MICHAEL SCHIBLI
"Ex-STRANGERS, DAMAGED... one of Wellington's most missed expatriates"

WORST
1. Leaving Wellington/NZ and the good people that dwell there
2. No longer being in a band, playing guitar, or doing anything musical
3. Smoking more to fill the music void
4. Being a malcontent
5. Still repeating mistakes 

BEST
1. Sigur Ros
2. Moving to London
3. Strangers
4. Love
5. Travelling with friends

KIM G
"I sing with PUNCHBOWL, make zines, sometimes rap and am expert on angsty teen fiction"

WORST
1. The NZ Police force and their continued failure in judgement and respect.
2. I am often forced to be passive aggressive in the workplace.
3. My dog died.
4. I, along with the debris that follows, had to move house three times.
5. Hens party crowds pissing on my karaoke dates.

BEST
1. After many years of attending punkfest, I finally had a band and played.
2. Exciting turnout and fun had at zinefest.
3. I read and read and read and it ruled.
4. So many good new NZ bands, and playin' it the  way I like it too.
5. I'm getting pretty good at DDR.

CASH
"THE WRONGMEN vocalist "

WORST

BEST

KERRY-ANN LEE
"picture maker. graphic artist,  mixtapeologist, gemini, reader, zine geek, amateur historian, swimmer, fan and contestant in the game of life"

WORST
(no answer!)

BEST
1. Making Celebretard.
2. Learning to swim as an adult rules.
3. 'The Art of Looking Sideways' by Alan Fletcher. Look, learn and be amazed.
4. XLimp WristX, The Dead C, Battles, Black Lips, Gossip, The Tape Men live!, live! live!
5. The Toastie Boys - good tunes, good toasties, good teeshirts, good times.

SAM CROCKER
"i sing for ANTAGONIST, put on shows, bring over a couple of bands & do some design work"

WORST
1. two of my friends from the red shore dying in a van crash on the 19th of December.
2. moving into a house with an old unstable flake on one side & sex addicts on the other
3. taqueria in ponsonby changing owners.. was the best mexican place in auckland
4. punkas forums
5. kids wrecking shows/disrespecting venues.. stupid beef.. sucking the fun out of putting on shows.

BEST
1. Australian tour in September, getting to share the stage with The Red Shore again.. "How is your soy cheese Ross?" "....oh."
2. graduating design school with an industry award.
3. halo 3
4. vegan pies in BP Connects & dark chocolate peanut slabs.
5. John Howard is not the prime minister of Australia

DYLAN WALKER
"THIS IS THIS vocalist and all round nice guy"

WORST

BEST

OTIS CHAMBERLAIN
"AKANAME, ORNITHOLOGIST and DIAL member. Artist under the name of MEPHISTO JONES "

WORST
1. Badbrains new album (new material does not = good material).
2. the internet - i want 2007 back!
3. Being a lazy cunt
4. Being on the wrong side of the planet for the Breach farewell show.
5. The increasing migration of yuppie dooshbags into Welli Central. Go gentrify island bay instead you SUV-driving, mochachino-drinking, boat-shoe wearing fucktards!

BEST
1. Coalesce reformation/new material.
2. Cephalic in NZ
3. Breach reforming for a farewell show.
4. Finally releasing the Akaname EP (after a year and half)
5. Playing in bands with GC's (ie; starting new ones and joining sweet ones)

NELLIE PEARSON
"currently finishing off university in auckland. will be awarded with a piece of paper that says i like reading books and watching movies. also make mean coffee at a shit job. am in some imaginary bands"

WORST
1. High horses.
2. Moving to Auckland. Being unemployed for three months takes its toll on the mind.
3. Fucking torturous bureaucracy of all kinds. Fuck you Winz, Fuck you Ministry of Social Development, Fuck you University of Wellington, fuck you Wellington Library, fuck you riot police and fuck you cops. Fuck Baycorp, fuck the bank. Fuck!
4. The general but growing exodus. And i'm not in it. Yet.
5. ....America.... and stuff.

