Neil Young's "Ditch Trilogy" Poll

re. other albums with this same "burned out vibe": one reason I think the contemporary rootsy albums listed (e.g. Wilco) fail to reach that same vibe is that none of their authors/performers are as good as Neil Young. But more interesting to me is that the other artists listed fail to understand TTN's vibe. To burn out you must have burned in the first place. Neil's burn out is in response to his fame (with CSN, with Harvest) and the 1973 tour. It's easy enough to be mopey and take a bunch of drugs and declare yourself burned out and ready to write a burned-out album. But that's not why Neil was burned out.

This comes together for me when I think of "Borrowed Tune". Neil sings that he's singing a borrowed tune because he's too wasted to write his own. Implicit is that if he weren't wasted, he could write a tune as good as the Rolling Stones (as they did in 1967, no less). That's a bold claim! But what sells the song as burnout is that you know he could write such a tune. Could Jeff Tweedy or Jason Molina sell such a boast? Listen to Tweedy on "Somebody Else's Song", on Being There, an album mentioned as a contender above: "I sound like what's-his-name". Tweedy sells what he can sell: at best a vague boast, at worst self-deprecation. Whereas Neil, even in his waste, is selling a star.

^think that this warrants an otm.

yeah booming post!

Hey Trip Maker,
Thanks for the tip on Oakley Hall. It's not exactly what I was looking for, but they crank out some damn fine artsy roots rock with nice long jams. Reminds of Eleventh Dream Day.

No sweat! Glad you dig it.

about tweedy -- uncle tupelo had a lot more to offer people into neil than wilco ever has. anodyne (especially its title track, the last song, and "chickamauga") are square in the crazy horse tradition

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!

― crazy farting throwback jersey (gbx), Tuesday, December 1, 2009 1:48 PM (3 weeks ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

MISSION ACCOMPLISHED

Not sure if Time Fades Away has its own thread:

http://www.uncut.co.uk/neil-youngs-time-fades-away-rumoured-for-record-store-day-release-news

The two songs I gravitate towards now are "Love in Mind" and (especially) "Journey Through the Past"; in high school, it was the title track and "Don't Be Denied."

MSRP $500 (includes PONO download code)

I think I'll stick with my 35+-year-old copy--still plays fine.

pretty awesome record. thanks again. It was a blast to finally read Shakey and go through Archives vol 1 and the ditch trilogy. hope I'm still around for vol 2.

Found this on the Steve Hoffman forums. Kind of interesting:

I just ran across this thread today ... and joined so I could set the record straight, so-to-speak. I conceived and developed Compumix while I was chief engineer at Quad-Eight in the early seventies. It was the first successful console automation system in a time when floppy discs and other data storage media taken for granted today didn't exist. Compumix I (as it would be called later when newer technology was available) automated fader and two switch functions per channel for 16 channels. This digital data was turned into a bi-phase PCM data stream that was recorded on a spare track as the mix engineer worked. On a second pass, the engineer could select one or more channels to "update" (the use of -15 dB as a reference point was established by my design). This copied both original and updated fader moves to another spare track. Layers of updates could be bounced back and forth between these two tracks until the final mix was made. As in the case of Neil Young and "Time Fades Away", the mixdown would "run itself" and the board's output run directly to a disc cutter (as was done by Neil at the Lacquer Channel. I stayed at Neil's ranch for several days to help ... it was most enjoyable to hang with Neil. Anyway, the audio tracks themselves were never digitized ... all they "saw" was a VCA (dBx 202) between multi-track tape out and console line inputs. The audio path was all analog (the system could properly be called digitally-controlled analog). The drawbacks to Compumix were two: 1. obvious requirement for two "spare" tracks, and 2. a short time delay for every bounce of data between tracks. If it took 10 updates to "get it right", there would be small time lag in fader moves. But some other systems under development had serious issues with level stability and required pristine performance for the data channels on the recorder (ours could play error-free from a cassette!). The system sold very well, to clients like Advision London, A&M Records, Jack Clement Nashville, Mowest, Sound Labs (Armin Steiner), Ken Nordine, Neil Young, and others.

- Bill Whitlock, 25-year president & chief engineer for Jensen Transformers & AES Life Fellow

huh....that's interesting

i think david briggs called it the Compufuck.

I've owned Time Fades Away for a while but last week I saw a vinyl copy in almost perfect shape for $15 and I had to buy it. Very rare for me to do that, but i thought, if nothing else I want to give this record to somebody. And I'm listening now and it's in INCREDIBLE condition, I'm happy when new vinyl records out of the shrink wrap sounds this good. And though it'll always make sense why it's 3rd here, this is a brilliant record. Top, say, 7 Neil for me.

Has its very own Facebook group, just like Danny Whitten would've wanted:

https://www.facebook.com/groups/124529420890827/

ha! (I still joined)

I may too. I've joined Ball Four and general baseball-discussion groups, and also the Christgau-acolyte Expert Witness group (all-Wussy, all-the-time). The problem is I get bombarded via e-mail with notices. I've clicked "notices off" on the drop-down menus, and still I get them.

Where does the version of "Journey Through the Past" in Inherent Vice come from? I'm so used to the original, I thought at first it was a cover, then soon realized it was Neil.

Don't know but there's a previously unreleased version on The Archives Vol 1, maybe it's that one?

Yeah, it's the Archives version.

Then I have it...I should investigate my own records.

how does it differ from the Time Fades Away version? (ps I am not buying the Archives just to find out)

it's a full band version -- an outtake from the harvest sessions. it's great! i actually think that "journey" and the Harvest version of "bad fog of loneliness" in place of man needs a maid and there's a world would make for a stronger album overall. i like the orchestral numbers but they always seem out of place there.

word

Quite a bit different in execution--closer to country?

yeah, kinda breezy

have we done a big NY albums/songs poll, and if not why not, and when?

A World of Constant Strangers: The Neil Young Results Thread