ESCAPADE  -  TIM FINN

YEAR:  1983
LABEL:  Mushroom/A&M
TRACK LISTING:  Fraction Too Much Friction,  Staring at the Embers,  Through the Years,  Not For Nothing,  In A Minor Key,  Made My Day,  Wait and See,  Below the Belt,  I Only Want To Know,  Growing Pains
IMPRESSIONS:  This album came out my first year of college.  Already a huge Split Enz fan, a solo album by Tim Finn was definitely something I snapped up in a hurry.  This record (yes, vinyl) I immediately taped onto cassette so I could listen to it in the car tape deck of my 1975 copper Ford Granada while I drove the 40+ minute commute to Glassboro State College ("Because it's there, it's cheap and you're never too stupid" was our comedy motto in the school magazine).  Made while Tim was still a member of Split Enz, this album featured songs some of which he had been holding onto since the late 1970s because they didn't fit the Enz sound.  What that is generally said to mean is that they were more "groove" oriented with a stronger dance rhythm  --  and this is no doubt the truth as there is a lot to dance to on this album while Split Enz doesn't offer boogiemonsters much in the way of booty-shaking opportunities.  Also, "ESCAPADE" is very definitely more "bubblegum pop" sounding as well and much more radio friendly; this fact born out by the substantial success of the album for Tim which was the primary kick in the pants which led him to quit Split Enz after the "CONFLICTING EMOTIONS" album later that year.  While I am still very fond of this album, some of it is a tad harder to listen to all these years later without the fine fog of nostalgia to soften some of the cheesier and more blatantly bubblegum sounds which occur from time to time on the album.  Listening to "ESCAPADE" 30 years later does produce one or two cringe-worthy moments.  However, the album is still full of packed with great songs that, with a more modern arrangement, would still hold up today.  Lead-off single "Fraction Too Much Friction" is still a fun song with a slight reggae beat while "In A Minor Key" is probably the most Enz-like song on the album.  The bright and breezy "Through the Years", the perfect-for-driving perambulation of "Not For Nothing" and the melodic "Wait and See" are stand-out tracks even today as are the "heavy-on-the-groove" tracks "I Only Want To Know" and "Below the Belt"; the latter song apparently only appearing on the American version of the LP replacing the song "Grand Adventure".  Also, the song sequencing from the original Mushroom Records album shuffles the song order for the States.  All in all, even today in Tim Finn's 60th year, "ESCAPADE" is an enjoyable listen with it's bright red cover signalling the candy-coated goodness inside.
MY FAVOURITE TRACKS:  Fraction Too Much Friction,  Through the Years,  Not For Nothing,  In A Minor Key,  Wait and See,  Below the Belt,  I Only Want To Know
GUEST ARTISTS:  Ricky Fataar (drums, percussion, keyboards, backing vocals),  Venetta Fields (backing vocals),  Richard Tee (piano on "Fraction Too Much Friction",  Rhodes on "In A Minor Key" and "Wait and See"),  Vince Gill (mandolin on "Not For Nothing")
FACT SHEET:  ESCAPADE is Tim Finn's first album.  The album was meant to be a temporary side project for Tim after which he would return as usual to Split Enz; however the unexpected mass success of the album surprised the singer and left him preoccupied when returning to work on Split Enz's "CONFLICTING EMOTIONS" album and eventually led to his departure from the band.  A more pop-oriented sound for the album was the goal as Finn brought in such accomplished session musicians as the great Richard Tee (who famously appeared on classic albums by Billy Joel, Paul Simon, etc.), Ricky Fataar (percussionist on many pop albums as well as being a member of the Rutles) and soul-singer Venetta Fields (who backed such bands as the Rolling Stones on "EXILE FROM MAIN STREET").  The presence of future country music star Vince Gill on mandolin still astounds me!