BEST
1. Finally getting shit together and doing a band. and organising that awful 0S9 show. Learning curve! [I think I learnt - Don't Try]. The point of that show was New Bands though, and 07 was awesome for plenty - Smashin' Off, Punchbowl, Shortlived, Wasteland, Snakerun and others.
2. Moving to Auckland. Change is good, moving out of comfort zones/ruts is too.
3. Getting a library card again. Getting obssessed with books again... reading constantly while unemployed and getting tan lines in the shape of a book. Read some amazing ones. Books Books Books. R.E.A.D. 
4. Decent people reminding me to think in new or lost ways. (feel-good music here, please)
5. Red wine, records, cigarettes and coffee.

KALEM O'BRIEN
"STRANGERS, NEON BASTARD. Appreciator of aesthetics, loin lover"

WORST
1. No Hywel or Boob
2. No Nud
3. Many punishments
4. Being in jail
5. Amphetamine

BEST
1. Ben moving to Wellington
2. Great new films - The Darjeeling Limited, Inland Empire, Eastern Promises
3. ASD & Affiliates
4. My sci-fi film course
5. Pool on roof / SOME good parties

THOMAS CASEY
"Design/illustration etc, but only cool enough to do random stuff for Strangers [email: thomas@feed-backer.net - do it]"

WORST
1. Never really making the most of anything.
2. Liars.
3. Cowards.
4. Clones.
5. The best of 07 list being filled with 'consumables'.

BEST
1. New Releases: Angels of Light - We Are Him, Dalek - Abandoned Language, Kiss the Anus of a Black Cat - An Interlude to the Outermost + Turn Hegel on His Head, Grinderman - s/t, Low - Drums and Guns, Big Business - Here Come the Waterworks, Blood and Time - Untitled/Latitudes, Einsturzende Neubauten - Alles Wieder Offen, Om - Pilgrimage, Oxbow - Narcotic Story, Flaming Lips - UFOs at the Zoo, Jesu - Lifeline & Sundown/Sunrise, Larsen - Abeceda, Michael Cashmore - Snow Abides, Neurosis - Given to the Rising, Pet Genius - s/t, Six Organs of Admittance - Shelter from the Ash, Throbbing Gristle - Part Two: the Endless Knot.
2. Live Stuff: Comets on Fire, The Evens, Isis, Mastodon, Mars Volta, Final Solution show, Dinosaur Jr.
3. Movies: The Prestige, Sunshine, The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, I'm Your Man - Leonard Cohen Tribute, The Dirty Three doco, The Future is Unwritten, Zodiac, Hot Fuzz and probably more.
4. Books: there can be only one: Harry Potter & the Deathly Hallows (Fuck off)
5. Being able to muster up enough self importance/holier than thou mentality to saddle up the ol' high horse and leave the house every now and then feeling better than people.

PEPE
"Artist. Guitarist for THE WRONGMEN and some other projects including the legendary ZAK'S MATES"

WORST
1. Neggy Vibes
2. Distance
3. Durian
4. Punishers
5. Cats, Peanuts, Avocado's, Dust and every other fucking thing that i'm allergic to.

BEST
1. Street Surfin'
2. Best friends i've ever had
3. Limp Wrist
4. Smashin' Off
5. Australian Madness

HANNES SCHMIDT
"My name is Hannes and I'm a cabinet maker from Germany. I play in a band called SMASHIN' OFFand just because ben and nat are not in the country, doesn't mean we don't exist no more! I can't tell you how annoying these top 5/10/100 lists are.... that fuckin' high fidelity bullshit! (get it?) fuck it and fuck you! fuck 2007 ...it's over and gone!"

(NOTE: I don't know if these are meant to be good things or bad things, Hannes does not clarify...)

