Gary Steel

Auckland, Northland

Music and Film Editor at Witchdoctor

Gary Steel graduated from journalism school in the cretaceous period. He keeps young and lithe by dancing to ‘Wuthering Heights’ and practising his ice powers.

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Articles

How not to set up a stereo system

1 week ago | witchdoctor.co.nz | Gary Steel

We’d planned the move for months. When a former tenant had trashed the flat on the ground floor of our house the wife had discovered her DIY talents and set to, feverishly cleaning and painting. A decision had been made. For the past five years, the master bedroom had been my hi-fi room-cum-office while we subsisted in a small bedroom.
From The Archives: Tony Levin

4 weeks ago | witchdoctor.co.nz | Gary Steel

Original intro: Peter Gabriel’s Secret World Tour is shaping up to be one of the most visually exciting stage shows, perhaps without precedent, in the history of touring rock. Gary Steel talks exclusively to Gabriel’s super-session bass guitarist Tony Levin on the eve of the group’s gig here on Friday. Gruesome close-ups of tongue, teeth and fillings. The smallest video recorder in the world, probing the outer and inner contours of Peter Gabriel’s face. In real time, to an audience of thousands.
The best (and worst) streaming TV shows & films right now

1 month ago | witchdoctor.co.nz | Gary Steel

Cassandra (Netflix) 6/10This six-part German thriller got a 100 percent rating on one of the popular opinion aggregators, and it’s easy to see why. Our TV screens are currently festering with post-apocalyptic sci-fi but Cassandra is a kind of demonic super-computer origin story that will appeal to those who look back to films like 2001: A Space Odyssey with affection.
From The Archives: Pacific voyager Mike Cooper

1 month ago | witchdoctor.co.nz | Gary Steel

While the mainstream music industry crashes, burns, and clunkily consolidates in a vain effort to hold onto its shares in a seemingly dwindling market, there’s a worldwide resurgence of a genuine musical culture once considered marginal. A groundswell of young artists like Jodie Holland and the American ‘free folk’ movement are finding their inspiration in American mountain music, raw blues and English folk styles from the ’60s and ’70s.
NZ rock still... rocks! We Search For Yeti!

1 month ago | witchdoctor.co.nz | Gary Steel

Had Search For Yeti existed in the 1990s or early 2000s, their debut album, Dark So Soon, would probably have been signed to the local branch of a multinational record company, and NZ On Air would no doubt have been flogging several of its tracks to commercial rock radio. It may even have been a hit. But times have changed.
The best (and worst) streaming TV shows & films right now

2 months ago | witchdoctor.co.nz | Gary Steel

Bookworm (Prime Video, Neon) 7/10For many years Bookworm’s director, Ant Timpson, curated the International Film Festival’s wonderful Incredibly Strange festival-within-a-festival of surprising and bizarre b-movies. His first feature, Come To Daddy, starring Elijah Wood was… odd.
OMD, The Thompson Twins' Tom Bailey, etc: LIVE REVIEW

2 months ago | witchdoctor.co.nz | Gary Steel

“Nostalgia ain’t what it used to be,” goes the old quip, and it turns out to be true. Literally. Nostalgia literally dies with each generation and thusly, it’s new to each successive generation in turn. And although many of those who experienced the pop hits of the 1980s are now rather long in the tooth, that era of tall haircuts and power shoulder pads and boys wearing eyeshadow is clearly worth revisiting, if tonight’s predominantly silver-haired crowd is anything to go by.
Antipodes Kala 21: the ultimate music streaming solution

2 months ago | witchdoctor.co.nz | Gary Steel

Summary Recently I watched a Netflix thriller, Cassandra, about a family who buy a house in the country that, it turns out, is controlled by an inadvertently reactivated supercomputer in a prototype smart home from 1970. The physical manifestation is a bizarre female robot and a TV in every room with Cassandra’s beaming but malevolent face.
Matthew Bannister's The Dark Backward reviewed

2 months ago | witchdoctor.co.nz | Gary Steel

Summary I once worked for a poisonous media organization (aren’t they all?) but there was one small but cheery consolation: the charming accent of the pretty receptionist, who had grown up in Gore. I don’t know whether Matthew Bannister’s vocal accent is Scottish (where he was born) or a Dunedin permutation (where he grew up) but his gentle burr is one of the more appealing virtues of his singing voice.
Unwind's Embers album a healing balm

2 months ago | witchdoctor.co.nz | Gary Steel

Summary Seldom has the name of a band or an album been more apt or the two names been more in accord with each other. Embers, after all, is the unwinding of fire, the quietude that follows the burning. Maybe there’s still the odd stray spark, but the rage has well and truly died down, leaving just a hint of what came before in its glow.