Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young: C/D, S/D

I always thought _county gjrl_ was a scrap that fell off neils table that he picked up and gave to csn.

You think?

sorry, that was my way of saying "otm"

CSN > CSNY

fite me

Obv

Even the guitar playing is atrocious in that clip - they thought of everything

I just finished watching some 2:45 documentary on CSNY on Prime that took me three nights to get through. Here’s what I don’t get:

What made Neil Young want to be part of this band? Notwithstanding his century long dick measuring competition with Stills, the guy was clearly never really central to the CSN drama. He didn’t really fit their vocal thing. He pretty much wiped them off his songs on Deja Vu. And most important of all, he didn’t need them artistically or commercially a fraction as much as they needed him.

And yet ... he comes back to them over and over and over. In 1974 for that gross stadium tour. In 1976 for that Stills Young Band album where he literally left a note for Stills in the middle of the night that he was quitting the tour. In 1988 for that dogshit American Dream album once Crosby cleaned up. In 1999 when CSN were perfectly happy recording another dire trio album. And then in 2006 he even hires them to be his backing band on the Living With War tour. To my knowledge virtually every one of these experiences ended badly in some way or another.

What gives? It’s like some bad relationship with an ex- you can’t shake that gets progressively worse every time you go back to them. But in this case, I’m not sure I’ve ever understood the attraction.

I honestly don’t get it.

Agreed. It is odd.

Have always just considered it a loyalty thing on Neil's end. He had his first real success with Stills, so maybe he feels some sort of obligation to keep working with him.

Then again, he never showed up on any Poco albums, so who knows.

I like Deja Vu, btw. If I'm going to listen to the group, it's probably going to be that album.

Neil kind of answered this when he was interviewed during their last tour. He actually has a lot more fun on the CSN&Y tours than his own (at least later on, after they dealt with their personal issues I'm guessing) for one simple reason - he can relax. If it's just him or with Crazy Horse or any other backing band, he's more or less the show. It's a huge responsibility that's completely on his shoulders. But when he's with CSN&Y, it's four guys sharing that responsibility.

thank goodness for that gross stadium tour in 1974 -- i saw them twice as a teen, both times they hit long island. one was a mini-festival at roosevelt raceway that also included the beach boys and joni mitchell. neil's duet with joni on "sugar mountain" is stamped in my mind. those guys could sing, the guitar duals were fierce, neil got a nice long solo spot for his weirdo new songs, and he sure looked to be enjoying himself.

Also, I never like CSN(&Y) either, a massive disappointment considering how much I love the Byrds and Buffalo Springfield, and I've even grown to like the Hollies too. CS&N and Deja Vu are their best albums, and even then there's a lot I don't like about them. But "Helpless," "Long Time Gone" and especially the single "Ohio" are flat-out great, and on stage there were real glimpses of their full potential. Maybe not for a whole show, but more than a few times, they've lifted Neil's songs to greater heights:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lq2YSfkcURM

*liked

Holy shit, I've never seen that. Where's the rest of the song?

It's not just dutiful loyalty to Stills, I think he genuinely feels a flash of that 1966 feeling when they play together, even if no-one else can feel it anymore.

And most important of all, he didn’t need them artistically or commercially a fraction as much as they needed him.

Is this true, commercially speaking? I would have thought the CS&N sold more records and was a bigger concert draw than Neil.

I think you can make the case that in 1988 Neil’s commercial fortunes were not what they were or would be. And I believe that documentary said, though I may have been nodding off, that while the 1974 tour sold a boatload of tickets it wasn’t nearly as profitable as it should’ve been. So while not the slam dunk it was artistically after 1970, I think the commercial case for playing with them was mixed at best.

The simple answer to the OP: Young likes working with them in drib and drab.

Also, CSNY at least early in their tenure looked like the rare group whose members genuinely liked playing on each other's songs.

Holy shit, I've never seen that. Where's the rest of the song?

It's from a short-lived TV show called Music Scene, which had a unique 45-minute runtime (w/commercials!) that CSNY had to share with like six or seven acts, so they couldn't jam out completely.

one thing Neil claims at the beginning of waging heavy peace is that whenever he gets “a lot of money” he throws it into investments/projects with varying levels of success. Biodiesel, model trains, the bridge school probably... can’t remember specifics

Doghouses, iirc.

all the real heads know that the real shit is Crosby Still Nash Young & Jones.

(crosby's face in this, and his eyes....)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dIDzA0YDso8

Damn Stephen with some high notes on that

I think you can make the case that in 1988 Neil’s commercial fortunes were not what they were or would be.

Part of the real tension in "Muddy Track" of the fractious 87 Euro tour is shows are getting cancelled and it is pretty clear Neil was a pretty low-ebb and to be fair to that stone cold piece of garbage American Dream (the cassette of which my dad had in his car and played when he would drive me to school, it is amazing I ever gave Neil a chance after that) is he did promise to make it if CROZ got his shit together, though of all the promises Neil has made over the yrs it does seem strange that is the ONE he decided to keep

Just listen to Crosby's "Cowboy Movie" and you'll see why these four are bonded for life.

