Neil Young - On The Beach

I feel like if you love On the Beach (as I do), Tonight's the Night makes a nice companion piece.

Yeah, The 'Ditch Trilogy' (Time Fades Away, Tonight's The Night, and On The Beach) is a must. Also make sure to check out Zuma and Homegrown!

If Revolution Blues is my north star, where do I go next?

As the others say, Murky Neil = Time Fades Away and Tonight's the Night. And when you're ready to open the window, go immediately to Zuma.

Time Fades doesn't do it for me on the same level. Love Zuma though.

Zuma's my favorite Neil Young album.

Ditto.

I would go for this order next, but they are all terrific and worth hearing in whatever order ends up working for you:

Zuma
Tonight's the Night
Time Fades Away
Homegrown

As far as The Band, I don't think you're going to find anything with that kind of angry drive to it (i.e. ala Revolution Blues). I like the Band but there's sometimes a bit of an earnest, wholesome family entertainment vibe to them that puts me off. Def not writing songs about hating celebrities on dune buggies and shooting dogs out of spite.

The other LP I was trying to remember, with credits printed inside the sleeve, was No New York.

Steely Dan has several misanthropic blues in the spirit of "Revolution Blues", maybe try "Black Friday".

A great song, but of course Steely Dan doesn't have Neil's ramshackle feel, if that is part of the attraction.

the Band dont have a lot of songs that sound like revolution blues in terms of dark edgy feel, but just in terms of dankos lunatic basslines they have plenty where he goes off in a similar style

"w.s. walcott's medicine show" has a similar ramshackle groove with a fun danko bassline. obv the mood is more old-timey fun than strung-out desparation

It's true; in the context of "Revolution Blues", the bass and drums communicate a very different feeling than they do on Robertson's songs, although the actual playing is not that different.

Al Schmitt, who produced side two of OTB, just died.

see this thread about to rain

He also worked a lot with the Jefferson Airplane.

how many more nights can i get whisky soaked to this record? cos it's literally all i seem to do anymore

what, no honey slides?

whoa that water has tequila in it!

haha, and two industrial boxes of fritos and cigarettes put out in the carpet, according to the shakey biography

As far as The Band,
Def not writing songs about ... shooting dogs out of spite.

Indeed, my interpretation has always been that they wrote (a) song (partially) about balking at shooting a dog!

(Wait a minute Chester, you know I'm a peaceful man)

As far as The Band, I don't think you're going to find anything with that kind of angry drive to it (i.e. ala Revolution Blues).

Think this is about as close as you're gonna get — recorded just a couple months before On The Beach. Pretty vicious.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iLP85S1PRC0

I wish Neil Young had covered "On the Beach":

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-yXVufG5oV0

the boz scaggs on the beach cover from a couple years ago was surprisingly pretty great

Chris Rea or Neil's?

Neil's, from Boz's Out of the Blues album.

the definitive reading of neil’s on the beach is, of course, mick hucknall’s

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

If the implication is that Simply Red is capable of neutering that song, they're not, it still slays. You just can't keep that song down.

(not stop sure about the guitar solo though -- it kinda makes a good case, by way of contrast, for the genius of neil's soloing on the original)

xp idk abt that

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-wNO1b8UOuY

I don't see it mentioned above but if you are curious about Rusty Kershaw, the Cocaine & Rhinestones country music podcast did a very entertaining episode about Rusty and his brother Doug. Later in the episode about 20 minutes are devoted to a Rusty-centric view of the making of On the Beach. https://cocaineandrhinestones.com/rusty-doug-kershaw-cajun-way

Thanks! for those who want some rumblin' Danko, over on the The Band Thread, we were talking about "Small Town Talk," usually a poignant ballad, co-written w Bobby Charles---his version here is something else
Danko's version! Louder, faster than expected. hey fuck that small town talk!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2hxOI1M5bpk

^ great bounce on that one