New Zealand Music Features — Alexander Turnbull Library

More than six years ago, shortly after starting management at Flying Nun Records, I drove out to the Auckland Warner Music NZ warehouse and distribution centre. It was a massive airport hanger style building, on Rosebank Road, near Avondale. The warehouse was filled with towering industrial style shelves of CDs, DVDs and videos. At the time, it was the central distribution centre for all three major record labels, so there was a lot of stock. Because Flying Nun had previously been owned by Warner Music, the master tapes were said to be stored in this labyrinth of a warehouse. I wanted...