New Zealand music
Live 1999
Video Posted on Updated on
by Dave Edwards – electric and acoustic guitars, harmonica, vocal
Live at Bar Bodega, Wellington, New Zealand, June 1999.
I was the opening act for Chris Knox, so this is obviously dedicated to him.
Summer Skin
Live 4th May 2019, at Wairarapa TV May Music Marathon, in Masterton NZ.
Solo guitar & harmonica version of track http://www.fiffdimension.bandcamp.com/track/summer-skin
Originally recorded in Wellington NZ, September 2003, for the album ‘Loose Autumn Moans‘, with a mini string section of Mike Kingston on cello and Sam Prebble (RIP) on violin. It also appears on the Gleefully Unknown: 1997-2005 compilation.
Seafriends
4th May 2019 live solo version at the Wairarapa TV May Music Marathon.
This song was originally recorded in June 2001, at Thistle Hall, Wellington. It was the opening track of the album The Marion Flow.
4 May 2019 – Wairarapa TV Music Marathon
Saturday 4 May 2019
May Music Marathon
fiffdimension (acoustic set) from 4:47:00, interview from 5:23:30
Radio House 5 Church Street, Masterton, Wellington Region
12:00pm – 12:00am
The Property Law Service May Music Marathon is a collaboration between Wairarapa TV, Property Law Service and 12 Wairarapa performing artists to bring 12 straight hours of live Music to Television screens during NZ Music Month on May the 4th.
The Property Law Service May Music Marathon will be simulcast on Wairarapa TV (Freeview CH41), ArrowFM 89.7FM and YouTube.
It is as mad as it is ambitious which is exactly what makes it so exciting.
12pm Meiniak
1pm Courtney Naera
2pm NZUMEUS
3pm The Adventures of Mikejoffa
4pm The Holy Loner
5pm Fiffdimension
6pm Mike Rigg
7pm Spank
8pm Grafia
9pm Coral Griffis
11pm Aroha Jacx
The Marion Flow, March 2019
Since last year I’ve been getting back into playing solo acoustic. Here’s a 6 March 2019 version of ‘the Marion Flow‘:
Originally recorded in New Plymouth in 1999, it became the title track of my second album.
The 1999 recording had quite a different vibe – spoken word delivery, electric guitars panned left & right, and Paul Winstanley playing a cymbal through a pitch shifter, turning it into a deep sea gong sound.
On other occasions it became a rock riff, based around just an E note and its octave.
I was surrounded by wider & weirder music too. I moved to Wellington and found a kiwi avant-garde scene with free jazz, noise, and theatre gallore. We eventually finished The Marion Flow album in 2001, after recording sessions at Thistle Hall.
The lyrics are some of my favourite. They were scribbled in a notebook sometime in the late 90s. I was digesting the influence of literary modernism (eg lines like ‘yea take in that wake’ a shout out to James Joyce, using nouns as verbs and vice versa, and other general flouting of grammatical rules).
Taranaki and its coastlines inspired much of the atmosphere.
Here’s a Health to my Cronies (by John Collie, 1856)
19th century Scottish drinking song, by John Collie (1834-1893), from his book ‘Poems and Lyrics‘
Played by his great-great-grandson Dave Edwards – first public performance of this piece, at Dragon Inn, Featherston, NZ, 6 Feb 2019
HERE’S A HEALTH TO MY CRONIES.
HERE’S a health to my cronies where’er they reside, Whether this side or that o’ yon big rowin’ tide ; I care na what country or kingdom they claim, Be they English or Irish to me it’s the same, Gif their hearts to a glass o’ gude whisky incline, I instantly class them as “Cronies o’ mine.”
Awa wi’ yon nabob purse-proud o’ his gear, Neither he nor his wealth hae charms for us here; Awa wi’ yon fop wi’ his clear headed cane, A bit trip through the warld, it’s use may explain; But welcome my cronies wherever ye be, To join in this gude reekin’ bumper wi’ me.
A fig for the wealth that this warld can gie, We naething brought here, sae we’ve naething to lea; The farmer wi’ ousen an’ acres galore, Has his crosses just now, an’ may sune count on more; Then come here, my cronies, let’s kick awa care, As lang’s we’ve a groat or a shilling to spare.
The Land of My Youth (by John Collie, 1856)
Poem by John Collie (1834-1893),
from his book Poems and Lyrics in the English and Scotch Dialects, published in Scotland in 1856
Performed by his great-great-grandson Dave Edwards in Featherston, New Zealand, January 2019.
John Collie emigrated to New Zealand in 1858. This poem seems to anticipate his leaving Scotland forever, to start a new life in a new country on the opposite side of the world.
Lyrics