WOODFACE  -  CROWDED HOUSE

YEAR:  1991
LABEL:  Capitol
TRACK LISTING:  Chocolate Cake,  It's Only Natural,  Fall At Your Feet,  Tall Trees,  Weather With You,  Whispers and Moans,  Four Seasons In One Day,  There Goes God,  Fame Is,  All I Ask,  As Sure As I Am,  Italian Plastic,  She Goes On,  How Will You Go
BONUS TRACKS:  I'm Still Here (a hidden track which starts 30 seconds after "How Will You Go" ends)
IMPRESSIONS:  The Finn Brothers always seemed to be playing leapfrog.  Split Enz had Tim but not younger brother Neil until a band shake-up left room for the youngster to join.  After several years, Tim would leave Split Enz for a solo career and Neil would carry on briefly as the band's leader before disbanding to form his own band Crowded House which released two albums to great commercial success.  Then, by the time of Crowded House's third album "WOODFACE" who should suddenly join the band but Tim Finn!  Until the next album, then he was gone again.  Crowded House would carry on for a while before disbanding and -- you guessed it -- Tim and Neil would team up for several albums under the Finn Brothers moniker.  As well as carrying-on with separate solo careers.  Oh yeah, but then there was Tim's mini-supergroup Alt . . . and that Pajama thing Neil's doing now . . . as well as having reformed Crowded House for a couple recent albums.  Whew!  Who can keep track.  But it doesn't really matter as the Finn Brothers are better together than separately and "WOODFACE" is my favourite Crowded House album as, to me at the time, it was something of a Split Enz Mach II.  A statement on the "LOVE THAT ALBUM" podcast declared side one of "WOODFACE" to be one of the best side ones of any album.  Well, it is certainly pretty damned good.  The album didn't do nearly as well in the US as it should have owing mainly to the bone-headed decision to release "Chocolate Cake" (a good song, don't get me wrong) as the first single; not the best choice when you had such monumental songs as "Weather With You", "Fall At Your Feet" and "Four Seasons In One Day" to choose from, for Pete's sake!  "Fall At Your Feet" and "Four Seasons In One Day" remain some of my favourite songs by the brothers along with torch song "All I Ask" (the first song a Neil Finn composition with the latter two collaborations between the brothers).  
MY FAVOURITE TRACKS:  Chocolate Cake,  It's Only Natural,  Fall At Your Feet,  Weather With You,  Whispers and Moans,  Four Seasons In One Day,  All I Ask,  She Goes On
FACT SHEET:  WOODFACE is Crowded House's third album.  After the second album "TEMPLE OF LOW MEN", Neil and Tim Finn wrote songs together intending to release as a Finn Brothers album.  After these songs were recorded, Neil Finn rejoined Nick Seymour and Paul Hester to write and record the third Crowded House album; however the record label rejected most of these songs as unsuitable.  Neil asked Tim if they could use the songs the brothers had recorded for the Crowded House album and Tim (now stating that he was joking) said "Sure, but only if I can join the band".  Regardless, the record was recorded with Tim a full fourth member of Crowded House.  "All I Ask" was used for AIDS Awareness adverts in Australia.  Tim would leave the band during the UK tour for the album.  Nine songs were recorded for WOODFACE before Tim Finn became involved and were not included on the album:  "Anyone Can Tell", "Left Hand", "Dr. Livingstone", "Sacred Cow", "I Love You Dawn", My Telly's Gone Bung", "Time Immemorial", "Fields Are Full of Your Kind" and "My Legs Are Gone".  All but the last two songs were included on the 1999 rarities collection "AFTERGLOW"; the final two songs still remain unreleased.  Again, hilariously, New Zealand's favourite sons and their band Crowded House's album "WOODFACE" was named #3 in the greatest Australian album list. 

