Recorded programmes and themed mixes from New Zealand Net Radio.
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Dolly Parton died in Nashville on Tuesday at the age of eighty, and this week In The Mix gives the whole hour to her — not to the wigs and the nails, which she deployed as a very effective decoy for sixty years, but to the thing she insisted on every time somebody credited the wrong one. She reckoned she wrote about three thousand songs, and she said flatly that it was the songwriting, not the…
On this edition of Musical Musings: Five of the Best, Armando Venditti — host of The Music Den on YouTube, joining us from Edmonton — comes back to the show to take on a band that is practically a Canadian institution: Rush. It starts in August 1968 in Willowdale, a suburb north of Toronto, with three high-school kids playing Cream covers in church basements. Six years later, four days after…
Jarrett McCall is back on Musical Musings: Five of the Best, and after last time’s romp through the American seventies alphabet he’s narrowed his sights to a single band — one of the most quietly influential groups of the last thirty-five years. Stereolab were born in London in 1990 out of a Paris romance: Tim Gane, guitarist with the fiercely political indie band McCarthy, met the French singer…
The Moog synthesiser could only play one note at a time, and it went out of tune if somebody opened a window. For about ten years it was the most exciting instrument in music. This week In The Mix gives the whole hour over to it, starting with the accident that started everything: Emerson, Lake & Palmer‘s “Lucky Man”, where Keith Emerson — who had gone to the pub because he wasn’t feeling the…
Apologies for some dropouts on the audio on this show – we think you’ll agree though Sughosh provides a wonderful and touching introduction to the dramatic story of this band. This week on Musical Musings: Five of the Best, Sughosh joins me to make the case for a band who can fairly claim to have invented something: Fairport Convention. They formed in London in 1967 and took their name from the…
Join Jim Bricker and I to discuss the mission of our new show Ten From Then and the story behind it. Broadcast 17 August 2026
Today on Musical Musings: Five of the Best, I’m joined by the endlessly knowledgeable Leon from Adelaide (South Australia) to take on one of the most influential bands Britain has ever produced: Depeche Mode. Their story begins in Basildon, Essex, at the turn of the 1980s, where a group of school friends — Vince Clarke, Martin Gore and Andrew “Fletch” Fletcher — started making music, before a…
Today on Musical Musings we do something gloriously different. Rather than one band and five songs, my guest Jarrett McCall arrives with an alphabet. Jarrett recently took on a challenge organized by @metaphoralaura on X — the hashtag was #USAtoZ — to run through American bands letter by letter, A to Z, and this episode is his pick of the ones he chose, every one of them, by his own happy…
For this edition, Ken Cheshire champions a band whose ridiculous name (lifted from a Monty Python sketch Eric Idle designed to be “so silly nobody would ever use it”) has always undersold the quiet brilliance underneath. High-school friends from Santa Barbara — Glen Phillips, Todd Nichols, Dean Dinning and Randy Guss — they made warm, jangly, thoughtful alt-rock that could land a knockout blow by…
Today on Musical Musings: Five of the Best, I'm joined by the erudite Armando Venditti to dig into one of Canada's most distinctive and criminally under-celebrated rock bands: The Tea Party. Formed in Windsor, Ontario around 1990, the trio of Jeff Martin, Stuart Chatwood and Jeff Burrows built a sound they cheekily christened "Moroccan roll" — hard rock and blues shot through with sitars, ouds,…
Power pop is the genre that never quite got its moment — and somehow that’s the whole point. It’s a sound built on the Beatles’ Revolver-era jangle and the Who’s coiled aggression, then handed down through a lineage of bands who wrote perfect three-minute songs and watched them sail straight past the charts. This week’s show traces that line from the source: “And Your Bird Can Sing” and “Pictures…
Blame friend-of-the-station Jim Bricker. He got in touch the other day, asked “how awesome was 1971?”, and wouldn’t let it go — and the more we dug, the more the question answered itself. So we’ve built a special around it: two hours (all right, a little more) making the case that 1971 might just be the greatest year popular music ever had. Jim chose the tracks – and I added a few bonus tracks at…
We were delighted to be joined by Kelly and Dave from the highly recommended It’s The Groove podcast for this show. We put Kool & the Gang on trial this week, and it turns out sixty years of music doesn’t sort itself into neat halves quite as easily as we’d hoped. Kelly came for the 70s with “Hollywood Swinging” and “Summer Madness”. Dave came for the 80s with “Celebration” and “Fresh”. Both of…
