Live 1999

This is what ‘partying like it’s 1999’ actually sounded like at the time:

by Dave Edwards – electric and acoustic guitars, harmonica, vocal, lyrics
Live at Bar Bodega, Wellington, New Zealand, June 1999.

“If only I could play guitar like that – bastard!” – Chris Knox

Wellington, New Zealand

Tracklist

1.	Cafes in Conversation 03:44
2.	Banana Wizard 02:59
3.	I Don’t Need You (to Grind Me Down) 02:15
4.	Given in Clouds (a wedding) 04:05
5.	Chairs to Tie the Revolution Down 03:31
6.	Midwinter Night 03:35
7.	Locked Without March 04:02
8.	You Can’t Complain 04:48
9.	Open the Dogs 04:43
10.	Summer in Fairyland 03:28
11.	Tony Was Here (but they put him on ice) 03:19
12.	The Marion Flow 09:47

Chris Knox

On this occasion I was privileged to be the opening act for Chris Knox. So this album is (obviously) dedicated to him.
Chris influenced generations of artists in NZ and abroad; his place in the pantheon is secure.

Background

I was 20 years old, and had moved back to Wellington (my birthplace, though not my hometown). I had with me a cheap imitation Stratocaster; some notebook scribblings; a harmonica in my pocket; and an album and a half recorded.

I’d never studied music at school or played in a band. I was socially awkward; had only rudimentary conventional music skills; and had zero interest in playing cover songs; I’d internalised the DIY punk ethos (which Chris Knox, and others including Peter Jefferies, Bruce Russell, and Alastair Galbraith had pioneered in NZ) – the ‘number 8 fencing wire’ approach applied to rock music). I was amazed at how Chris could do so much with a just a few E-shape barre chords.

Over the next few years, and in large part as a result of living in Wellington where an active free improv & avant-garde music scene was coalescing, I moved further away from pop song structures.

Further Listening

Gleefully Unknown: 1997-2005

A compilation of tracks from the early years.

In 1999 my repertoire consisted of songs from

Scratched Surface

and

The Marion Flow,

which I’d written and recorded in New Plymouth.

On the Live 1999 cassette recordings they’re even more lo-fi, a ’90s aesthetic.

Live 2019

Releasing these recordings 20 years later comes as we reach the end of another decade. The zeitgeist is different now – faster paced, more diverse and interconnected, different political context, more urgent ecological crisis. Maybe this music is no longer relevant? Or, youthful and free of 21st century baggage, is it still fresh?
Live 1999 is literally half my lifetime ago at this point… where to from here?

20 years later I was 40 years old, never did ‘make it’ in the arts and was further out of touch from the music scene than ever, but have developed in some ways… by 2019 I‘d come back full circle to where I was at the beginning, playing solo:

Live 2022-24

To date, my latest solo live album is a partial return to, and development of, my solo electric style shown in Live 1999 – a quarter century ago.

Whereas Live 2019 was all acoustic, Live 2022-24 is its electric counterpart. Both sets include some of the same songs from Live 1999(!), but in quite different arrangements.

Thanks to

Chris Knox, meanwhile – impaired by a stroke in 2009 and unable to play guitar or communicate easily any more – is a prolific painter.
Thank you Chris! And to Fraser McInnes, Darrel Hannon, Brian Wafer, Steve Dean, Rob Thorne, Peter Jefferies, Alec Bathgate, and everyone who came along.