pine

Pine were a Christchurch-based trio of Aaron Beehre, Hannah Beehre and Stephen McCarthy, releasing five albums on Arch Hill Recordings between 2001 and 2010. Operating without a drummer, the band combined jangly Kiwi pop with Britpop influences and toured with Neil Finn. Co-founder Stephen McCarthy later became a co-owner of Arch Hill Recordings.

Radio Stations

Channel Z Christchurch

Channel Z launched on 99.3FM in Christchurch in August 1999, bringing alternative rock and New Zealand music to a city that had few non-mainstream options on the dial. Its two years of local programming — Willy Macalister on days, Melanie Wise on nights — gave Christchurch a genuine alternative voice before the network consolidated all content from Auckland in 2001. The station became Kiwi FM in 2005 and was relaunched as a Christchurch online stream in 2019.

Studios

CPIT School of Jazz

New Zealand's only dedicated tertiary jazz school, founded in 1991 at the Christchurch Polytechnic Institute of Technology by Neill Pickard. Now operating as Ara Music Arts at 130 High Street, Christchurch, offering a Bachelor of Music Arts through the Ara Institute of Canterbury.

Studios

Nightshift Studios

Nightshift Studios is a recording studio at 27 Whittington Avenue, Woolston, Christchurch, founded and operated by Dutch-born engineer Arnie van Bussel and in continuous operation since approximately 1976. Built around a custom-built console in a converted outbuilding at the rear of van Bussel's home, Nightshift became one of the key spaces of the New Zealand independent music scene — capturing Flying Nun's debut release (The Pin Group's Ambivalence, 1981), The Clean's Tally Ho, and a string of Bats albums across three decades, while remaining open to every genre from death metal to choral music.

i artists

indi

Indi is the solo moniker of musician and composer Indira Force, formerly co-writer and lead vocalist of Christchurch neo-trip-hop duo Doprah. Following Doprah’s disbandment in 2016, she relocated to Berlin and released her debut album Precipice (2018, Flying Nun Records), fusing electronic production with orchestral arrangements of trombone, violin, saxophone, and flute. Force has since released music as Aridni Orca.

c artists

Cripple Mr Onion

Cripple Mr Onion were a progressive metal band from Christchurch, New Zealand, formed in 1996 by Mike 'Fud' Fudakowski and Andy Woodd. Their name was borrowed — with Terry Pratchett's blessing — from the fictional card game in the Discworld novels. Active until 2016, they were known for a sound described as spellbindingly beautiful one moment and violently cataclysmic the next.

Venues

The Bedford

The Bedford was Christchurch's premier large-capacity live music venue of the 2000s, a converted warehouse on Lichfield Street capable of holding around 1,000 people. Demolished after the 2011 earthquake, it was kept alive through a series of marquee pop-up venues by owner Wendy Alfeld — earning national recognition for keeping live music alive in the city through years of disruption.

Live Music Reviews and Photos

ChartFest 2008

FLASHBACK to June 2022 — ChartFest 2008.

Venues

Players and Hustlers

Players and Hustlers was a pool bar and live music venue at 96 Oxford Terrace on Christchurch's The Strip, hosting DJ nights, rock, and metal acts through the late 1990s — including a Judgement Day dance party in 1997, a Brutal Truth show in 1998, and performances by The Civilians and Gaia. The building previously housed the Player Tenpin Bowling Centre, largest in New Zealand in 1995. The venue was demolished following the 2011 Canterbury earthquakes; the site is now the Riverside Market.