Neil Young & Crazy Horse - Americana

yeah it is pretty cool stuff -- some of it sounds kinda Love-ish, though that was probably a coincidence, I don't think Love even had records out when the Mynah Birds were recording (could be wrong, not sure about the dates).

yeah i think that would have been pretty early for a love influence...seemed like randy bachman was neil's main influence at that time based on shakey

it is a pretty weird chapter in Neil's career -- you'd have to think that everyone in the Mynah Birds was like -- "Motown! We've made it!" And then, nothing.

too bad the deal fell through, because both The Fall and Neil Young being Motown artists would be the best lol thing ever

yeah, James Jamerson joins Crazy Horse! Hex Induction hour, produced by Quincy Jones!

I think Love did have some stuff out by them, but Mick Jagger was once asked about some songs like "Who's Been Sleeping Here?" having a Dylan influence, and he said it was more a matter of vocalists and songwriters the same age group, same sort of background and influences sounding like each other in some ways. I thought BS at the time, but later seemed more likely--especially back then, when the market and pool of records were smaller, plus the rise of To 40 and the border and other super AM stations in North America (could get those all over the place at night, way before rock FM), and the few legal stations in the UK, few pirate, for that matter. Didn't realize Bruce Palmer was in the Mynah Birds!

"stuff out by *then*"

yeah, I think this is the clip I saw before, minus "Arc," which might be trickier, being more freeform than "River"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4YK_XPZ_Xhg

oh susannah - http://soundcloud.com/oldmanemu/oh-susannah-web-preview
can't really crank this since it's the kid's naptime (lol dadrock). but it sounds nice and loose.

Sounds good! Vibe reminds me of Farmer John...choir isn't nearly as over the top as living with war

Yeah, the choir is unobtrusive, and everything else is nice and loud.

Yeah, this is basically exactly like I expected it to sound. I never had any doubts.

video for oh susannah! i like this song
http://youtu.be/ei2PVpSKkF4

haha smoking toddlers!

new display name testing 1 2 3

i'm glad we live in a country where stoned old men butchering children's folk songs with electric guitars can be released on a major label

^^^

Neil's career is really amazing

the first 20 seconds are the best because it's like jesus guys you didn't even bother to learn the song did you?

i guess Bruce and his band don't smoke up, huh

i thought springsteen claims to have never smoked pot

either way bruce is sooo not a stoner

his stimulant of choice is diet coke iirc

i wasn't implying he WAS. just saying that you're maybe overstating the craziness of a classic rock icon releasing a major label album of folk covers when an album like that hit #3 on Billboard a few years ago.

will the secretary treasurer please record some dude's reservations in the notes of our meeting?

neil young, always riding the boss's coattails

lol sorry neil stans, continue geeking out

tbh there's no point in being a neil young fan if you're not going to be a total stan/dork about it.

we've already established that neil conceptualized this album sometime in 1964 after eating several cheeseburgers at a Toronto diner.

Love this "Oh Susanna" as fuzzed out "Venus" or whatever, but I always wonder why Neil bothers calling them covers when all he needs to do is toss on a few new lyrics to make them his songs. I mean, they're in the public domain, anyway. I thought the same thing when Peter Gabriel did those radically rearranged covers a couple of years back. Just change the lyrics and call them new songs, dude.

think there's a publishing/legality rationale behind that iirc

i think it's mostly the artist doing what they want to do -- neil can write songs anytime he wants, but he wanted to do folk covers, he's not going to sweat how the label credits it or who gets royalties enough to change how he makes the record.

i keep forgetting to transcribe that section of Shakey but basically in that book it sounds like Neil's had these arrangement/reworkings since the early 60s and is just getting to them now

oh susanna sounds great. love neil's studio chatter at the end. it's funky!

What I mean is, Neil - or anyone - can skronk out songs like his "Oh Susannah" at will. So why not?

Like, it doesn't matter how it's credited. I'm just always surprised when artists cover a song that sound so unlike the song they're covering that they might as well call it a new song.

i think you're looking for logic and reason in the world of neil young, a long and lonely journey my man

At least he's not doing an album of Sinatra-ized standards.

don't say that too loud

recently it seems much more common for artists to claim songs as new compositions which "include elements" of other songs, which i always thought was lame.

Had a dream last night that neil put out a new album--cover photo was a grainy b&w silhouette of him now with his arm propped against a doorway. In a white marker block letter scrawl was the title, "THE YOUNG ONE"

Otm

tbh there's no point in being a neil young fan if you're not going to be a total stan/dork about it

Plenty of hardcore NY fans won't listen to anything after 1979. Plenty of hardcore NY fans only like the acoustic stuff, plenty of hardcore NY fans only like his Crazy Horse stuff

but that's so much less rewarding that trying to see the hidden genius in Re*Ac*Tor

I was talking to an acquaintance when "Le Noise" came out, and I asked him if he liked Neil Young. He immediately said, as he should, "I *love* Neil Young..." But then he added "...but not his loud stuff." Which honestly leaves ... not much!

I dunno, if you stick with Harvest, Comes A Time, half of Rust, Old Ways, Unplugged, Massey Hall, Harvest Moon, and whatever mostly-acoustic stuff he did after that, you'd have a not-necessarily-skewed portrait of Young.

You'd also be missing a more than healthy portion of his best stuff.

you'd also be getting pretty much noe of the really terrible stuff

none

not-necessarily-skewed

seems to be the very definition of "skewed", actually

I meant more that yes, it'd be a skewed picture of Young, but not wackily unrepresentative.

True, I bet there are people who do only know his quiet stuff. Seems a shame, though, really.

ok judge for yourself -- here's Arc 2012: http://doomandgloomfromthetomb.tumblr.com/post/29629148690/arc-2012-for-nearly-two-decades-now-fans-have

Brilliant. Thanks for posting that!

I should admit that I've totally come around to "Americana" and now sort of view it as the closest we're going to come to a whole album of stuff like the "Farmer John" cover. As major an album as minor albums get.