Kia ora, hello. I'm Chris. This is 240GB of Neil Finn, the podcast where we deep dive into Neil Finn live concert from across the decades. Welcome. In today's episode, I'm joined by Miles Mendoza, who has an absolute wealth of experience and knowledge. in the radio scene. And Miles frames up for us one of the most important and bittersweet moments in Crowded House's history. So Recurring Dream had just come out in 1996.
And the band is touring with Peter Jones on drums through the UK. And after the London Hanover Grand Show, which had a bit of a weird vibe, according to the punters there. Crowded House put out a press release the following morning saying they were breaking up. So Miles and his team... still manage to get a live crowded house show in the basement of the GLR studios to take place. And at that point, it was the last UK crowded house performance.
And many of you will actually know this performance or have heard it because it's in a widely circulated bootleg called the final session. Pretty exciting. Now, briefly, you've probably heard me talk about how the 240 Gigabytes of Neil Finn podcast has a Patreon that you can donate as little as a dollar a month to. And my usual spiel goes. It helps to pay for a reliable platform so I can have conversations across time zones and across space.
Now that reliable platform turned out to be not so reliable. And my conversation with Miles was unfortunately affected. It didn't save my vocal track. where both of our voices were together. My voice is full of yuck audio artifacts. I don't know what happened. But thankfully, Miles is engaging enough for the both of us. So I've edited together his side of the conversation and he gives a wonderful overview of his life. and radio and how it leads up to this final show session.
in GLR basement with Crowded House. So he talks us through the importance of GLR, where it sat culturally and industry wise. And so I loved hearing Miles reflect on the role of GLR and Crowded House in his... personal and professional life. And if you've heard that final sessions bootleg and they shout out to Miles, that is Miles. But before we jump into these final sessions, it's been an exciting week to be a Crowded House fan because we have had new music drop.
The single Oh High from the forthcoming record came out this week. There's a fantastic little lyric video with a bunch of references to prior Crowded House eras. see if you can spot them all. And I've got a bunch of thoughts on this track, but even better, a bunch of you responded to my request on the Facebook page to send Oh hi, I've just had a listen to the new Crowded House track. Snappy little tune, excellent video, love it.
Oh Hi is very bright and khaki. It's got an earworm in there, so it's so catchy. The lyric video is adorable. It's got lots of references to past albums with from past albums like the the crowded house building the together alone car the wood face at the end the fan from the farewell to the world dvd The bunny from Dream is Awaiting and the bear face from Intriga. I haven't seen it. I'm on my seventh listen to the song, but I've only seen the video a couple of times. I haven't.
seen anything for time on Earth yet, but I'm sure it's there. Indy, what do you think of the song Oh Hi? You've just heard it for the first time. Maybe in the middle? About in the middle? About a 5 out of 10? Yeah. Which parts do you like about it? I like to be in the course. It's funny. Oh, hi. Oh, hi. Oh, hi. Oh, hi. Que horror. Absolutely bloody rubbish. Worst I've ever heard. My first thought is really I couldn't care less about what comes out as a single. I think...
Whatever it is, is not going to really bother the charts. or get a lot of radio play, and that's just where we are at the moment. It's been... 30 years since together alone. All I want to hear now from Crowded House is some great albums and see them live. And I think this song is a really great, joyous song. If I had to choose a song to go out up against Don't Dream It's Over, It's Only Natural, Distant Sun.
Would I choose it? No. But for a release just to give us an idea of what kind of output is coming, it ticks boxes for me. I think Neil is now writing. much more for how he sees the world from his point of view and trying to create something very different to what he's done before. I read people saying there's too much influence by Liam, who, if you listen to Liam's solo stuff,
Isn't anything like that. There's barely any dual writing credits with Liam on Dreamers Are Waiting. And I know Ohai is just Neil's. song as well. And if you look back at how much Tightly controlled Neil has liked to be on the output of his solo stuff and crowded house. I don't see him giving much room for someone else to influence him so much. More as he's probably enjoying himself making music. And if Neil is enjoying making music, then I'm along for the ride.