TRUE COLOURS  -  SPLIT ENZ

YEAR:  1980
LABEL:  A&M
TRACK LISTING:  I Got You,  Shark Attack,  What's the Matter With You?,  Double Happy,  I Wouldn't Dream Of It,  I Hope I Never,  Nobody Takes Me Seriously,  Missing Person,  Poor Boy,  How Can I Resist Her?,  The Choral Sea
IMPRESSIONS:  The album that broke Split Enz in the USA.  A classic in every respect, this is the album that produced the first videos I'd ever seen of the band on MTV:  that is, the videos for "I Got You" and "I Hope I Never".  My love for Split Enz has probably been covered enough already in my previous posts here so I'll give you a break and not go over old territory.  Suffice it to say that the album cover of this album was released with many different colour combinations; the above "yellow and blue" model was what my original vinyl LP looked like whereas my cd has the red and green cover.  I prefer my original.  Also, the original vinyl features the spectacular "laser etching" of geometric patterns right on the grooves themselves; this effect truly was (and is) spectacular as it catches the light brilliantly.  I still have mine.  As good as this album is, the next album ("WAIATA" aka "CORROBOREE") would be better still and the following "TIME AND TIDE" is a masterpiece.
MY FAVOURITE TRACKS:  I Got You,  Shark Attack,  What's the Matter With You?,  I Hope I Never,  Nobody Takes Me Seriously,  Poor Boy,  The Choral Sea
FACT SHEET:  TRUE COLOURS is Split Enz's fifth album.  The band's line-up for this album was Tim Finn (lead vocals, acoustic guitar), Neil Finn (lead vocals, guitar), Noel Crombie (vocals, percussion), Malcolm Green (drums), nigel Griggs (bass guitar) and Eddie Rayner (keyboards).  The original album featured "Shark Attack" as track one and "I Got You" as track two but the success of the latter as a hit single prompted US label A&M to switch the order so that the popular hit would lead off the album.  Just to prove the old axiom that artists never can judge their own best stuff, the band thought "Missing Persons" was the stand-out track to be released as a single; thankfully, wiser heads prevailed.  The album cover was designed by band member Noel Crombie and was originally released in four colour combinations:  yellow and blue, red and green, purple and yellow and blue and orange; there have since been even further colour combinations in re-releases including lime-green and pink, hot purple and burnt orange, gold and platinum (denoting its sales success) and and yellow, blue and red.  A&M also chose this album as the first to ever feature "laser-etching" directly on the vinyl; geometric shapes were literally etched onto the grooves so that light hitting it would flash around the room.  This technique was not only a boon to DJs spinning the record but also a deterrent to the then-problem of vinyl pirating of counterfeit LPs.  Cyndi Lauper was a Split Enz fan and her 1986 hit single and album "True Colors" were named in tribute to the band.  In a boner of the same proportions as Rolling Stone magazine's crowning of 1979's "London Calling" by the Clash as the best album of the 1980s, New Zealand's Split Enz found their TRUE COLOURS declared #22 in the book "100 BEST AUSTRALIAN ALBUMS".  Apparently at the time 1 in every 4 households in New Zealand owned a copy of TRUE COLOURS.    

CONFLICTING EMOTIONS - Split Enz

YEAR: 1983

LABEL: A&M

TRACK LISTING: Strait Old Line, Bullet Brain and Cactus Head, Message To My Girl, Working Up An Appetite, Our Day, No Mischief, The Devil You Know, I Wake Up Every Night, Conflicting Emotions, Bon Voyage

IMPRESSIONS: Continuing with 80's week and still one more of the "pool records" described in the Lene Lovich NO MAN'S LAND entry. This is usually mentioned as Split Enz's poorest release but there is some really good stuff here. Also, I consider it the last Split Enz album (even though there was one later on which surely IS the worst Enz album by the way) as this is the final one involving Tim Finn who left his group after the great success of his solo album "ESCAPADE". Therefore to me this is the real farewell to Enz fans; especially with the exquisite final track "Bon Voyage" which is nothing else but Tim Finn saying goodbye. The album opener "Strait Old Line" has an instrumental opening which has to be the most Split Enz-sounding song encapsulating everything that made the group unique. Beautiful Neil Finn-penned songs like "Message To My Girl" and "The Devil You Know" point the way to Neil's post-Enz career while Tim Finn-penned classics like the aforementioned "Bon Voyage" and the Devoesquely mental frenzy of "I Wake Up Every Night" show the band could've continued if they'd wanted to. However, the presence of a fair amount of dross makes us conclude that their hearts just weren't in it anymore and they needed to go their separate ways. Conflict over Tim Finn's insistence on utilizing drum machines and general jealously from other band members over Tim's successful solo career pretty much guaranteed the band should call it a day. At least for the time being.

