Tag: 90s music

Live 1999

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

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

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.

Continue reading “Live 1999” →

Scratched Surface

The debut album from fiffdimension!

“Worth searching out coz this lo-fi singer/songwriter oddball has a unique take on the genre. He’s pissed off, a tad fucked up (as usual), but not full of lugubrious self-pity (as unusual) and is happy to get raucous & obnoxious in just the right kinda way.” – Chris Knox

Listen


About

Scratched Surface is a genuine 1990s teenage no-budget lo-fi post-punk singer-songwriter artifact from the Taranaki, New Zealand underground. It includes both electric and acoustic tracks1.

The title alludes to its status as a first effort from fiffdimension2, with much more to come (‘scratching the surface’). It also suggests scratches on a disc, reflecting the lo-fi production values and a slightly ‘damaged’ pre-millennial teenager outlook.

I didn’t come from a conventional musical background. Instead of learning to play cover songs first, I skipped straight to writing my own3. The musicianship is rudimentary, and the lyrics are full of youthful angst – but also self-aware humour and ironic detachment.

“One day I’m gonna be a star, but I can’t be bothered to practice my guitar.

I’m not gonna sing you a cover song, ’cause I’d only make it sound all wrong.

I got the ‘can’t play for shit and my voice is shot to hell’ blues”

The album also includes early forays into free improvisation, in tracks like King Street Boogie and Eat the Noise.

It was recorded on analogue reel-to-reel and cassette tapes, and self-released on CD-R. The online reissue includes download-only bonus tracks and previously unreleased material.

Credits

  • Dave Edwards – acoustic and electric guitar, harmonica, vocal, lyrics
  • Tim McVicar – bass (2, 12, 14), percussion (3), electric guitar (12, 13)
  • Brett, Ross, Tammy, Dawn et al – percussion and vocals (15-16)

Recorded in New Plymouth, NZ, 1997-1998

Special thanks to Alastair Edwards, Keith Finnerty, Karl Taylor, Brian Wafer

Tracklist

Continue reading “Scratched Surface” →

in the non-idiomatic idiom in Norway (part 1, 1999)

978-1-877448-59-1

A few years ago I wrote a chapter of Jazz Aotearoa, a book about New Zealand jazz music history, discussing the free improvisation and avant-garde jazz scene in Wellington at the turn of the millennium.

Simon O'Rorke

in the non-idiomatic idiom in Norway is a collection of improvised instrumental music with some of the musicians in that scene, from the point of view of my own attempts as an untrained outsider to fit in with these advanced jazz players – including Jeff Henderson, Blair Latham , Paul Winstanley, Dan Beban, Julie Bevan and more.

The title is a reference to Simon’s house on Norway Street, where the recordings took place. The ‘non idiomatic idiom’ suggests the paradox that improvising non-idiomatically (eg in an original personal style without reference to any genre – playing neither jazz, nor rock, blues, reggae, classical etc) is an idiom in itself.

It was recorded in Wellington in two halves, in 1999

Listen

Simon O’Rorke – percussion

Paul Winstanley – synth bass
Blair Latham – alto sax
Jeff Henderson – clarinet
Bridget Kelly – tenor sax
Dan Beban – electric guitar
Dave Edwards – electric and acoustic guitars

and 2014, to show an evolution.

Simon O’Rorke – synthesisers

Blair Latham –  bass clarinet
Julie Bevan – acoustic guitar
Michael Hall – alto sax
Chris Prosser – violin
Dave Edwards – bass, electronics, tenor sax

 In 2024 Simon O’Rorke struck up a new collaboration with Dave Edwards, this time in the Wairarapa, as a trio with Antony Milton named The Margins:

Background

Free improvisation is a genre of music with a self-explanatory name.  Nothing is planned in advance, and the performers create the music on the spot by responding to what the others are doing in that moment.

Continue reading “in the non-idiomatic idiom in Norway (part 1, 1999)” →

dAdApApA: Waiting for the Drummer (1999)

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About

A companion to The Marion Flow, recorded in 1999 by the same lineup who provided that album’s longest (and least conventionally song-based track, pointing the way towards the increasingly radio-unfriendly Mantis Shaped and Worrying), “Lucifer Directing Traffic (at 3AM)”

Recording engineer Paul Winstanley, head of the excellent, now San Francisco-based avant-garde music label Eden Gully recalls it thus:

“after recording tracks for The Marion Flow at Wafer HQ in New Plymouth an ad hoc group of associated locals assembled to record for several sessions of improvised rock/noise deconstruction. really, the only rock references here come from the guitars, with the sputtering synth, air-sucking turntables, didgeridoo and sundry toys providing layers of surreal abstraction. throw in some spoken word and a special guest appearance by N.P. record mogul Brian Wafer on vacuum cleaner – and the dAdApApA nova had blazed and fizzled in the blink of an eye.

“it wasn’t until several years later after the master mixes had been lost, partially recovered and then rediscovered intact again that “Waiting for the Drummer’ was given a final mastering and released as a CDR on EdenGully. it’s been a long strange journey…..”

credits

released 01 August 2006 on Eden Gully as EG15

Fiff Dimension Dave – guitars, spoken word and furbie / Speed Cook – turntables and recording / Pal Diddly – synth and pithy observations / The Digitator – guitar, didgeridoo / BWafer – vacuum cleaner and coffees

Tracklist

1.just in time for christmas 09:03
2.making merry 09:00
3.singing and drinking blood 08:31
4.elves are farting bodies 14:10
5.groan in extra stuffing 12:19
6.smashed robots litter the pine 05:34
7.an orgy of turkey gobble 08:04