From the Editor(ial assistant)

*Rebecca’s apartment had a big leak and she left.

Kia Ora, Welcome to NZ Music Month!

Well... the last day of it at least. This issue of Debate was meant to welcome you all to NZ Music Month, but a certain problem (you all know about that by now) arose that delayed the publication of a certain magazine and here we are scraping in late. Like 11:59pm for a 12:00am deadline late (we’ve all been there).

Music is great. And New Zealand music is great too! Aotearoa has a lot of great music to offer that is definitely not SIX60 and we should make sure we are supporting them all year round. They deserve it. New Zealand music that is… not SIX60. Listen to your favourite Kiwi artists on Spotify so they can afford instant ramen, or better yet, support them on Bandcamp so they can afford actual ramen :o

Okay, performative plug over… Welcome to our music issue!

This issue actually contains very little coverage of NZ music (I think we gave it like… a page…) so I wasn’t lying when I said performative plug over. If anything NZ Music Month just gave us a convenient timeline to release a music issue and it’s probably for the best we basically missed the whole thing. :P

But while you won’t find much about the music scene here in Aotearoa, you will find a piece I wrote. It’s on page 27. You can just skip ahead to that right now if you want. I know it’s the only reason you're here.

Oh actually I also did the second part of our Euro 2021 piece for our roughly four readers who also like football. Speaking of that football piece, I did that with the help of James Tapp and Justin Wong. That’s Justin Wong, not Justin Hu. Last issue Justin Hu was credited as writing part 1 of this piece with me. Justin Hu did not write that piece, Justin Wong did. And Justin Wong also wrote this one. While Justin Hu didn’t write the football piece he did write some great news pieces on unresolved mobility parking issues on south campus and continued calls for safer AUT campuses for students. Speaking of news, Justin Wong also did that. Read him break down the whole fiasco of Hikuwai Sounds and find out just how much your Student Association spent, and lost, on this. Justins aside, Our Debate writers and contributors actually did a great job on bringing y'all a pretty sweet issue. Alana discusses if we should swipe left or right for the hot guy that listens to nothing but Ed Sheeran, Nam gives some nerdy music recommendations from arthouse films and video games and Lucy talks about the magic, or rather science, of music and memories.

Joel also came back from beyond the grave to tell us all about getting #vaccinated. Na jokes he didn’t die, he just got a little sleepy, but if you’re curious, or nervous, about getting your COVID-19 vaccination, have a read of his piece too.

Okay I have done so much plugging in this Editor(ial assistant) letter I’m starting to feel like an AUX cord (music pun to close things off). Sorry if i didn’t plug your piece, it’s still worth reading.

Enjoy this issue of Debate. The horoscopes, puzzles and giveaways are at the back for that kind of “reader.”

Ngā mihi, Andy.