Neil Young's "Ditch Trilogy" Poll

yeah he's pretty chill and funny on the Sugar Moutain disc, whereas the Massey show is more "I am brooding rock god Neil"

i think they are. they might be ridiculously expensive tho

― tylerw, Tuesday, December 1, 2009 1:43 PM (4 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

ha, that is why i am asking for them for xmas!

yeah the sugar mountain one is ridic priced....

the massey hall show is towering IMO, just amazing

I'm a Neil dilettante really-- not long ago all I really knew was Zuma, Decade, Tonight's The Night, Gold Rush and some later smatterings. But Tyler's awesome awesome oddball comps have put me on a big NY kick lately.

So today I sat down and listened to all three of the trilogy in sequence. This is my first time hearing TFA at all and my first time hearing most of OTB.

TFA drags in places but has tremendous peaks in the title track, Yonder Stands The Sinner, Don't Be Denied and The Bridge. OTB has an amazing sound, definitely the most sonically appealing of the three for me, and right now the inscrutable guitar solo on 'Vampire Blues' seems like the best thing ever to me. TTN seems to wear the most masks, with a lightness that conceals real dark shit, the most elusive and I definitely don't 'get it' yet.

Between Beach and Tonight's then, with further listening needed.

These are three of the best records ever made by anyone I don't give a fuck what anyone say. I could listen to "L.A." all day and all night long and not get tired of the hook.

it's really hard for me to make a choice here. i am going for tonights the night cuz it was "albuquerque" which is where i was born and i feel like OTB is getting enuff love on this thread.

TTN is my favorite Neil album, but I have to be in a certain frame of mind to listen to it. OTB I can enjoy almost anytime.

Recently I acquired a crappy rip of TFA, which I hadn't heard in 30 years, and it's been in constant rotation ever since. I wonder why Neil hates this album so much?

Yup, the version of C'mon Baby Let's Go Downtown on Massey is incredible.

All three albums are among Neil's very best and TTN and OTB are utterly esssential, but TTN edges it for me. It's my favourite Neil album period. Somebody upthread commented on what an empathetic album it is, and he's absolutely right. This album is man emotion in rock at its best - a little maudlin, a little drunk, but empathetic and touching. It fuckin' rocks as well. So many bits on this album that just slay me... the way Neil's voice breaks when he sings "Ain't got nothin' but this feeling" in Mellow My Mind; Cryin' Eyes, the bit about watching the skaters in Borrowed Tune (Lady Jane is the tune he took from the Rolling Stones, right? Neil's version is vastly superior); the riff off C'mon Baby; "He tried to do his best but he could not" in Tired Eyes; Nils Logfren's stinging guitar breaks in Speakin' Out; the sense of dread in Albuquerque's chord sequence...

OTB is all kinds of awesome too. Rick Danko and Levon Helm lay down such a tight, tense groove on Revolution Blues, very different to anything they did with The Band. It's a shame they didn't do more with Neil. Danko's bass is incredible - they way he leaps up the frets with those gulping high notes is almost like Holger Czukay, but he also maintains a powerful low end. It's a stunning group performance.

yeah, i hope that some more recordings with Danko and Helm show up on the Archives -- I think there's something in Shakey about at least one unreleased song with Helm on drums.

Oh wow, I'd love to hear that. I should add that Homegrown is great too, although songs like Sedan Delivery definitely benefited from the faster, punked up treatment he gave them on Rust Never Sleeps.

Oh, just looked up Homegrown on Wiki and Sedan ain't on it. I must have a very odd version of Homegrown. Such is the way with bootlegs, particularly ones from Slsk.
Levon Helm is on a Homegrown song called Separate Ways apparently.

I think what you have is "Chrome Dreams" ... "Homegrown" has never been bootlegged, though songs from it showed up on Neil's albums through Hawks & Doves, I think.

and yeah, it's "Separate Ways" i'm thinking of -- a great song that he debuted live like 20 years after he recorded it apparently.

All three of these albums have very distinct strengths for me - Tonight's The Night is the most emotionally raw NY record (that I've heard) and it's the best of the three in terms of sustaining an overall mood (albeit a harrowing one); On The Beach has the greatest variety in terms of displaying Neil's various strengths and it has the highest peaks in terms of individual songs (title track and 'Ambulance Blues'); Time Fades Away strikes the best balance in terms of great songwriting and rough, sloppy playing, plus the live aspect gives it an extra edge - it's also the one I've got heaviest into (for a large part of summer 2008 basically), so it gets my vote.

x-post Yes, you're right. Chrome Dreams it is. I think it has a version of Homegrown on it, hence the confusion.

