Crowded House

Crowded House, 1987 Paul Hester, Neil Finn, Nick Seymour

The rock band CROWDED HOUSE formed in 1985 after the band Split Enz did a farewell tour. Neil Finn (vocals, guitar, piano), drummer Paul Hester and Nick Seymour on bass. Finn and Hester had been members of the New Zealand band Split Enz. Neil Finn is the younger brother of Split Enz founding member Tim Finn, who would join the new band in 1990.

The new band was called The Mullanes and they formed in Melbourne with Finn, Hester, Seymour and guitarist Craig Hooper. When they got a record contract with Capitol Records, they decided to move to Los Angeles to record their eponymous debut album. Hooper didn't want to make the move and left the band. 

Their debut album produced  two Top Ten hits "Don't Dream It's Over" and "Something So Strong."

Capitol Records wanted (wisely) a new name for the band. The odd name "Crowded House" is a reference to the small Hollywood Hills house the band shared during the recording of the album Crowded House.

In 1996, Crowded House announced that it would disband and they did several farewell concerts. 

Hester died by suicide at age 46. the following year, the band re-formed with drummer Matt Sherrod and released two albums that reached number one on Australia's album chart. Then the band went inactive for several years until a revised line-up was set to tour the UK in 2020 with Neil Finn, Nick Seymour, Mitchell Froom, and Finn's sons Liam and Elroy. The COVID-19 pandemic postponed the tour.

The band's seventh studio album, Dreamers Are Waiting, was released in 2021 along with a New Zealand tour in March 2021. The band plans to tour Australia in 2022.

     

Split Enz

Image: Nambassa Trust & Peter Terry, nambassa.com, CC BY-SA 3.0, Link

The New Zealand band Split Enz was very popular during the late 1970s and early 1980s. It was founded in 1973 by Tim Finn and Phil Judd, but had a number of band libeups during its existence. In the APRA Top 100 New Zealand Songs of All Time poll, the band led all bands with 8 songs. They released 7 studio albums.

In its earliest incarnation (1972), "Split Ends," was two university friends Tim Finn and Phil Judd writing original songs and their sound was eclectic and mostly acoustic. This Auckland band had Finn on vocals and piano, Judd on guitar and vocals and Mike Chunn on bass, Miles Golding on violin, and Mike Howard on flute.

After their November 1973 EMI NZ second single, "129" / "Sweet Talking Spoon Song" was when the group altered its name to Split Enz. The NZ can be seen as a reference to New Zealand.

Their debut LP Mental Notes (1975) did well on its first release, though sales were mostly in New Zealand and Australia. It hit #19 on the Australian album chart and #7 in New Zealand.

Band members came and went, breaks were taken and after a tour supporting Conflicting Emotions, Paul Hester joined on drums. Things were tense between brothers Tim and Neil (Neil having solo success) and it led to Tim's decision to leave Split Enz so that he could promote the release of his solo Escapade (1983) in Europe.

When it was decided to really end the band, Tim came back and the "Enz with a Bang" Australasian farewell tour happened in late 1984. Split Enz played its last show on 4 December 1984 in Auckland and a double album recorded on the farewell tour, The Living Enz, was released in December 1985.

Eventually, Neil Finn and drummer Paul Hester founded a new band, Crowded House. Tim Finn briefly joined Crowded House later. They also recorded two albums together as the Finn Brothers.

   

Chicago and "25 or 6 to 4"

A collage used to promote Chicago in concert at the Chumash Casino Resort in Santa Ynez, California, 2005, Source

Chicago is an American rock band formed in Chicago, Illinois, in 1967. The group was initially billed as The Big Thing. They are a self-described "rock and roll band with horns" but also used elements of classical music, jazz, R&B, and pop music. They produced numerous top-40 hits over two decades and continue to record and perform live.

The band logo which appears in many styles
 on their album covers, Public Domain, Link

There had been a Chicago-based rock cover band with six members called the Big Thing that played in Chicago nightclubs and covered Top 40 hits. When the group began working on original songs in 1968, their manager, James William Guercio, wanted a name change. They became the Chicago Transit Authority but changed it after their first album to the shortened Chicago to avoid legal action being threatened by the actual mass-transit company of the same name.

Their first record (April 1969), Chicago Transit Authority, is a double album, which is rare for a band's first release. It made it to No. 17 on the Billboard album chart and sold over one million copies by 1970, and was awarded a platinum disc. The album included a number of FM radio hits – "Does Anybody Really Know What Time It Is?", "Beginnings", "Questions 67 and 68", and "I'm a Man." The band was nominated for a Grammy Award for 1969 Best New Artist of the Year.

Amazon lists an incredible 186 albums under their name, which includes studio albums, live recordings and many compilations in different formats.

Chicago II

One song on their second album is "25 or 6 to 4." It was written by Robert Lamm, a founding member of the band. The song title has confused many listeners.

In a 2013 interview, keyboardist Robert Lamm said he composed it on a twelve-string guitar missing the two low E strings. He said the song is about trying to write a song in the middle of the night. The song's title is the time at which the song is set: 25 or 26 minutes before 4 AM. But other interpretations emerged. One was that it meant a quantity of illicit drugs. Another was that it was the name of a famous person in code.