Stranger than Fiction, Larger Than Life: the Finn Brothers song-by-song discussion thread

Our votes for Live Bootleg Melbourne
4.7

Our votes for Live AT CBGB

4.975

 

Confirming that in the US that's all true as well. Spotify and Apple Music both have this album.

 

Actually, Geoff Chunn didn't play on the first Split Ends single. The drummer on that one was a guy called Div Vercoe. Geoff Chunn (and Wally Wilkinson) joined in April 1973, after Miles Golding and Mike Howard left the group. Geoff did play drums on the next single ("The Sweet Talking Spoon Song" b/w "129") and also played on the other tracks on The Beginning of the Enz (i.e. all tracks except "For You" and "Split Ends"). Geoff (and Robert Gillies) left Split Enz in July 1974 (though Gillies returned as a member from late 1975 to late 1977). After his time with Split Enz he had a brief stint as drummer for Dragon (for a few months in 1974) before later being in After Hours with Neil.
After Citizen Band, Geoff Chunn released a solo single called "The Man's A Wonder" in 1981.

You are entirely correct about Brent Eccles, he is the father of Matt Eccles.

Trivia note: on the second Citizen Band album Just Drove Thru Town, there is a track called "We're The Boys" which featured backing vocals by Tim, Neil, Eddie, Noel, Robert Gillies, Malcolm Green plus Sharon, Geraldine Gillies (Mrs Gillies) and Raewyn Turner (Eddie's significant other / Split Enz lighting operator / Frenzy cover painter)

Here is a clip from circa 2007 in which Geoff Chunn performs an unplugged version of Citizen Band's song "Rust In My Car":

 

I have a bit of a tough time with Citizen Bands' debut album. It's not bad, but it's not great either. I'll definitely be more enthusiastic about them when we get to their second album. This album is kind of a "half and half" affair for me, with a few standouts, a few good tracks, and the rest remaining fairly unremarkable. I'll do a quick song by song for this one.

Good Morning Citizen
Cool little opener with great energy. A good introduction for the band.

The Ladder Song
Definitely some prog rock influence here. A pretty enjoyable song, but not one I return to.

Office Come Alive
This is one I return to at times. Great track and ends up being my favorite on the album.

Dig That Tex
Another very good one with great energy. An album highlight.

I Feel Good
Nah, nothing but filler to my ears.

Blue Lagoon
I already disliked this song before the ultra-super-annoying airline announcements came in at the halfway point. Also points detracted for not specifying if it's 31 degrees Fahrenheit or Celsius, dang it (probably the latter, huh). It's weird to have it turn in to basically another song after that. Both sections end up pretty lousy to me.

Julia
This feels notably dated compared to the rest of the album thus far, but I still think it's a solid track. This is probably the most Split Enz sounding track so far in a lot of ways; the guitar and backing track generally in particular.

My Pohutakawa
Another throwback sounding song like "Blue Lagoon", this is decent overall, but ends up being another one that is kind of inconsequential. I like the verses, though.

Heroes Roll/Out in the World
Really boring song; it never grabs my interest.

Counting the Regiments
This is pretty good, though a little aimless. It has a cool rhythm and good vocal/melody combo going on.

Tex Goes to the Tinema
Who's this Tex guy, anyway? This is another cool song with a lot of style. Not a huge highlight, but a good one. It does go on far too long, however. Also, if I didn't already look over the credits for this album, I'd swear that was Phil Judd doing the high vocal harmony in the middle 8.

In A Lifetime
Ehh, another uninteresting track.

Holy Fulele
This, on the other hand, is pretty interesting at least. The vocals are a little over-abrasive, but again, I like the energy and throwback vibe. A solid track and a solid way to end the album.


Overall a hit-or-miss kind of affair, but the good does slightly outweigh the bad here. A few big highlights, but it seems like Citizen Band honed their skills fairly quickly after this middling album.

