neil young

offtopic, but

i've been listening to on the beach a ton lately. i always heard ambulance blues as the standout track in a near-perfect album of standouts, but now i think the title track beats them all. this is probably a stupid question, but what do you all think "i hope it don't turn away" means, in the first part of the song? along with the "now i'm living out here on the beach/but those seagulls are still out of reach", it makes me think of destitution, real loss of family and friends and security. but in the context of the rest of the song, and the album itself, maybe those lines are more like daydreams about escapism?

Roger Mexico ‏@roger_mexico 21m21 minutes ago

In my head Neil Young and Bob Dylan are having some kind of a contest to release the weirdest albums before they both die.
5:56 PM - 20 Apr 2015 · Details

Don Allred ‏@0wlred 2m2 minutes ago

@roger_mexico Yay!

xp

I always interpreted it as more like

please don't let me lose touch with the things I love and am familiar with, please don't let me die alone and unloved

hope it don't turn away

so good

if yr in NYC
https://scontent-lga.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-xap1/v/t1.0-9/11174781_10152701145856441_644484205627854608_n.jpg?oh=461ffffc01fa99701b387bd71f2632dc&oe=559F35DC
of course, there's an accompanying Monsanto Years movie...

They need a Neil Young Archives DVD/Blu Ray set

Never really get the love for Rust Never Sleeps. Great individual songs but I find the arrangements sluggish, and I kind of hate the tinny, busker-y acoustic guitar tone on the first side. There's a lighter, groovier tone on Tonight's The Night/On the Beach/Goldrush, and I miss it when it's not around.

Admittedly I have a horrible 99p vinyl copy which probably didn't help. But I prefer the Live Rust versions of everything here.

early reports are ... not good.
The film Neil premiered was basically a 60-minute music video for the new album. I'll just say the lyrics make "hip-hop haircut" seem deep. Musically it was by-the-numbers electric Neil and the lyrics were probably the worst I've ever heard.

I dunno, I'd be genuinely surprised if Neil's filmmaking skills suddenly blossomed at this stage of his, er, "development" as a "filmmaker."

(But I liked Greendale.)

is warner bros actually going to put out an album named THE MONSANTO YEARS?

apparently Warner Music isn't owned by Time Warner anymore but by Access Industries

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Access_Industries

curious just how far up the chain an artist's decision to make an album calling out another corporation goes

xp maybe Neil told them that Darren Monsanto was this killer guitarist he used to play with at his zuma beach house or something

xpost
and Access Industries owns 14% of LyondellBasell, another enormous chemical company.

Shakey's still "got it," cuz the first hour of Human Highway is quite a pain.

I'm not hearing the awesomeness in the Nelson's boys back-up band artistry based on the clips I have heard, frankly. Maybe if they played harder and bopped less, they'd sound better.

hey nice, godspeed:
http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/music/posts/la-et-ms-neil-young-stephen-stills-autism-benefit-april-25-20150423-story.html

You can download the secret gig here: http://bigozine2.com/roio/?p=2297

Thanks! BigO still has the Neil x Willie x Lukas & POTR set from Harvest of Hope, the anti-Keystone XXL show excerpted upthread, in that 10-minute jam (those Neil & Lukas YouTube posts aren't showing up in my Firefox this morning, but they are in Chrome)
Here;s the HoH set:
http://bigozine2.com/roio/?p=1989 Looks like they've also still got a bunch of other Neil and Neil-related sets.

new song - "Big Box" on spotify

lyrics are clunky to say the VERY least
um i dunno sometimes it kind of works despite itself, as do many of neil's songs

production is sort of grey and odd in places

overall reminds me of, natch, something off Mirror Ball

We are as far now from Mirror Ball as it was from Zuma

Let that sink in.

da croupier rates every Neil album:

http://anthonyisright.tumblr.com/

sad to see him rate Dead Man so low - just dug that CD out the other day and love it

yeah wish there were at least three more zoned out instrumental neil records like that...