THINGS
surf nazis must die
wasteland
wrangler brutes
four tet

HADLEY DONALDSON
"I play bass and do some of the vocals in FIGHTING THE SHAKES. I also design gigposters and things of that nature, which you can see at http://autistk.com."

WORST
1. Playing at 1:30 in the morning on a thursday at Valve
2. Breaking up with my longterm gf after said gig
3. Bands I really liked releasing albums I found lacking
4. All the fucking shitty novelty tweefolkelectropop bullshit that gets its dick suckled to the maxtreme in NZ. Seriously people, if it sounds like bleepy, poorly written shite, it's simply that, not some amazing avante garde cutting edge uber clever thing. I'm seriously you guys. This should be #1 actually, but I'm too lazy to move it.
5. Not really discovering any good new local bands this year... what's
the deal Wellington? Perhaps I need to get out more.

BEST
1. Releasing our first EP and people actually buying it and appearing not to hate it (cept my Dad)
2. Getting to design posters for a bunch of international bands I really love
3. Getting made redundant under really shady circumstances, but I was gonna quit anyway so sweet payout! cha-ching
4. Headlining a big BFM showcase, playing to a packed Kings Arms. Yes, we're indie artfags.
5. Double HotCake (and the sweet Danelectro bass I brought off Nat)

RHYDIAN THOMAS
"STRANGERS, AMR, Leisure"

WORST
1. Hywel, Boob and Simon left
2. Long-lasting pneumonia, caffeine poisoning
3. Trying to write about things at 4am (e.g. The Necessity of Metaphysical Vagueness)
4. Most things involving people with music
5. Slot reserved for the unspeakables

BEST
1. The Wrongmen Australian tour
2. Finished my degree
3. Angels of Light - We Are Him, Lamps - s/t, Bill Callahan - Woke on a Whaleheart, Wrongmen - s/t 7", Low - Drums & Guns, Coliseum - No Salvation, Iron & Wine - The Shepherd's Dog.
4. Made a record I can almost say I'm happy with (Strangers cd)
5. The year eventually ended

MIKE DAVIS
"NEON BASTARD. rocknrollmike fuckyou forever 2007"

WORST
1. 10-year old girl mistaking me for "Burt McCracken" (LINK)
2. Studylink (LINK)
3. AMR logo (LINK)
4. Neon Bastard (LINK)
5. Rex Prendergast stealing my sunshine (LINK)

BEST
1. Bad Instinct 2: Worst Instinct (LINK)
2. Deluxe / Maranui staff party (LINK)
3. (LINK)
4. Shredz (LINK)
5. Neon Bastard (LINK)

SAM SPROULL
"THIS CITY SUNRISE bassist/vocalist "

WORST
5. The human race and its total inability to have faith in itself. Ignorance is bliss and sometimes I wish I was 'one of them' that got off on party pills and sleeping with single digit IQ fashionistas.
4. 8.30am - 5.30pm, Monday - Friday.
3. New Zealand's media being hopelessly obsessed and consumed in sport, pathetic celebrities and friends of the editor. I don't give a fuck about your sporting sob story, fuck off. I don't care who endorses your bank, where the play offs are being held or that a fat tourist got told to cover up her tits down south in a casino. She's ugly and has her tits out, what's new about that? Why is this on the front page?
2. Electro, Indie, 'secret location' fluro party culture. At first I thought it was all a joke, but it turns out people actually enjoy it. So many people with absolutely no idea about anything.
1. That big group of friends in Auckland called New Zealand's music industry. Corrupt, embarrassing, unbelievable. At the very least it gave me a whole lot of laughs from sheer shock value.