So count me in. I think it's a lovely song. I can't wait for the album. The guitar sounds a little bit actually like anyone can tell, I think. And even then, everything is good for you. And throughout, I just like the little flourishes and little bits and pieces. Again, I think some people might say it's overproduced, but... Well, go back to Woodface. There's plenty of little bits and pieces all over that. But I think it's a lovely song. And, yeah, can't wait for more to come.
Hi everyone, this is Jordi from Barcelona These are my thoughts on Ojai not a bad song quite catchy in fact it's purposely childish but it lacks a riskier production also a riskier structure And maybe the problem is that Mitchell shouldn't be producing anymore. Okay. Thanks. Bye. Love it. Ohai lords children as mystics who can envision a new dawn and lift the sun, scaring darkness with a light bulb.
The credit given to kids to enhance and improve the world and the pledge to give them the opportunity to be part of the conversation to do so seems to be amplified by the present level of craziness in the world. This light and sunny new track from the forthcoming Crowdies album serves to remind us all how precious children and their fresh energy is and how as adults it's our job to protect, encourage, enhance and embrace that energy.
to use their contribution to ultimately make the world a better one for them to live in a bit weird um as a title uh i'm not sure oh hi is that sort of capturing in terms of a mission statement when it's An album title too, it's cut. I thought, I thought maybe, I was a bit surprised. I think the Amazon platform showed me that it was from the forthcoming album, Oh High. And it's just a bit, it's a bit by the by, isn't it? It's not really... a mission statement as such.
The track did feel a little like maybe a midsection album tune rather than perhaps a opener. Nevertheless... I am keen to see them in the summer. What I think about Ojai is just... It's a different song to the rest but in an exciting way because It just compels and kind of sums up Crowded House as a whole as an exciting but fun band. And Neil and Liam, you know, their vocals are really amazing on this.
You know, the success, the love, the appreciation that, you know, each band member, you know, Neil, Nick, Liam, Elroy and Mitchell have got. and i think they're absolutely incredible and i really love the song it's quite relaxing and it's quite funny And it's such a beautiful song, you know, and I really do love it. And I think, you know, for what it's worth, it's a really great release. And I'm glad that Crowded House are making more songs.
Well, thank you everybody so much for sending in your voice memos. I loved hearing your voices and can relate to a lot of the sentiments expressed other than one. I think you know which one. And for me. I really, really love the song. but it took several lessons. It had to grow on me. I was a little bit resistant to it on the first few listens. I think I was unknowingly, I was hoping for a song that moved me a little bit more, maybe had a little bit more melancholy.
Whereas this song is really light and jovial and playful. And in and of itself, that is a wonderful thing. So once I'm meeting the song on its own terms, rather than my own expectations, I came to really love the song. And there's so many little... instrument flourishes and the guitar lines and the keyboards and the production.
So I'm really excited for the sound of this record. And also having heard a couple of the other songs on the record in their live form, I know that there's going to be songs on this record which do pack that. slightly more weighty and emotional punch. So it's going to be a well-rounded record is my expectation. All right. So moving back to miles and the final sessions at GLR. I'm going to let Miles take it from here. Enjoy this.
Yeah, so I live in Tooting, which is southwest London, and probably the sort of nearest globally recognisable place to where we are is Wimbledon. I grew up in southwest London. I grew up... near Putney, which is kind of 15 minutes the other side of Wimbledon. And we're just, you know, so it's the suburbs of the centre. So when I finished school and before uni, then I was in the fortunate position to be able to do a bit of travelling.
during that kind of gap year. We also had some distant cousins living in Sydney. My parents said that I was keen to stop in Sydney and pick up some work, be there for maybe a couple of months and pick up some work while I was there. And they were apparently, these cousins were aware that I kind of had an interest in music and in broadcast. we weren't aware that their family business was broken.
And they had a sort of family involvement in a bunch of FM and AM stations across Australia. And so there was an AM station in Sydney that at the time was called 2UW. And they sorted me out with a month's work experience at 2UW. This was 1988. And so I did a month just so my first experience of radio was just this month on this station in Sydney. which I just loved every minute of it. It was kind of a gold station with a couple of very kind of middle-of-the-road skewing current tracks and hours.
