The perils of fast-paced celebrity culture are joyfully skewered in this "boogie-infused groove" from Auckland artist Randa (aka Mainard Larkin). Randa becomes an appendage/hostage to success when his belly button transforms into a scarlet-lipped star vocalist and goes viral. The video is a hilarious cautionary tale — Randa and his talented tummy are discovered online, he hits the studio, the hangers-on arrive, and substances are ingested. 'Rock Bottom' is directed by duo Vision Thing, and won Best Music Video at the 2019 New Zealand Music Awards.

This was created as part of the 2010 creative collaborations edition of the Orcon Great Blend. The fanciful clip is a suitable match for the moody minimalism of the track. Planned and shot in a day it achieves an eerily cohesive finish, belying the fact director Jesse Taylor Smith hadn’t heard the song prior to filming, and Gilmour was in the dark as to shooting plans. The ‘actors’ were crowd-sourced and harassed into hair and make-up; from there the footage was developed, the song was 'properly' recorded and all the pieces thrown into place – UFOs included.

“Watch out young love!”. Even in black and white, Alastair Riddell’s pouting David Bowie riff brought a shock of rock'n'roll verve to the ‘New Faces’ talent section of Studio One — a popular TV show more used to singing families and novelty acts. The judges were mostly bemused by the glam rock onslaught and only grudgingly allowed Alastair Riddell's band to get through to the finals (where they buried them). But rock fans took notice of the x-factor and EMI quickly signed the band. Within weeks 'Out on the Street' had become the first local chart topper in three years.

Recorded at the Galaxy in Auckland for a Radio With Pictures special in May 1987, Hamilton rockers Knightshade perform ‘The Physical You’. The song made it to number 14 on the New Zealand charts as part of an EP of the same name. Soon after, the band signed an ill-fated deal with Australia's Mushroom Records, before finally releasing their self-titled debut album — featuring this song — in 1995. The band’s performance is archetypical 80s hard rock — which makes sense of their long list of support slots for acts including Guns N’ Roses, Bon Jovi and Jimmy Barnes.

Dunedin music historian Roy Colbert once described Toy Love as "The Stooges with better melodies'" The nervy brilliance of Chris Knox, Paul Kean, Jane Walker, Alec Bathgate and Mike Dooley made it onto the Kiwi singles charts three times between 1978 and 1980. Here they are in 1980 — probably at Wellington's Rock Theatre — charging through Green Walls and three chord stomper Pull Down the Shades back to back. Green Walls was first composed by The Enemy, the band from whose ashes Toy Love rose.

Hamilton hard rockers Knightshade produced a run of sweaty, riff-heavy 80s anthems. This live performance of ‘Out for the Count’ comes from a 13 May 1987 show at The Galaxy in Auckland, which was recorded for both a 1987 album and a Radio with Pictures special. The other featured band was Stonehenge. Knightshade vocalist Wayne Elliott is joined by Gael Ludlow (then better-known as presenter of nature show Our World). The live album Out For The Night Live! made it to 37 on the Kiwi charts. ‘Out for the Count’ had previously got to number 26 on the singles charts in November 1986.    

The video for Shihad’s 'Wait And See' has the band shot in sepia, and trapped in industrial landscapes. Caught in the confines of a factory, the band face tentacles growing out of the walls and a mystery typewriter that seems central to proceedings. Mimicking surveillance footage, the video is made up of fast cuts and shaky shots. The song features on their EP Blue Light Disco, and was later rerecorded for number one album The General Electric. In 2000 the clip won director Reuben Sutherland the first of two consecutive Best Music Video gongs, at the Coca-Cola NZ Music Awards.

This cover by Ted Brown and the Italians of the 1966 hit for the La De Da's focuses on the rock in the psychedelic rock original. Directed by Chris Jackson (Impressions), the no-frills video is all moody blues and reds, cut together with Brown and the band seen in naturalistic colour through a fisheye lens. Brown had won a Tui NZ Music Award for Most Promising Male Vocalist the previous year. Trivia: the Artie Kornfield and Steve Duboff-penned song was also covered by The Bangles. In 1995 Darryl 'DLT' Thomson remixed Brown’s version as the theme music for TV3 music show Frenzy.

“Bam bam bam, I wanna thank you Ma'am.” The D4 and The Datsuns led the Kiwi contribution to a turn of the century garage rock revival, winning nods from NME in the UK and praise for their energetic live gigs. This single from their first EP The D4 (1999) was released by Flying Nun. Directed by Andrew Moore, the video throws an FX kit of tricks (blurred focus, reverse negative, exploding lava cutaways) at the boys in order to capture the rock-out grunt of the song. 

Chosen as the theme tune of Outrageous Fortune spinoff Westside roughly four decades after it was first performed, this guitar and sax-driven rocker appeared on the first album by the legendary, on again off again Hello Sailor. Taken from music show Ready to Roll, this performance sees Brazier and band talking tough in leather about danger on the streets, and "nights like a razor blade". Harry Lyon snarls over his red guitar, Graham Brazier plays a saxophone with a price tag on it, and Dave McArtney adopts classic bored rocker pose.