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

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.

saying that, his recent few jazzy things with his son in the band are not terrible listens. not strong songs but he still sounds nice.

Crosby gave a free show at Lincoln Center two summers ago. The first and only time I've gone to any of his solo shows - I mean, it was FREE, and by the end, I was standing more or less right in front of the stage. Anyway, it was surprisingly good - not only was the band good, but his voice held up really well and the setlist hit all of the high points from the Byrds and CSN&Y ("Long Time Gone" and especially a pissed off "Ohio" that closed the show). The one disappointment was "Eight Miles High," which had a poor arrangement. Coincidentally, Roger McGuinn played a show a few months earlier - his first solo show in NYC in quite a while (his only other recent show was the Sweetheart of the Rodeo 50th anniversary tour stop), and it was at a venue that was within walking distance of Lincoln Center. The highlight of that show was "Eight Miles High," and even with just McGuinn on acoustic with no backing, it was amazing to hear as he turned it into an extended improvisation. No surprise, his guitar playing always made that record.

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

Their main competition for that honor would have been Grand Funk Railroad, who amazingly scored five platinum and two gold albums during that time frame plus broke all kinds of live attendance records, though seemingly without accumulating any gravitas along the way. It's kind of a mystery where all the Grand Funk fans went, and why they're a non-entity to younger generations. Contrastingly, it appears that the CSN(Y) catalog has had a long commercial afterlife.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YXKmsvRXE4A

I'm not a fan, but Dez Dickerson was, so they did influence some of my absolute favorite music. Maybe not the primary influence, but Dez had some great guitar solos ("Little Red Corvette" in particular).

https://resources.mynewsdesk.com/image/upload/t_open_graph_image/xzzq35exgfiudfsrt90o.jpg

"LET'S FOLK ROCK!"

OMG

'No Nukes: Muse Concert For a Non-Nuclear Future' publicity shot, NYC, 1979 (with David Crosby, Stephen Stills, Jackson Browne, Graham Nash, Jesse Colin Young, John Hall, Phoebe Snow, Carly Simon, Michael McDonald, James Taylor and Bonnie Raitt) pic.twitter.com/WpqJ7l7VXJ

— Barney Hurley (@barneyhurley1) April 18, 2021

Nuclear weapons: bad!
Now let’s party

JT not sure which one is his wife.

Carly's plaid jumpsuit is quite something.

Seeing Crosby, Stills and Nash & Cypress Hill in the same event sounds like a dream tbh.

— VIKKA/LILSATAN 👁👅 (@lil_satan_) April 21, 2021

(The event in question being Woodstock '94)

ALSO: Just noticing in that No Nukes pic that Crosby appears to be wondering why he's both at the side w/Stills, but also on the other end standing next to Nash.

"Marrakesh Express" is f-ing awful, so much that when I tried the first CS&N album without playing that track, the whole thing actually improved immensely - a more cohesive and unified album that managed to stay afloat and keep me engaged the whole time. I guess having it in the #2 slot always derailed the whole thing for me.

The LP still doesn't feel like a *great* album, but when I think of it as a one-off lark rather than the core music of any of those three (similar to the Traveling Wilburys later on), it at least feels like a commendable side project, as long as I ditch that awful track.

Agree
Wasn’t that the “single” to boot?

Not sure why I put that in quotes

Yup, the first single and peaked at #28. In retrospect, "Suite: Judy Blue Eyes" should've been the first (it was the second and peaked at #21), and they could've tossed "Marrakesh Express" on to the B-side as a non-LP release.

I like it, although I will concede it's easily the cheesiest hippie-dippy thing on the debut. IIRC, it--along with all the other Nash tracks on that album--was rejected by the Hollies in favor of their Dylan album. It probably was the first single because at that point Nash had the most hits to his name than the other guys.

what do y'all have against piffle?

it--along with all the other Nash tracks on that album--was rejected by the Hollies in favor of their Dylan album

You had taste, Hollies. You had taste.

I always disliked this song til I heard the latter-day Hollies records with Nash, and then I was at least able to see what he was going for. I find this similar, a lot better, quite charming:

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

Hollies >>>>>>>>> Crosby, Stills & Nash

Nash is easily my least favorite member of CSN and sometimes Y. “Just a song before I go” from CSN is lovely, though.

That “black keys” song of his seems …lazy

Like yeah, anyone who’s ever played piano knows the sharps and flats have a nice harmonic resonance with other

I think he made it up on the spot, in his defence.

ok, recast csn - who would you replace graham nash with? for americans i'd probably go with someone like tandyn almer or curt boettcher. can't think of a britisher who would fit in the role tho!

John Sebastian?

how about a female singer? Oh, right -- these guys were pigs.

Mama Cass? She didn't write songs though. But how about Dave Mason?

how about a female singer? Oh, right -- these guys were pigs.

― Malevolent Arugula (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn)

right, i mean, we're assuming that they're basically pigs, also, we start getting women involved and crosby/stills are pretty quickly outclassed

mike patto might be interesting. dave mason! yeah, that's definitely gotta be it, it'd have to be dave mason in that role.

Duh, Mike Love.

Although in reality it would have been Stills' buddy Peter Tork.

Richie Furay would have fitted in pretty well but then it would just have been Buffalo Springfield.

Rick James

the thing is that Nash’s voice is a really vital component of their gorgeous awesome vocal harmonies… Dave mason sounds too much like stills, imo

Art Garfunkel actually substituted for Crosby on CSN albums for awhile.

Crosby, Stills, Parsons, and Garfunkel