#philjudd

[vinylanswer]

Oh, Split Enz were a complicated group, and a prime example is this trio of album (yes, that’s “album” singular). Their first LP, back when they were a cross between Gabriel-era Genesis and a demented vaudeville troupe, was called Mental Notes, and it came out in 1975 in Australia; that’s the one on the bottom left. It is a WEIRD freakin’ album and the impressive cover painting was done by a band member, Phil Judd (brown suit jacket in center Then they moved to London, re-recorded half the Mental Notes album and released those tracks with some newl tracks as their second album, calling it Second Thoughts. That’s the album on top, and arguably it’s really a 1.5 album instead of a second album proper. Its cover is a photo and if you look close, you can spot Judd in front—by this point, he had shaved his head (a rare sight in 1976) and PAINTED HAIR on to his head. Somewhere around this time, Split Enz finally got signed in the U.S., so they released Second Thoughts as their U.S. debut (bottom right)…but they called it Mental Notes. And used the Judd painting, except that he now had altered it, painting out his hair. No question, Judd was an odd guy, but his best work was still ahead of him, when he led Schnell-Fenster through its forgotten, brilliant alt-pop debut, The Sound of Trees, in 1990.

[be-themessenger]

•••🌟second end post of the whole blog - can't believe it's been so long since I last talked about them... this is part 1 of the pre-atom age [that's to say, before xtc's multipairing world won my writing life] icons me and dear @heartbeatkittie used on Tumblr - as you see they bear the old logo. here's a very young phil judd taken from one of his earliest enz photos, when the band was still called split /ends/. this non-studio picture sent back to the awakening times of 1973, when the band was coming to life and about to pop on the musical scene [almost contemporarily to the young lads of xtc, who were rockin' round under the name of helium kidz]. looks very natural, touched by the sunlight and is harmonised by the roundness of his shirt collar. behind phil, the angry skies of whitianga show the glorious beauty of this as one of the northwards landmarks of new zealand's northern island. the sand of its shores is very dark, so dark when I placed the b/w it looked already gun-grey. in placing phil on the towering blue cumulus clouds, I took care in making his presence in the pic look very collage-like, that's why his hair are roughly cut. I then added the brush swirl to recall of maori moko. to match the collage/zine aesthetic i picked courier font and scribbled down the title of a later tim-penned 8os song melancholically (whata wordsmith) rests among my favourites. written around 1978, performed in the luton sessions [bringing an equally intense feeling], this song evokes the tribal, primal feeling of native life in new zealand's wilderness. it was the song that made me start the fic I will tell you about on part two, but in this occasion, it came as a natural choice - it felt like tim shouting in the wind to a far, distant phil, 'you remember when we were me and you, free, doing everything together? I can, can you as well?' 🌟••• #splitenz #newzealand #whitianga #shores #darksand #stormy #clouds #northwards #northernisland #awakening #music #70smusic #philjudd #bside #rememberwhen #collage #maori #moko #icon #fanzine #courier #font #lettering #bluehues #blue #timfinn #song #tumblr #calling

[eldergothbabybat-blog]

Split Enz

I know I already mentioned Split Enz in some previous posts, including a video clip and etc., but I wanted to talk more about them because they were so influential to me. 

As related, I discovered the Enz in 1980, was smitten, and immediately set out to learn as much as possible about the band and etc. In the pre-Internet days, this research consisted mostly of looking up magazine articles in the library and that kind of thing. So I eventually learned that they’d been around as a band for a while, since the 70s; had had many different lineups over these years; and were originally from New Zealand, among other factoids.  

Back in those days, I thought being a good fan of a band included having every album and knowing every song by that band, so now I had to hunt down the early records (the records released before “True Colours”). Over time I managed to track down all of them at used record shops and let me tell you, if I thought “I Got You” was awesome, I can’t even tell you what I thought about this early stuff. It was seriously life-altering. 

The early Enz are best experienced through visual media, so here is one of my fave Enz songs ever, “Sweet Dreams:” 

Keep in mind this was 1976, predating MTV and computer effects. It’s not goth, but this type of arty music and visuals definitely influenced the future punk, new wave, and ultimately goth aesthetics. 

Side note: the “bald” man singing in this video is Phil Judd, who left the band too early. While I will always have a soft spot for the 1980s Enz music because that’s how I first knew them, the early/70s Enz stuff that Phil was involved with is definitely far superior in overall songwriting quality. Phil went on to form the Swingers, who had a big hit with “Counting the Beat” and were in the movie “Stardust,” and later Schnell Fenster, and he continues to release incredible solo music to this day (check out his website at philjudd [dot] com). He also appears to still have a full head of hair, now that he’s not shaving it off and painting his head white, ha ha.