So it wasn't quite where I was at that point musically, but it was just such an exciting place to be. Two guys that did The Breakfast Show were really funny, and I was really kind of welcomed with open arms. and given a bit of exposure to all the different roles in the opera. And so by the time I started uni, I knew that more than anything else, radio was what I wanted to do. So I was kind of looking for windows of opportunity in BBC stations. from the moment I finish uni.
And I got a call eventually from what was then the BBC local station in London, which at the time was called Greater London Radio or BBC GLR. So GLR was interesting because the premise when GLR looked... So before that had been BBC Radio London, which was... you know, was an attempt to do a slightly more metropolitan version of the BBC local radio model. And throughout the 80s...
then soul and dance music became a bit more widely reflected and more of a thing on Radio London. But it had a tiny audience. Somebody kind of had the idea of reinventing Radio London. So they hired a guy called Matthew Bannister, who at that point used to run the news operation on Capital Radio, The Independent. And a guy called Trevor Dan, whose background was he he produced a couple of big shows on Radio One previously. And he'd worked on a TV show called The Old Grey.
Trevor Down and Matthew Bannister kind of were handed the BBC local radio station in London and given the opportunity to invent a new format. And so they came up with this idea of rock and rolling news. So it would kind of be music radio for grown-ups. And the idea was, you know, cover the big stories, but then play. born to run off the back of it kind of thing. So I was working at GLR as a newish producer. So I kind of came in answering telephone.
as a volunteer and lucked out and a job as a kind of assistant producer researcher kind of figure came up a couple of months after I started answering the first. And I applied for and against all expectation, I got that job. And so I started working there when the station was a year old. and it was just the most exciting.
to be the other weird thing so the other thing I should have said about GLR is that I mean you know although you're aware of it you know you've heard recordings of at least the things and of other apps So we got a lot of great people in. The audience was tiny. So the aim was to increase the audience of the old radio in London. In fact, the audience fell off a cliff.
But the small audience was there. It was loyal and ironically also, considering there was no adverts, it was all kind of paid by the BBC licence. It was an audience that the advertisers would have killed for because it was largely a kind of young, upwardly mobile professional audience. We were really into music. There was no marketing budget to promote the station, so it was entirely word of mouth. But it was, you know, the labels loved it because it was a place to get.
the kind of acts that they would only get on national radio after seven o'clock at night, but they could get them on during the day. It was somewhere else to get kind of daytime play for acts that wouldn't necessarily be kind of top 40 pop-ups. The record label... used to kind of spend quite a lot of time at GLR because of the kind of influence of the audience and some of the presenters. So even though the audience was small, it was seen as a useful place for certain actors.
heard um and so i remember getting a cassette an advanced cassette of woodface round about the same time that they circulated the promo cds or it might even still have been seven inch vinyl for And so I heard Woodface maybe six weeks before it arrived on a cassette. And at that point, I was kind of so new in the job that I was trying to listen to everything that I got given a copy.
Wood face just kind of immediately, I just thought, almost on the first listen, I thought, wow, what a terrific album. And, you know, so many really memorable, really strong songs on it. So I really liked it on the first list. So most radio stations, their playlist was made up of current singles. At GLR, they would always like, on a playlist of about maybe 30 or 40 tracks.
then they'd also have about two or three albums on the playlist at a time. So albums that were considered pretty strong, then we'd rotate three or four key tracks from the album. um as well and so we you know chocolate cake went onto the playlist quite quickly and never uh but didn't it didn't bother the chart but it was an obvious GLR record. And the moment that we got the CD, then the album went on the playlist, and I can't remember which three or four tracks started rotating.