BEST
5. My band being accepted and appreciated by people from the few bands we take seriously in New Zealand. We released a CD and no one has told us they hate it. Rad. We played shows with Dial, Strangers, Akaname, Carthaginian Solution and Fighting The Shakes - amongst others - and it felt good.
4. Marijuana. This gift of nature has so much potential. If only the world would embrace its benefits.
3. I saw Symphony X, Fear Before The March of Flames and 65daysofstatic within 48 hours.
2. Breach played a reunion show.
1. The life changing week I spent in Auckland (Ironic?). We played two shows, got an encore and 80 + at Kings Arms on a cold, rainy Wednesday. Spent hundreds of dollars at Yifans and saw Circa Survive the night before driving home.

ANNA VO
"voice (CRUX), acoustic strings, microphones, faders and potentiometers, pencil and T-square, paintbrush, camera, words"

WORST & BEST
1. Shattering end to a love, heartbreak; subsides to starting a label (An Out Recordings) and commencing a surrogate romance with recording, mixing and making pictures for imminent releases.
2. Selling my (family) house, being in $75G debt, not seeing my parents or sister for two years; deconstructing cheap nostalgia, throwing out 25-year-old books, paving the way for regular phone calls and deep appreciation for when I hear their voices (even though Kaira has a nasal East Coast American gratey whinge).
3. Tearing my hair out, no sleep and destroying relationships due to Uni work, questioning its worth and relevance in the wider scale of human suffering; then in November applying newfound skills to designing an orphanage in Nepal and looking forward to completion of construction and all 27 of the little kiddies moving in.
4. Wasting time watching hundreds of boring bands (including SunnO))), Comets On Fire); though contextualising the heart-wrenching amazement during Envy and Ryokuchi, and utter enjoyment of Slayer, Converge, Wrongmen, Scab, The Thaw, Smashin Off, Drowned Out and Eucalypt. Hooray!
5. Immigrant guilt about self-indulgent noise-making and art-interest, when I should be teaching full-time, and giving more; then watching the band open up the world in a new way, meeting the best people EVER on NZ tour (and seeing them again when they came over to tour Aussie!), looking forward to touring three more continents this year (fuck yeah!!!), and working my ass off for a solo exhibition in March 2008, that will hopefuly have an emotional objective of some sort.

BRENDAN OLPHERT
"Not if I see you first, sonny"

WORST
1. Near fatal car crashes
2. The South Island
3. Close friends nearly dying 3 times
4. The audience at Inland Empire
5. The death of Some Girls

BEST
1. The Darjeeling Limited, Eastern Promises, Inland Empire
2. Not dying in near-fatal car crashes
3. Denim cut-offs
4. Working, living and watching crime movies with Hywel every night
5. 'Funny Shit Thread'

GRANT SHERIDAN
"I was in smashin' off! general tomfoolery. mumbling. beard."

WORST
1. band break ups
2. still single
3. listening to absolute crap coming out of people mouths and knowing that they are far too stupid to realise this.
4. people moving away
5. my deteriorating memory. fuckin annoying (i.e. can't remember enough to continue this list ha ha)

BEST
1. Not being broke
2. ASD
3. seeing some rad as shows
4. loss of hatred towards my job
5. positive people

TALI WILLIAMS
"DIAL vocalist, writer and proud unionist "

WORST

BEST

JASON GASCOIGNE
"I play drums in Strangers, and played drums in Damaged (RIP)"

LEITH WIX
"GAYLORDZ vocals"

WORST
1. Getting stuck in Wanganui for 4 months without friends except one old skinhead cunt
2. Pert moving to AK (gonna miss that cunt)
3. Leftbank
4. Shit cunts
5. Dole bludgers

BEST
1. Amy
2. Gaylordz
3. Getting a better job than I had
4. Moving to Wellington
5. Friends and Family

BEN WARD
"Solo musician and honey enthusiast"

WORST
1. Cheating whores
2. Living in Auckland
3. Living away from my dog Cleo
4. Kalem's loss
5. Walking up hills

BEST
1. Moving to Wellington
2. Skateboarding
3. Living away from the Mount
4. Isobel
5. Sweet jackets from the alley