Together alone : the story of the Finn brothers

274 Pages·2010·1.59 MB·English

by  Finn

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Together Alone
ePub ISBN 9781864716009
Kindle ISBN 9781864716313
A William Heinemann book
Published by Random House Australia Pty Ltd Level 3, 100 Pacific
Highway, North Sydney NSW 2060
www.randomhouse.com.au
First published by William Heinemann in 2010
Copyright © Jeff Apter 2010
The moral right of the author has been asserted.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted
by any person or entity, including internet search engines or retailers, in any
form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying
(except under the statutory exceptions provisions of the Australian Copyright
Act 1968), recording, scanning or by any information storage and retrieval
system without the prior written permission of Random House Australia.
Addresses for companies within the Random House Group can be found at
www.randomhouse.com.au/offices.
National Library of Australia
Cataloguing-in-Publication Entry Apter, Jeff, 1961– Together alone: the
story of the Finn brothers.
ISBN 978 1 74166 816 2 (pbk.)
Finn, Tim, 1952–.
Finn, Neil, 1958–.
Split Enz (Musical group).
Crowded House (Musical group).
Composers – New Zealand – Biography.
Composers – Australia – Biography.
Rock musicians – New Zealand – Biography.
Rock musicians – Australia – Biography.
Rock groups – New Zealand – Biography.
Rock groups – Australia – Biography.
782.42166092
Front cover photo by Paul Spencer, back cover photo by Alan Wild Cover
design by Darian Causby/Highway 51 Design Internal design and typesetting
by Post Pre-press Group
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Contents
Dedication
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Coda
Acknowledgements
Notes
Selected Discography
About the Author
More from Random House
To Boo, Lili, D and the King
Pitt Street Gardens, Sydney, July
1979
Sydney’s Pitt Street Gardens was not your typical rock-and-roll venue. The
décor put a whole new spin on the term lurid: a cheesy mirrorball hovered
above the dance floor, and there was a sea of dark carpet to hide the stains of
spilled drinks and worse, while its location – smack dab in the centre of
Sydney’s retail strip – made most serious music fans wary of the place. By
its very nature, and location, this was a meat market where over-dressed
suburban Kevins and Sharlenes came together and commingled on the dance
floor, ideally to the soundtrack of the Village People or perhaps Sister
Sledge. It was not the kind of joint where you’d expect to catch a
greasepaint-splattered, be-suited group of expat Kiwis.
Yet there were enough ‘real’ music lovers assembled on this weeknight, me
included, to check out the band that would soon become the hottest act either
side of the Tasman. I was still a few months shy of legal drinking age, but
when a buddy suggested, strongly, that we check out this ‘weird’ band that
the cool crowd was raving about, I knew it was my duty to catch the next
city-bound train. ‘They’re crazy,’ he told me. ‘You should see their haircuts
– and their costumes are ridiculous.’ That was more than enough to entice
me, a restless teenager living in humdrum suburbia, to scratch together the
cover charge and, hopefully, talk my way past the security guy on the door. I
was mad keen to check out the freak show.
Split Enz weren’t totally new to me. I had heard some of their recent
offerings on Sydney’s left-of-the-dial radio station 2JJ, such as the tearaway
rant ‘I See Red’ and the heady, giddy ‘Give It a Whirl’, among others, to
know them well enough. But up until then I hadn’t had the chance to see
them in the greasepainted flesh – not many rock shows of their theatrical
bent included my blue-ring-around-the-collar neighbourhood in their tour
schedule. Mine was more a ‘beer and Chisel’ kind of town, where the louder
the band played, the better the response, this being the so-called glory days
of Oz rock, the time of the Rads and the Tatts and the Oils. I knew that the
Enz weren’t one of those bands, even if I wasn’t completely sure what to
expect. All this was going through my head once my friend and I talked our
way past the doorman and snagged a primo vantage spot upstairs,
overlooking the pokey Pitt Street Gardens stage.
What I hadn’t considered was that the support act would mess with my head
almost as much as the headliners. Shock rockers Jimmy and the Boys –
