Music video shows

[Dave Homewood]

Does anyone recall these old New Zealand music video shows?

The Grunge Machine (don't recall much but had a big tongue as its logo, mid-1970's?)

Ready To Roll - later becoming RTR, RTR Countdown and RTR Hits in various spinoffs.

Shazam - with presenter Philip Schofield, who later made it BIG in the UK on TV. I think when he left NZ Phil Keoghan may have taken over Shazam but not certain.

Radio With Pictures - originally presented by Phil O'Brien in 1980, and then from 1981 Karen Hay took over (she was the first genuine NZ women accent regularly in TV apparently!). Later Dick Driver presented too.

Tracy *80 - this one I found in the Listener in 1980's listings, mainly NZ bands it seems. I don't know who presented this as the listings just say "Featuring Tracy 'out and about'." The show had resident bands too, these being " T-zer" and "Ning and Nong", with "The Tracy *80 Chorale" plus it had local guests.

I wonder if there was other series, ie Tracy *81, etc?

What other popular music shows do you recall?

[Larry Dutch]

Other NZ pop shows include (just from memory):
'Pop Co' (which ran in the mid 1970s) and the 1960s program 'Come On In The Music's Fine' or some title like that. Bits and pieces still survive for both series.

Some people have said that the NZ 60s pop shows (though there were only a few) were actually miles more exciting than their Australian counterparts.

There is also the feature film 'Don't Let It Get To You' from 1966 (?) which featured Aussie Normie Rowe performing two songs, as well as local pop idol Howard Morrison. This film still survives in the NZ Film Archive, I'm pretty sure.
Cheers
LD
(#1)

[philgray]

Loved "Ready to Roll"; somehow Saturdays at 6pm have never been quite the same since. Yes, "Radio with Pictures" was fab too, on at 10pm on TV2 (or South Pacific Television, as it used to be called - great name, why'd they drop it!?) I seem to recall. (TV One had the famous "rainbow" logo in the "O" of 'One'.) And yes, didn't everyone have a crush on Karen Hay! I think she's now married to Andrew fagan from the Mockers ("without you my life's gonna be... forever Tuesday morning"), and was working for MTV Europe for a long time... Funnily enough, Phil Keoghan was a boarder at my school, but he was called "Philip" then! I guess we should also count "C'mon" and "Blerta", too...

[Dave Homewood]

Welcome Larry, thanks for those bits of info.

When I did a NZ Screen course at university I saw a bit of the film 'Don't Let It Get To You'. It was very cheesy but interesting to see. The music was cool. One thing me and my mate both noticed Normie Rowe looked EXACTLY like Alan Partridge (as played by Steve Coogan).

Phil. I remember the rainbow ONE logo. That was cool. South Pacific Television wasn't around for too long. It changed to TV2 when TVNZ was created in 1980 - the Government buying out South Pacific TV. They of course continued as a production house company for TVNZ, but not as a broadcaster.

Karen Hay is indeed married to Andrew fagan. I met him once when he did a concert at RNZAF Base Wigram, while I was bsed there in the early 1990's. What a whacked out dude. He was over an hour late, his band kept apologising and saying "We've no idea where he is". He eventually showed up, stoned as anything, and performed a blinding concert. A few of us had a beer with him and the band afterwards.