Chris Knox

‘I felt Chris’s presence strongly throughout. I could hear his voice and picture him in a way that felt very real. Past events felt authentic and vivid as though Robertson was there in the background taking notes. Chris comes across as all the things we know he is: likeable, funny, talented, highly intelligent; sometimes caustic, very often opinionated! It’s a big book for a big personality.’

‘It isn’t every day you meet someone whose art and whose life are one and the same thing: a person living the art they make. I met one such person when Chris Knox and I ended up in the same van for a week in 1995. Chris Knox: Not Given Lightly tells, in meticulous detail, the story of his life, which is also to say that it reveals, clarifies and magnifies his art. In so doing it tells a hundred other stories and more, all the things that go into making a life in art. An exemplary rock bio and a crucial read.’

‘You should see my copy of this book. It’s completely riddled with 2B marginalia throughout … This is a major biography.’

‘Robertson’s biography reveals just how much Aotearoa has changed over a few short decades. Knox was there, raging in the middle of some of those shifts.’

‘Who changed: Knox or the world around him? I guess the answer is both did. Anyway, it must have become clear after 2009 that a full biography of Knox was not just a good idea but an essential one … There must have been some trepidation. Knox did so much, was so influential and remains so loved by so many that any biography faces high expectations. Robertson has met them.’

Craig Robertson grew up in Dunedin, New Zealand, where as a student he wrote a thesis on the ‘Dunedin Sound’, as well as articles for Rip It Up and a fanzine on local bands. He is now professor of media studies at Northeastern University in Boston, Massachusetts, and the author of The Passport in America: The History of a Document and The Filing Cabinet: A Vertical History of Information. His book on Chris Knox is a labour of love by an enthusiast with a deep understanding of the man, the music and the culture he worked in. Knox himself blessed the project before his stroke.