I'm just curious... How did you all get into the Enz gang? Is there anyone out there in the forum the was a memeber of the audience of one of Split Ends' Levi's Saloon gigs? Buck A Head gigs? Or was it when the Enz went more mainstream with I See Red and I Got You. What was the first album and song that got you into them? For me... Unfortunatley, the Levi's and Buck A Heads were about 15-16 years before my birth(and I'm in Australia). I got into the Enz mainly thanks to my mum buying CH's Recurring Dream when I was 9 or 10 and after collecting all the CH albums (took me about 3 months) I heard there was another unique and marvellous band with the wonderful Neil Finn called Split Enz. Flicking through my parents vinyl collection one day, I found a copy of True Colours. I listened to it and was gobsmacked, this was really great stuff. I knew I Got You AND I Hope I Never, and consequently went looking for more stuff. I found first Enz Of An Era. I played it and shocked myself by knowing most of the songs on it. I'd heard them on radio before and always thought "That song was allright!" but not much else! Next I got Spellbound, which was hot off the press, for Christmas and played so consistantly that it, sadly, turned my father, RIGHT off the Finns. Spellbound was great and WAS the ultimate Enz collection but I'm glad my stubborness prevailed to buy (eventually) the whole Enz collection. I bought most of the stuff with Neil Finn in it first, and only when I got the 70's box last year, I embraced that pre-Neil era.
So that's how I got into this marvellous band called Split Enz. What about you guys?

Twas 1983 and I was 15. Was never really into the Enz but I thought I Got You and I Hope I Never were okay. In fact, I seem to remember being about 10 years old when I saw My Mistake and being almost scared by them. I remember thinking that Mal Green looked somewhat "normal" and felt sorry for him for getting mixed up with such weirdos!

Anyway, one night in '83 I borrowed my sister's copy of True Colours to tape I Got You. I stepped out of my room while it was playing and - I will always remember this - I walked back into the room during What's The Matter With You just as Tim was singing, "...you'll reap what you so-oh-ho-ho-ho!". I thought, "what the hell was that?!" So I ended up getting into that album. My sister also had Time & Tide and Enz of An Era which I thought were pretty good. From that, I bought Second Thoughts which I really loved (Woman Who Loves You, Time For A Change, Late Last Night, Sweet Dreams) . Corroborre came next - was okay. And I'll always remember buying Dizrhythmia. I'd heard Charley was a pretty song and was so impressed by it when I heard it for the first time. And so the obsession began...

I got into them out of curiosity! I first read their name in 1992 when my favourite teenager magazine brought a short bio of Crowded House in their lexicon of Rock... I looked out for their stuff from time to time, but it seemed really impossible to find things and by the way, actually I wasn't in the age to buy more than a CD in half a year But I was so curious, having no idea how the music sounded. In... late 1998 I finally went into my local record store and persued them to order the "Gold collection" for me from the Netherlands. Had to pay heaps but I really finally wanted to know this band! I needed some days but it grew to me and after starting with the internet on 1st of January 2000 I could buy whatever I liked from everywhere in the world And of course after seeing parts of the NYE 2000 gig on TV I really needed to buy more CDS!!! Now I own every CD, well - one is still missing, but anyway - I think they are one of the most "colourful" bands of their era! My faves are mostly of the old stuff, the early Enz - which is great!

I've once showed the teacher of my music courses a CD of them and she asked me what a cool new band I'd show her. She really thought it was music of today and this woman is quite good in music history actually It was a cassette with 70ies stuff!

Sad they were never really popular in Germany But nevertheless there are some 80ies samplers with I GOT YOU and other stuff available over here... Weird...

A great band! Love them!

Silke

It must have been late 1980 or early 1981 when (at the ripe old age of 8) I was knocked out by a friend's tape of I Got You and One Step Ahead. Then I remember seeing the video clips for Waiata and Time and Tide on TV's "Ready To Roll". (Tim got his head chopped off by the "Dirty Creature", spooky! Although I seem to remember that bit was censored the next time the clip was shown.) Unfortunately I was without a TV set for the next couple of years, and didn't actually start collecting their records until 1987 when I saw a TV special and remembered how much I'd enjoyed their music first time around. So I went out and bought True Colours and Enz of an Era. And then there was no turning back!

Okay, I guess I'm the old timer here. The year: 1976, I was and am a Roxy Music fan and word got around that Phil Manzanera was producing an album by SE. The first thing I heard was Stranger Than Fiction on the radio and was hooked before the song ended (early 77) when it did end they said SE were playing all weekend long not far from me. I saw them the first two nights and the third I went just to watch them unload their station wagon.

The year was 1980. I Got You had just been released, and the first time I heard it on the radio my hair just about stood on end, and that was after the first eight bars. You know that feeling you get when you hear those special songs that are destined to become classics. Then a few weeks later I saw the video clip of I Got You on our (at the time) local music show on City TV in Toronto, called The New Music. Here were these weird, quirky looking guys from where? New Zealand? God they were cool. I was seventeen at the time, and was duly impressed.