Didn't realize that Music Scene clip upthread is edited. Here's the whole thing:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5icrWZnl_1w

is Coz playing that electric rhythm guitar or is it the coke

rereading shakey right now and just read about how embarrassed neil was at doing the tom jones show, ha

The thing that always kind of surprises me about all their fractious bullshit is that these guys were never building the Sistine Chapel. From the jump, their best stuff was mostly comprised of simple pleasures. Yes, Neil added some grit and substance but it was largely catchy acoustic ditties, slightly dippy lyrics, a little bit of light jamming, and those sumptuous harmonies.

I get that they all came from big time bands and the expectations that they maybe should’ve been more than that. But no one who goes to a CSN or CSNY concert or listens to one their albums is totally bummed if they don’t blow our minds with next level political statements or mindbending song structures. I mean, all they had to do was remake the first two records a few times over with the help of some outside writers and no one would’ve really complained.

And yet, there is a portentousness to almost everything they did after those records—the fights, tours, celebrated reunions, and blowouts—that suggests they were always on the cusp of ... something. All of which contrasts rather strikingly to the reality of their actual output, which ranges from intermittently satisfactory at best to uniformly pitiful post-1982.

I mean, drugs + money + ego. I get it. But still.

Dear Stephen, etc.

Pristine upload of Webley show during said gross 1974 tour:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3To8bmGLA-0

(Wembley)

As gross as that tour was, it was still a high-water mark of Rock'n'Roll Mutton Chops.

Been watching this in piecemeal form the past few days. Just got into the acoustic portion and on one of Croz's numbers (whatever the one is after "The Lee Shore") Still is singing WHILE HOLDING A BABY.

It's not a baby, fool: it's a doll stuffed with coke.

STILLS: We were the first band to do coke babies on-stage. I got the idea during some downtime in a little bar in Da Nang back in my special ops days. It took a little while to realize it though; Neil kept saying they didn't look and sound real enough. Crosby tried to eat one.

Well, yeah.

Surprisingly, they manage a convincing version of "Johnny's Garden", which is pretty delicate.

I want to know a tally and ranking of how much blow was done when the members were off stage. Somehow I think Nash comes in last

Back At It: Holy Shit, the second song in the second electric set IS A STILLS BONGO JAM.

IIRC,Santana was one of openers on the tour, more or less the same lineup that's on Lotus (ie, a bunch of pedigreed Jazz dudes). Having visions of Stills walking up to one of those guys and saying, "Outta the way! This is how we play drums...".

Back At It: Holy Shit, the second song in the second electric set IS A STILLS BONGO JAM.

Possibly!

Finished it up today, and mainly right now want to point out that "Pushed It Over The End" was completely cut out of the version linked here. There's another, longer upload of the same show that was added a week later, but for some reason there's less than a minute of the track before an awkward cut to the next song.

it seems a fairly obscure point to make now, but CSN/CSNY would have been considered the dominant American rock group in the early 70s up to 74. Pre Eagles, pre Mac, pre the rise of Aerosmith/Kiss/Nugent and the american hesher/butt rock/hard rock cohort; they had a certain gravitas, in that they emblemized the post hippie tropes and behavior that everyone understood was the way rock stars were supposed to comport themselves, against the war, shit tons of drugs, Cros getting a blow jobs from two women before a show while he was screaming orders at someone (per this Barney Hoskyns book from 2012); malcontents like the Stooges and the Dolls hated them, as did those bands acolytes who would soon emerge out of the CBs scene and then onwards…the mainstream rock band ideal was to be huge, and despite not making recordings past Deja Vu that many people were crazy about (although I suppose '77s CSN was pretty popular, generating radio fare that stood head to toe with the Eagles and Mac), they were the hugest american rock band. Before the developments I mentioned prior, who else was bigger than they? Dylan & the Band? The Dead? the Allmans? Doobies? James Taylor or any other singer-songwriters (which they more or less were part of)?…

Stills and Cros in particular appear to be utterly loathsome to me; Cros is fond of blaming Napster through streaming for his present financial woes, whereas anyone who was as successful as he was for as long as he was has not one single solitary person or activity to blame other than himself and the deeply stupid, selfish, heedless and blinkered behavior —not just drugs— that he has perpetrated for 55 fucking years.

yeah croz rebranding as a stoner gramps not one of the sleaziest l.a. predators is really grating

McDonough's Young bio alerted to me to just how huge CSN and CSNY were, and, yeah, they were, no question, the biggest rock band in the world after Zep but with the generational gravitas.

I think my introduction to Crosby was through the merciless shellacking he got as a '60s burnout who barely made it to rehab. When I finally looked into the Byrds, I was surprised that he not only was a member but that he did indeed have a substantial musical legacy. (I thought CSN was the only band he was associated with, and I don't remember anyone in school listening, much less liking, their music.) I can't emphasize enough how much of a surprise that was. The first time I saw his cameo on The Simpsons, the joke with Barney had NO set-up to me - like why on earth would he be a hero to anyone for his music? I never heard anyone talk about anything he's made, just his drug intake. Well, I did know "Turn! Turn! Turn!" (which was featured in an earlier episode), but it was made by a faceless band for all I knew.

he was way third banana to mcguinn and clark songwriting wise tho

TRUE. Docked another notch for fucking "Mind Gardens."

definite case of lost potential. the solo debut and the box set covering all the rest are really all you could need:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voyage_(David_Crosby_album)

i like the debut far far more than any solo stills (inc manassas) or nash and probably better than the majority of Neil solo lps. a shame it's so solitary.