2.8/5

Track Picks: "Good Morning Citizen", "Office Come Alive", "Dig That Tex".

 

I'm struggling here because all I have is "Rust in My Car" and can't really rate the albums since I only know bits of them. I can say that I think there's some real standout stuff in there, but there's also some stuff that just sort of washes past me when the disc is spinning - there's nothing I feel like I ever have to skip, so that's a plus.

For some reason, probably my allegiance to the concept of "big, dumb fun," I've always particularly enjoyed "I Feel Good."

 

Citizen Band

Good Morning Citizen
By virtue of having tried to listen to this album multiple times over the past week, this is the track I've heard the most. A pretty solid opening track and is a lot of fun. I guess to echo @jimbutsu above, this is big, dumb fun and I think it's probably one of the best tracks on the album.

The Ladder Song
Well, this is very proggy, isn't it? I'm right in thinking that this was released in 1978, correct? So this sounds I guess more early 70s to me. Actually listening to it, it's not to difficult to hear some early Enz (particularly in the bass line). It's interesting, but it's not a song I enjoy, per se. Maybe trying to be a bit more than it needed to be. I do like elements of it, indeed that guitar riff that starts about 2 minutes in. There's a lot of ideas put into this one song.

Office Come Alive
Now this song I like a lot. Much more straightforward, almost pop song. Nicely constructed with a decent chorus. I like the vocal a lot and think it is the best track on the album. I like the middle section with it's kind of weird jazzy bass break - adds some quirkiness without belaboring the point.

Dig that Tex
This is pretty fun. Kinda brainless and a bit more in the vein of the opening track. So far, I have to say that I'm confused about the style of Citizen Band. Are they the band that pumps out pretty frenetic pop songs like this or the proggy guys who appeared 2 tracks previously.
Overall, I like this for it's thrashy, brainless fun. I don't know what this says about me...

I Feel Good
But presumably not in the same way as James Brown...
OK, this seems like it is more similar to Office Come Alive in style but with a frenetic surf vibe. I think this is a good song suffering a little bit from where it is on the album. This has been a pretty good run of 3 songs.

Blue Lagoon
I don't even know where to start on this song. It's like a Frankenstein of a song. I love the front section of this song with it's slightly music hall, old style nightclub vibe. It's all good until we hit that weird airline announcement...like WTF?? And then it just randomly goes into this weird lounge style song. Which I kind of like in an ironic way, but this song overall is just so WEIRD. Too bad because there's some excellent bits of music being played here that I don't think I can listen to because of the monster horror of it all.

Julia
A totally different style of song. A nice acoustic guitar intro, and it's nicely low key but I'm not sure it goes anywhere. There's a nice little break but then the song doesn't seem to really build on that lift. It's got good bits in it...which is damning with faint praise. This is normally the song where I fell asleep.

My Pohutakawa
Well I like the opening riff of this...and it's got a good vocal delivery with pretty good verses. I mean it's a pretty retro sound, but it probably sounds better in contrast to the preceding song. In other words, I don't think per se it is a strong song on its own but after the previous 2 tracks it seems excellent. I do like the bass line on this song (and actually most of the songs on this album).

Heroes Roll/ Out in the World
I'm not digging this song at all. It's just there. Although I perk up a bit on the section that is presumably Out in the World. That section sounds like the love child of the Beatles and prog (judge that as you will).

Counting the Regiments
I like the rhythm track of this song and the vocal delivery. But I feel like it doesn't really go to a destination. There's good stuff here, but I never get a sense of a payoff, well except maybe in the outro...

Tex goes to the Tinema
This kind of heavy riff appears here again for Tex...intriguing. Wonder what the connection is to this mysterious Tex? It's got a pretty decent groove and some nice angularity to it. The musical backing track is pretty good, but I'm not finding the verse or chorus all that compelling. Decent album track.