But, you know, the playlist committee, which is only like two or three producers, This was way before I had any say in that. But, you know, they kind of made a choice. I expect that it was kind of, it's only natural, fall at your feet and weather with you. were then kind of rotated. So it's like, effectively, you know, if a single comes up twice a day when it's on the plate...
then the album would also come up twice a day. But in practice, that means each track from the album would only come up twice a week. But it meant that, you know, by the time Fall at Your Feet was a single, then it was familiar to people who were listening to GLR all day.
because it had been heard a bit during the day anyway. So, you know, the station was supporting the album anyway, and when they came to the UK to do promo around about the time of the album... then they were booked for a daytime interview session on the morning. which was probably in practice just two or three tracks.
But I, you know, I remember being excited that they were coming in because I'd already heard the album and loved it. Yeah. And what was quite unusual as well, we'd have a lot of acoustics. But generally, then you'd get kind of two guitarists. and singers you know even if you booked the band then for an acoustic session the whole band usually wouldn't turn up because we didn't have the mics in our main studios to mic up a kind of full band
It was unusual for the four of them to come in, and it was also just unusual for a band to be so much fun. You know, everything that everybody talks about, the, you know, the... you know, the early three-man crowded house and their willingness to improve. and to have fun with it was incredibly infectious and just kind of, you know, there was kind of an energy in the building, not just in the on-air studio. And they, you know, generally...
You know, a band would be in the green room, then they'd be on air, then they'd go. But I remember Crowded House being in the newsroom as well. I don't know why. It might just be that the assistant producer had gone to get the coffee and they followed them. I don't know. You know, so they were a bit of a presence then. And they played the borderline round about that time as a kind of showcase. So the borderline... was a great venue, tiny venue. kind of probably about
150, 200 standing capacity. When Crowded House played, it wasn't a secret show, but I think it was mainly a fan club gig. You know, those early shows before they'd broken in the UK, then I was very aware that you didn't hear many British voices in the crowd. You know, it's an audience almost entirely a backpack.
The day before, we had Southside Johnny and the Asbury Dukes. They were booked to do a session on the morning show at GLR the day before. They got stuck in France because of a ferry strike. So the guy from their label said, oh, well, we've got Crowded House in town, said to the producer of the GLR Morning Show, let's see whether they're available and whether they can come in and fill the slot.
And so Neil and Nick at like... half an hour's notice came in the day before the borderline show by this time i heard kind of so this was like six months after the arrival of wood faye I'd done the deep dive into the first two albums as well as Woodface by now. When they came in the day before the town comes... then I was kind of in the production studio and kind of shouting requests. and requested mansion in the slums from Temple of Lomé.
which is a song that, as far as I know, they never really played live. And they gave it a go. I didn't remember all of it, but, you know, I was mentioned on it. Miles next door, Miles Mendoza next door wants to hear Manchin in the slums. He seems to know the words better than you do. Neil kind of remarked that I had a great name, that I sounded like a Brazilian soap star. Lynn, who is now my wife, was in the studio audience of the Chris Evans.
that saturday morning so the morning of the town and country club gig um and to get from the um on-air studio to the bathroom at glr you'd have to go through this little kind of anteroom which is where we kind of would keep the recordings of all the previous week And at the time, I was copying across the session from the previous morning so that I could keep a cassette copy. So Lynn going through on the way to the bathroom and said, oh, I heard that. Were you that guy they were talking to?
So, yeah, that was me. Oh, are you going to the gig tonight? Yes, I am. Oh, keep an eye out. And so later on that evening, I'd been doing the early shift, go home, have a siesta, a bit dopey, but at the gig, then... You know, in the dark, somebody kind of accosts me and says, Hi, how are you doing? And I look a little bit vacant. Oh, right, yeah, you were there this morning. And then it took about a fortnight after that of Lynn kind of...
contacting me at work and asking me various questions about work. She was working on a TV chat show at the time for me to kind of realise that maybe if I were to ask her out, I might not get turned out. But I was very, very slow. But so, you know, we met at the now legendary town. And, I mean, as anybody who's heard that, and I know you've done a deep dive on a previous episode, but that was such a special show, you know, and the reason that the label...
you know, kind of turned it into an official bootleg. And they thought that by circulating the town and country gig to people who'd never seen a crowded house... then they might get some of that spirit of what an extraordinary and special life they were at that time. The Town and Country Club show that Miles is referring to is an absolute classic and there is an episode that I covered on it with Adam. and that's episode 18 bucket of slops so feel free to go back and have a look at that
weirdly also had connection issues. I'm going to call this the town and country curse. These are the only two episodes out of the 50 odd where I've had technical issues. Funny that. Anyway, back to Miles gearing up for the final session.
