Alex Casey

Senior Writer at The Spinoff

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Articles

Bloody crocs, vomit socks: The best moments from the 2025 Aotearoa Music Awards

1 week ago | thespinoff.co.nz | Alex Casey

Alex Casey recaps the highlights of the 60th Aotearoa Music Awards. Last night the Viaduct Event Centre in Tāmaki Makaurau hosted the 60th Aotearoa Music Awards, a celebration of our best and brightest musicians and an annual opportunity to see just how many outfit changes Jesse Mulligan and Kara Rickard can pack into one awards night (I counted just four this year, but we are in tough times).
Is homemade butter worth it? Two methods, put to the test

1 week ago | thespinoff.co.nz | Alex Casey

With butter prices slipping through our fingers, we took matters into our own hands. Every day it feels like there’s a new headline about Aotearoa’s butter price blowout. With Stats NZ reporting a 65% price hike since February last year, a block of butter is slipping out of reach for many, with the rise unlikely to melt away anytime soon. People are lining up at Costco to bulk buy blocks of slightly cheaper butter, with one man even driving 750km to fill his van with the stuff.
The Christchurch musician who made a video game about making an album

2 weeks ago | thespinoff.co.nz | Alex Casey

Alex Casey talks to Ōtautahi musician Lukas Mayo, aka Pickle Darling, about channelling their album anxieties into a video game. It’s not long into Pickle Darling: The Game that you are confronted by a curious shapeshifting figure, one cycling through various faces at warp speed and flanked by two ominous burning torches. “I am the New Zealand music industry,” the pixelated spectre announces. “Do you have any burning questions?” Pickle Darling, aka you, has prepared one earlier.
The picture book helping kids heal from the pain of March 15

2 weeks ago | thespinoff.co.nz | Alex Casey

Alex Casey talks to Dr Maysoon Salama, author of The Heavenly Papa Giraffe. There’s a page in The Heavenly Papa Giraffe where a peaceful and closeknit family of giraffes are confronted with a snarling hyena on their walk across the savannah. “I hate giraffes, I hate giraffes,” he shouts as they quietly shuffle past. “You have tall necks, and your skin is patchy. You don’t belong in this jungle.
Everything we learned from the Jacinda Ardern movie trailer

2 weeks ago | thespinoff.co.nz | Alex Casey

There will be tears, there will be imposter syndrome, there will be a Clarke Gayford cinematographer credit. In January, reviews began pouring out of the festival circuit for Prime Minister, the feature length documentary following Jacinda Ardern over a period of seven years.
New local ‘Gossip Girl whodunnit’ takes aim at image based abuse

3 weeks ago | thespinoff.co.nz | Alex Casey

Alex Casey talks to Jess Todd and Liv McClymont, the creative team behind scandalous new social media series The Sender. On one of the final rounds of script feedback, millennial filmmakers Jess Todd and Liv McClymont received a crucial last minute note from their group of Gen Z advisors. “They were like, ‘it’s really good, but we only really say the word suss ironically now – it’s changed in the past month’,” laughs McClymont. “Things change really quickly with Gen Z.
Don’t just ban social media for under 16s – ban it for everyone

3 weeks ago | thespinoff.co.nz | Alex Casey

Alex Casey suggests a bold amendment to the social media ban. Last week, National MP Catherine Wedd chucked a member’s bill into the biscuit tin that would restrict social media access for anyone under the age of 16.
Review: Atomic 2.0 was just what we needed

3 weeks ago | thespinoff.co.nz | Alex Casey

The local femme rock supergroup, reviewed in two cities. Alex Casey in ChristchurchI peeped the posters for last year’s Atomic concert and was thrilled by the novelty concept: some of the most talented women in New Zealand music, rocking out to the likes of Blondie, Hole, Alanis Morissette and Patti Smith for a whole night? Love a tribute band, love seeing a women-heavy lineup, love the chance to see gaggles of Christchurch ladies dressed up in their finest leather and leopard.
My weekend snooping around Ōtautahi’s most famous buildings

4 weeks ago | thespinoff.co.nz | Alex Casey

Alex Casey goes on an odyssey through some of the most important buildings in Christchurch. Moving to Ōtautahi in the 2020s is a bit like starting a prestige TV show about five seasons in. The budget is massive, the production values slick and shiny, and the reviews are positive, but you still can’t escape the fact that you’ve missed out on pivotal early character building and some truly enormous plot points.
Why doesn’t the South Island get the comedy festival?

1 month ago | thespinoff.co.nz | Alex Casey

Our national comedy festival barely crosses the Cook Strait. Alex Casey tries to find out why. I’ve lived in Ōtautahi for two and a half years now, and I can tell you one thing for free: this city bloody loves a laugh. For example, I once saw a man in a curly blue clown wig driving a Suzuki Swift around and around the roundabout in St Martins. I’ve seen, on multiple occasions, a parody bumper sticker of Jim’s Mowing that simply reads Jim’s Pubic Trims.