In a Lifetime
Of all the more mellow songs on this album this is probably the most successful. I like the piano motif and there's a good atmosphere to the song, even if the verses don't blow me away.

Holy Fulele
I think I like this song. This seems to bring us back a little bit to the opening song style. Slightly abrasive vocal delivery, very much a pop song with a nice rhythm track. Nicely high energy and I think very much of its time - just on the cusp of new wave. I actually think I might like this a lot more with a few more listens.

Ultimately, I've had a pretty hard time coming to grips with this album. There's loads of ideas on this album, often all in the same song, with very mixed results. I don't think there's any doubt that there's a lot of musicanship on display here but it could have used a fair bit more editing. I just don't have a good sense of identity for them...if they had stuck with that straightforward rock/pop sound I'd probably like this album a lot. The other question that springs to mind - Were all NZ bands kind of similar in that they were throwing a lot of ideas altogether to make a style? That's the similarity I can hear with earlier Enz. At 13 tracks it's way too long. I'd entirely eliminate all the mellow songs off this album except In a Lifetime, and definitely remove Blue Lagoon.

Favorite Tracks: Office Comes Alive, Dig that Tex, Holy Fulele.

I don't really know how to rate it. I guess 2.7/5 as it is. If they would remove some of the tracks it might go as high as 3.2/5.

 

Happy birthday to this thread, which is three years old as of today!

 

Citizen Band

Sorry if I dropped out of this thread for a bit, but this is a good album to come back in with.

Citizen Band are part of my youth. As well as seeing the band live multiple times, my classical guitar tutor's boyfriend was Warren Sly who played piano and co-wrote a bit with Citizen Band. Yes, what a rather obscure 'claim to fame'

At the time I saw the band it wasn't so much because they were an SE offshoot - I'm not sure how much I knew that at the time or took notice.

Good Morning Citizen

A great introduction to the band. Sums up the band musically and catchy too.

The Ladder Song

I never thought of this song as one of the album highlights. Nice guitar work and interplay between the guitars.

Office Come Alive

One of my favourites, with great bass from Mike. The instrumentation of Citizen Band was so simple after the prog rock of Split Enz, but it's highly effective. Not only are most songs seemingly two guitars plus bass plus drums, but the guitar sounds are fairly straightforward. But, it works. The effective backing vocals help as well.

Dig That Tex

The first album was so full of catchy songs - I never understood why they seemingly ran out of songs afterwards. While this song doesn't scream 'single' to me, it's catchy power-pop (or whatever genre) and was great live.

I Feel Good

A cover of the Larry's Rebels song. It's good, but I don't feel that it's a classic at a level above the other songs. Greg Clark sings it well. Nobody in the band had a standout voice, but the voices of Geoff and Greg work well in the context of the band.

Blue Lagoon

The album goes somewhere different here, with this song going 50s style after the nice introduction. Plenty of humour, and I could imagine Split Enz doing this song. Fun, including a dig at Robert Muldoon as the 'captain' of the plane, who often drew the ire of New Zealand musicians. See 'Culture' by The Knobz. Then at the end the song goes jazzy. A prog rock interlude in a rather not prog rock album. Nice piano on the outro from Warren Sly whom I remember accompanying us on piano during our classical guitar classes.

Julia

This song was from After Hours, but I first heard of it in its Citizen Band context. One of those classic songs that builds over time. For an album that I typically remember as being more or less one pace, there is quite a bit of variety now that I think of it. Also, the backing vocals really make this song. There are bands with better band vocal chops, but the guys do a good job here.

My Pohutakawa

A nice New Zealand reference. I remember on a previous trip to New Zealand lying underneath a pohutakawa tree near the Ferry wharf near Coromandel with this song going through my head. Again, humour appears in the lyrics and the dual guitar arrangement is effective.

Heroe's Roll / Out in the World

And here we have another song that starts one way and then goes somewhere different. Both of the two parts that make up this work very well for me, and it's interesting that the band had so many songs at this time that they could take two good songs and put them together like this.

