neil young

When I saw the Kinks, a guy behind me kept shouting, "All of the day! All of the day!" They played "All Day And All Of The Night." "All of the day! All of the day!" They played "Till The End Of The Day." "All of the day! All of the day!" They played "Days." "All of the day! All of the day!" I'm pretty sure they played every song with "the" in the title by this point. After the last encore, just before the house lights came up: "All of the day! All of the day!"

i don't think he was a misogynist because he wrote a creepy song.

i don't think he is too, but, like he was making it uncomfortable with the whole misogyny rap on purpose as was his wont. then "diane" as a kinda sorta punchline, i don't know, i saw him so many times and the vibe can be hard to put in words

he really enjoyed making it uncomfortable

but then one time i saw it and me and my friend requested "the main" and he literally moved the mic stand to the corner of the stage by us and sang and amazing version of it, just depending what grant you were gonna get that night

i can appreciate the joy of making people uncomfortable about misogyny at least
i miss him!

I've definitely been to more than one concert where a guy kept requesting a song after it had already been played, and the act got pretty annoyed.

(Full digression: only band I've ever seen actually play "Freebird" was Built to Spill, and it was great. "Freebird" requests seemed to be fading, anyway, but I always thought a great way to kill it would be to play the song literally every time someone requested it, even if it meant multiple times in a row. I did have a friend in school who once played an acoustic set that culminated in a cover of "Freebird." He got to the "oh, Lord, I can't change" part and kept doing it for 20 minutes until everyone and the sound guy realized what he was up to and turned the mic off.)

this happened to me only i was the guy and the song was "all of my senses"

― weird woman in a bar (La Lechera), Tuesday, February 16, 2021 1:58 PM (forty-two minutes ago)

LOL, maybe we were at the same show - Brooklyn Bowl in 2017?

but then one time i saw it and me and my friend requested "the main" and he literally moved the mic stand to the corner of the stage by us and sang and amazing version of it, just depending what grant you were gonna get that night

― Blues Guitar Solo Heatmap (Free Download) (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Tuesday, February 16, 2021 2:19 PM (twenty-two minutes ago)

My biggest regret is missing his 2009 show at Cake Shop. It was supposedly an amazing show, heavy on Hüsker Dü and he was incredibly friendly, taking every request. (YouTube has/had a lot of video with very poor audio from that show.) He did another show at Bell House on the same tour - might've been just as good.

Nope -- not me!

I’ve seen Neil a few times at the Bridge Benefit shows but my favorite time was at Berkeley High around 2000/2001. He alternated between pump organ, guitar, and had various harmonicas submergd in jars. It was great.

Just revisited his Centerstage taping from November 17, 1992. THIS was a fucking show.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ED-VCe2CbMU

BETTER than the Unplugged performance that came later.

He released Dreamin' Man recently, which was basically a live Harvest Moon album. ("Natural Beauty" was even taken from this show.) But the entire 2-hour Centerstage show should be seen and heard, it's beautiful. I've never been a huge fan of Harvest Moon, it had some great stuff but it dragged in places and felt pretty tepid overall. Hearing Neil perform it in this context really does wonders - every song gets across better, and he gives them a context where they really gain a whole lot of resonance (like "One of These Days" which follows a stunning "Tonight's the Night"). I really wish this was on a DVD, the YouTube link looks like shit when you blow it up, but I don't think Neil's ever going to do it, especially now that he's sampled it for Dreamin' Man and moved on.

UGG boot/grunge pioneer in that clip.

is there a less mangled version of the unplugged performance of "sample and hold" that exists? the backing vocals on that rendition are legitimately eerie.

I'll have to watch that later. I have to say Harvest Moon was never one of my go-to Neil albums but i listened to Dreamin' Man a lot last year when my mom passed away. There's something about the vibe of Neil performing them solo that makes those songs much more poignant.

I think that's part of it too - I took a quick listen of Harvest Moon (and Dreamin' Man for that matter), and he really sweetened up the studio recordings. Not egregiously, it's more or less tasteful, but stripping away backing vocals, steel guitars, drums et al does bring out Neil's vocals. It really is more engaging to listen and watch him sing without any additional instrumentation to draw away your focus.

FWIW, Dreamin' Man seems to have more echo mixed in, probably to match all the theater recordings used for the album. I came across Greg Kot's review of the Chicago Theater show on that tour, and he preferred the Soundstage taping (which happened a day before) noting that the TV studio was much more quiet and intimate, so much that Neil dropped a few songs because he didn't think they'd translate well in the bigger venue.