For some reason they faded from my consciousness for a few years, until, after having just returned from four months in
Africa and the U.K., I played Missing Person by chance and was again blown away. I thought to myself; "how did I miss this one before?" I decided that these guys were worth checking out again, so I started to build a Split Enz vinyl library, getting Time and Tide and Waiata. This would have been about mid-1986.

In December of that year I had another of those "moments" when the fist few bars of Don't Dream It's Over came on the radio. Crowded House? Who are they? The guy's voice sounds familiar. Once I found out it was in fact Neil Finn's new band, I think I became a lifelong fan of anything he's been a part of. I've converted everything over to compact disc format now, but still need to get some of the earlier Enz releases, like Mental Notes, Second Thoughts etc. I can't say I'm the truest of SE fans because to this day I don't think I've ever heard a Phil Judd song. They seem to come highly recommended.

I'm impressed to know how many younger fans have discovered the joys of Split Enz. I guess music of great quality will effect people at any age.

Greg, I say we start a "Who's the oldest geezer on this forum?' thread.

It was 1975 and I was a 15 yo working in Dad's shed and listening to 'Double J'- on came 'Spellbound'. I rushed to town and bought my first ever record Mental Notes. I was entranced by the piano and voices, echoes of vaudeville and the whole wierdness of it. Later on Countdown I saw 'Late Last Night'(76?) - Noel as barman- Eddie going off.

I first saw the Enz live in Canberra in 1980 - Sporting True Colours tour with the Sports. Saw them several times after that - Townsville (Time and Tide), Adelaide (3 times including 2 nights of 'Enz with a bang' tour). They cooked live!!

Ever since hearing Time for a CHange I have been totally hooked and own just about all the Tim/Phil music, even the Les Patterson soundtrack.

I think Greg is older than me, but I'd be surprised if he had less hair! Cheers

Matthew

I only remembered later that I first saw the Enz in the "I Got You" clip, which I found disturbing as a six year old. A close friend of mine was really into the Enz, he had that K-Tel "Split Enz Collection 1973-84" which we used to listen to. When that wore out, he got the LPs (on cassette) not in chronological order, so I think he started with "Living Enz" then "True Colours" then "Beginning Of The Enz".

And then one school holiday, he bought "Mental Notes". I think I was 11 or 12 when I first heard it and it frightened the **** out of me. I still remember the first time I heard Phil sing "It's not fair!" on "Under The Wheel". It was like time stopped and I thought "what the **** was _that_?" I think we listened to MN once or twice a day over that summer holiday. It was and is great.

I was delighted when they reformed for "Concert of the Decade" in 1989 where I saw them at the Gold Coast in Queensland; as they were defunct years before I got interested in them, I figured I would never ever see them live.

Eventually I got the gold and silver box sets as well as the video and some other stuff, and every LP, every video, every Enz related anecdote had something that delighted me and still does.

Paul.

i think it's funny how a few people have mentioned intially being scared by split enz!! i can see it now, everyone else releases a christmas album but split enz does a halloween album....anyway!

my first memory of split enz was seeing the video for "i got you" at a friends house on mtv. i liked the song but thought neil was creepy, the hair and that obsessed look in his eyes

6 years later i heard "don't dream it's over", got that record and saw neil finn's name. i thought, that name is familiar and traced it back to my k-tel (yea, k-tel!) vinyl "the beat", which i first got because it had duran duran on it but kept because of "i got you", "i predict" (sparks), "hot in the city" (billy idol) and "joan of arc" (omd).....

soooo, i thought i should check out some more of split enz, went out and bought all the tapes i could find and proceeded to become addicted to time and tide, true colors and second thoughts (had another name at that time, i think, can't recall...). i fell asleep every night listening to these on my headset, primarily "sweet dreams" and
"take a walk"....ahhh, the rest is history...nice looking back, good times!

Well, I'm 42. Not much younger than the great Phil Judd himself. I must have been 17 when I got into them.

I just got into Split Enz about a half year ago, at age 14. I first heard Split Enz on TV (in Canada, unbelievably) at the Millenium Concert, playing Message to my Girl and I Got You. A year later, after getting Napster, I found some of their songs, most from True Colours, Time and Tide, etc.
I then found Walking Down A Road, and was fascinated! I managed to find a copy of Mental Notes in a used CD store, and have since purchased Second Thoughts, Beginning of the Enz, and Frenzy. (I don't care as much for the Neil Finn stuff as the Phil Judd music!)

There ya go!

