Graham Brazier is arguably NZ's finest lyricist, and says he'd be a poet if he wasn't in a rock 'n' roll band. In the early 1980s the Brazz was awaiting trial on very heavy drugs charges and - realising he may not see the light of day for many a long year - recorded one of the greatest NZ albums of all time, Inside Out. "Six Piece Chamber" was the first single.

Streettalk were a pure blues band in the mid-late 1970s, so it was something of a surprise in 1981 when mad rock svengali Kim Fowley came to NZ at the behest of WEA head honcho Tim Murdoch to produce this slice of Springsteen-esque melodrama. Bemusement would probably be the best way to describe the band's reaction to the whole process.

In 1978, the Kaukau brothers - Gavin, Kevin, Eru and Junior - came to Stebbing Studios in Auckland, where Rob Aicken & I recorded an album and several hit singles with them. Originally called Brothers, they changed their name to Golden Harvest, added vocalist Karl Gordon, and were the earliest successes of the now blooming and booming South Auckland music scene.

There was something of a Golden Era of NZ pop in the late '60s and early '70s, as artists started writing their own material, rather than recording covers of overseas songs. Farmyard and the Chapta were two bands who typified the new independence. "Learning" was Farmyard's biggest hit and a finalist in the 1971 Loxene Golden Disc Awards - kinda like the local Grammys. Kinda.

The Chapta came out of Christchurch and recorded several hits and two albums. "Can't Get Sunday Out Of My Mind" earned them a Loxene Golden Disc nomination in 1971. Several influential Kiwi musos passed through the band, including Dave Kennedy, Kevin Bayley and even - briefly - Sharon O'Neill.

Craig Scott was the David Cassidy of NZ pop. He and his perfect hair had hits with a succession of saccharine singles in the early 1970s. "Smiley", which reached number 4 in 1971, was something of a departure, with a strong anti-war message underneath the sweet MOR sound. A bold move for the time.

You cannot under-estimate the impact the 1972 British Commonwealth Games, held in Christchurch, had on sport-mad New Zealand. Through the new-fangled miracle of satellite TV the eyes of - if not the world - the British Commonwealth were on us. Steve Allen wrote this anthem and we heard it maybe 100 times a day for a month.

Lea was singer with '70s NZ pomp-rockers Ragnarok before embarking on a solo singer-songwriter career that saw her writing for Bonnie Raitt, among others. In 1977 "Lavender Mountain" won Lea the APRA Silver Scroll, NZ's top composers' award. Oh yeah - I engineered this record.

This five piece came from Christchurch and rode the New Wave, citing influences from Cream to Wire. "Disadvantage" was the second biggest selling NZ single of 1981 - so how come we never hear it on Classic Hits (see below)? A virtual cigar for anyone who can tell me the biggest. [Big ups to Don Rae for the info!]

To break the monotony of 1970s touring, Th' Dudes once took the train from Wellington to Napier. The train was more boring than the van, despite the NZR tea. A sox-and-sandal clad German tourist was playing this slice of 1960's Kiwiana on a portable cassette player.

This was the first record I ever bought, in 1963 when I was 6. The rhythm section from the Shadows, featuring Jet Harris on 6-string bass guitar. I reckon that's Jimmy Page, a noted session musician at the time, on the "Kashmir" acoustic guitar in the background, don't you?

One of the most true-rockin' NZ bands of the mid 60s. Larry Morris had a formidable voice, like Eric Burdon's, only rough and gritty. This song is hardly typical of their output, but how many pop songs do you know of that glorify blood-sports, hmm?

Yes, it's Manilow's "Mandy". The potential of the song was spotted by Bunny's genius manager Benny Levin, and Bunny's was a huge hit in NZ way before Barry's. (Hmmm - Bunny, Benny and Barry.) Casey Kasem even played a snippet on AT40. How cool was that in bottom-of-the-world NZ circa 1972?

This one will go in the "20 Greatest Intros" list. Th' Dudes' Central North Island representative Count Gerhardt von Pierard introduced us to the wonders of the enigmatic "Bid" & co, and unknowingly launched his own DJ career.

