Search and destroy: Neil Young

Shakey

sufjan didn't you say you live in santa barbara? why would you go to jamba juice

Shakey!

shakey

neil does get in a dig against mcdonough in waging heavy peace -- something like "never hire some sweaty hack to write a book about you, he'll ask you questions for years and years."

Shakey is the perfect bathroom book.

neil does get in a dig against mcdonough in waging heavy peace -- something like "never hire some sweaty hack to write a book about you, he'll ask you questions for years and years."

― tylerw, Wednesday, October 24, 2012 4:39 PM (19 seconds ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

lol

tbh though even though mcdonough wrote the book, towards the mid-90s you get the vibe that he'd sort of become obsessed w/neil and was probably a borderline stalker

I hate the nineties too but McDo's conservativeness makes him surly.

the recent paul nelson bio/anthology talks about how he was hired to do a neil bio in the early 80s, but he couldn't deliver for various reasons. neil may have dodged a bullet -- if anything, Nelson was even more obsessive than mcdonough.

I guess Neil has his reasons, but tbh Shakey probably did more to keep his legend alive in the 2000s than any of his new albums could achieve.

it certainly works as an extended advertisement for the archives series.

Thanks, will go with Shakey first. iatee, I've never had a jamba juice. I just said jamba juice b/c we have one by the bookstore on campus. If I wanted a smoothie, I would go to Blenders In the Grass. My money is more likely to go to the Warbler, Salzer's, or Amoeba though honestly.

you should never have a jamba juice ftr but yeah blenders rules is all I was trying to say

i think shakey is pretty fantastic up through the early 80s

i kind of hope that someday there'll be a complete transcript of all those mcdonough/neil interviews that are interspersed throughout the book. pretty hilarious stuff.

There's link on one of the other Neil threads to an interview w/McDonough wherein he mentions a scrapped plan to put out a different edit of the book every couple years--a Springfield version, CSNY, Crazy Horse, TransBand etc.

Shakey is the perfect bathroom book.

Shakey is the perfect rock biog.

https://sphotos-b.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-prn1/923245_10151409797990878_1615056798_n.jpg

Neil made a record @ Jack White's...will be released on Archives V, due in 3045.

So you put $0.35 in and animatronic Neil Young comes out of the booth and hands you a fortune from inside his guitar?

lmao, that was my precise thought LL

imagine a neil young instrumental record - just a single pair of bongos

My mate called me up and offered me his spare ticket to go see Young in two weeks' time. I jumped at the chance and decided to revisit his work.

Neil's early run is pretty much unimpeachable; Everybody Knows This is Nowhere is, on most days, my favourite album by him, but everything up to Rust Never Sleeps is at best classic, at worst still worth investing your time and money.

I first listened to Harvest when I picked it up from the local HMV in the last week of my first year of uni. The album's mood reflected how I was feeling, not having had the greatest of times so far. It still surprises me that Harvest was the best selling album of 1972 in America; it's a pretty down set of songs, even if the music masks it somewhat.

I think his early 90s albums aren't really given the consideration they deserve; Ragged Glory and Harvest Moon are v. good at least (not listened to many of the others, but recommendations are always appreciated).

really loved Sleeps With Angels and think his Pearl Jam collabs have a lot of charm too

just ordered shakey based on the posts above. i only really dabble with rock i suppose, but in recent years i've got hugely into neil young.

you'll love it, ronan. it's just... wonderful. endlessly readable, and you feel it's getting you closer to neil, even as shakey himself seems to be eluding donagh himself. probably my favourite music biog of all.

Weirdly it was the combination of "best bathroom book" and the more serious praise that convinced me.

I might actually go to the O2 gig in a few weeks too. I had a bit of a rough time around the start of 2012 and I developed a big bond with On The Beach in particular, but I have delved into 5 or 6 other albums over the (thankfully better) time since.

Only saw him once, at Hop On The Farm 5 years back, but he was sublime. Cover of A Day In The Life was proper breath-taking.

Read a chunk of Waging Heavy Peace a few days ago. Boy, he's more tolerant of Graham Nash these days – as in, he acknowledges Nash's existence.

