DIY outsider music, from Aotearoa NZ and beyond
Around September 2020 I’d planned to travel to Scotland, on my first visit. There was to be a family gathering for my sister’s wedding in Edinburgh.
The trip’s now postponed indefinitely, for obvious reasons
I’d planned to visit Boyndie, Banffshire, where my great-great-grandfather John Collie grew up.
In 1856, in his early 20s he published a book : Poems and Lyrics (in the English and Scotch Dialects).
I‘ve started setting some of it to music.
January 2019, looking for a new sound and a new project – after completing Other Islands: 2012-2018.
It’s a poem by John Collie (1834-1893), my great-great-grandfather
from his book Poems and Lyrics in the English and Scotch Dialects, published in Scotland in 1856
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.
In May I performed it live on Wairarapa TV.
Lyrics
Continue reading “The Land of My Youth (by John Collie, 1856), January 2019 demo”
“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
In December 1998 I self-released my debut album . Scratched Surface was a teenage no-budget lo-fi postpunk pakeha singer-songwriter album from the Taranaki, Aotearoa underground, recorded on analogue reel-to-reel tape.
I burned it on CDR and sent out copies to anyone who would listen. It was the opening salvo in a recording career that’s gone on for over 20 years now, occasionally dismissed, largely ignored, gloriously unsuccessful. A career nonetheless; I’ve made an album most years since.
20 years on I’m still creating – here’s some of what I’ve done more recently:
fiffdimension 