Counting the Regiments

This is perhaps album filler for me, but still a good song with a good catchy melody. Perhaps it doesn't match up to other songs on the album. Nice instrumentals and instrumental break with the brass.

Text Goes to the Tinema

For me, this is the song that ends the album. And, I think this up tempo rock number is a great way to end it. Not an obvious single or anything, but a very good, propulsive, and energetic way to end the album.

In a Lifetime

If I remember correctly (see disclaimers), this single was the first record of Citizen Band that I bought. A very nice song, of a different style from the album - which is perhaps why it wasn't originally on it. While it starts a bit slowly, once it gets to the chorus it really takes off. While there are the interesting keyboards, perhaps this is not quite as well refined as

Holy Fulele

This is a song I knew less well, being a b-side for a single I didn't buy. I believe - my memory is never guaranteed. I'm not sure who is on lead vocals for this. I thought that Mike didn't sing until the next album. An OK b-side, but I can see why it isn't on the album. Straightforward rock and roll.

Overall

Overall I find this album to be 'dumb fun' in parts, but there is a wide variety of tracks here. Songwriting is very good - a pity it didn't remain (on average) at this standard later. The band went to Australia after this, and it didn't really work out. As with other bands, it slowly fractured and ran out of steam. The band all went different places after this.

4.1/5

 

Also, Mike Chunn did not move to Autralia with the band --maybe he'd had enough of that with Split Enz. I wonder if maybe that was part of the reason why they broke up.


I've been having a hard time finding time to listen to this album this week, but hopefully on my little business trip today I'll be able to get into it.

 

I listened to all of Citizen Band on YouTube with high expectations. The band has always intrigued me but I never got around to listening to more than the one track on Other Enz, "The Ladder Song".

I think my expectations were too high, I immediately thought of Spinal Tap upon listening to several of the the songs, only without the humor. Other songs brought to mind some heavy rock or an attempt to mix punk rock with prog.

After saying that, I do recognize that the musicianship is very, very good, and that the songs seem well rehearsed. It's just not what I expected. Further listening will probably reveal more to like, and I do want to go back and listen again with different expectations. There's just not enough time to do it this week. (I'm so glad I'm retiring in 10 weeks.)

3.5/5

 

Congratulations!

 

Thanks! There will be time to actually listen attentively to music, and my cats are going to love not being pushed off my lap.

 

Oh, are you sure? I thought that Mike Chunn went to Australia with them, but then returned to New Zealand. And was replaced by Roland Kileen (spelling?) who might have been from Street Talk. This is from memory from that time, and hence is highly unreliable.

 

Yeah, congrats to you!

 

I am definitely not sure.

 

Didn't he play the electric guitar that comes in near the end of "For You?"

 

Wikipedia is rather ambiguous on the matter At least it cleared up the spelling of 'Roland Killeen' . And according to Discogs Roland Killeen was in Sheerlux, not Street Talk.

 

First of all, thank you @HitAndRun for providing some context for this album. That was really great to read and get a better insight into the band's style and personality. I think when I go back to listen to the album it will be with a different perspective.

But mostly thanks for explaining the plane announcement in Blue Lagoon. I could sense the humor in the song, and even in that interlude, but not get the reference. Now that you mention Robert Muldoon it makes way more sense (even as a young australian I knew how incredibly unpopular he was with sections of the NZ community). I like the 2 different parts of the song but find that announcement distracting but maybe armed with this info I'll finally "get it".

 

There's some more context here at the beginning of this video:



From memory, Muldoon said that he wasn't going to remove sales tax from records because most of the records that sold were those 'horrible' pop records.

It is said that New Zealand prog rock was limited by all the sales taxes on musical equipment.

I was most definitely a member of a section of the NZ community where Muldoon was unpopular.

