Neil Young & Crazy Horse - Americana

yeah, neil handled the interview well, he's good at interviews!

He's good at interviews on his own cryptic, elliptical terms. I find Terry Gross can be frustrated pretty easily when she gets a less than forthcoming subject - on the flipside, her inexplicable reputation as an interviewer stems almost entirely from landing subjects who are generally very forthcoming - but Neil fucks with interviewers more than most.

Q: Like, babble babble, when I first saw that "God Save the Queen" was on this, stall babble, you know like um I first though of um, you know, the Sex Pistols?

A: Who are the Sex Pistols?

Q: (nervous laugh)

a: (crickets)

ha, i loled at that

at least she didn't explain it to the audience amirite

For the listeners just tuning in, the sex pistols were a punk rock band that had a song called God save the queen.

is this the story of Terry Gross?

Saw him interviewed by Patti Smith at Book Expo yesterday. Neil was typically droll but told a great story about how he came to write "Ohio." David Crosby and marijuana were involved.

haha wait did Neil seriously pretend lack of awareness of the Sex Pistols

yes indeed he did

http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m598k5BJBg1qav5oho1_500.jpg

sweet serape

http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m59moasEZC1qdf09mo2_500.jpg

from a bbc interview

Young was clearly inspired while making Americana as straight afterwards they recorded another album’s worth of original Neil Young material.

“It will have to be a double CD because of its length,” he admits. One track, he reveals, is 26 minutes long.

In the same interview, he said he used to have to sing "God Save the Queen" in school every morning... that has got to be bullshit, British schoolchildren have never had to sing "God Save the Queen" (unless we're talking Victoria) let alone Canadian schoolchildren?

Haven't heard this yet--Christgau gave it a great write-up today:

http://social.entertainment.msn.com/music/blogs/expert-witness-blogpost.aspx?post=9a263a12-84c0-40c5-8df3-73dd94f0e5b9

Christgau is wrong, but then, this album is total Christgau bait.

In general, I've found him pretty reliable when it comes to Neil over the years; outside of Trans, I don't recall majorly disagreeing with him. Which is not say I'll like this.

haha wait did Neil seriously pretend lack of awareness of the Sex Pistols

hey hey my my is about the OTHER johnny rotten, a car mechanic from toronto

Xgau OTM (although Seegerstein's "sanctimonious overkill" is more a matter of slick instrumentation and slack "arrangements" doing it to death, like many a longwinded CD, however pure or not)Also, I got into "Susannah" right away, duh-huh, hey Beavis he said, "B.A.N.J.O. on my knee," huh-huh. Really likie the way he chooses all the right verses, incl those expunged; I knew the one about both sides of the sign in "This Land" (always figured it was a particular inspiration for early Bobby D.), but didn't realize the whole thing was "a protest song," as Neil says in the Fresh Air interview. So far, "Tom Dula" does get tedious, and at first I was put off by the vocal's detachment from doomy guitar on "High Flying Bird," but compartmentalization happens: "Look at me/I'm rooted like a tree," yeah tell me about it. But "Get A Job" is the scariest ol' folk song of all!

hey hey my my is about the OTHER johnny rotten, a car mechanic from toronto

― wack nerd zinging in the dead of night (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Wednesday, June 13, 2012 8:28 AM (2 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

lool

top five debut this week

i thought about getting tickets to the MSG show (never seen Neil live) but holy cow it's expensive

it is pretty amazing tho you should go

http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/q-a-crazy-horses-frank-poncho-sampedro-on-37-years-with-neil-young-20120614
funny that sampedro was kevin eubank's personal assistant.

I've seen Neil live a grand total of once - a "surprise" show in Santa Cruz with Booker T and the MGs sometime after Harvest Moon came out - and he was amazing, played a great range of material (including "I Believe in You"!)

but ever since then I've been unable to bring myself to cough up the huge amounts of money necessary to see him in some venue I'll probably hate. really can't imagine a scenario that would ever top the show I saw

^ ditto. Saw him with Crazy Horse in 1991. His last encore was "Welfare Mothers," with the (huge basketball arena) house lights on. If I'd never seen them before, I'd find a way to see this tour, but cripes, $70 for nosebleed seats?

yeah, i'm still on the fence. totally want to go, but the cash! i have a family to feed here, neil!

He'd feel bad for you if you were a farmer.

i'm growing tomatoes in my backyard this summer.

You'll be too far away to throw them at him.

Tyler, how are the tomatoes doing? That may have some bearing on getting a break on tickets.

TERRIBLE. Help a farmer out, neil.

""Homegrown" wasn't about tomatoes. Sorry dawg."--Neil

tell neil you're inventing a car that runs on tomatoes, maybe he'll go into business with you

these tomatoes make mp3s sound like vinyl

but can only be chewed using a special blu-tooth setup

yes but does your tomato patch have a model train track running around it

yes

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these tomatoes make mp3s sound like vinyl

― tylerw, Thursday, June 14, 2012 3:18 PM (2 hours ago) Bookmark

genuine lol

I've still got my ticket stub for Neil's pre-Rust show at Toronto's Maple Leaf Gardens, Oct. 1 '78. Centre floor, 25 rows back. $9.00.

i bet the show was awful though, wasn't it? totally sucky.

Terrible. I was about to turn 17, stoned, he led with "Sugar Mountain," and then played strange new songs about Johnny Rotten. The worst.

http://www.setlist.fm/setlist/neil-young/1978/maple-leaf-gardens-toronto-on-canada-5bd1e72c.html

your story checks out
http://www.sugarmtn.org/extras/19781001stub.jpg
Chum and Chum!

were you all like PLAY THE HITS! CINNAMON GIRL! WOOOOO!

that sounds like torture

That's amazing, Tyler--I thought at first it was something I'd posted. I was row Y, seat 16, sitting with my friend Steve--not too far at all from whoever that ticket belonged to.

I just remember being awestruck the whole night. I don't think we were the kind of people who'd call out requests, but I'm sure I hoping for lots and lots of Tonight's the Night, Zuma, and Gold Rush (and, yes, "Cinnamon Girl").

"was hoping"

haaard times

Don't google "Chum and Chum" unless you want to be disappointed.

Saw him with Crazy Horse in 1991. His last encore was "Welfare Mothers," with the (huge basketball arena) house lights on.

― Tarfumes The Escape Goat, Thursday, June 14, 2012 12:40 PM (2 days ago)

so i'm just catching up w/ this thread right now, busy week, but man this post kinda depressed me!

I was at the same tour, the one with Social Distortion and Sonic Youth opening up. And yeah, we got "Welfare Mothers" at the end with the lights on.

But it really felt like an organic thing -- like, after the last encore (which I think might have been "Sedan Delivery"??), people were SO psyched about the show that they kept on clapping and clapping and clapping, even after the lights had come back on, that Neil and band were almost forced to come back out for one last one.

Like, you just never see that. Like ever. The whole business about "encores" is so rote and perfunctory and scripted. That Neil Young show -- when he came out with all the bright lights one to do "Welfare Mothers" -- is the one and only time I've ever felt that that scriptedness was done away with. And I've always regaled friends with the tale of how awesome it was ever since. So it kind of bums me out, Tarfumes, to hear you got the same deal, like it was just maybe something he *did* on that tour...