MENTAL NOTES

To get an idea what this band was like you needed to attend one of their live shows. Booed off the stage in Sydney they gravitated to Melbourne where the live scene was more active and audiences were more tuned into progressive bands like Pink Floyd. The progressive scene was used to multiple styles within the one song. However Split Enz took this to a new level. You could get everything in a Split Enz song: classical music influences, folk, jazz, rock, pop, swing, boogie woogie and even spoons, all within one song. The nominal leader Tim Finn was mainly influenced by the Sixties English pop scene of The Kinks and The Small Faces. The keyboard player, Eddie Raynor was heavily influenced by the keyboard style of Genesis and Yes. Phillip Judd was interested in multilayered instrumental patterns while Noel Crombie, an art student who studied costume, was into Music Hall and Vaudeville. Together they made zany music which perplexed audiences unable to work them out. In vibrant London in the late 60's and early 70's they would have fitted perfectly into the music scene there. However, in the more conservative New Zealand and Australia, they were ahead of their times musically and unfortunately, by the time they landed in London in the mid-seventies, artists like Roxy Music and David Bowie, who they were being compared with, were moving in a different direction and so Split Enz were starved of opportunities. Ironically, fans of Split Enz from their early progressive phase deserted them after Neil Finn replaced Phil Judd on guitar and Split Enz became a more conventional pop band

The opening chords of the clavinet/electric piano lends an atmospheric start to Walking Down The Road, weaving it's way through some abrupt changes to the main electric guitar theme and energetic singing from Tim Finn. The mandolin begins the middle section of the song through some chorus singing, then a bridge of gentle piano playing before it abruptly changes again to the electric guitar finish. Under The Wheel has some interesting acoustic guitar and mellotron but the song unwinds with the excesses of Finn's voice and Phil Judd doing a soliloquy near the end. Pity as the song built up a beautiful atmosphere with the mellotron and melodious finish on synthesizer and electric guitar. Amy (Darling) is a charming lullaby featuring guitars and piano.

Stranger Than Fiction is a great song which has a haunting synthesizer melody at the start which changes to bass and electric guitar before Tim starts singing the first verse. The voices go all over the place with several time changes as the mood goes deeper with synthesized voices and whistles as Tim strings out his voice for extra effect. The song morphs into Time For A Change which is a sentimental piano piece with a nice mellotron and electric guitar finish. Maybe is one the best early Split Enz songs with strong lyrics and catchy piano rhythm.

Titus is a beautiful Phil Judd composition which he opens with mandolin and sings the first verse. Tim Finn comes in with the higher voice to sing the main theme and song finishes with synthesizer and guitars. Spellbound ups the tempo with acoustic guitar, piano and synthesizer in another haunting song that changes time through the electric guitar part before it closes out on mellotron and synthesizer.

Mental Notes, I call a grand failure. It should have been a five-star masterpiece. It has haunting melodies, strong lyrical ideas which are heavily Genesis influenced, but with enough originality to distinguish Spilt Enz as one of best emerging progressive rock band of the mid-seventies. The singing and it's production lets it down. Phil Judd doesn't have a strong voice and Tim Finn does too much with his voice which gives some of the songs a heavy, laden feel. They deserve better.

When Split Enz traveled to England they decided to re-record four of the tracks off Mental Notes. By that time their lead guitarist, Wally Wilkinson, had left the band so they had his replacement, Robert Gillies, cover the guitar parts with his Saxophone. That album was released as Second Thoughts, here in Australia, but in The UK, they released it as Mental Notes. They were fortunate to get Phil Manzanera to produce the album. However, the result is disappointing, proving that even with the best intentions you can't remake music once you put it out into the public space. Creative artists can only move forwards, not backward.

As a bonus on the 2006 remastered version of the Mental Notes album, there are two early live songs recorded from a Melbourne concert the band performed just before they entered the recording studio to record their first album. I was there at that concert. The first is 129 later released at Matinee Idyll for the Second Thoughts album. The second is Lovey Dovey, featuring some improvised bass work and Eddie Rayner fancy jazz playing on the piano. I wish there had been more recordings taken from this concert. They reveal just how innovative and advanced Split Enz were for their times

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