Time Fades Away is a beautiful artifact. I picked up a VG+ copy for £10 around five years ago, complete with the lyric poster. It doesn't seem to be so highly prized, whereas, before the CD reissue, OTB would fetch around £50. Some great songs too - the Bridge is lovely and Don't Be Denied is one of my favourites.

Feelin left out on all the "second side of OTB" talk. Much as I love the record, I could totally take or leave those last two tracks. I understand that's not a popular opinion tho.

could anyone help a dude find the manchester 73 live boot, as a cursory search of the interwebs has yet to turn up the necessary mp3s

voted Tonight's the Night

as much as i do like most of time fades away, i would really fail to understand someone voting for it over the other two...it's just fundamentally not as good IMO.

Yeah, Time Fades Away is great, it just doesn't have as strong songs as the other two. It's obviously got an incredible vibe, and plenty of wonderful stuff, but it's not a masterpiece like TNT and OTB.

Stevie, if no one's gotten in touch with you, I can probably upload that Manchester show at some point ...

Pls upload it somewhere I can get it too thx!!!

Lemme just wrap up Jazz Week on Doom & Gloom and I'll put it up there ...

much appreciated tyler, thanx!

d&g rules btw, basically everything is some shit I love

yeah love the shit outta yer blog, man.

no doubt.

btw tyler, i KNOW i have that damn jayhawks CDR and i WILL find it but we are doing some work on the house and everything is in total disarray.

This is off topic but Tyler I just listened to your upload of Neil's SNL performance of 'Rockin In The Free World' and it gave me goose bumps all over my body. I remember watching this when it aired originally and it was easily the least genial performance of anything I've ever seen on TV. I remember NY broke at least half the strings on his instrument by the end. Thanks for including it in your In The 80s comp!

tonight's the night's my favorite album by him, so that. side 2 is some of the funniest shit ever on record. when his voice cracks in "tired eyes" i still crack up after all these years

wait which CDR? i've got some jayhawk live show (showbox in seattle) of unknown etiology

thanks for the kind words, ILM-ers. Plenty more Neil Young to come, fear not! After the Manchester show, I'll get around to doing an overview of my fave Neil bootlegs from 1976 ...

Neil's SNL performance of 'Rockin In The Free World'

his solo performance of "harvest moon" on SNL was really awesome too

yeah those SNL things are nice. to bring it back on topic, though, i wonder if there's any footage of the Tonight's the Night tour in Neil's archives? Would love to see that sleazy band in action. I think in Shakey, it says that there isn't much ...

Yeah, dying for some performance footage of the Tonight's the Night tour in the UK. Or maybe just audio, even. Will check in to the DoomGloomTomb blog.

gbx i have a really good boot of the hard to find vinyl only first jayhawks album on bunkhouse record that a friend of mine had done at a friend's recording studio through the board....lost highway was gonna reissue it on CD but never did

whoah that sounds cool

tonight's the night is some serious middle of the night, driving down country roads smoking cigarettes kinda music.

i dig the other two but it's not even close imo

middle of the night, driving down country roads smoking cigarettes kinda music.

― jØrdån (omar little), Wednesday, December 2, 2009 12:46 PM (4 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

this is basically my favorite kind of music

would love to see various "the rough guide to the ditch trilogy" track listings here -- condense it down to the most hair-raising 65 minutes or whatever

someone do that plz and ysi thx

(i've only got On The Beach!)

this would be an inneresting poll

1. "On the Beach" – 6:59
2. "Motion Pictures" – 4:23
3. "Ambulance Blues" – 8:56

I'd be down for doing a ditch mix

yeah, do that

Since it's out of print and Neil refuses to release it on CD: http://musicartstyle.blogspot.com/2009/11/neil-young-time-fades-away-1973.html

While Time Fades Away is "lesser" than the others, it is totally worth hearing and it seems ridiculous that Neil keeps it out of print. I've always thought that maybe it's just a little too "personal" or something.

Like he just wants the memories connected to those songs to fade away.

if that were true he wouldn't have gone to the trouble of preparing an HDCD release

prolly more related to sound quality issues

like he wants that "time" to also fade away