www.nickhodge.com

I love throw­ing words and ven­acu­lar phrases together. This stems from the power of Split Enz to cre­ate visual imagery from com­mon say­ings. An extreme example: Another Great Divide (Judd/Finn/Rayner/Gillies)

Now how can I fig­ure this equa­tion, if multiplication’s the rule /
You keep sub­tract­ing me from you, and it just doesn’t add up at all

It should be fur­ther noted that there is always a Finn song for every occa­sion. Thanks @mediamum!

In the instance of Off My Soap­box of Self Right­eous­ness, relates to battles and dis­cus­sions that rage daily. Like all fam­ily dirty laun­dry, the exact nature will remain confidential.

But on a lar­ger scale, it is my opin­ion that social media (whatever that is) is being mis­un­der­stood; or worse, mis-used by vari­ous less Cluetrained people. My fear is that the forces of old­skool will water down the poten­tial for massive change that is blos­som­ing. There are skir­mishes being fought daily. The wider com­munity does not see nor hear of these.

Sadly, those on the internal fir­ing line are also cop­ping friendly fire. Just sayin’

The strange­ness is made more fic­tional when I have an internal voice that is shout­ing, not whis­per­ing, you’re also doing it wrong. There is a high-wire act going on in my head, and the fin­gers of san­ity may be slowly let­ting go.

In 1978 Split Enz were stuck in the UK, between albums, man­agers and record­ing labels.

For many years, hard core Split Enz fans heard the odd song from this period: Serge (Once in Rome), Next Exit. Semi Detached. Some songs were released as B-sides. Oth­ers just made it onto other albums over time.

Fans heard from vari­ous sources of the exist­ence of the Rootin’ Tootin’ Luton Tapes. The tapes from a stu­dio ses­sions. Some said these tapes never exis­ted. Oth­ers said that they were lost for ever. Yet oth­ers said that they were so bad, they would never see the light of day.

Earlier this year, the Frenz of the Enz fan club announced that Eddie Rayner had found the mas­ter tapes, and was re-mastering for release.

I am listen­ing to them now. Wow. You have to be a major Split Enz fan to under­stand the tim­ing and for­give the raw­ness. Upon closer listen­ing, I can hear why Frenzy was such a crap album. They just chose the wrong songs.

Rootin’ Tootin’ for sure.

Ima­gine The Beatles reformed in 1992 and played all their clas­sics, as recor­ded, to an ador­ing audi­ence. Ima­gine Shakespeare reformed his ori­ginal act­ors from the Globe Theatre and per­formed his clas­sics, as writ­ten, in the 21^st Century.

Split Enz, NZ’s greatest export to the world, have reformed after 22 years to per­form in Aus­tralia. As a major fan (life mem­ber of the fan club major fan) — and owner of the cas­sette, vinyl, CD, DVD and other col­lec­ted works of this band + off­shoots, I’ve prob­ably per­son­ally provided the band mem­bers a healthy retirement.

Obvi­ously, attend­ing their con­cert this even­ing in Sydney has been a once-in-a-generation event. The whole Hodge fam­ily atten­ded; and Split Enz per­formed their clas­sics in a the­at­rical and pur­pose­fully chosen man­ner. Oh wow.

For me, it’s about the songs. They each have a per­son­al­ity; and their nat­ural per­formers (the mem­bers of Split Enz) are the nat­ural play­ers. In a crowd of 10,000 I must admit I moment­ar­ily lost my per­sonal con­nec­tion to each of these songs. Recor­ded from 1972 to 1984, the songs occupy a par­tic­u­lar place in my psyche dur­ing those dif­fi­cult form­at­ive years. The words: whether lyr­ical and mys­tical (Neil Finn) or col­lo­quial and allit­er­at­ive (Tim Finn) matched with time­less music [I See Red, Mes­sage to My Girl, I Got You etc etc] they have lif­ted me through many an internal storm.

The Split Enz clas­sics, have a time­less­ness that evoke a sim­pler period in life; and these songs held greater sway in our being. Even Neil and Tim tend to be more exper­i­mental when craft­ing their later songs: they have an increas­ing depth, matur­ity and intro­spec­tion that matches their journey.

“Songs” today is enter­tain­ment in a pack­age; rather than a story wrapped in a musical shell. For two hours tonight, Split Enz returned us to this sim­pler time.

Neil Finn on Piha, the west­ern coast of the North Island of New Zea­l­and: is the per­fect home for tor­tured souls…

Split Enz reforms for an Aus­tralian Tour — the Hodge’s will be there. No front row, but cer­tainly centre.

First Cas­sette Album: Tim Finn, Escapade

First Vinyl Album: The Liv­ing Enz, Split Enz

First CD Album: Con­flict­ing Emo­tions, Split Enz

First iTunes Album: The Dark­ness, One Way Ticket To Hell … and Back