So I picked up a 2-disc comp of Split Enz Spellbound because I wanted some of their earlier, mid-seventies stuff. Guess what? It's good! Even before they were Crowded House, even before "I Got You" - they wrote catchy songs with smart lyrics and excellent vocals. What're the odds?

Also got the recent Magnetic Fields, London Calling on CD (was missing it recently, and getting to the turntable is getting to be a project. My whole world turned digital.), Loud Family ( Plants and Birds and Rocks and Things which has some of the coolest song titles of recent memory like "Self Righteous Boy Reduced To Tears" and "Some Grand Vision of Motives and Irony" and "Ballad Of How You Can All Shut Up" and "The Second Grade Applauds" and also Attractive Nuisance which sports a cover photo of the actual empty swimming pool at the actual Burnt Norton of the T.S. Eliot poem).

Also got Songs The Cramps Taught Us, vol. 3 which is basically a better digital edition of the Born Bad series (which I love). Does anybody else love that funky purgatory of American rock from the early sixties between Elvis hitting the army and the Beatles? It's so skanky and demented and beautiful.

So I picked up a 2-disc comp of Split Enz Spellbound because I wanted some of their earlier, mid-seventies stuff. Guess what? It's good! Even before they were Crowded House, even before "I Got You" - they wrote catchy songs with smart lyrics and excellent vocals. What're the odds?

I always preferred Split Enz to Crowded House. My favorite song of theirs has to be Six Months In a Leaky Boat.

I always preferred Split Enz to Crowded House.

Although the CH where Neil brought Tim into the band (Woodface) was basically a Split Enz Redux. And "Chocolate Cake" is one of my favorite songs by either band.

Six Months . . . is probably the only chart song outside of OZ/NZ with the word Aotearoa.

Repeat from Press, but:

The new High Hat, she is up.

So I picked up a 2-disc comp of Split Enz Spellbound because I wanted some of their earlier, mid-seventies stuff. Guess what? It's good! Even before they were Crowded House, even before "I Got You" - they wrote catchy songs with smart lyrics and excellent vocals. What're the odds?

I'm going to claim pretty good (of course, I remember them from before they split up). I actually have two copies of Spellbound; I bought one for myself, and then my parents gave me another one as a present. I keep meaning to return it, but can't just drop round when I get a free weekend. I doubt they mind anyway.

Also got Songs The Cramps Taught Us, vol. 3 which is basically a better digital edition of the Born Bad series (which I love). Does anybody else love that funky purgatory of American rock from the early sixties between Elvis hitting the army and the Beatles? It's so skanky and demented and beautiful.

Oh, yeah. I keep meaning to buy those compilations.

Sacha Distel has also taken the big sleep.

[link]

Just sent to me by my friend Eliot, the White Light, White Heat tribute album. Downloading it now so have not listened yet but am very intrigued by the line-up:

Ergo Phizmiz plays Banjo, Bass Guitar, Ruler, Music Box, Violin, Toy Piano, Electric Guitar, Accordion, Squeezebox, Euphonium, Ukulele, Kazoo, Xylophone, Pixiphone, Uumskither, Mbira, Pod, Delay, Turntable, Percussion.

Update on the downloading: SSSLLLOOOOWWWWWWW. What will it sound like? What must White Light, White Heat have sounded like in 1968 to all those unprepared ears? Even the "prepared" ears (guys like Lester Bangs and Bob Quine who were steeped in both free jazz and feedback) were knocked on their butts. Bangs had a memorable line about the album, & especially "Sister Ray", "energies beyond the highest energies of all those Detroit killerboys," i.e., the Stooges & the MC5, both of whom Lester adored.

And was Sacha Distel Free French or pro-Vichy? Sorry, I'm having a Casablanca moment.

Thanks for the tip, Joe. I'm downloading Mr. Phizmiz' work as I write this.