Book-Reviews

Rip It Up, Issue 241, 1 September 1997, Page 10

Book-Reviews

CROWDED HOUSE: SOMETHING SO STRONG By Chris Bourke (Pan Macmillian) Throughout their 10 year existence, the public’s image of Crowded House steadfastly remained the one the band presented on stage — a carefree, jovial brotherhood, who constantly cracked jokes, and were compatible in every way. That portrait is blown to pieces by Chris Bourke’s biography Something So Strong, that reveals life within Crowded House was as often turbulent as it was triumphant. Something So Strong maps the personal and career highs and lows of Neil Finn’s band from their initial inception as the Mullanes in 1985, to the final Crowded House concert in Sydney in November 1996. Bourke is

a gifted story teller, and with Something So Strong, has found the perfect balance between chronicling facts, and entertaining with anecdotes. Record company executives and band management are called upon to detail Crowded House’s early commercial successes in the USA, and later their acceptance in the United Kingdom, but it’s when Bourke delves deep into the often dark heart of the band, and focuses on the vastly different personalities of the three core members, that it really gets interesting. Although Bourke stops just short of saying it, drummer Paul Hester is clearly manic depressive (the two words appear in the book but several pages apart),-and his unpredictable, extreme, mood swings cause major disruption in the band. The musical

ability of bassist Nick Seymour, the happy go lucky fashion/trend victim, is constantly questioned by Finn, who kicked Seymour out of the band, then reinstated him a month later. We see Finn as the tortured, often neurotic genius — burdened by catholic guilt and a long list of dependents outside of his immediate family — battling against business machinations to preserve his artistic vision. At times, Bourke has kept absolute truths from the printed page, (possibly to protect egos or hide illegal indulgences) and we’re required to read between the lines (particularly the chapters concerning Hester’s depression problems and the recording of Together Alone at Karekare), however, Bourke. has obviously been exhaustive in his research of the book, and as a definitive insight into Crowded House, Something So Strong succeeds on every level. JOHN RUSSELL

SEVEN VOICES: TALES OF MADNESS & MIRTH by Mike Chunn (Purple Egg Press) Two brothers skive off from their boarding school in Auckland’s eastern suburbs. They head into town to buy the new Beatles record. It’s called Hey Jude; Revolver has already changed their lives. Getting off the bus at Customs St, they look in the.window of. a hip shoe shop. Cuban [ heel boots . are out; fake-fur leopard skin slip ons are in (as worn by the La De Das!). The teenagers are Mike and Geoff Chunn,.‘but they could be anyone who came of. age in 1960 s New Zealand. Although the fledgling rock scene — its dreams, absurdities and frustrations — is the backbone, of Seven Voices, the small book projects a panoramic image of New Zealand life in the last 30 years. Its seven short stories are fictionalised

autobiography, and it is the detail and honesty that make them so special. Unconsciously, the structure imitates the classic coming-of-age novel, Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (even if it didn’t open with the author biking off to early morning Mass); like Joyce, Chunn’s stories capture the moment, with appropriate language and memories, then leap ahead several years for the next instalment. We witness an archetypal New Zild childhood in Otahuhu, the deprivations and stimulations of boarding school and puberty; the excitement of an outside world full of freedom (ie, Beatles’ records and local heroes such as Larry’s Rebels), makeshift early bands, the Enz down on their luck (but living a dream) in Ray Davies’s London, the nightmare of pot-induced agoraphobia, and a return to New Zealand in the 80s, with. Citizen Band

(and our charming cradle-to-grave society) about to explode. Chunn’s risk publishing this himself has paid off. The design and production are superb, as are the stories themselves. Snapshots that record the spirit of each quickly changing era — a rundown Newmarket, instant coffee in Parnell — are neatly updated later. He also takes risks in the writing, hilariously shifting to stream-of-consciousness (as when he asks a nun about wanking, or fancies a girl on a Waiheke dancefloor). It could do with a little tightening, and a few less distracting puns, but this is a little gem that deserves an audience far wider than just the music obsessed. Just in case (Enz cultists as underwriters), a five-track CD is included, as a soundtrack to each era.

CHRIS BOURKE