Writing

Blue Oyster intern Reuben Scott revisits The Characteristics of C-Minor (2014) directed by J. Ollie Lucks and Miranda Bellamy.

In a way, Nick Knox lived two lives. Not simultaneously, as the saying connotes, but one after another. In 2014, we learned that there was a moment that ‘everything changed’, marking the beginning of a new life. This is the delicate question that Nick is asked in front of the camera barely a minute into TheCharacteristics of C-Minor, a short film produced by J. Ollie Lucks and Miranda Bellamy, and shown at Blue Oyster. Nick sits there quietly, searching for an answer that is not splayed out in front of him. Not simply.

The office was cold when I found The Characteristics of C-Minor in Blue Oyster’s archives. I was supposed to take notes as I watched, but for every moment tense and beautiful, it felt wrong to turn away. Afterwards, I found an audio file of the artist talk that occurred after the screening, the audience asking questions, diving further into the vulnerability that the film had already created.

“Can I ask a question?”

“Yeah, sure.”

“Was there something else that grounded you besides music, when you were going through all those periods?”

“That’s the whole thing,” Nick said. “I wasn’t. Your understanding of what’s real is radically different from everyone elses.”

Isolation is a word that Nick used in the film, in describing the ‘before’. Social isolation. Physical isolation. Though isolation implies that one is stationary, Nick points out that it does not imply that one is grounded. Nick makes this distinction clear, and says that it was his new, deep faith in music that allowed him to keep his feet planted on Moray Place, where Nadia Reid, since his passing, said he was an icon.

The Characteristics of C-Minor has a sense of necessity about it. It does not shy away from portraying music as spiritual, showing its healing nature and its ability to move. Towards the end of the film, Nick talks about a performance he’d done where a woman sat close to him, and he could see that she was profoundly moved by what was happening before her. “To see in real time that what you are doing is having an emotional impact on someone,” Nick said, “is unbelievably validating.” He fumbles his words for a moment, choking on a follow-up that does not come, eventually saying “Thank you.”

It is a remarkably moving moment.

I recently got in touch with Ollie Lucks and Miranda Bellamy to let them know that I was working on this piece, and to see if they would like to add anything. Ollie, very kindly, wrote, “through working with Nick I learned the importance of vulnerability. It is the message of the film, and Nick puts it so well when he says that in order to grow one needs to let down armour. He was a gentle teacher.”

Miranda wanted to point out that The Characteristics of C-Minor, Nick’s gentle and powerful teachings, reached farther than Blue Oyster, and Dunedin. She wrote that it brought her great joy to think about all of the international film festivals that C-Minor was shown at. In her email she tried to remember, “20 I think?” From Byron Bay to Switzerland to Indonesia to Estonia, where Nick skyped in to answer audience questions, his big grin on the big screen.

There are pieces in Blue Oyster’s archive that are not unlike treasure. Rarities with values that might not be understood by everyone, but to others, might conjure up a great sense of wonder, or even grief. Past and present directors, administrators, interns and volunteers of Blue Oyster are immensely grateful to have had Nick Knox share his music and his stories in their familiar, creative space.

As Nick answers the question, “Was there something else that kept you grounded?” he assures his audience that it wasn’t always dark, and he wasn’t always tormented. There were ecstatic moments too.

“Extreme highs, extreme lows,” the asker adds.

“Yeah,” Nick says, “pretty much,” and he launches into ‘Resuscitate’. 

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Reuben Scott is a fourth year English student at The University of Otago, and an intern at Blue Oyster, working on and writing about the gallery’s archives, a vault of more than twenty years of exhibitions. Through fronting his band Three Quarter Marathon in Dunedin for three years, Reuben has earned a great appreciation for Dunedin music, past and present. Recognising Nick Knox as a key figure in a scene so rich made this piece of writing seem essential.