User Profile

Samantha Morris

10 incredible years of publishing Blank Street Press

After 10 incredible years of publishing Blank Street Press, we’re calling it a day. We’re so proud that for a decade, Blank Street Press has been at the forefront of this city’s cultural transformation. When we launched in 2013 there was...

Chloe Popa

October 2023

Local Love

Gold Coast YES campaign to launch with sold-out event

The 16 September event at Tom Atkin Hall will feature three prominent speakers: Aunty Joyce Summers – a local Indigenous leader and scholar, Thomas Mayo – signatory of the Uluru Statement from the Heart and a member of the First Nations...

Samantha Morris

September 2023

Music

Pure punk joy: when punk takes over Vegas

Vegas is not the kind of place I’d usually go for a holiday. While I probably sit on the hedonistic end of the spectrum, my hedonism doesn’t extend to consumption for consumption’s sake and that, to me, is Vegas in a nutshell. The streets are...

Samantha Morris

August 2023

Blank Street Press

Battlesnake get medieval for World is a Vampire Festival

If theatrical, riff-driven metal is your thing (and if it’s not WTF dude?), you’re in for a treat at World Is a Vampire with Sydney freaks Battlesnake set to get early crowds nodding heads quite ferociously. The seven-piece honed their chops...

Samantha Morris

April 2023

Lifestyle

‘Taking Off’ tells tales of older women who surf

A new film conceived, filmed and produced here on the Gold Coast will tell the stories of six surfing women who are all over 55 years old. Each coming to the pastime for wildly different reasons and surfing at a variety of levels, these six Gold...

Samantha Morris

April 2023

Music

Making the case for vinyl: Meet Suitcase Records

Directors of Australia’s newest vinyl plant, Neil and Kathy Wilson see vinyl as a huge opportunity for independent musicians to boost their revenue and expand their fan base. Before opening Brisbane-based Suitcase Records just six months ago...

Samantha Morris

April 2023

Music

100 songs from 100 editions of Blank

In its 100-edition history, Blank Street Press has had two writers focussed on covering new music exclusively – our co-founder Samantha Morris, and Zac Fahey. Sam handed the mew music reins to Zac when she stood down as editor. As well as curating...

Samantha Morris

April 2023

Music

They Might Be Giants return with ‘Flood’ live

“I have a secret to tell, from my electrical well.” I am a big They Might Be Giants Fan. Their songs soundtracked my university years and have continued to do so well into middle-age. Their lyricism and humour, delivered with unexpected...

Samantha Morris

February 2023

Local Love

MNM Boardriders: Australia’s best

Mermaid Nobby Miami Boardriders Club, affectionately known as MNM, has taken out the gong for club of the year at the Australian Surfing Awards, held on the Gold Coast last week. At a star-studded event, which saw the who’s who of Australian...

Samantha Morris

February 2023

Local Love

Australia’s top landcarer is Austinville’s Wal Mayr

The first thing Wal Mayr does when we sit down to chat about his recent Landcare Award is excitedly show me a photo of a Greater Glider, seen just the night before on his Austinville property. Greater Gliders are endangered, so spotting one so close...

Samantha Morris

October 2022

Music

EP review: The Panasonics | The Sonic Triangle of Cochlear Destruction

Led by charismatic frontman Terry “Tappa” Teece, Gold Coast four-piece The Panasonics have well and truly arrived with debut EP ‘The Sonic Triangle of Cochlear Destruction’ living up to its title. Opening track ‘High Life’ lures the...

Samantha Morris

October 2022

Music

Bandcamp will help whip your music business into shape

A one-day music industry intensive is set to help Gold Coast musicians work on their business skills and take their careers to the next level.

Samantha Morris

September 2022

Arts

Hijabi Girl – a musical puppet show

In the aftermath of the Christchurch Mosque tragedy in 2019, when an Australian man shot and killed 51 people at two mosques in New Zealand’s worst-ever mass shooting, Southeast Queensland’s Larrikin Puppets began the creative development of...

Samantha Morris

August 2022

Lifestyle

Conservation ecologist Dr Daniella Teixeira

Dr Daniella Teixeira is an accidental pin-up girl for Glossy Black-Cockatoos in Australia. The “Glossy” expert, who’d previously worked on Kangaroo Island was at home on the Gold Coast when bushfires raged in 2019-20. Fellow ecologists were on...

Samantha Morris

March 2022