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...

As a kid I didn't really know a lot about Peter Gabriel. I was in high school when "Games Without Frontiers" was a big deal back in 1980. It was a pretty awesome song, and I remember being tempted to pick up the album, but never did. Still don't know why. Then again, I didn't have Genesis albums either. Like millions of other bandwagon jumpers I hopped on with So and stayed on for his soundtrack Passion, then more or less lost interest. I also really liked Plays Live , especially the live version of "Solsbury Hill" that still gets me right in the feels. That was about as deep as my collection went.  It was about a year after the album came out in the summer of '83 that "Shock the Monkey" was still getting a fair bit of play on FM radio, and the song admittedly was a bit perplexing to me, as I didn't know if I liked it, or was irritated by it. Time of course would have the last laugh, as it always does as the song, like so much of Mr. G...

I had always wanted to pick up a copy of this album, but I didn't. Not because I didn't like John Lennon, it's because I didn't want to hear the Yoko Ono songs. Yeah, I know it's a shitty reason, but it is what it is. We all know the history here, and that's what makes this so sad. I remember when this came out, and "Watching the Wheels" and "(Just Like) Starting Over" were getting some airplay and I really liked those songs - still do. I also remember reading there was disappointment in how John's "come back" wasn't doing as well as some had expected, and a lot of the early reviews pretty much shit on it. Everything changed December 8, 1980. Let's address the elephant in the room right off. The Yoko songs. I guess in terms of being artistic and taking chances and playing against the conventions of crafting listenable pop she was a master. Heck, I'll even grant that "Give Me Something" has a certain cha...