Music News

Weekly Roundup: Friday 13th December

C.C. / Friday 13th December, 2019 5:03PM

Announcement highlights from a sweltering hot week included Australian pop-rock style icon Alex Cameron is returning to our shores with band (featuring sax-tooting crowd favourite Roy Molloy) for two headline events in March, Aotearoa-raised club innovator Air Max '97 is playing a homecoming Community Garden event this summer at Whammy Backroom, and Australia's Boy & Bear are taking their fourth album Suck On Light on a NZ tour in April. San Diego garage soul sensations The Schizophonics are bringing their explosive live show back to NZ in February and March, with more local headline events than you can shake a stick at, plus appearances at Tauranga's inaugural Not Woodcock extravaganza and Upper Hutt's Obey The Riff festival, who revealed this week a fresh wave of acts ready to pummel the earholes of lower North Island punters in February.

Speaking of summer fun, Canterbury guitar-pop maestro Jed Parsons is teaming up with London's Christof van der Ven (of Bear’s Den) for their extensive national Together At Last tour, Tāmaki Makaurau's Makeshift Parachutes are touring their psychedelic guitar-drenched debut album The Daily Absurd this month and in February, and Põneke psych / soul / garage rockers Sea Mouse will celebrate the forthcoming release of their sophomore album Tropical Fish with a nine date nationwide tour in January and February. If it's festival action your after, Te Whanganui-a-Tara / Wellington's annual Newtown Festival revealed their massive bill for 2020 today, while Aotearoa's premier punk get-together Punk It Up is returning for a two night knees-up, happening at Tāmaki Makaurau's The Bluestone Room (fka Zwines) in May.

It was a solid week for features – Aotearoa’s answer to My Bloody Valentine, Slowdive and Ride, the Malchicks had an in-depth chat with award-winning author Gareth Shute about their new retrospective compilation Everything, and Chris Cudby caught up with Pōneke's hyper-prolific The Spectre Collective ahead of this Saturday's audio-visual spectacular at Wellington Museum. Our end of year features continued to roll out, with Thursday's unveiling of UTR's 2019 End Of Year Playlist – dive into four hours of the UTR team's favourite local tunes released over the past twelve months right here.

Our Caught Live video for the week features Tāmaki Makaurau hip hop heavyweights Eno x Dirty, who'll be rocking a summer party alongside red hot rising stars Church & AP at Leigh Sawmill in early January. Check out awesome recent footage of Dirty declaring "I'm a walking shampoo commercial" on 'Shampoo and Conditioner' (from 2017's Evil Adventures & Happy Endings) in the 95bFM studio for Freak The Sheep's Live and Direct...