Neil Finn Official Website
Jon Brion had a surprise guest at his show at Largo on August 30th. Neil Finn joined Jon for a four song acoustic set:
We Can Work It Out
One Step Ahead
Moon River
Can’t Get Started
Thanks to Havelin and Dub at www.frenzforum.com for the info.
Tonight the Largo audience will see Neil playing his first solo show since April!
Neil holidayed in Greece earlier this month and visited Meteora.
Neil’s been mentioned again in NZ Herald’s “The Diary” column. Scroll down to the “National Home Invasion” story at http://www.nzherald.co.nz/personalities/news/article.cfm?c_id=72&objectid=11116500
Updated 29/8/13
Live show alert! Neil Finn is performing at Largo in Los Angeles this Saturday, August 31st.
Tickets were available at http://largo.laughstub.com/show.cfm?id=270751&cart but very quickly sold out after we posted the news a few hours ago.
Sorry about the late notice. A spontaneous surprise gig… even we didn’t know!
Neil was recently interviewed by Simon Barber and Brian O’Connor of Sodajerker about his songwriting process and his work on The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey. He also details the production of his forthcoming solo record, due in early 2014.
Listen at sodajerker.com/episode-44-neil-finn
The final track we’re presenting from the special Leigh Sawmill Cafe concerts in 2008 is an early version of “Twice If You’re Lucky”. Crowded House had just begun working on the Intriguer album and took the weekend off to perform three intimate gigs, showcasing the new works-in-progress. You can hear all four songs in the rarities collection The Kitchen Sink II.
“Twice If You’re Lucky”, recorded on Sunday February 24th, 2008, was also caught on fan-cam.
Neil Finn: vocals and guitar
Nick Seymour: bass
Mark Hart: guitar
Matt Sherrod: drums
Don McGlashan: euphonium
Eddie Rayner: keyboard
Thank you to Luke Marlow for locating the video. Special thanks too to Carolyn Koob.
Crowded House has been named the Greatest Australian Band of all time in music channel Max TV’s Legends poll. Split Enz is in at #2!
See the top 50 list here.
(Updated 13th August 2013)
Neil will play at all three Australian locations in The Falls Music and Arts Festival around New Year, plus Southbound 2014. Yesterday Neil tweeted, “excited to be playing there, will have hot band…….other shows in other countries to follow.”
The Falls Music and Arts Festival, Lorne, Victoria, Australia
28th December 2013 – 1st January 2014
The Falls Music and Arts Festival, Marion Bay, Tasmania, Australia
29th December 2013 – 1st January 2014
The Falls Music and Arts Festival, Byron Bay, New South Wales, Australia
31st December 2013 – 3rd January 2014
Southbound Festival 2014, Busselton, Western Australia
3rd-4th January 2014
The exact dates and times of Neil’s performances have yet to be announced.
Eddie Vedder joins Neil on the classic Hunters & Collectors song “Throw Your Arms Around Me” for the tribute album Crucible: The Songs of Hunters & Collectors. This will be released September 27th on Liberation Music. Press Release below.
CRUCIBLE
THE SONGS OF HUNTERS & COLLECTORS
Whether you’ve worshipped at their altar in the past or were too young to have witnessed them live, Crucible – The Songs of Hunters & Collectors is a revelation and a proud tribute to this great and important band.
Formed in Melbourne in 1981, Hunters & Collectors became an integral part of Australian music culture through their unique songs and sounds and legendary pub gigs. They took us on an incredible journey as they evolved from an experimental post-punk/agit-funk collective with up to a dozen members into a streamlined and visceral rock and roll outfit that made a profound connection with audiences across the country. The Hunnas, as they became known, featured a powerful blend of guitars, drums, bass and brass, fronted by Mark Seymour’s intense vocals and presence.
Disbanding in 1998, Hunters & Collectors left behind a legacy of great rock and roll moments, memories and a proud catalogue of recorded music, including nine studio albums, three live albums and numerous EPs and singles.
Over the past eighteen months, fan/critic/A&R exec John O’Donnell has been curating the album Crucible – The Songs of Hunters & Collectors.
“It has been an exhilarating journey of reinvention and rediscovery,” says O’Donnell, as a wildly diverse range of artists have stepped forward with passion and creative zeal to record interpretations of fourteen equally diverse Hunters songs. From the more obscure corners of the band’s catalogue such as ‘Alligator Engine’, ‘The Slab (Betty’s Worry)’, ‘Dog’ through to the classics like ‘Throw Your Arms Around Me’, ‘Holy Grail’ and ‘When the River Runs Dry’, established artists like Eddie Vedder & Neil Finn, Paul Kelly, The Living End and Something For Kate have paid respect while newer acts like The Rubens, Alpine, Matt Corby and Abbe May have gone digging for their own truths in these amazing songs.â€
