neil young

great ragged vibes, the CH version of "helpless" is excellent

some of the stuff has been in the archives box sets but hearing it all together as one session everything sound very cohesive

In all honestly, I lost interest in the never-ending parade of Young releases a few years ago--I remember when every new record up till the early-'80s felt like an event--but I would buy that early Crazy Horse record. Didn't know they recorded "Helpless."

What's the story re: the CH "Helpless"? In Shakey they mention a 7-minute version that the engineer failed to record. Was that not true, or did they get another take on tape?

Yeah it's weird - maybe they did it again?

Here's the excerpt:

“Young and the Horse cut “Everybody’s Alone,” “Oh Lonesome Me,” “Wonderin’,” “I Believe in You,” “Birds,” an exquisite version of Whitten’s “Look at All the Things,” as well as an epic ballad called “Helpless” that failed to make it to tape. “We were doing it live, everybody playing and singing at once, and we did about an eight- or nine-minute version of it … with a long instrumental in the middle,” Young told writer Jean-Charles Costa. “And the engineer didn’t press the button down. It was much more free than anything I’ve done onstage.”

Any way, Early Daze is excellent, I'm definitely getting it. I've grown to welcome all of these Neil Young releases because for me they simply replaced what generally happens in unofficial channels, and it's not like I complained when I was a hardcore Dylan collector finding "new" bootlegs every week. They're not for everybody and even diehard fans should be discerning enough not to want everything (just as I never bothered with a good number of Dylan bootlegs/archival releases), but I'm glad it's just out there in the best quality possible. FWIW, I gave Fuckin' Up a chance and I thought it was surprisingly good. I didn't realize it was actually a recording of a private concert he did, and in a way it kind of reflects that appeal - it's a one-off that I'm glad I heard (if not witnessed). I'm not sure if I'll ever get a copy, but I'm glad I gave it a good listen all the way through.

this is not that version of "helpless", it's probably an earlier take – it's about 4 minutes. not mindblowing, but pretty nice!

Early Daze is great but it all should've been on Archives Vol 1 ... it basically took Neil 20 years to put together a deluxe edition of Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere. But now we can cobble that together ourselves!

neil is definitely frustrating with how he does stuff but i'm trying to just kick back with it and listen to it as a record and i think as a set of songs it's a great listening experience

it's funny - i'm semi-passable at playing a couple of his tunes. then i went to a recent open-mic and watched someone turf out doing "powderfinger" on acoustic and thought "nope, i'm not ready yet."

https://superdeluxeedition.com/news/neil-young-official-release-series-vol-5-breakout-releases/

Freedom, the expanded Ragged Glory, Arc, and Weld will be released individually in October.

awesome was hoping for that

Me too, because wanted expanded RG; which one do you want? But that article claims the box is so cheap, why not just get it? Well maybe I'll look for a nice-price second-hand, rated VG (like w some Dylan boxes, if you wait long enough: got Another Self-Portrait Deluxe [CD version] for about $30.00, because of minor packaging damage).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bCQisTEdBwY

Neil backed by R.E.M. playing ambulance blues hitting well tonight. They’re no Rusty Kershaw, but they might be the next best thing

i LOVE "don't spook the horse". nice to see it getting another official release as i idiotically flogged my cd single at some point.

Jem Aswad on Archives III (audio only, admits burning out before "11 films on Blu-Ray."):
https://variety.com/2024/music/reviews/neil-young-archives-vol-iii-1976-87-album-review-1236131030/

I'll probably give this a deep listen over the holidays if I can get a copy by then. Aswad's review kind of confirms my suspicions that one deep dive will be enough for the '80s recordings. (In fairness, I already have the Lucky Thirteen compilation and A Treasure, which seems to duplicated in this set, but they're probably all I need from the '80s. As enjoyable as they are, I don't put them on that much.)

The first ten discs do look enticing, especially the 1977 demos on disc four. I already have Hitchhiker, Songs For Judy and Chrome Dreams on top of Comes a Time, Rust Never Sleeps and Live Rust, but they don't overlap nearly as much as I thought they would. (The overlap with those titles are mostly on disc three and ten.) I kind of wish this set was split in two, I would've immediately bought the '70s material on its own, but it was pretty much a given Neil was going to stick to the ten-year span on each one.

https://www.uncut.co.uk/reviews/neil-young-archives-vol-iii-1976-1987-147123/ :

“Pocahontas”, recorded at Ronstadt’s kitchen table, may be the best version of the song.

Did reviewers have another version of the box set or something?

(Or are they confusing Ronstadt's Malibu kitchen table recordings on disc 4 with the Indigo Ranch Studios (also in Malibu) where disc 9's Pocahontas was recorded?)

