Old Enough to Forget

Tim Finn, founding father of Split Enz, occasional member of Crowded House and half of The Finn Brothers with little brother Neil and a fairly odd but incredibly cool album by ALT (with Andy White and Liam O Maonlai) back in '95. It's weird, not a bad weird, just weird that I came to Tim Finn's solo work backassward through his association with little brother Neil. Of course I knew of Split Enz, and dang it I loved "Shark Attack" and thought "Six Months in a Leaky Boat" were awesome, but on balance I liked Neil's songs better. Those first two Crowded House records only cemented that opinion for me. When Neil and Tim turned what was to be a Finn Brothers record into Woodface I was still drawn to Neil, but I had to admit Tim was pretty cool ... maybe I was missing out. Me being me, which is to say a borderline compulsive, I started looking for Tim's solo work. I found his debut from '83 which was okay, and I kept going and going. Of his solo wo...

Back in 1988 my old roommate Otto came home one day with a CD by Hothouse Flowers. I don't know where he heard or read about them, but he said it was supposed to be pretty good.  The first two songs were absolutely killer tracks. "I'm Sorry" and "Don't Go." Truly killer tracks. For 1988 this was quite different than most of what I was listening to. The '80s wave had crested and it was full on big hair, tight pants and gang vocal choruses ... this was organic. I also cannot remember anything aside from the first two songs. I hesitate to say they were filler, but I have zero recollection of anything else. Then for father's day the kid's allowed me to spend a $100 bucks on records, and I found this one - and was pretty stoked. I got a nice pile of stuff that ran the gamut from Linda Ronstadt to Sandford and Townsend (never heard of them but it was sealed and looked like fun.). This was the album I was most excited to hear again ... I was very te...