How'd we all get into the Enz?

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.

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

i have become a most recent fan of the enz back in 1999 i saw the videos for i got you and one step ahead and ive been hooked ever since, i have most recently started a split enz collection. i 1st got true colors and i was so hooked on it i didtn take it out of my cd player for weeks. than i got frenzy and time and tide again i love them! im trying to get conflicating emototions and see ya around on cd but its so hard since they dont have a lot of enz cds here in the usa. since most of them are out of print. most of my other songs have been downloaded off the internet. id like to hear more of the earlier enz so i can here what it sounds like. i hear they are good maybe someone can tell me what the 1st couple albums are like. so there you are how i got into the enz

It's so good to read all these stories guys... it brings a smile to my face, reading so many different experiences from so many vastly different places in the world - all with one thing in common - this GREAT music we're all on this board to enthuse about!

It makes me smile, too, how some people's recollections make me feel old and others make me feel quite young (for the record - I was born the same year as the Enz - 1972).

How did I get into the Enz? I guess I could say I've been a lifelong fan, I'm not even exactly sure where it started or how old I was... seeing the "History Never Repeats" video for the first time 10 or 12 years ago, and seeing all those videos (AGAIN, in most cases) together, chronologically, made me realise that I'd always had a soft spot for the Enz, and I recognised all except the songs off the first 2 albums (so I knew all the words to the singles since "My Mistake", really!). But then I'm lucky I guess - grew up on the right side of the world!

First time around -

Radio With Pictures, Karen Hay (or was it Dick Driver - so long ago the memory's starting to fail on the finer details).

Video was My Mistake...

"My Mistake" was the first Enz song that caught my attention, but it has to be "I hope i never" that led to further ENZploration!
I`m 32 now, but it feels i`ve been listening to them for 33 years.
Still like all the stuff they put out through the years, band and solo!

wet greetings (raining here now!):
peter

William_oa! You're as old as me! Oh my god!

I'm just starting out with the enz but I'll keep listening to them for ever!


Shark attack kicks so much butt!

It was 1992 when I first got into the Enz. I was 12 and about to embark on something of a musical adventure I guess!

I had got into them via loving Crowded House. That had started when I got Woodface on cassette. Wow, what an album - love at first listen! I still know all the lyrics and remember taking an 6-7 hour train trip on which I listened to nothing but Woodface.

Anyway, late in 1992, I finally got my first Enz album: History Never Repeats with the Maori cover. I was blown away. I thrashed that album so much and still feel like it's the best Enz compilation ever made (hint for any new Enz fans).

So it went from there. Throughout 1993-94, I gradually acquired all their albums, starting with Dizrythmia (my favourite Enz studio album) and eventually I got Spellbound when it appeared in 1997 (which is worth buying for the song 'Semi-Detached' alone).

My greatest memory is when, still at age 12, my best friend and I had the chance to see the Enz live on their NZ 20th Anniversary Tour. What a truly awesome night. I'll never forget the moment when the Enz burst free from the big red bag they came onto stage in and it was like "OH MY GOD, THERE THEY ARE!!!" These guys had become my heroes in a mere few months, and now here I was seeing them on stage! Well that was a magic night that will always be right up there for me.

I was hooked on the Enz right from the start. There's just something about them that other artists can't touch. They were totally original and their music still sounds totally fresh and exciting all these years later. For me they are right up there with the Beatles and other big names as far as crafting totally fresh, original, enjoyable tunes go. I've been a fan for 14 years now.

Hearing their music on the radio or seeing their video clips is still a big thrill. I'll always come back to the Enz. They were the first musical artist I really dug.

Great topic revival, Gav .

I always remeber the first time i heard the Enz. Actually, it wasnt even the actual Enz. I saw a bunch of guys singing 'I see red' on Hey hey it's saterday's red faces about....umm...about 10 or 12 years ago. I fell in love with the song on the spot. My mum took me into our lounge room and, from our glass record cabinet, presented me with 'Enz of an era'. That moment was the 'bang' moment when i stared loving the Enz.

At around the same time, we had a compilation casette from my god father that we used to listen to on family driving holidays. It had My Mistake on it, which, though i liked it at the time, i didnt connect it to Split Enz for several years.

