Sweeney tells me about another Superwolf enthusiast. One day, Rubin texted to say that he'd just played the album for Neil Young and that Young had “freaked out.” Soon after, Young's manager, Elliot Roberts, who had managed Zwan, took Sweeney to lunch in New York, and also gifted him “a joint of extremely powerful brain-busting weed.”Believing himself free for the rest of the day, Sweeney went for a stroll and smoked the joint. That evening Roberts called to say that Sweeney should come right now to join him at an Italian restaurant uptown for dinner with Neil Young. “I was so fucking high,” Sweeney remembers. “I figured, ‘This is a funny situation, and I guess I just gotta go with it.’ Neil Young's been in my head since I heard ‘Cinnamon Girl’ at age five. I can't articulate how much his music means to me.”
So he went. “Got in a cab uptown and walked through the door of the restaurant. High as shit. As soon as I sat down at the table, Neil Young's in my face about the Superwolf album. Turns out Neil Young is a large dude with a booming speaking voice and very passionate opinions. Neil almost angrily blasted me with compliments about the album, with deep observations about how the music worked, and lots of questions.… It felt beyond great to hear my work appreciated by the person whose work taught me how to play and how to listen. Mind was utterly blown. Still is, really.”
Nevertheless, Young was not just full of praise. He was also wound up about why so few people knew about this great Superwolf record. How could it possibly be that he had seen no press about it? What kind of fecklessness was at work here? When Sweeney protested that they had made a video, Young said that he certainly hadn't seen it and that maybe he should make one for them.
Eventually, as this haranguing continued, it struck Sweeney, through his haze, just how absurd it was to be on the receiving end of this particular message from this particular messenger: “He gave me such a hard time about us not promoting the album properly, finally my high ass said, ‘You're telling me we're being difficult and willfully obscure? You should fuckin' talk!’
― just sayin, Tuesday, 23 March 2021 22:46 (three years ago) link