House as a metaphor for broken love. Mark Williams was the first true big hair and even bigger jeans rock star I'd ever seen in the flesh. He scored several hits courtesy of a great Wellington production team headed by Alan Galbraith.

The history of popular music can be conveniently divided into two eras: pre-Big Chill and post-Big Chill. Prior to this watershed 1983 movie your favourite pop songs were heard for their month or two of high rotate before slipping off the playlist and into fond memory. The only way you got to hear them again was if you had bought the record at the time. And I usually did. Or if not, I'd be at the second-hand record shops some years later trying to find that elusive, exclusive, faintly remembered sonic dream.

The Big Chill, I'm sure you'll recall, made great use of classic pop songs with which the characters supposedly identified. Songs like Marvin Gaye's "I Heard it Through the Grapevine", Procul Harum's "A Whiter Shade of Pale", and the Temptations' "My Girl". Despite being incredibly boring (how much pasta eating and kitchen dancing can one movie take?) TBC was a huge hit. From then on it seemed no movie was complete unless it incorporated a dozen or so classic pop tunes. When the soundtracks were released all these great tunes were suddenly available again. The dreams became reality.

Of course, releasing movie soundtracks was nothing new, but prior to TBC they consisted of music written specifically for the movie. Who can forget the songs and scores from "The Sound of Music", "The Good the Bad and the Ugly", and "Psycho"? Now we had CDs full of songs that just featured in the movie or - in some cases - weren't in the movie at all but were merely "inspiration" for the movie. Any crap film sought to gain credibility by using, for no good reason, a batch of old favourites. The fad soon crossed over to television. "China Beach" - the Vietnam knock-off of "M*A*S*H" - spawned what seemed like dozens of CDs of the hit songs which featured in the series. It seems churlish to lament the greater availability of this old material - especially as it no doubt made a nice surprise for bones-of-their-arse songwriters when the semi-regular royalty cheque arrived - but is it not the rarest things that are the most special? And, damningly, TBC also coincided with the accursed rise of Classic Hits radio. (As a side-note, wouldn't it be great to have a radio station that played classic hits, instead of Classic Hits?)

Anyways, pre-TBC, I'd built up quite a collection of 7 inch 45 rpm hit singles. They were fantastic at parties, even though I had only one turntable and didn't realise I was being a "DJ", because turn-tabling and DJ-ing had yet to be invented. (And, as another side-note, can anyone explain this: A band that has a repertoire consisting of cover versions of their favourite records are usually dismissed as unworthy by the "critics", yet someone who calls himself a "DJ" and just plays those same records gets critically acclaimed. I was at a party recently where a "covers band" had the crowd up boogying wildly for an hour or so. (Obviously there were no "critics" in the crowd.) After they'd finished an A-list Auckland DJ started his set. Amongst the modern oonst-werks he spun some wonderful old records, including Stevie Wonder's "Superstition" and Chic's "Le Freak", both of which - incidentally - the covers band had played half an hour previously to a rapturous reception and a full dance floor. But now nobody was interested in dancing. The DJ played some more records, including Stevie Wonder's "Superstition" and Chic's "Le Freak". Still nobody was up dancing, so he played... errrm, Stevie Wonder's "Superstition" and Chic's "Le Freak". Backstage Mr DJ was a thoroughly nice chap, and he's obviously an expert needle-dropper, but... he's just playing records!)

But I digress. Here I was, turn-tabling away at parties without even knowing it! I transferred many of those 45's to C90 cassettes, as after a few sherries my cuing hand would become somewhat shaky. In remembrance of those fine tunes I'd like to post a few on the website every so often. These are songs that I doubt you've heard in any movie, songs I'd play on my classic hits radio station instead of the usual diabolical mix of Eagles, Phil Collins and Celine Dion that makes up your standard Classic Hits playlist.

Let the igJukebox be a little beacon of pop taste in a dark, dark sea.