Search and destroy: 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.

I know age 50 something Neil Young fans today who don't listen to Sonic Youth and never did. They looked confused watching Patti Smith open for Neil on this recent tour. Yes people, there are rock fans who never embraced indie/alternative/whatever.

tbf, it's taken my dad literally 30 years to come around to the idea of the Smiths. then again, he apparently dug the VU back when they first came out, so I don't know how that works out...

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

FWIW, SY got a worse response (but not booed off the stage or anything) when they opened for Public Enemy the month before.

and curmudgeon, are they fans of the more laid-back country rock style or do they embrace the hard/distortion albums too?

I would assume the vast majority of people at NY shows were older fans, in spite of the "godfather of grunge" rebranding that was going on at the time.

at 90s NY shows

That "godfather of grunge" thing hadn't happened yet; this tour was pre-Nevermind.

FWIW, SY got a worse response (but not booed off the stage or anything) when they opened for Public Enemy the month before.

Don't know why it was a surprise to me that SY and PE toured together when Chuck D guested on "Kool Thing."

the first time i saw neil the openers were stone temple pilots and blind melon. boooooooooo!

Los Lobos are opening at the show we're going to see. can't express an opinion one way or the other.

xp they didn't tour together, just did the one show (and Chuck D didn't join them on "Kool Thing," weirdly). It was immediately pre-Gulf War, and there was a demonstration on the street right after the show that the cops tried to shut down. John Cusack wrote about it in the Sun-Times the next day.

Ah, that explains why I haven't heard of this (non-existent) tour.

Reading about Sleeps with Angels and it talks about how Neil tried to contact Kurt Cobain before he died.

I wonder what would have come of a possible Young-Cobain collaboration?

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.

^^^^^ this. the camera captures many cosby sweater-wearing yuppies in the crowd.

I see much more of a connection between NY and Nirvanna than I do btw NY and SY.

I wonder what would have come of a possible Young-Cobain collaboration?
it would've been called On The Bleach that is for sure

hahaha

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 this tour in Mpls and I don't recall the crowd being disrespectful (in fact I seem recall a handful of SY fans up front), mostly just ignoring them. I mean the place probably wasn't even half-full when they started. Of course, we had just sat through Social Distortion who were really awful, so SY by comparison might have seemed like aural balm to even the most hardened classic rocker.

But, Gordon was having issues with her gear & I vividly recall her walking offstage several times and it seemed like she was having words with who ever was running stage sound. I had only been to a handful of concerts at that point and never seen anything like it, it all seemed very tense onstage. Eventually she stormed off & the set was cut short. They were pretty great when they were playing.

hahaha @ on the bleach
i can hear neil chiming in to sing polly and then segueing into a 30 min down by the river mega jam

with bonus murder ~subtext~

then there would be a _____blues medley and kurt would sing the part about going to the interview
not sure how i feel about this tbh

The Capital Centre was huge -- where I sat at the Weld show, I saw old druggie hippies into SY and non-ironic trucker cao wearing folks screaming at them to get off. Everybody (but me) loved Social Distortion, though.

Ugh, fucking Social Distortion were interminable.

I saw the tour in Philly and no one was booing Sonic Youth. There were hippies twirling, sure, but I don't recall any booing. Really broad crowd: yuppies, bikers, hippies, scuzzy punk kids ...

I really fucking hate Social Distortion, like I don't get what their appeal is to anyone