MY FAVOURITE TRACKS: Strait Old Line, Message To My Girl, The Devil You Know, I Wake Up Every Night, Conflicting Emotions, Bon Voyage

GUEST ARTISTS: Ricky Fataar (drums on "Message To My Girl")

FACT SHEET: CONFLICTING EMOTIONS is Split Enz's eighth album and the final one featuring Tim Finn. The intriguing, autumnal album cover art is by Split Enz's original frontman Phil Judd.

TIME AND TIDE - Split Enz

YEAR: 1982

LABEL: Mushroom

TRACK LISTING: Dirty Creature, Giant Heartbeat, Hello Sandy Allen, Never Ceases To Amaze Me, Lost For Words, Small World, Take A Walk, Pioneer, Six Months In A Leaky Boat, Haul Away, Log Cabin Fever, Make Sense of It

IMPRESSIONS: This is surely my favourite Split Enz album and one of my favourite albums full stop. While not a concept album, there is a cohesiveness throughout which makes the songs work together and I think the song sequencing is damn near perfect. (Evidence of this is the fact that, in 2006 when several Enz albums were remastered some were re-sequenced with songs in a different order -- not TIME AND TIDE however). There is a heavy nautical tone to the album (the album title provided by Noel Crombie, the "big black lake" in "Dirty Creature", the obvious sea shanty-like character of "Pioneer", "Six Months in a Leaky Boat" and "Haul Away") but the majority of songs do not have anything really to do with the sea. Songs featuring lyrics about "the back of beyond", "deep within the forest", "out my back door" and an isolated winter cabin abound. Perhaps one can say it's the most heavily New Zealand-influenced of all their albums in some way I can't quite put my finger on. The album also focuses on mental difficulties arising from Tim Finn's recent nervous breakdown as well as an incident involving Eddie Rayner's "panic attack"which found him running from a restaurant and cowering in his motel room corner for 12 hours in stark terror. Despite all this sometimes troubling imagery (see "Log Cabin Fever" for the most stark and disturbing), the album ends on an up note with the hopeful "Make Sense of It" demonstrating how its possible to come out of the dark eventually into some form of mental calm. Incidentally, TIME AND TIDE was awarded the honorary retroactive Penguin Award for Album of the Year.

MY FAVOURITE TRACKS: Dirty Creature, Giant Heartbeat, Never Ceases To Amaze Me, Small World, Take A Walk, Pioneer/Six Months in a Leaky Boat, Haul Away, Log Cabin Fever, Make Sense of It

FACT SHEET: TIME AND TIDE is Split Enz's 7th album recorded in Sydney, Australia and produced by Hugh Padham and Split Enz. "Dirty Creature" was the first single released followed by "Six Months in a Leaky Boat" and "Hello Sandy Allen". A song called "Fire Drill" was recorded for the album but left off and became a b-side; the band usually opened with the song in concerts at the time. "Dirty Creature" refers to a nervous breakdown Tim Finn had at the time. "Six Months in a Leaky Boat" was becoming a big hit in England until it was banned from airplay by the BBC for being "inappropriate" during the Falklands War. "Hello Sandy Allen" is written for the world's tallest woman whom Neil Finn had met in New York on a chat show. "Haul Away", despite its "sea shanty" tone is actually an autobiographical lyric about Tim Finn which references his birth, his parents and his recent nervous breakdown. Split Enz consider the making of TIME AND TIDE to be one of the happiest times for the band and they, like many others, consider it to be their finest album. The band was Tim Finn (vocals, piano), Neil Finn (vocals, guitar), Noel Crombie (drums), Nigel Griggs (bass) and Eddie Rayner (keyboards).