New Zealand music history on display

A major exhibition telling the story of popular music in Aotearoa opens this week in Auckland.

It's called Volume and features hundreds of objects and images spanning seven decades – from the '60s music TV shows C'Mon and Happen-Inn to the advent of iTunes.

• Music 101 will broadcast live from Volume, 1-4pm, Saturday 29 October 2016

The Chicks performing on the C’mon studio set in 1968 (photo: Bruce King)

Chris Knox 1982 (Photo: Murray Cammick Flying Nun)

Dalvanius Prime with the Patea Maori Club Grey Lynn Festival 1986 (Photo: Gil Hanly).

Jacket and trousers from The Poly's collection worn by Split Enz international tour 1978

Shihad 1999 (Warner Brothers Music)

Chris Knox’s A-334OS TEAC 4-track recording machine 1980s

Shona Laing 1974 Courtesy of Shona Laing

Dave Dobbyn 1986 (Courtesty of AudioCulture)

David Dallas 2016 Courtesy of Dirty Records Med Res

Andrew Fagan's suit from his time with The Mockers

Visitors can step into a recording studio, get behind a mixing desk, spin the decks as a DJ, browse records in a 1980s record store, learn to play an iconic Kiwi song in a 1970s pub venue, or step on to a recreated set of C'mon.

Music artefacts on display include a guitar from Midge Marsden, the outfit worn by the woman who played Maxine in Sharon O'Neill's Maxine video, Bill Sevesi's lap steel guitar and Chris Knox’s TEAC four-track.

Victoria Travers, one of the exhibition developers, talks with Jim Mora.

Volume runs from Friday 28 October to 22 May 2017 at the Special Exhibitions Hall of the Auckland War Memorial Museum.