One of Jon Bridges' greatest moments? Whistling a trumpet solo for Billy Bragg

Although he's "not really the sort of person who has a plan and carries it out" career-wise, current affairs producer Jon Bridges took a strategic approach to choosing songs for The Mixtape.

The seven-track selection features something "really cool" from each of his favourite bands, including a classic from indie rockers The Shins, at whose Auckland gig Bridges met his wife Gemma 20 years ago.

The keen cyclist also chats about the "highly unusual" 1990s youth show Ice TV and his mission to make Paddy Gower Has Issues a "really effective" New Zealand current affairs show.

Bridges' TV beginnings were about being very unserious on the other side of the camera.

As a uni student in the early '90s, Bridges made his screen debut as the gormless skateboarder Scuzzo in the live sketch show Away Laughing.

From 1995 to 2001, he co-presented the "highly unusual" Saturday afternoon youth show Ice TV with fellow newbie broadcasters Petra Bagust and Nathan Rarere, host of RNZ's early morning show First Up.

While it's "very restricted" what gets on TV these days, Bridges says, the Ice TV trio got to run around filming stuff on Sony handycams, pretty much doing what they wanted.

He, Bagust and Rarere remain great friends today.

"We still catch up for a Friday morning breakfast from time to time."

"This is one of the most beautiful songs that's ever been written. It's about friendship, and it's just such a perfect song. Simon and Garfunkel were a band that was gifted to me by my parents because I listened to their very small record collection as a child.

"[Bridge over Troubled Water] was, I guess, one of the defining records of their marriage that came out while they were living in New York. Paul Simon's still probably my favourite artist, and I think this is one of his greatest songs."

"I like every single one of Billy Bragg's songs - listen to [the 1998 album] Mermaid Avenue with him and Wilco - but this is the one that I sang to my boy quite often at bedtime... It's just a great song.

"One of the greatest moments of my life happened with the song. [Billy Bragg] was playing at the Powerstation, and I was near the front. He was playing alone, and when he got to the trumpet solo, he tried to whistle it into his microphone, but had trouble, so I started whistling the trumpet solo from where I was standing.

"He looked down at me while he played the guitar through it, and then he said 'Thanks' and carried on with the song. At that moment, I felt like I got sucked up in heaven, blessed by the man himself."

"For some reason, a couple of weeks ago, I started listening to [Bush's 1985 album] Hounds of Love again, which is one of the greatest albums that's ever been recorded.

"After listening to it a few times, this song just got stuck in my head. Music is singing for me - everything I love is things that I sing and very annoying for the people that I live with.

"This song confounded me because I can't work out how the structure of it goes. It's very unusual, and it just kind of haunts me. This is the one that I thought, 'Well, this will be interesting for folks'."

"This is probably the most obvious Decemberists song to play, but it's just such a great song.

"This band was a wonderful gift to me from a friend, Ryan, who, knowing me not very well and for not very long, said, 'Jon, you should have a listen to a band called The Decemberists' one day, right outside TV3, where he and I were both working.

"They're, to this day, one of my favourite bands of all time. They're incredible. Colin Meloy is an absolute genius."

Jon Bridges was at a Shins' gig at the King's Arms when he met his future wife Gemma for the first time.

"I really think that if somebody is at the same gig as you, that's a band that they absolutely love, that you love, then you're well on the way to an understanding or at least know that you've got something in common... such as definitely the case.

"The Shins are an incredible band still to this day, and James Mercer is an amazing writer. I think this song is really something.

"At our wedding, I performed this song for Gemma on the ukulele. It's always our favourite song."

"On the original Brave Words, which is probably my favourite album in the world, the original recording of [this song] is quite famously muddy and dark and not necessarily in a good way.

“They did a remaster a little while ago, and I was very delighted that they did that. It was really exciting. This song is just a really special song. It just really stands out on that album. The other one is 'Dark Carnival' - I love that one.

"I did a little bit of student radio when I was at Massey University in the late '80s... The one great gift I got from student radio was the Dunedin sound, and this is my favourite song from that time.

"When I first came to Auckland, The Front Lawn were at the height of their powers and just morphing into The Mutton Birds. A good friend who was in the Mutton Birds, Alan Gregg, was flatting with a friend of mine from Palmerston North.

"Basically, we went for a ride in Alan Gregg's station wagon. We go down Dominion Road, and he put a tape in the cassette player and hit play. He said 'Listen to this. This is from our new band' as we drove down Dominion Road. We were like, 'Alan, you have fallen on your feet, my friend'.

"I've been a massive fan of all The Mutton Birds' albums. This is just such a special song, and it's so embedded in a place. It's one of our places if you live in Auckland... so this one means a lot. Incredible song."