who’d soon score a major hit with the Tim Finn-penned ‘They Won’t Let My
Girlfriend Talk to Me’ – were fronted by Ignatius Jones, a double-jointed,
bisexual motormouth in leather bondage pants, and also featured a
keyboardist in an evening gown and towering beehive, gender indeterminate,
who went by the name Joylene Hairmouth. The rest of the band pulled the
obligatory menacing poses, but I’d seen enough punk bands to know it was
just a stance. But as for Joylene and Jimmy, well, shit, they were the real
deal: a gender-bending, audience-baiting, extremely odd couple. That was
made very clear when they began simulating, as I turned to my friend in
disbelief, a sexual act of ‘mutual gratification’ towards the end of their
sweaty set. This suburban boy couldn’t look away; they were just too weird
for words.
Tim Finn once wrote a song called ‘Hard Act to Follow’ and, though legend
suggests it’s a nod to Midnight Oil, he may well have been talking about
Jimmy and the Boys. I feared that it would be an anti-climax – excuse the
pun – when the Enz hit the stage very late on this particular school night.
What, for God’s sake, could they do to match what I’d just witnessed? But
once they began to play it became apparent they were almost as visual a band
as their opening act, and not just because of their garish bespoke suits and
eye-popping light show. As they played, it was as if each member of the
band had rubbed up against a live electrical wire: they crashed into one
another while hurling themselves around the stage, their manic stares set just
above the crowd’s head, their wild hair and pancake make-up greasy and
running within minutes. It was impossible to tell if they were laughing,
crying or sneering. To me, the impact was as much physical as it was
musical – and I had no doubt this band could play – as they caromed off each
other like human pinballs. And out front stood Tim Finn, whose dark,
towering quiff gave him an extra few inches over the rest of the band, and
whose intense stare, ghostwhite face dripping sweat, suggested a man who
meant business.
I went away duly impressed: I’d witnessed a freakshow and a frenetic
display of muscle and musicianship. It sure beat a night of Charlie’s Angels
re-runs. As my all-stations train lumbered home, I had the time to ponder
just how many bruises each member of Split Enz had by set’s end; they were
living proof that in order to feel music it sometimes also had to hurt. And
within months the band’s star began to shine its brightest, on the back of
their most commercially sharp set, 1980’s True Colours. I was now a fan and
devoured the album as soon as it hit my local record store.
Fast-forward 27 years to August 2006. I was again in the same room as Tim
Finn, although we were now in a smart Kings Cross wine bar rather than
some sleazy mid-town nightclub. (The Pitt Street Gardens is long gone, now
the site of a ‘gentlemen’s club’.) I asked Tim about 1979 and he still
remembered the show, not because it was a standout gig, but because it
marked a huge turning point for the Enz, as they morphed from 2JJ
favourites to ‘the band’ of 1980 – Countdown darlings, live must-sees and
shifters of some serious units. Punters just couldn’t get enough of Neil
Finn’s ‘I Got You’ and Tim’s sadly beautiful ballad ‘I Hope I Never’; both
were huge hits and the album was an unstoppable commercial force. And in
1979 the Finns and their respectives had just moved to Sydney, so the
Emerald City meant a lot to the brothers.
Now, in 2006, Tim was easing himself back into the mainstream after many
years of enforced ‘indiedom’. His new album, Imaginary Kingdom, unlike
his previous few LPs, had been recorded on the major-label dollar. A new
US-based management team was in place, and there was a definite push to
try and return this Kiwi icon to the heart of the mainstream. The passing of
the years was reflected in Tim’s shock of grey hair and lined face, but he was
still handsome enough, albeit in a King Lear-ish kind of way. He was now
regal rather than menacing; his gaze more benign than that of the 1979 pop
star who admitted he was on an ‘odyssey’ with Split Enz.
In theory, I was there to grab a sneak preview of Imaginary Kingdom, but
truth be told I was there to speak with Tim about this book – and reminisce a
little. Even though it wasn’t on his publicist’s run sheet, he was happy to
speak with me, as we flashed back to that 1979 gig and caught up (our paths