Flying Nun 40th Anniversary - AudioCulture Interactive Map

We've teamed up with the fine folk at AudioCulture — "The noisy library of New Zealand music" — to help spread the word about their immensely informative, continuously updated and highly useful wealth of Aotearoa music history resources, freely available to all over on their website HERE.

In the 40th year of Flying Nun, our music community is unearthing more morsels of the label's history than ever before, most notably from those wonderful brains at AudioCulture who've mapped out the key locations of Flying Nun's fledging years in Christchurch. Music writer Gareth Shute (of Thee Golden Geese)  takes the viewer on a tour of Ōtautahi, from before label founder Roger Shepherd was even old enough to go to most bars, right through to 1987 — a year before Flying Nun relocated to Auckland.

If you were to follow Shute's map today you'd be lucky to see half the pinned buildings, as many have since been demolished either from old age or more likely from the 2010 / 2011 earthquakes. However, there'd still be huge value in taking the journey with spots like the Waltham Railyard, Lyttelton Tunnel, Rapaki and other spaces outside of the CBD still intact, although you might need a car to see them all in one day. For a short term fix, simply peruse the map via your nearest screen and explore deeper with the links to AudioCulture's plethora of expertly researched write-ups.

Shute includes all four of the Christchurch Flying Nun offices, including the bleak and drafty first location: "At the end of 1982, Hamish Kilgour (The Clean) received a grant from a job creation scheme and was able to help Roger Shepherd run Flying Nun full-time (Shepherd himself was still working as a record shop manager). The pair found an upstairs room on Hereford Street, although there were holes in the floor and walls so they stuck paper over it to prevent plaster spreading everywhere."

For the full AudioCulture feature of Flying Nun's Early Years in Christchurch by Gareth Shute head over HERE

Flying Nun 40 Years Anniversary 
w/ Aldous Harding, Straitjacket Fits, Reb Fountain, The Subliminals, Superette, The Bats, Mermaidens, Wax Chattels, Voom
Saturday 24th July - Auckland Town Hall (Elemental Nights)
Tickets available HERE