A couple of years ago i was in a bakery near Brunswick Heads (north coast of NSW) when 'I got you' started playing over the radio. I couldnt help dancing around a bit, i loed this song. I already knew it, but i didnt know what it was called (i have since encountered many people who will swear they dont know a song called 'i got you', until you sing them 'i dont know why sometimes i get frightened'). When i got back to the car i was singing happily away. I asked y Mum who sang it, and was suprised and delighted to hear that it was my old love, Split Enz.

Since the Enz Reunion tour in June i have been more or less obsessed. Shark Attack, with those fabulous lighting effects, blew my mind, live. That was a great moment. And through the years i must have picked up dozens f Enz songs in my mind, because there were very few in the set list that night i didnt know.

I learnt about Crowded House completely seperately to Split Enz, and love them too, but the first band i ever loved, that i love best, is our own dear Enz!

Very unspectacular. Must have been in 1990, after I had read somewhere that Neil had been in a band before called Split Enz (remember - back then, no Internet, and I was not a club member). I had not heard any new Finn music for a while, so when I browsed through the stacks in a used records store and I came across "History Never Repeats", the Best-Of that covers the A&M years only, I thought that this tune "I Got You" had a nice new-wavey edge and some haunting synths, the ballad "I Hope I Never" was rather strange but intriguing and what did it for me was the sheer exuberance of "Six Months In A Leaky Boat". So the 9DM I eventually paid for the CD were - in the end - one of the most expensive investments I made. Boy, I had no idea how much these guys had released... and then the rarities sets...

I am only lately an Enz fan, from early on this year...I've always been a Crowded House fan from a kid when my mum played her Crowdies stuff (I would bawl my eyes out whenever Better Be Home Soon came on...I was born in 86, same year as the first album came out). I heard about the Split Enz tour this year but didn't know much about them, apart from Neil and Tim being in it. I'd seen a live clip of I See Red on cable and couldn't believe Neil Finn used to dress like that! I ended up buying tickets to the tour and went out and got a Best Of to familiarize myself with some of the songs, realising that I already knew a few of them like I Got You, Six Months in a Leaky Boat and Message To My Girl. I still didn't know that many songs when I saw them in June but they absolutely went off and I immediately went out and bought all the remasters as quickly as I could afford them, and the dvd. And the rest, as they say...

For me it's been a quite recent journey. I'm a crowdies fan first and foremost. I knew Neil had been in a band previously but never investigated. Then I saw a clip of I got You on one of the music channels in the 90's and thought - I'm sure that's Neil Finn! I then went out and bought a best of cd but never took to it at all. It sat on my shelf and I went back to CH!
Then last year I went to see Finn Bros and they were selling the Spellbound DVD. After the gig in the post gig euphoria I always go merchandise mad and treated myself to one. I watched it and loved it. The lyrics, costumes and general feel really struck a chord with me and since then I've been Enz mad!

TOTP and "I got you" that was it for me !!

Firstly, I'm a Crowdie fan more than anything else and been a Crowdie fan ever since the tender age of six. I'd always loved 'I Got You' for as long as... well, as long as I can remember but I never made the connection between Enz and Crowdie. It was nothing more than sheer curiousity about what Neil's first band had been like that made me finally decide to buy HISTORY NEVER REPEATS - BEST OF back in Sept of last year. I'd already heard songs like 'Six Months', 'History Never Repeats', 'Dirty Creature' (& I'd taped VH1's Hall Of Fame prior to that) but I just thought "well ONE album can't hurt. This has everything that you've heard before and you like all of that so why not?"
After that one album led to another... and another... plus the DVD (which I've now had for a year on this very day)... and another... and another... and sitting up all night watching the DVD... well, you get the idea and the rest as they say is history.

Even when my father came home from work on that day back in Jan-Feb of this year and told me that: 1 - Enz were re-uniting for an Australian reunion tour, 2 - Adelaide was part of the tour stops, guess who didn't believe it!!! You just don't spend half the day listening to your fav Enz album wondering if they'll ever re-unite & then someone tells you that THEY ARE RE-UNITING. Especially when the announcement comes less than a week from your 21st birthday! That's SCI-FI. It all sounded too good to be true. But it was...

I saw I Got You on Countdown when I was four and thought Neil was just the cutest 'boy' I'd ever seen (I learnt young hey)

my grand dad bought me True Colours for my next birthday much to nanna's horror and I payed it everytime I went to their house which was pretty often. Even then music was a form of escape, their fun songs made me happy.

oh yeah, i lost touch with the enz untill 82 when 6 months got released as a single in the uk, and it was DISGUSTING that 6 months in a leaky boat got banned here in the uk, just because it was at the time of the falklands war,i mean it woulda been a top thirty hit otherwise, i remember it got a lot of airplay until then.