Something that they've always just been really good at is just kind of trying not to treat... I guess one of the things that's, you know, so delightful about whatever kind of permutation Neil plays... is the willingness to throw the set list up in the air and to play a request and to be spontaneous. and to try and make each performance unique, whether it's a live show or a session or whatever. And so I think that extends to kind of trying to treat promo.
something that they wanted to enter into and make it fun. And I guess that that was probably a source of the tension with Paul as well. You know, when Paul kind of reached a point where he... could no longer do that promo because he was so integral to the fun of it and to the life and soul of it. But, I mean, even that very first time that I met them and spoke to them, the day before the town and country...
Paul had not come on that session, you know. So it's like even, you know, even right at the, well, sort of in the middle of the kind of wood face promo hurricane, if you like. Paul did everything at the beginning, but was a bit more choosy about which bits of the promo he took part in halfway through. Clearly that side of it was kind of taking its toll on him from the middle of the Woodface promo cycle. And it's like he was brilliant whenever he was there.
But in Neil and Nick, what you've had always was just kind of this willingness to... play with whatever format they're kind of grown into and make people enjoy working. Neil and Tim had come in at the release of the Finn album and had done an hour-long, amazing... a chat with David Hepworth and with Peter Curran, who was doing Afternoons, about the Thin album, where they'd kind of really gone back and talked about split ends. When they came in then, that was really the first time that I'd...
been able to meet and chat a bit more to both of them. But it meant that when recurring dreams... was about to come out, then I'd spoken to Neil enough and that he remembered me and was aware of the guy at GLR who is a fan. And so... They had arrived in the UK for a week or a few weeks of promo ahead of the release of Recurring Dream. And they did the London Hanover Grand show, which was a smaller show and was, I think, kind of put on sale mainly as a fan.
As fans will know, that was a show at which Neil had planned to announce that the band was splitting, but didn't quite have the energy to do it, put out a dress release the following morning. There were already conversations going on about a session to coincide, a session on GLR to coincide. by the time that it had been announced that they were going to split.
then GLR kind of decided to try and make a bit more of a moment of it and asked them, well, rather than just do like the two or three tracks, whether they would come in for an hour, we'd hand over the basement studio and an engineer so that we could do a full band. and kind of really make a moment. And so the Hanover Grand having happened, and I think there were no other gigs booked at that point.
And, you know, they were going to go on and do a little bit of promo in Canada afterwards, and possibly they did a few bits in Europe. but they didn't really, you know, there was no talk of the Opera House at this early start. So at that point, then the GLR Basement was effectively going to be their final gig. And so this was such an extraordinary moment for me.
And, you know, until the Opera House and the warm-up shows for the Opera House happened, you know, had they not happened, it would have been the final. So the studio audience was all competition winners, so people had been listening to GLR, and they ran competitions on the morning show throughout the week leading up. And then the day before, Johnny Walker was doing the morning show at the time. And for the final five tickets...
Then they came up with a dynamic where Johnny put me on air and they got people to call in with questions about Crowded House. that they had to put to me, and if I couldn't answer them. So that was one of my first on-air moments. So, you know, when they arrived to do that session, then Neil remembered me and, you know, just literally 40 people in the room.