Everybody Knows This is Nowhere is, on most days, my favourite album by him
listening to the remaster of this on headphones recently = the best thing.

I love his 90s run. Ragged Glory is aptly titled, Harvest Moon is lovely and Weld is one of the greatest live albums ever recorded and would probably be the NY disc I take to a desert island. He and the Horse take things to another level - super heavy, with some wild solos. Sleeps With Angels is his last 'great' album IMO, with Crazy Horse, with some of his most atmospheric and unusual songs. The title track is amazing - that molten, discordant lead guitar and the eerie harmony vocals. After that you get the thoroughly enjoyable Pearl Jam collab and the underrated Broken Arrow - although the Year Of The Horse live album has better versions of some of the songs on that. Also, the incredible Dead Man soundtrack, one of his masterpieces.
From the most recent album, check Ramada Inn - 15 minutes of achingly gorgeous, cinematic Crazy Horse.

really loved Sleeps With Angels and think his Pearl Jam collabs have a lot of charm too

― media conglomerates are pedaling the same product (stevie), Thursday, May 30, 2013 2:27 AM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I am also a stan of sleeps with angels

love SWA.

too late

too soon

I always thought Gillian Welch kind of ripped off Western Hero/Train of Love for Nowhere Man and the Whiskey Girl. #stufffewerthanthreepeopleonILMwillcareabout

In the Kim Gordon feature in the latest New Yorker (available online only for subscribers right now) she expresses her unhappiness with the tour when Sonic Youth and Social Distortion opened for Neil Young. The author Alex Halberstadt, says he recalls watching Neil Yong fans boo and scream insults at Sonic Youth at the Ohio stop on the tour. Gordon recalls the sound people turning down the volume on Sonic Youth and says Young's crew were disrespectful.

I saw the Washington DC area gig on that tour and most Neil Young fans just went to the concourse to buy stuff during Sonic Youth or sat there confused. I don't recall heckling.

Neil Young fans too

Gordon recalls the sound people turning down the volume on Sonic Youth and says Young's crew were disrespectful.

Yep. That anecdote's recounted in Shakey too.

I told this story on another thread, but when I saw the tour (Rosemont Horizon, outside Chicago), Sonic Youth were greeted with a few scattered boos that vanished by the end of their set. An older guy next to me said, "You like this stuff?!" I said, "Sure, it's just faster Crazy Horse!" He said, "Hmmm...ok, I can see that."

Was there really that much musical difference between NY and Sonic Youth in the 90s though? Why the OTT hate? Were these gigs attended by a bunch of Harvest nostalgics?

I remember the audience ranging from about late 30s to early 50s, and the hall (a 12,000-seat basketball arena) was half-full.

I saw the Washington DC area gig on that tour and most Neil Young fans just went to the concourse to buy stuff during Sonic Youth or sat there confused. I don't recall heckling.

― curmudgeon, Thursday, 30 May 2013 18:55 (19 minutes ago) Permalink

yeah well, washington dc

if the audience shots from the Weld video prove anything, neil young has a very wide audience base -- even dudes who love his loudest stuff might find sonic youth overly abrasive.

I don't really get how people don't see huge differences between crazy horse and sonic youth

As I recall, only college radio geeks and future ilxors were listening to both Neil Young and Sonic Youth at that time.

http://articles.baltimoresun.com/1991-02-22/entertainment/1991053124_1_sonic-youth-neil-young-audience

In 1991 Gordon said for this article:

And then the Young fans get it?

Well, not quite. "I think it's more like the guys with mustaches and beards going, 'Well, it's weird, but I like it,'" says Gordon

Many Neil Young fans probably didn't approve of screwdrivers being used for things other than driving screws.

"I think it's more like the guys with mustaches and beards going, 'Well, it's weird, but I like it'"
kinda sums up 80% of sonic youth's audience also, doesn't it?
i dunno, even if neil had taken dino jr out on the weld tour -- arguably a more classic rock band -- some of his fans would've booed.

Were people really that compartmentalized in terms of what they listened to, even in the 90s?

I think you're missing the obvious generational distinction implied here.

heh, probably.