Chris Knox, 55 year-old spiritual godfather of the Flying Nun scene, was born and raised in Invercargill, where he found pen and paper, the family piano and a Super-8 camera to be the vehicles for an insatiable young mind fuelled by the continually evolving music of the '60s.

As soon as he could, Chris set off for Dunedin. Seven years later, he had passed through a misspent year of college life and a plethora of no-hope jobs when suddenly...Punk rock changed his life! By mid-1977, Chris Knox was the misfit lead singer of one of New Zealand's very first punk bands, The Enemy. Their live shows were chaotic, loud and legendary culminating in Iggy Told Me when, on a good night, the audience were treated to the sight of the manic frontman hacking into his forearms with the first bit of broken glass he could find or create.Chris Knox, 55 year-old spiritual godfather of the Flying Nun scene, was born and raised in Invercargill, where he found pen and paper, the family piano and a Super-8 camera to be the vehicles for an insatiable young mind fuelled by the continually evolving music of the '60s.

As soon as he could, Chris set off for Dunedin. Seven years later, he had passed through a misspent year of college life and a plethora of no-hope jobs when suddenly...Punk rock changed his life! By mid-1977, Chris Knox was the misfit lead singer of one of New Zealand's very first punk bands, The Enemy. Their live shows were chaotic, loud and legendary culminating in Iggy Told Me when, on a good night, the audience were treated to the sight of the manic frontman hacking into his forearms with the first bit of broken glass he could find or create.Within a year The Enemy headed for Auckland, where the band swiftly mutated into a new outfit, Toy Love, which became a vehicle for the more melodically ambitious ideas fermenting in their heads. Toy Love set about conquering New Zealand by 1979 before being washed up 18 months later in a sea of indifference in Sydney. They returned to NZ disgusted with the experience and Chris bought himself an open-reel Teac 4-track with which he and flatmate Doug Hood proceeded to record young Dunedin bands for a fledgling label called Flying Nun. Thus were born records by the Clean, Chills, Verlaines et al.

Chris also continued his partnership with Enemy/Toy Lover Alec Bathgate in 1981 as Tall Dwarfs who have delivered a string of wonderfully demented records, the latest of which will come out next year.

He also does other stuff. He has been making videoclips since day one. These unhinged flicks have had plenty of attention-the claymation Half Man/Half Mole even had Beavis and Butthead debating the relative merits of cel versus clay animation!

As well as a monthly full-page, full-colour comic strip in Real Groove, he has infiltrated NZ's biggest newspaper, the NZ Herald, with a weekly strip, Max Media, Not content with this level of acceptance he has snuck regular rock and DVD columns and opinion pieces into the New Zealand Listener and a handful of others. Nor has television escaped his attentions with movie reviews on several Arts shows, a stint as presenter of old movies on The Vault, an Intrepid Journey to South India and - right now - a presenting gig on TV 6's New Artland.

Back in the realm of music, solo Knox output has almost exclusively been the work of one man - featuring home recordings of his voice, guitars and various other decrepit hunks of out-moded musical technology.

Seizure, the first "official" album, didn't appear until 1988. It was followed by Croaker (1991) and Polyfoto, Duck-Shaped Pain & Gum (1993). Meat (Communion USA, 1993) compiled tracks from Seizure and Croaker. The same label also licensed P.Duck for the US. Caroline Records picked up Chris' 1995 album Songs of You and Me which almost immediately hit the top of the college radio charts. 1997 saw the release of YES!! which got delivered around the USA by the short-lived Flying Nun US operation and got into Europe via Matador UK. Tours of the States, Europe and Australia accompanied many of these releases.

2000 brought the critically applauded Beat, haunted by his father's recent death. This was a good year for the boy with the delivery of a bNet "Lifetime Achievement Award" and an APRA Silver Scroll for "best song of the year" - My Only Friend from the Beat CD.

In 2002 Chris also found time to indulge a passion for musique concrete, Inaccuracies & Omissions was the result, released under the nom-de-disc, Friend, to widespread puzzlement.

Then in a stunning reversal of all his fondest and longest held beliefs he chose, in 2006, to record in a studio! With a band!! The result was Chris Knox and The Nothing, a 17 song album with musical competence in abundant evidence, thanks to The Nothing - drummer Stefan Neville (AKA Pumice) and bassist Jol Mulholland (main guy of Gasoline Cowboy) - and the engineering and production skills of Roy Martyn who got it all down to hard drive at Auckland's MAINZ studios. This album also broke from tradition by not being on Flying Nun. Instead, Knox chose to self-release it on his newly minted A Major label with distribution by Rhythmethod. The DIY approach continues. And deepens.

And now there's this second album from The Nothing - A Warm Gun. Producer Roy Martyn joins the band on guitar and, as on the former album, strings and brass figure prominently.

French mag, Rocksound, once described him as "that gentle psychopath, Chris Knox" and we can definitely understand what they mean. But, then, there's also the guy who created Not Given Lightly, the love song to end all love songs - the multi-talented, unique amateur that is Chris Knox.

THE NOTHING - 'A WARM GUN' OUT NOW ON 'A MAJOR LABEL'

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02/05/08