Andrew Schmidt
Andrew Schmidt was the founder of the Hamilton based zine Ha Ha Ha in the early 1980s, and went on to produce the zines Mysterex and Social End Product. He describes himself as a music historian, and produces a website that includes a number of stories on Hamilton punk and post-punk bands through the 1980s. Writer of over a dozen NZ music reissue sleevenotes for indie and mainstream record labels. Qantas New Zealand Journalism Awards finalist in 1993. Received a New Zealand Culture and Heritage Department Award for History Research in 2005 on the NZ Punk and Post-Punk eras. The book was written but not published. Currently finishing a memoir (Ratted - twenty years in the NZ post-punk underground) on experiences in indie music in NZ from 1981 - 2001, which has long chapters on Hamilton in the 1980s. An unpublished novel, Helldoobie, is set in Hamilton and Paeroa with scenes at The Ward Lane and in punk houses around the city.
Also guitarist and principal songwriter in Fried, and in Steaknife, who had Day is Gone released on the Reverberation Records' The Weird Lode compilation in 1996. Released the single Ron Morrieson (Town)/ Ron Morrieson (Country) as Droid (with Stu Schmidt on bass) in 1999 on Reverberation Records, who also released The Crawfords single. Currently at Waikato University starting a Masters on NZ Punk and Post-punk music.