Today’s In the Mix stays close to home. New Zealand isn’t a country anyone associates with prog rock — no stadium tours, no Mellotron-stacked arena shows — but for a brief window in the early-to-mid 1970s, a handful of bands here were chasing the same ambitions as Yes, Genesis and King Crimson, usually on a fraction of the budget and often with only one Mellotron between the lot of them…
We were pleased to be joined by Sughosh Varadarajan to talk about five of his favourite tracks from Al Stewart. Note unfortunately we have a short audio dropout in the last discussion. Not many songwriters can claim to have invented their own genre — but Al Stewart arguably did exactly that. Born Alastair Ian Stewart in Greenock, Scotland in 1945 and raised in Bournemouth on the English south…
Everybody thinks they know what a one-hit wonder is. But dig into the fine print and it gets wonderfully strange. Our rule for this episode is simple: one Top 40 single, on at least one side of the Atlantic. That little phrase — "one side" — is where the fun lives, because pop is full of acts who were superstars at home and total strangers across the water. Corey Hart notched nine hits in North…
In this episode, we are pleased to welcome Jarrett McCall. Jarrett brings his keen ear and diverse musical taste to the station, sharing his carefully selected list of the top ten albums that have defined the first half of 2026. This discussion is not just a countdown of favourites; it’s an exploration of emerging trends and an inside look at how these albums, from all corners of the musical…
In this episode of Musical Musings, we dive deep into the extraordinary, multi-decade career of one of rock and soul’s ultimate chameleons: Steve Winwood. From his early days as a teenage prodigy to his genre-defining work with legendary bands and his massive 1980s solo success, Winwood’s musical footprint is massive. However, instead of spinning the global chart-toppers, we are bypassing the…
In this episode, we are joined by special guest Armando Vendetti, host of The Music Den on YouTube — a channel covering everything from Classic Rock and Prog to Jazz Fusion and Pop. Armando brings his passion and deep knowledge of music to New Zealand Net Radio for a special Five of the Best: Queen session, sharing five personally chosen tracks and the stories behind why they matter to him. The…
Step inside the sonic time machine as this episode of In the Mix dives headfirst into the spectacular, high-contrast landscape of 1986. Globally, the year was defined by a sense of high-stakes drama and profound transition. The world watched in awe and heartbreak through major historical milestones like the tragic Space Shuttle Challenger disaster and the chilling wake of the Chernobyl nuclear…
In this episode of Five of the Best, we are joined by Ken Cheshire (X: @klcheshire) for a deep dive into the cinematic, electronic, and influential sound of Ultravox. Focusing exclusively on the Midge Ure-fronted era, we explore how this legendary four-piece transformed from post-punk roots into the architects of the 1980s synth-pop explosion. From the "electronic cathedral" grandeur of their…
In this episode, we count down a definitive Top 20 tracklist sourced straight from the music curators of the X timeline. We’re spinning everything from the kaleidoscopic, genre-shifting blog-rock of Animal Collective and the haunting, nocturnal synth-pop of Bat for Lashes, to the arena-sized alternative anthems of Kings of Leon and Depeche Mode. Finally, we build all the way down to the…
Get ready to hit the open road with this edition of In the Mix, where we track the legendary evolution of Country Rock. In this 50-minute curated set, we travel from the sun-drenched, harmony-rich hills of Laurel Canyon straight down to the gritty, blues-drenched swamps of the American South. We’re spinning the absolute gold standard of the genre—featuring the timeless storytelling of the Eagles,…
Step back into 1993, a transitional year when alternative rock collided with the electronic underground and established icons completely reinvented themselves for the dance floor. In this episode of In the Mix: 1993 Extended, we are dusting off the vinyl crates to spin ten iconic 12” singles, promo rarieties, and extended mixes that defined the era. From an early, moody trip-hop rework of Depeche…
An indulgence - my favourite ten The Killers tracks (today anyway) Inspired by The Music Den's albums list on X https://x.com/VendittiAr22341/status/2055774864473202952?s=20 Originally broadcast 18 May 2026
Great new pop for May 2026 including music from Gracie Abrams, Madison Beer, Zayn + more. Broadcast 16 May 2026
Great recent tracks chosen by Jim Bricker including music from The Black Keys, Geordie Gordon and The Boo Radleys. X: @jbbricker Broadcast 14 May 2026
Who doesn’t like a great extended single? Here are a few favourites from 1981. Broadcast 11 May 2026
A selection of tracks from albums 20-11 of “The Music Den” (on YouTube) Top 20 albums of 1979. Chosen by Armando Venditti and Ken Cheshire. Broadcast 7 May 2026
Jim's picks including tofusmell, The Milk Carton Kids and Robben Ford @jbbricker. Originally broadcast 1 May 2026
New Zealand’s Top 20 for this week in 1986. Pet Shop Boys, Fine Young Cannibals, Klymaxx and more! Broadcast 29 Apr 2026