Sorry about your mom, my condolences.

mildly disagree w/ yr take on Harvest Moon, I really like the instrumentation and the pedal steel in particular.

there's something that gets to me with harvest moon, there's almost a creepy quality to it, something hovering just outside the frame. the sterile production adds to it, in the same way it does for late period steely dan.

i can't really articulate it very well

ugh that show is hitting me hard after taking a break from ny for a few years.

i'm sure i've heard the organ like a hurricane before but whew

he did a version on mtv unplugged like that

yeah it's so good

he did it at the 2019 show i saw, so hopefully will be on timeless orpheum

i watched that show over the last two days wfh and haven't cried like that in months. 'powderfinger' trips me tf up every time. it's so good, he was so good (is he still good? honestly not sure). i identify with the crazed dudes at the end shouting out "happy birthday neil!"

wow, glad you liked it man - that type of catharsis can be really welcome

He's still good depending on what you mean. I think his virtual pandemic shows were good, and he's still really good performing solo, but his records have gotten so spotty. "Peace Trail," "Forever" and "I Do" were the only memorable tracks from his last three albums (one apiece) - those albums may be forgettable, but I really like those three cuts.

lyrically he's(for the most part) really lost it

lyrically he's(for the most part) really lost it

You can make a solid compilation where it seems like he hasn't, but it really feels that way if you listen to his albums from start-to-finish, where he's more about protesting in the most didactic and unambiguous way. I'm with him on a lot of his stances, some of the protest songs are pretty good, but most of them really need better lyrics.

there's a few here and there, peace trail is probably the best overall lyrically, it's got some genuine odd moments

psychedelic pill as well

milky way off colorado but yeah he's not exactly writing "ohio" anymore protest song-wise

Lyrically he's been hit or miss for decades, it's just that the proportion of misses gets higher and higher as the years go by. Especially when he gets topical or goes on about a car.

thanks for the feedback all.

my Way Down In The Rust Bucket package is on its way - the mail contains:

"Don’t Cry No Years - Digital Download"

Didn't even know about Way Down...listening to the 3 tracks that have been released now, on Spotify. Sounds good.

it really is one of the best Neil Young + Crazy Horse shows ... aside from maybe a missing "Down By The River" it's got everything you want.

haha oh man i just notice it's got a 6:45 T-BONE

gotta bring a t-bone to the doghouse for a little treat

lot of 10 minute+ songs too, always a good sign

oh yeah, Cowgirl In The Sand is on the DVD only, for some reason

oh yeah, Cowgirl In The Sand is on the DVD only, for some reason

Apparently the mobile truck had power issues during that song, and that caused some large dropouts in the multi-track whenever the power cut out. So Neil decided he didn't want it on the CD and vinyl releases for that reason alone, and economically it helped because it kept the whole package to two CD's and 4 LP's rather than 3 CD's and 5 LP's.

For the DVD, they reportedly filled the dropouts with a copy of the house feed, and even though it is a substantial drop in fidelity, I guess Neil thought having video over it was enough to smooth out the jarring degradation in sound quality.

Here's a trailer for the DVD:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eVE7MYBrroQ

People did ask him about a Blu-ray and he said he didn't believe the picture quality warranted a Blu-ray. That's not entirely true - at least with a Blu-ray, it wouldn't be subject to further degradation from the data compression inherent in DVD encoding. But he's not entirely wrong either - as you can see from the trailer, it's old SD video, so it's not going to look good resolution-wise, especially on a 4K TV screen.

FWIW, if you don't want to spring for the super deluxe sets in order to get the DVD, you can buy it as a standalone from the Greedy Hand Store (i.e. Neil's official online store through WB). https://neilyoung.warnerrecords.com/ It's supposed to be exclusive to the store, and it'll cost $20 before shipping and taxes. It's the same deal with the Shakespeare DVD - the standalone is exclusive to the store and priced the same. If you get those two plus spend another $10 on something else, shipping's free.

I guess I should say "mobile recording truck." It's not like the truck was moving.

hadn't read that Cowgirl explanation yet, thx

it's out in the wild! just started...Neil's going off on the end of Country Home

Smell The Horse! Expanded version of Ragged Glory! second paragraph:

https://neilyoungarchives.com/news/1/article?id=WDITRB-Now-Available-Everywhere

https://neilyoungarchives.com/news/1/article?id=ORS-5-ragged-glory-smell-the-horse also (but the Rust Bucket article contains the info on the extra tracks)

smell the horse: none more horser

you all loved Doghouse: here's Horsehouse!

Is Rust Bucket streaming on NYA? It is not showing up for me.

I fucking hate Neil? Why am I paying for this fucking bullshit.

haha

new tracks:
Born to Run
Interstate
Boxcar
Don't Spook the Horse

this is apparently born to run, good stuff

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jhx87Xfvs_k

Boxcar is on Chrome Dreams II in a folkier, stray gators style version

xpost - it is - on the home screen there's a little new live album thing click on that

Jesus Fucking Christ!!!!

Why would the new big release only be available via a small link in the upper corner of the front cabinet on the homepage but not through the Rust Bucket link in the cabinet or on the timeline? This guy is a fucking asshole. Having to pay $ to navigate his stupid website is infuriating. This is literally ruining my enjoyment of the album.

I'm pretty savvy about websites generally, but this makes me feel like I'm fucking 90 and wondering how the kids' tiktoks work.

you gotta give into that part of the process

Ok, now I see that by Neil Fucking Young Logic, we need to split the Rust Bucket release into separate releases for the *album* and the *DVD* and place one of them (DVD) on the timeline based on release date (today) and the other (album) on the timeline based on recording date 1990 with no reference or link between them. This shit is fucking sadistic.

This album would have to be better than 1000 blowjobs to make up for how annoyed I am right now.

haha

honestly, I ended up pre-ordering the CD box set of Archives II because, after the first few days, I have barely listened to a release that I have been waiting years for, it's just so wonky, really looking forward to getting the CDs so I can just get into it like normal music