Posts Tagged ‘Split Enz’

The Popdose Interview: Neil Finn

The new benefit album from Neil Finn’s 7 Worlds Collide collective, The Sun Came Out, doesn’t aspire to the sorts of Grand Gestures that mark so many multi-artist charity compilations. Instead, its charms are subdued and homespun, and its songs (such as “Learn to Crawl”) are intoxicating in their low-key tunefulness. Those same qualities, along with an enormous generosity of spirit, are the ones that have sustained Finn through three decades as a recording artist — perhaps the most underrated artist of his era, as we are prone to suggest frequently here at Popdose.

The album comes by those characteristics naturally. Finn and his family opened their home (and his home studio) in New Zealand for three weeks last Christmastime to most of the crew from the previous 7 Worlds incarnation — Johnny Marr, Ed O’Brien and Phil Selway from Radiohead, Sebastian Steinberg, Lisa Germano — as well as newbies including Wilco, KT Tunstall, and down-under singer-songwriters Don McGlashan, Bic Runga, and Glenn Richards. The sessions were, by all accounts, full of frivolity, on-the-spot collaboration, and various forms (this being the holiday season) of good cheer; they also marked a musical reunion for various Finn family members including brother Tim, sons Liam and Elroy, and — singing on record for the first time — Neil’s wife Sharon.

In addition to preparing and publicizing The Sun Came Out (which emerges tomorrow in the U.S.), Finn has been readying a new Crowded House album for release this winter and has recently found time to play a few gigs (with and without his 7 Worlds compatriots) in London and Los Angeles. His interview with Popdose, patched in from New Zealand through his U.S. publicist’s office (thus saving your intrepid interviewer a whopping phone bill), found him answering queries about the minutiae of long-past Crowded House gigs as well as reader questions ranging from the profound to the ridiculous. (Sadly, dear reader who calls himself “maxus,” he had no answer whatsoever for the question, “Imagine if writing songs in flat keys suddenly became a major felony. How would you imagine a day in Neil Finn’s Violent Life of Crime, circa September 2010?”) Here’s a live clip from the first 7 Worlds Collide project: (more…)

Calling All Questions: Neil Finn

Reader questions are becoming almost de rigueur for our higher-profile Popdose Interviews, so we thought some of you might like to be part of our upcoming conversation with one of our very favorite artists, Neil Finn. Submit your questions here before midnight on Monday, and we’ll fit in as many as he can (or is willing to) answer. Feel free to touch on the Split Enz years, the Crowded House era, his solo work, or his many collaborations with Tim, Liam and the whole Finn brood — including the new 7 Worlds Collide album, The Sun Came Out, which itself dawns on September 29 and benefits Oxfam.

Have at it! And we’ll say “Hi” to Neil for ya.

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The Friday Mixtape: 6/19/09

You guys give up, or you thirsty for more?

Bobby Jimmy & the Critters – Roaches from Look at All These Roaches [12"] (1986)
Bread – The Guitar Man from Guitar Man (1972)
George Harrison – It Don’t Come Easy (unreleased) (1971)
Matthew Sweet featuring Lindsey Buckingham – Magnet and Steel from Sabrina the Teenage Witch: The Album (1998)
Rocket Scientists – Gypsy from Revolution Road (2006)
Split Enz – I Got You from True Colors (1980)
The Real Tuesday Weld – Bathtime in Clerkenwell from I, Lucifer (2004)
War – The Cisco Kid from The World Is a Ghetto (1972)
Warren Zevon – Hit Somebody (The Hockey Song) from My Ride’s Here (2002)
Jellyfish – Watchin’ the Rain from Fan Club (2002)
Marshall Crenshaw – Laughter from Miracle of Science (1996)
Sieges Even – Eyes Wide Open from Paramount (2007)
The Smithereens – If the Sun Doesn’t Shine from Green Thoughts (1988)
Vector – How Many Times from Please Stand By (1988)