I SAID it'd make a great podcast!

love Dead Man as well. this could be a terrible idea, but has anyone ever tried playing a few copies of it at once, in different spots of the same song, at a low volume? a lot of the songs have a meandering quality to them and stick with the same key, so it might actually sound kinda cool.

tylerw otm!

from da croupier's tumblr:

Neil’s topical commentary now swung more clearly left, and his guitar solos (as foreshadowed by an import EP of feedback freakouts) were returning to showoff form.

What is this? Is this "Arc"?

We are as far now from Mirror Ball as it was from Zuma

I do this sort of thing all the time and it's always depressing. For example, we are as far away now from Smells Like Teen Spirit as it was from Sgt. Pepper.

given all the turmoil in his personal life lately - divorce/aneurysm/quitting weed etc. - and given the often nakedly emotional/confessional mode of a lot of his material, it's really weird how his last few projects really don't reflect or address any of that. folk song covers, songs about starbucks, saving the environment etc. it's like his work is now a process of denial or escape

guess it could be a similar thing to those early 80s genre experiments, where he was burying a lot of his inner turmoil.
that said, Storytone has some very personal songs alongside the save the world stuff.

maybe he found writing about this painful stuff didn't ultimately help alleviate the pain he suffered. but yeah, i reckon it's more a case of escapism. maybe the confessionals are still to come - perhaps he has another ditch triolgy recorded but not ready to release.

Never really saw Neil as confessional diary-based artist, he has his moments of that but even the albums that are supposedly statements about his life or whatever have plenty of symbolism escapism and abstraction.

What is this? Is this "Arc"?

if you mean the EP, it's this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eldorado_%28EP%29

I don't consider him diaristic either, he's too canny and slippery for that. His recent material just seems largely divorced from - I don't know how to put it - personal feelings, maybe? Like I don't need to know who specifically "I Believe in You" or "Such a Woman" is about but it's clear they are heavy songs about personal emotions etc. and for a guy who is capable of that kind of material, and to the extent that it's a vein he's mined deeply over the course of his career, to go through a bunch of shit but then not have it come out in his work seems noteworthy, it's unusual.

otoh maybe there's some hidden emotional history buried in his anti-Starbucks screeds idk

neil kind of addresses these concerns in one of the new monsanto tunes -- live version here: http://www.bigozine2.com/TRKSA/NYsanluis/NYsanluis102.mp3

haha ok ya got me Neil lol

neil young, ilm lurker

recording is pretty murky but i think he's singing
"aint got time to deal with Οὖτις / Can't even pronounce his name / Gotta save the planet / da croupier is lame"

i can't hear that because i only listen to pono now

The thing is, his '80s genre experiments have songs as good as any of the earlier putatively autobiographical material.

Just keeping you on your toes.

The thing is, his '80s genre experiments have songs as good as any of the earlier putatively autobiographical material.
i'm as much of an 80s neil apologist as anyone, but ... which songs are you thinking of here?

Psychedelic Pill has songs about relationships, though not up-close confessional; Storytone uses layers of imagery too, but the sound of regret, belated insights, etc. comes through. Also, his Storytone Chicago blues song talks about early shows in Chicago, and is otherwise personalized, like other tracks---he's not gonna spill his guts all over the place, but I don't find his recent approaches to be too distanced. Seems like he really does care about the environment, for instance.

I'll assume "the '80s Young" stops with Eldorado.

Shots
Like an Inca
This Old Homestead
Southern Pacific
Grey Riders
Transformer Man
Sample n Hold
Prisoners of Rock 'n' Roll
Hippie Dream
Pressure
Mideast Vacation

that's a helluva playlist and I'll put them against any '70s classic.

yeah those are all good (though technically shots and old homestead are 70s songs), but wouldn't trade any of them for his earlier stuff. but opinions vary!

was listening to the Unplugged version of Transformer Man earlier, that really is up there w his best imo

Forgot "T-Bone."

Ain't got no t-bone