The site and its content is the brain-child of former professional musician and indie label owner Jack Grabham. It’s a site for the review of New Zealand artists newest, or latest, single releases – with or without a promotional video. If the single has a vid, it’ll be reviewed too.

Jack is a believer in music being entirely subjective, in that just because one person dislikes a song that does not remove its validity for a second person. And as a reviewer, Jack is responsible for a fair, just review for all tracks sent to him. If the song is not of one of his preferred genres, you’ll get told as such, but the song will be reviewed as a meritorious piece of work anyway – based on the talent, composition, orchestration, the studio work, etc. In short, everyone is treated equally. Everyone is given a review they can work with. It’s unfair to call a piece rubbish just because the reviewer isn’t into the genre.

How did Jack get here?

Jack moved to Aotearoa New Zealand at the age of 27, way back in 1997. Since his arrival he has performed hundreds of times, ranging from the obligatory empty room to an audience of a couple of thousand. He released an album in 2005 titled Negotiate The Groove, recorded in Wellington by current Armoury Studios owner Troy Kelly. In 2008 he released a single from the album, Bedlam Town, with all proceeds going to charity.

In 2009 band management started, followed by the formation of Southern Collective Music, an indie label that produced a number of hits in NZ’s singles and albums charts for such acts as The Latest Fallout, The Velvet Regime, Manzo NZ, Primacy, The Jason McIver Collective, Hannah Fryett and others. The label’s first band Dirty Saint achieved amazing success in the UK, appearing at the O2 Arena, touring the country and at one point occupying the top three chart positions in a UK indie music chart.

The Velvet Regime achieved a shock number one in the Philippines, thanks to radio airplay sponsorship by mainstream Manila station Jam 883 FM. For six weeks they retained number one, keeping the likes of Imagine Dragons, Green Day, Beyonce and other major names from the top!

Jack has a Graduate Diploma with Distinction in Management Studies gained remotely from Waikato University in New Zealand, which helped greatly in all aspects of setting up, running and making a success of the label.

The label was closed by Jack when he and his wife decided to expand their family and have a second child. Jack’s two older sons were self-sufficient and living away from their parents by this time, but with a pre-schooler and a new baby on the way Jack needed to settle down to work a day job for a while.

In 2022, Jack offered his services to the wonderful Lisa Jones and Music.Net as a reviewer for singles and their promotional videos. Such a supportive and nurturing organisation for New Zealand music! It was after around a year of being involved that Lisa had to make the difficult business decision to remove reviewing singles from Music.Net’s services. This left Jack out of work for the site, so he decided to launch Flash-trax.com to plug that singles reviews gap.

And so here we are now. Keep an eye on this site, because there are several feature additions coming in the next stages of development that musicians and fans alike are going to love.