And I think the atmosphere at the Hanover Grand gig was clearly weird because Neil had decided to break up the band. Nick certainly didn't want that to happen. Nick absolutely felt that they were ready to go on and do much bigger and better things. Peter Jones was drumming. But because Paul Hester had come back to record the three new tracks on Recurring Dream, I think right up until they arrived for the Hanover Grand Show, nobody knew whether it was going to be Paul or Peter Joe.
playing drums at that fan club show. You know, people kind of thought Paul might be back for that because he'd recorded on the track. So the Hanover Grand was a bit of a weird, you know, it wasn't a classic gig. It was a bit of a weird atmosphere. And I think that just by having announced that they were going to split, and I think it was only, there was probably like 10 days between the announcement of the split. and this session or this gig in the studio.
And so it felt like a lot of that tension had gone. It certainly felt like that in the room. I mean, it's been really interesting to me listening back to it in the last week, because actually, I have really fond memories of that GLR Bay. And at the time, thinking it was kind of like the best ever version of Distant Sun. And it was a real buzz.
With the clock running just before the end of the show, then it was kind of like, well, there's only really time for one song, but we might get a verse in. song. The first 15 tracks on that bootleg CD are all the tracks that were played in the GLR basement. And for some reason, even though most of the rest of the speech is gone. then Neil kind of going, oh, this is for Miles. So, you know, better be home soon was my request.
when they can just get the last two songs in. So they did the kind of incredibly rushed verse and a bit of Locked Out and then a slightly truncated version of Better Be Home. But, you know, so that was a buzz. I mean, the whole thing was bittersweet because I was really disappointed that my favourite band were breaking up. And by that time, we'd seen so many. At that point, we thought it was going to be the final show. Only 40 people were at. And, you know, it was in my office. It was unreal.
And that was Miles living his dream, professional life and music fandom colliding. I love it. Thank you, Miles. And such context for this GLR show that you're about to hear some music from. So the set list in full at this show was Distant Sun, Weather With You, Into Temptation, Instinct, In My Command, Fingers of Love.
four seasons in one day, private universe, pineapple head, fall at your feet, locked out and finishing with better be home soon for miles. So miles actually said later, you know, listening back to the set. You know, the best ever version of Distant Son actually didn't hold up quite as well listening back.
Which I think touches on quite a curious point. When you're watching music and having a reaction to it in the moment, in person, your subjective experience can be... so different to what other people are experiencing and different from sometimes how you hear it when you listen back on the record.
So maybe not the best ever version of Distant Sun, but actually still objectively a pretty good one. So we're gonna start there. I think this version has a particularly good outro neil often ad-libs some lyrics at the end um the i cast the blame with my finger on the pulse
But Mark Hart is really dialed in. His solo is going pretty mad at that point. And the song rounds off really... cleanly like they kind of specified and rehearsed exactly how they were going to end this whereas distant sun sometimes it can linger in some different places always good but always a little bit different Maybe it was for the benefit of Peter Jones, who was still pretty new on the drums in the band at that point.
But either way, in terms of outro, I'd say this is at least the definitive live outro for Distant Sun. Here it is. GLR Radio, The Final Sessions, Distant Sun, June 21st, 1996. Good afternoon. Woo! Thank you. And the second track was a really nice version of Wither With You. I think a couple of things that make this version unique is Neil's playing his electrified acoustic and it almost sounds like his levels are too high, like too loud, like it's...
It's really hot recording. It's almost peaking without peaking. So it sounds a little more rocky. It sounds kind of just a little bit distorted. Whereas usually I hear that song is a very pretty acoustic song. So this version has a little more drive to it. And maybe because of the small audience size or just they're trying to play in a more concise way, doesn't have any of the usual audience sing-along part.
So in that extended bridge, there's a nice little Mark Hart guitar solo and some really cool interplay from Nick and Peter weaving around in and out of Neil's rhythm guitar. It's a really nice band interplay here. And then it wraps up really nicely into the third chorus. Weather With You, live in the GLR basement, 1996. And progressing through the set now to one of my other highlights. And it was one of the three new tracks at the time recorded for the recurring dream best of. This is Instinct.