I think it was in 1980-81 with I GOT YOU on MTV. Have been hooked ever since!!

Very hazy...So long ago...1974...in Wellington...I was 9-10, and was taken to the show by my big brother (the only way I was allowed to go).
My first concert ever and it was Split Enz. I must admit to not going to too many other Enz concerts and only 1 Crowded House show, but I loved the music (Early Enz for me was difficult to get into, but hey, I was 10!!). Only in the last few years have I been a member of FOTE, but the internet has allowed me to satisfy my passion by helping build my collection.
I often wonder how things would be without the old web thingie...no online record stores...no forum...no ebay... AAArrghh! I think I need a lie down. |-)

For me, my Enz fandom was because of investigating the musical family tree. I was a Crowdies fan first of all, and I liked them quite a lot. I knew I loved Neil as a gifted songwriter. I might have heard the name Split Enz, but that's it. I'm American, and I was 5 when True Colours was released in Oz (not sure it had the same release date here). Being open to hearing the Enz in that environment just wasn't going to happen.

In March of '04 when I was working at a childcare center, we played a video tape of the Wiggles with Tim doing "Six Months". I had a little freak out session trying to explain to my coworkers that it was "Neil's brother!" So though I started as a Neil/Crowdies fan (still am), it was Tim who put it all into high gear.

Of course, in August 2004 the Brothers released their second album, so I got their stuff and then their indivudual solo outings, but it wasn't until June of last year that (other than "Six Months) I heard any Enz tunes. I got the American release of "History Never Repeats".

I liked them, of course, but it was more me enjoying Tim as a songwriter. It wasn't until October also last year that somehow or another, I realized I just LOVED them.

I think it was hearing more or the music than just that 11 song compilation and realizing that Nigel Griggs is a bass-playing monster. He is truly amazing, an absolutely fierce musician. I had found my musical hero like some people find Excalibur or the Holy Grail or whatever your preferred mystical item. (Yes, I'm a bass player. Can you tell?)

So Tim's songs and Nigel's playing--I was a goner. I've been a complete fan ever since.

Think it would have been Donnie Sutherland's fault. 'Sounds' on channel 9 on a saturday afternoon, was my religion. Age 13/14 ?
This weird and quirky band came on 'That was My Mistake' or 'Bold as Brass', its all blurry now. Hooked ever since.
First album I could afford with my own money was True Colours, then got FRENZY ahhhhhhhhhh.
Wagged school, as you do, for important things, and got Time and Tide the day it was released.

This is a very recent getting into for me, I got into Enz after reading the Roxy Music book 'The Thrill Of It All' in May, mentioning that Phil Manzanera had produced their first (actually second, but says first in the book) album, I got interested and decided to find out more on Split Enz through Wikipedia. Then in September, after listening to I Got You and Six Months In A Leaky Boat a fair few times, I bought Spellbound. Then came Mental Notes (after buying Amy (Darling) of iTunes), then Second Thoughts, then Frenzy and then Dizrythmia. I plan to get True Colours and Time & Tide in the future.

And in case any of you are wondering how old I am, I'm 15, 16 in April next year. And I find Crowded House not as good as the Enz.

Mine's weird. After a lot of time hearing Enz songs on the radio and elsewhere (my dad had Time and Tide on tape, and would listen to it in the car — I had a lot of "Oh-h-h, I remember this" moments listening to the CD years later), one day, listening to "I Got You" on the radio, I thought, "Wow, those harmonies on the choruses sound really good." Around the same time, I had this very out-of-nowhere desire to hear "Poor Boy," after I heard it on the radio about two years before.

I went off to the library; they had True Colours; I fell in love. For me, it was one of those records that instantly clicked the first time I heard it.

That library and some of its other branches greatly aided the romance, since they also had tapes of History Never Repeats and The Living Enz, and — get this — the silver box set.

That was all about two years ago. My only regret is that I missed that Countdown episode they hosted (the one "She Got Body, She Got Soul" comes from), which Rage put on, by a matter of months.

It's actually criminal that the enz didn't get the success they deserved in the uk, sorry ! I'm going off on one !!