1. Birds of Tokyo – Talking to a Stranger
2. Eddie Vedder & Neil Finn – Throw Your Arms Around Me
3. Matt Corby & Missy Higgins – This Morning
4. Oh Mercy – The Slab (Betty’s Worry)
5. Alpine – Hear No Evil
6. The Living End – Say Goodbye
7. Paul Kelly & Emma Donovan (featuring Jimblah) – True Tears of Joy
8. The Rubens – Holy Grail
9. Husky – Blind Eye
10. Something For Kate – When the River Runs Dry
11. The Panics – Alligator Engine
12. Abbe May – Dog
13. British India – Do You See What I See?
14. Cloud Control – Still Hanging ’Round
15. The Avalanches – Stalking to a Stranger (Planets Collide Remix)
“I have to say, it is deeply rewarding for me as a writer to know that beyond the years and all the hard work that was done in the crucible of the Australian suburbs, the songs of Hunters & Collectors have reached the cream of Australia’s talent, great singers and bands young and older… who have stepped up to record the best of what we delivered in those pubs so many years ago. I am honoured by the respect they have shown.
Songs are what we share, and sharing itself is crucial to our identity as a people.”
Mark Seymour
“I, along with the cream of great musicians from all around this country and beyond have been given a wonderful opportunity to come together and pay our respects. And what an utterly amazing legacy it is, revisited and reinterpreted by their admirers more than 30 years from where it began and for the generations of music fans that will follow.”
Michael Gudinski, Chairman of The Mushroom Group
CRUCIBLE – THE SONGS OF HUNTERS & COLLECTORS
30 songs – featuring 15 stunning tributes and 15 original recordings
Released FRIDAY SEPTEMBER 27 on Liberation Music
Recorded live at New Zealand’s Leigh Sawmill Cafe, Sunday 24th February 2008, here’s another rare Crowded House song. “Bound To Rescue” was written for the album that became Intriguer but it didn’t make the final tracklist.
Listen to other songs from this concert in The Kitchen Sink II rarities’n’odd ditties collection. We’ll add one more later this month.
Australia’s annual Helpmann Awards recognise the best in live entertainment. This week it was announced that the 2013 Helpmann Award for The Best Australian Contemporary Concert went to Neil Finn, Paul Kelly and Live Nation Australasia by arrangement with Artist Voice.
Nice one, guys!
You can view the final concert in that tour on our Videos page.
Crowded House’s “Beautiful Life” is the latest track to be added to The Kitchen Sink II rarities’n’obscurities collection. Recorded live at Leigh Sawmill Cafe, New Zealand, Sunday 24th February 2008.
We’ll add more rare songs from the archives to The Kitchen Sink II soon.
Neil sings on the last chorus of “Sticky Wickets“, the title track of the new album from The Duckworth Lewis Method. And Crowded House’s Nick Seymour plays bass throughout the album. Seriously catchy.
More info here.
In 2008, during the initial recording sessions for the album Intriguer, Crowded House played three special gigs at Leigh Sawmill Cafe. Many of their new songs were performed publicly for the first time. By the time Intriguer was released two years later, a few of those songs had disappeared.
For our second addition to The Kitchen Sink II collection of rarities, here’s the previously unreleased “The Only Way To Go Is Forward”, recorded live on Saturday 23/2/08.
We’ll add more nuggets from the archives to The Kitchen Sink II soon.
Photo credit: Tabatha Voss
Mike Chunn’s long out of print book on Split Enz has just been made available as a Kindle eBook. “Stranger Than Fiction” (1992) is THE essential Enz biography.
I know a lot of Split Enz fans have been searching for a copy of this for years. Scarce as, bro.
– Jeremy A
The Kitchen Sink collection of rarities & oddities has been one of the most popular features on neilfinn.com, so we’re starting off the second volume with a real gem: “Time On Earth”. Now there’s a familiar title…
Neil Finn: This is a lovely recording I had forgotten about, done in my basement around 2001 with Sebastian Steinberg, Lisa Germano, Shon Sullivan and Scott McPherson. My new music is very different to this but that’s how it should be and no doubt something obscure from the current sessions will turn up in 10 years time on this website and sound fresh again.
We’ll add more tracks to The Kitchen Sink II soon.
Photo credit: Neil Finn 10/6/13
I am very sorry to hear that Dr. M Yunupingu has died. He came to my house many years ago and we wrote a song together called Dots On The Shells. It was an honour and a pleasure to play music with him and he taught me more in one night than any house guest before or since. I will always remember him singing and playing didge on our front porch and all our neighbours in Parnell came out to see what was going on. I guess he drew people’s attention in much the same way wherever he went. He was gifted, with an original voice and he was really funny too.
My sympathy and best wishes to his people who will be mourning his loss. I remember the lines on your face and the light in your eyes like the dots on the shells. Thank you, Dr. M Yunupingu.
Neil Finn