And there's a reference that Neil makes in here. He changes the lyrics to, Gascoigne's on the football pitch. Gascoigne being an English football player who, according to Wikipedia, one of the best... playmakers of his generation look at me learning about sports ball on my music podcast but there's a few other football references through this show i imagine if we had the full show with the banter between songs
There might be a little bit more football context, but we also have in four seasons in one day, Neil sings like four. something along those lines that's pretty fun bit of a running theme and i have a feeling that miles has those the full recording with all the banter somewhere deep in his CD or cassette archive. So come on, Miles, you can do it. Share it with us.
Now, talking about instinct, do you remember on your VHS or DVD copy of Crowded House Dreaming, the videos, do you remember the instinct video? No, you don't. And if you do, you're a liar. So it was apparently, story goes, intentionally omitted from that video's collection because the band was really not very comfortable or happy with how that video came out.
It did get included in the later Best Of compilation, the very, very Best Of Crowded House. There was an edition that came with a third disc, which was a DVD of all the videos, including Instinct. But I endured the full Instinct video for the first time just before I spoke to Miles. And yeah, it's... I'm not quite sure what. It's a bit of a hot mess. There is alien ladies making out. There's a cowgirl pirate and a Russian hat. Weird golden children.
a teleporting dog, kneels on the couch making hand gestures. There's just no... to me at least, is there's not much cohesion or any sort of unifying theme that runs through the video. It all strikes me. quite random which is a bummer because instinct is one of my favorite songs and it doesn't get played all that often so wonderful they played it in this glr basement set Here we go, Instinct, 21st June 1996, Final Sessions.
In My Command is up next in this GLR show. This is one of my favorite songs. It's pretty good performance. and I couldn't think of much else to actually say about the song. So I opened up chat GPT and asked AI, and I asked it, why does In My Command by Crowded House make me so damn happy? And it said... And My Command by Crowded House may make you feel happy for a few reasons.
Firstly, the melody and overall sound of the song are quite upbeat and catchy, which can naturally elicit feelings of happiness and positivity. Additionally, the lyrics convey a sense of longing and hope. Finally, personal associations or memories you may have tied to the song could also contribute to the happiness it brings. Thank you, AI, for explaining my human emotions to me. I hope it makes you happy too. This is In My Command at the GLR Basement, 1996. Thank you.
And to round out the set, we come to Neil shouting out Miles and his request and squeezing in, better be home soon after a shortened lockdown. It's amazing to me that... for this final sessions bootleg that has done the rounds for the years, for the files of the show that have been circulated, despite all of the between song banter being cut out. that this little moment persevered and remains. GLR Basement in London, 1996.
Thank you very much. Let's introduce the band. Peter Jones on the drum kit. Nicholas Seymour on the bass guitar. Four strings of pure sex. Mark Hart. on the Electric City guitar and piano. Neil Finn on vocals and guitar. All right, we're going to try and... Squeeze two songs into the remaining four minutes. So we're going to do like two verses of the next song. And then a request for Miles, who's standing at the back of the room. All right. Thank you. Quick!
And time for an episode cover. This was sent in to me by a gentleman named Tim Crabtree and his musical project goes under the name Paper Beat. scissors which i think is a wonderful band name underdog vibes and he plays it's to me the first band that came to mind was fleet foxes really lush soulful acoustic arrangements with a really strong lead vocal. Um, also brought to mind a bit of Neil Young, bit of, um, the Decemberists, a little bit of Donovan, Simon and Garfunkel. So really melodic.
lush acoustic beautiful music so before his excellent live cover of private universe Here is a little taste of paper beats scissors. This is a track called grace, and it's got a really wonderful animated music video too. So I've put the link to that in the show. And Tim is currently on tour in Europe. However, he just got his guitar stolen outside of a gig in Dusseldorf. So, so sorry to hear that, my friend. But know that...
Crowded House fans are a resourceful and optimistic bunch. So I'm sure you will figure out a way to make the ends meet, play your gigs, get home safe, and hopefully that instrument comes back to you. All right, everybody, that's our time. Look after yourselves, look after each other. Thanks for listening. Miles, thank you for the conversation. I look forward to making another episode with you soon.
If anyone needs to reach me or wants to send me a cover, the email address is 240neilfinn at gmail.com. Take care, friends. Bye.