Archives Vol. III Takes is the sampler---16 tracks, 1 hr. 14 min.:
http://music.youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_ku3aYFp3sBXmk2PBl2j2P_suSqsRa44nI

https://pitchfork.com/news/crosby-stills-nash-and-young-to-release-unearthed-album-live-at-fillmore-1969/

^^That's the show that gave us the recording of "Sea of Madness" that was remixed to sound 'more outdoors' and included on the original Woodstock soundtrack album.

I'd only want the expanded Ragged Glory and OK, fine, Weld, and if I buy those two separately from Amazon it's probably $30-31, but I can get the whole box for $45.

going a little nuts trying to figure out what on Decade has not yet been reissued. Is it just the shorter version of "Soldier" and "Campaigner"?

Decade got remastered in 2017, if that counts. I assume there's a difference between the Decade & Hitchhiker/Archives II versions of "Campaigner"?

wait what? "Campaigner isn't on either of the later two that I see?

oh it's on Hitchhiker but not Archives II?

man wtf Neil

Hitchhiker version is 4:19 and Decade version is 3:30 so I assume they are different

Same take, different edit. Hitchhiker includes another verse that was cut for Decade.

haha classic, thanks

The Decade version of "Long May You Run" is an earlier 'CSNY Mix' with harmonies from C&N that were removed for the original release. Not sure if it popped up again.

ah that's very cool, just what I was looking for, thanks

Good for Neil:

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2025/jan/02/neil-young-pulls-out-of-glastonbury-festival-2025-bbc

omg the ham sandwich incident

I have no idea whether to be sympathetic to Young's position or not without knowing the details of his objections, which he has unhelpfully refused to divulge.

Personally, as someone who is not a fan of attending huge festivals that you have to take out a second mortgage to afford, I quite enjoy the BBC's Glasto coverage. I have no idea how it impacts on the performers themselves.

It seems odd to hear the BBC described as "corporate" and my first thought was "wait until Neil hears about Sky and ITV".

the BBC is a corporate corporation

In name only! You'd think he'd prefer a state broadcaster to a private company beholden to it's sponsors and advertisers. But we can only guess, coz he hasn't bloody told us the reasons!

I reckon it's something to do with the scandal involving BBC's Middle East editor Rafi Berg

this article explains the context of Owen Jones recent investigation

The BBC's Civil War Over Gaza

https://www.dropsitenews.com/p/bbc-civil-war-gaza-israel-biased-coverage

Therefore from Neil Young's perspective he doesn't want to be associated with the BBC.

Really?

Nah.

It seems his previous appearance was covered by the BBC for five songs "as live, on the night" and one of those OKed for BBC iplayer, that was it.

So... what's the problem?

Oh, so in other words, he's just being egotistic and selfish? The BBC has to cater for all tastes. They can't broadcast his whole set, otherwise there wouldn't be enough time for all the other acts that people want to see. And the Pyramid Stage headliners *do* get the full sets as, well, they're the headliners. Just as Young himself was, in 2009.

But they didn't show the whole set last time he appeared there? I'm more confused now. Does he want his entire set broadcast or not? I suspect he doesn't.

That’s they way I read it as well.

yeah I suspect the issue is that he doesn't want his set broadcast at all but the BBC is insisting on showing at least part of it.

Yes, that makes sense.

There was some wording to the effect that broadcasting too much (or any?) of the set dilutes the live experience.

neil young in being cantankerous shocker

good. hopefully he can actually tour here instead.

The BBC still does a better job of fulfilling its Reithian objectives by broadcasting Glasto than by refraining from doing so. Everyone knows that it is no substitute for being there, but for a large section of the populace you'd have to make it your main holiday for the year to afford to go once you take travel, camping equipment etc into account. I'd far rather watch Glasto on the Beeb than on someone's shonky YouTube footage from their phone.

I know Neil Young is Canadian but I cast doubt on familiar he is with the BBC's Reithian objectives.

Probably not for this thread but the BBC's Glastonbury coverage for the last 28 years has always been crap, shiny fucking Jo Whiley acoustic tent bollocks and only the most Radio 2 stuff from the pyramid stage. Channel 4 did an infinitely better job in 94/95.

Dunno how recently you've seen it, but it's changed a lot in the last ten years. Anyone who has the free iPlayer can see literally every single set from the 5 main stages in full, on there and there's 24 hour streaming, non stop radio, catch-ups galore etc

Channel 4 pretty much just showed a highlights package which was maybe two-or-three hours of scattered footage in 30 minute chunks for each of the three nights.