In by the back door really - I vaguely remebered the Enz from their 2 UK hits, I Got You and History, but got into Crowded Hosue in Aug 88 when Temple was released, and then investigated CH and Tim's back catalogue. Only True Colours was available in the UK at the time, so songs like I Hope I Never, Missing Person, and Shark Attack lodged a certain place in my brain. I managed to get the Enz boxes on import, but not a lot of the early stuff grabbed me much, post Frenzy is my favourite Enz era. The Enz have a place in my musical tastes, but CH and Tim solo mean a lot more to me...

Split Enz was that scary clown band that cropped up on "Ready To Roll" and "Grunt Machine" in the '70s.

While they were freakily entertaining, the music didn't grab me until 1980. I didn't think "I Got You" was that great a song, but the band's image and sound had suddenly become a lot more appealing.
Nothing was better for a ten-year-old's imagination than hearing "Poor Boy" on late-night radio.

When "One Step Ahead" came out at the end of the year, I knew I was a fan and spent my hard earned $2.99 on my first Enz record.

I got into the scary clown stuff later.

How I got into the Enz... well, I was born in '83, and when I was ~4 I found this recorded tape pretty much on the street, someone's new wave mix tape... I had no idea who all the artists were on it, but I wore it out on a little Hitachi tape player meant for recording messages. Sometime I must have lost it... but anyway, about eight years later (~'95) I started listening to 'classic rock' stations, I became one of those "today's music sucks!" people. (I'm not really that way anymore...) and I started hearing songs from that old mix tape on the radio.
Gradually I was able to buy all the albums with stuff on it and recreate it... it was really the best mix tape ever. It had plenty of Enz, of course, plus some Police, Rush, and Yes. The Enz songs: I Got You, Missing Person (that's where i got my name there), Hard Act, One Step Ahead, Iris, Ships, Dirty Creature, Giant Heartbeat, Never Ceases, Six Months.
In the quest to find all the Enz songs I ended up getting all of their albums (it became very difficult, most of them are out of print or not in any stores in the US) and got into the early Enz as well.
Enz is definitely the best band ever.

I had heard about Split Enz before Crowded House debuted, but I was unfamiliar with them. Once the CH album came out, tho', A&M Records decided to cash in on the Split Enz name, and released the "History Never Repeats" album. My then-college-girlfriend immediately bought it and we both loved it. I then bought Dizrhythmia and True Colours, but those were the only Enz albums I could find. Loved "Bold As Brass," "Jamboree," and "Poor Boy." I still haven't been able to track down many albums up here in the mountains of the Northeast USA. It took me years just to find "Recurring Dream" and I'm still looking for Afterglow and ENZSO (I've found them on the 'net, but that's about it).

...and by the way, a new member of the radio station I work at here recently came to us from New Zealand, by way of Australia (Brisbane, Sydney, all over). He was surprised that I not only had heard of the Enz and CH, but that I actually liked them! What is it about us Americans? Do we not recognize great music?

when I was in my teens I had a 'penpal' in NZ (whom I totally adored!!) who kindly recorded stuff off the radio for me all the time, I think if I'm right the first song of theirs I really took notice of was message to my girl, although I could well be wrong. All I remember is that I was soon looking in the local second hand record shops for SE stuff. And managed to get a couple of vinyls aswell.This is a major achievment for where I come from!! So may we all say thanks Dave, and I miss those wonderful novels !!!!

I was just a young jasper, and over the years heard Bold As Brass & My Mistake, then I See Red, then I Got You & Poor Boy, then Dirty Creature...on the radio and television. I have particulary vivid memories of that bizarre I Got You film clip.

By this stage I sort of thought, wow this band are consistently cool, and I bought Enz Of An Era...I would have been about 10. I've still got the reminants - I totally wore the cassette out listening to it at friends' places as I didn't even have a cassette player!

I then started experimenting with their studio albums that I'd find in second hand music stores -starting with Second Thoughts, True Colours and Dizrythmia, and soon after, all the others.

Somewhere amongst all this, I saw their Enz With A Bang farewell gig at the Toowoomba Showgrounds (Toowoomba is a town near Brisbane, QLD). Phew!

I was hooked - quality songwriting, dynamic image, interesting themes, and always off-beat enough to have currency amongst pals at school!

Neil and Tim's (less so Phil - I was disappointed with Practical Joker and never really revisited him - discussions on this forum make me think maybe I should) music has been a consistent musical backdrop to the goings-on of my life ever since.

Hope it doesn't read too much like a pathetic paid testimonial!

Cheers,

Cool topic - memories etc !

I started taping the charts each week when I was about 4, this would be 1975 eeks. My elder cousin used to play me loads of stuff and one time I saw him he was raving about seeing this band at the art school he attended.

He played me 3 albums that night - Never Mind The You Know, something by The Dickies and Dizrythmia.

Bold As Brass, My Mistake - wham bam - that was me gone. The acoustic guitars, the harmonies, the cover, the funky inner sleeve - I poured over that album and within 2 weeks I had the thing along with Mental Notes UK - my parents then had about 3 years saturation 'til True Colours came out