Apparently, emotionally manipulative girlfriends on "Summerland" enjoy blasting Nolan in their convertibles.

Neil Finn, One Nil / One All

On a plane to London in March of 2002, I was listening to one of United's music channels when the pre-recorded DJ mentioned Neil Finn's name. I'd heard of Neil Finn and knew him as the former leader of Crowded House, but never heard his music. "Turn & Run" was the first song of his I ever heard, piped through those tinny headphones on a jet plane somewhere above the Atlantic. I was instantly hooked. I bought One Nil a few days later and it quickly became the soundtrack for that trip: getting drunk every night on white wine with my parents and my aunt and uncle, walking through Hampstead Heath and taking my father's picture in front of Marx's tomb, reading Tender Is The Night and taking the train into town to visit my old flat at 7 Brechin Place.

When the US version, One All, came out in May 2002 with two different tracks, I bought that too. Even though it had been remastered and resequenced, all the beauty was still there: the liquid vocal harmonies during the choruses of "The Climber", the brilliant chord progression and triumphant vocal melody during the chorus of �Hole In The Ice�, the surprise turn that the chord progression of "Turn & Run" takes, the eerie and then comforting guitar synthesizer throughout "Rest Of The Day Off" and its sublime verse progression, the blustery cadence and admonishing tone of "Human Kindness" and its warnings against First World excess and wars against invisible enemies: There's no address, no number listed for the one who took the shot / ready or not, this righteous and twisted crusade is over now. And finally "Into The Sunset", which gracefully explores the tension between wanderlust and homesickness and acknowledges that modern life brooks no time for nostalgia.

Upon my return from London, I quickly sought out its predecessor, Try Whistling This, for another dozen incandescent pop songs, and, though I didn't know it at the time, began my tenure with a completely new and fascinating group of friends. That's right around the time Dino asked me to join Racecar Radar, the Iowa City supergroup that plays one show a year and practices even less freqently. Nine months after Speed Of Sauce had broken up, I was playing drums in a band again. I had a tape with Try Whistling This on one side and One Nil on the other, and I'd drive home from work along the Coralville strip, singing along with "Sinner" or "Dream Date" or "Addicted" and speeding towards a RR rehearsal at 931 S Van Buren, where I'd shut myself into a room with Dino and Matt and Nick and bash away at those wonderful pop songs until the cops came calling. Then we'd go to Martini's or the Deadwood or Quentin's or the Atlas and it was like one non-stop party. But in the quiet spaces between all the carousing and fanfare, these songs were still faithfully humming away, keeping me satisfied and singing along.

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