 

Yes, after Citizen Band's second album Just Drove Thru Town had done well in New Zealand in 1979, their label CBS decided it should be released in Australia as well. The band, with Mike, did move to Sydney in late 1979. In Mike Chunn's book about Split Enz, Stranger Than Ficition - The Life and Times of Split Enz he writes about how he received an advance tape of True Colours from Tim (pages 171 and 172). He describes how Tim said they had decided on a title for the album: "You should be able to guess it. It's the name of one of our old songs. One that we never recorded" and then how he (Mike) rattled off a lot of titles of early Split Enz songs without guessing correctly. On page 172 there is a photo of Citizen Band with the caption "Chunn, Eccles, Chunn and Clark about to leave for Australia. That's when the ladder broke."

In his more recent autobiography A Sharp Left Turn. Notes on a life in music, from Split Enz to Play It Strange, published in 2019, Mike Chunn writes a bit more about leaving Citizen Band in early 1980. To sum up, he had mental health issues (agoraphobia, with recurring panic attacks) which he had suffered from for a few years and was a key factor in him leaving Split Enz in 1977. In his autobiography, he refers to an interview he did soon after leaving Citizen Band and the answers he gave in 1980, and now in his autobiography he answers the same questions but with the real truth:
"Q: What's made you again turn your back on success?
A: Well, I have a madness. A mysterious - let's call it a disorder, which I don't understand, although I think it came from drugs. Probably stress, in fact. But I deny that. But others were there as I fell apart and nothing happened to them. What it means is that I find myself in the most torturous situations where I have absolutely no means to deal with anything. I hide, I crawl, I lock doors. And it's always when I'm on the road. When I'm away. I have to be able to retreat. To escape. To turn around. To reverse. To accelerate."

His last gig with Citizen Band was at the Sweetwaters Festival in Auckland in January 1980, a festival at which both Split Enz and The Swingers also played.

Citizen Band briefly continued without Mike, with Roland Killeen as the new bass player as @HitAndRun mentioned, but there were no more studio albums after Just Drove Thru Town. Geoff Chunn did release a solo single in 1981 and maybe if it had been a hit a solo album would have followed - but it wasn't.

 

Interesting, I didn't know that. Mike Chunn makes no reference to this in any of his books.

 

Just found a completely random bit of information on Brent Eccles and what he is doing now-ish.

Summing It Up In Two Words: The Disappointments Interview

TL;DR: He's in a band with Hammond Gamble, NZ Blues Singer/Songwriter and leader of Street Talk back in the Citizen Band days, and Andy McDonald, a bassist who has played in Blind Date - a band I don't know well. The interview is from 2018.

They are on Spotify The Disappointments

 

Probably I’m wrong. I did see that Geoff played drums at their first ever gig and probably it just got mixed up in my mind.

 

Citizen Band

I first became aware of Citizen Band in circa 1991 by reading about them in John Dix’s excellent book Stranded in Paradise. New Zealand rock 1955-1988. This book has, by the way, several extensive chapters about Split Enz, one very detailed chapter devoted to The Swingers and a fair bit about Citizen Band, among a lot of other chapters. A fabulous book, make every effort to track down a copy! Some years later I got their 1993 “best of” Rust In My Car (an excellent compilation) and when I visited Auckland in 1999 I scooped up all of their albums (by lucky co-incidence the hotel I was staying in was across the street from a huge record store called Real Groovy Records on Queen Street in Auckland and they had all the Citizen Band albums). It’s nice to get the opportunity to discuss them here on the forum thread.

Good Morning Citizen
This is more of an intro to the album than a proper song, but a quite good one. Lots of energy, I can imagine them starting their concerts with this one and immediately getting an audience on their feet.

The Ladder Song
A really good song. The instrumental intro gives the song a dreamy feel, slowly building the energy. Great guitar parts. Geoff Chunn’s intense vocals have an almost punky feel to them which I think suits the song.

