Crowded House

Right out of college, I landed my first book publishing job. It was far from glamorous. I was a college textbook sales representative, a "traveler." (Sounds like the Tinkers, almost.)

But in the big-ass, ten-day, corporate training, we RCGs, Recent College Grads, bonded. It made sense. Most of us were used to a tight circle of friends in college. Once graduated (or "granulated," as I like to say - I know I picked that up from someone along the way), many of we - okay, I - felt lost, adrift.

Those training sessions (editor after editor explaining book after book, sales managers declaiming Features! Advantages! Benefits!) made our eyes cross. We were used to taking drugs (okay I was), staying up, cramming for exams or papers, and hammering down to the city to hit Studio or Xenon or Mudd Club (or even Crisco Disco) and staying up for three days together.

After college, that tightly-knot group dispersed. A vast change. The ground shifted beneath my feet, and it was not the subway.

Substitute corporate training. Or a long way around to tell the story of my new best friend. She was from Southern California, and could not be more different than the snobby little New Yorker that I was (and oh, I've changed so much).

We were roomed together. I know the reason now why we became my friends (despite my air of superiority). She was open and kind, an all-around great gal. We laughed our asses off over Maalox one night - I cannot remember now why. But more important, we were music nuts. We loved music, loved live music, contemporary, cutting-edge music. Heck-fire (her words), her boyfriend was a musician, worked at KROQ, the "new music" station, the sine qua non of cool, in Los Angeles.

She turned me on to Split Enz, a new wave band from New Zealand.

A few months later, I visited her in the greater Los Angeles area (my family passed through California when we moved back to the States after living in Okinawa five years during the Viet Nam war...) for the first time. She lived in Long Beach, but we did everything I could have imagined. And we went to see/hear a lot of live music. We were - there's only one way to say it - music whores.

Pylon at The Pink (or was it The Roxy?).

A Flock of Seagulls opening for Squeeze at some place in LA - open air concrete seating like a Greco-Roman coliseum, but not the Hollywood Bowl, maybe a site on one of the area college campuses.

Split Enz opening for Elvis Costello in Irvine (I think - maybe I dreamed that when we ate mushrooms and went to see Blade Runner at the local movie house).

Which brings me to Neil Finn. Neil and Tim Finn, the brothers that fronted Split Enz. (Trust, all this was better than Human League, though by then, "Don't You Want Me," had opened the flood gates.)

Split Enz split up (sort of) and re-formed as Crowded House. Huge: "Don't Dream It's Over."

And now, kaboom. Crowded House has reformed, now in the summer of 2007. Their brand new disk dropped today. They have a new single. It's getting airplay out here, on the East End of Long Island on WEHM, the station that is so similar to the one-stop shop for all New York New Wave back in the early 80s. My god, that station played Depeche Mode into the ground. I have to believe that Depeche Mode succeeded in the States, in part, because of that station. Goth kids in Nassau and Suffolk, a million years before Columbine, just not shooting each other.

But heck-fire, Crowded House is on deck to play live at The Beacon in NYC on August 8. That's less than a month from now. Do I have the stones to get tix and go?

I picked up two Neil Finn disks when I lived in Boulder. One All, and 7 Worlds Collide, the latter of which features Eddie Vedder, Johnnie Marr (The Smiths killer guitar-player), and Radiohead's Phil Selway. I have been playing both almost incessantly for a couple of months - driving around out here in my car.

I think it's amazing. I listen to "Wherever You Are," almost once a day.

(Oh, and I think Modest Mouse sounds like <but may not be the new> Lloyd Cole, or XTC, even, while I'm at it.)

Comments

[Carlotta]

Do you have the stones to pick me up on your way to the show?! Bruno and babydaddy can do without me for the night. Miss you to pieces, C

[jess]

I'm a music girl too. I've got a ton of Split Enz records. Good times!

And I had not heard about new Crowded House! Too cool. I'll have to check that out.

[Kerndog]

Holly-hot-Hodder,

Your musical sensibilities are amazing :0
My brother spent a year down under and converted me to the same genre and have been blissfully living downunder (and 20 years in the past) for the past couple decades. I'll definitely dial in the new Crowded House! Thanks for the blog and hope you are as well as you look.

-Kerndog
PS Running Philly in Nov. if you are in the neighborhood. Only have Chicago left to go for the major US marathons, then its on to the ultras and/or overseas venues. Still keeping the hell away from mountain bikes, but am riding roads these days (which might actually be more risky). What are you doing these days???

[HH]

I have to give a big shout-out to Wikipedia. I lost myself for hours there, reading about the bands, the Finns, and more - funny how so many are connected to one another. But yep, so often with music, you hear it years later, and it kick-starts a specific memory - where you were, with whom. Music's like that - and I love it. I ordered the new Crowded House disk - psyched.

[Jeff]

another lovely piece Holly. I miss you not posting so much nowadays

still struggling to get to grips with the Thomas Dolby 'Greatest Hits' cd. Must be where you saw it, who you saw it with kinda thing

[mez]

I just picked up tickets to see them in Melb when they tour later in the year - despite Neil being from NZ they are considered a Melbourne band and we've adopted Four Seasons.. as a kind of theme here. I cannot wait to see them, they're an amazing band. Such a shame about Paul Hester (their drummer). :/