The Office Come Alive
I quite like this one, even though the melody isn’t that strong. It is very snappy, they really do sound like the late ‘70s New wave band that they were. The lyrics are quite vivid about an office romance. I think Geoff Chunn had a real knack for writing lyrics.

Dig That Tex
Another song that sounds like it was written to bring up the energy at concerts. It’s a bit energic and to my ears it doesn’t get beyond being a decent album filler.

I Feel Good
This is a cover originally recorded by ‘60s NZ garage rock band Larry’s Rebels. Very catchy feel-good rocker best played loud.

Blue Lagoon
The piano intro reveals immediately that this will be a different kind of song. It has a bit of ‘50s doo-wop feel. None other than Robert Gillies appears as a guest musician on this track. Always a treat to hear his sax playing. The “flight announcement” in the middle of the song is a bit weird though and after that it sounds like another song altogether suddenly gatecrash the song.

Julia
I believe this song was first demoed when Geoff was in After Hours with Neil. A great song, easily the standout on this album. The acoustic guitar intro is a nice touch and when the rest of the band join in you can immediately tell a special song is coming. This has a more reflective feel than the previous songs, showing that Citizen Band weren’t just a one-trick pony. Superb vocals by Geoff Chunn and excellent performance by the entire group.

My Pohutakawa
I remember being intrigued by the title when I first read it. None other than @HitAndRun informed me way back 28 years ago that a pohutakawa is a NZ tree, which among other things is depicted on the back of Tim Finn’s self-titled album. The song itself isn’t that special. To my ears the melody never really takes off and isn’t that focused. Very much a filler on the album and a lesser one at that.

Heroes Roll / Out In The World
The first part of this song is more of an intro giving some brooding atmosphere to the reflective, melancholy “Out in the World”. I quite like that one. It’s a bit similar to “Julia” at first, but with repeated listening the song starts to grow. One of the highlights on the album.

Counting The Regiments
Nice marching drums at the intro, perhaps they could have been used more in the song. This track is a big prog rock-ish with some nice flourishes by Robert Gillies. When I first heard this track, it felt like it was verse – verse – verse and I was wondering where the chorus was. It isn’t that distinctive, but as a track this is a real grower and one of the stronger tracks on the album.

Tex Goes To The Tinema
I had forgotten about this one. It has a lot of ideas thrown at it and the guitar parts give the song a unique sense of character, but I don’t think the melody is all that good. This one definitely is in the filler category for me. It also goes on too long for its own good.

In A Lifetime
The LP that I have finished with “Tex Goes To The Tinema”, but Spotify has added “In A Lifetime”, the band’s stand-alone debut single from 1977, and “Holy Fulele”, the B side of the 1978 stand-alone single “Somebody Else”. Strange that they added the B side rather than the A side (which I haven’t heard). In any case, “In A Lifetime” sounds a bit Supertramp-ish to my ears and quite different to the tracks on the debut album. Really good piano parts and the keyboard that sounds like a harpsichord is very good too.

Holy Fulele
I can hear why this was a B side only back in the day. It’s very rough and unpolished and not that memorable. Citizen Band were capable of so much better music than this.

Overall, I think it is a good album, well worth owning and listening to. It does sound rather dated hearing it in 2022, you can really tell it’s an album made in the late ‘70s. I don’t mean that in a negative way (I’d say the first few albums by The Kinks and The Beatles also sound very much of their time and that’s not a negative thing either). However, I do think Citizen Band really hit their stride on their next album, Just Drove Thru Town, which in my opinion has better songs, better performances and better production and showcase what they were capable of. It’s a shame there weren’t any more studio albums by them (or solo albums by Geoff Chunn), it would have been very interesting to hear more of them. I think Geoff Chunn showed a lot of potential as a songwriter with Citizen Band. If he was to release a new album now, I’d buy it in a heartbeat.

Citizen Band’s debut album gets 3,5/5 from me.

 

Here's a NZ TV interview Mike Chunn did about his autobiography: