Neil Young - Zuma

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This is damn tough- I'll start with songs I wouldn't vote for: Stupid Girl, Drive Back, and Through My Sails (though I do dig these three as well.)

I guess I'll go with Lookin' for a Love just because it's a beautiful country-rock number and I'm afraid it won't get many votes.

I can't believe anyone would consider Harvest better than this- for one thing, most of the best versions of the songs on Harvest are found elsewhere: specifically, A Man Needs a Maid/Heart of Gold and Old Man from Massey Hall. If I want to hear mellow Neil it's usually Massey Hall or Live at Sugar Mountain or the second half of On the Beach.

x-post to Alex

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Cortex the Killer is a tremendous guitar epic the likes of which Neil Young hasn't played in years.

Cortez is what I actually meant!

This is perhaps the wrong thread to revive but I can't find a better one for it. So anyway: any views on the Ducks? I listened to a show from here. "Your Time Will Come Around" and "Hold On Boys" seem to be Ducks originals, and are excellent; the latter in particular would have fit right in on Zuma. Also check out "Windward Pass", an 8+ minute instrumental with Neil in full liftoff throughout---but I think I also hear synths in the background, giving the song a beachy ambience suiting the song's title (a very Santa Cruz sound). It's gorgeous.

it's an interesting little sidetrip, for sure. Neil's material is obviously head and shoulders above the other songwriters' stuff, but it's still cool to hear him play the role of a guitarist in a band -- he's a bit more versatile than you might think! The Ducks seem like an attempt to get some of the spirit of Buffalo Springfield going ... It is kinda too bad they didn't make a record, probably would've been cool. Wonder if they ever did any studio recordings?

Yeah, I mean, I love Moby Grape, but "Mr. Soul" here just tears. Also: do you know if any of the three songs I mentioned were Neil's, or if not, whose were they?

Neil calls "Comes A Time" a Ducks original on the show too, which was interesting, at any rate.

some funny details on their wiki page:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ducks

this recording is great, had never heard of this before.

ha, kind of a cool little history there. I guess even if there aren't any studio recordings, Neil probably has at least a gig or two recorded in sbd quality in the archives. all of the circulating recordings are audience, right?

acc. to the Wiki page (and the related Thrasher's Wheat page), fans at the shows said they saw mobile recording units at some of the shows. So there's likely something in the archive.

the duck calls in the crowd of this show is pretty hilar.

The band focused on topics such as trucks, girls and bars.

lol

weird I don't remember any mention of this in Shakey but maybe I'm just forgettin

think it's sorta glossed over in a page or two ... wonder if they played Hey Hey My My? Blackburn is the co-writer ...

oh to be in santa cruz in the summer of 77
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/6/6e/Ducks000.jpg/220px-Ducks000.jpg

man the Bernstein Tapes are my new favorite Neil thing ever...recorded during the Zuma tour in 1976, these are acoustic/piano versions of Neil's best heartbreakers. I mean check this setlist out:

1. Campaigner (Boston, 26th)
2. Old Laughing Lady (Atlanta, 24th)
3. Human Highway (Madison, 14th)
4. Tell Me Why (Chicago, 15th)
5. After The Goldrush (Houston, 11th)
6. Harvest (Boston, 22nd)
7. Mr. Soul (New York City, 20th)
8. Here We Are In The Years (Atlanta, 24th)
9. Journey Through The Past (Boston, 22nd)
10. Heart Of Gold (Fort Worth, 10th)
11. A Man Needs A Maid (New York City, 20th)
12. White Line (Fort Worth, 10th)
13. Give Me Strength (New York City, 20th)
14. No One Seems To Know (Boulder, 7th)
15. Mellow My Mind (New York City, 20th)
16. Too Far Gone (Boulder, 6th)
17. Needle And The Damage Done (Atlanta, 24th)
18. Pocahontas (Atlanta, 24th)
19. Roll Another Number (Boston, 22nd)
20. Losing End (Atlanta, 24th)
21. Love Is A Rose (Houston, 11th)
22. Sugar Mountain (Atlanta, 24th)

They're recorded from different nights so no single night was the dark night of the soul it might appear. The sound is great: these are soundboards I think. man the "Journey Through The Past" is the saddest thing ever. "A Man Needs A Maid" has a massive synth or organ accompaniment (it's a bit distorted, so could just be organ) that kinda sounds like some lost OMD album closer.

is this an official release??

no, it's a boot, but it's easily findable...man this would make a sweet "bootleg series" type thing, just press this boot as it is & it would be epic.

it's a bootleg, but put together by an associate of Young's. pretty easily found on the net, i think. it is an amazing listen -- some of the dialogues are really out there. acoustic version of "white line" is killer.

dunno if this link still works, but ... http://rootstrata.com/rootblog/?p=1991

The opening "Campaigner" has me on the floor. On another thread about Neil someone said that Neil's secret weapon is his sense of melody, and this "Campaigner" makes it so stark, so clear. "Human Highway" too.

oh and "give me strength"! one of the top ten never-released Neil songs. i guess "no one seem to know" would fit in there, too. it is just crazy how, when so many of his songwriting peers at that time were just floundering, Neil was hitting peak after peak.

in the opening of "Too Far Gone", Neil explains something weird by saying that "it's because of this abyss here...because of this hole between us that I have to keep reaffirming ourselves"

and actually that's a pretty good artistic statement of purpose for Neil

xp oh man "Give Me Strength" is just overwhelming!

fwiw , a few years ago I would have gone for Pardon My Heart

It sounds so fragile and was one of the first NY songs that grabbed me.

Now, boringly, as much as I still like the above, It's the Cortez the Killer. Three simple chords and I don't know what the fuck he's on about but it sounds so beautifully morose and resigned. Parts of Spain didn't like it for some reason

Seriously, does anyone have any thoughts on why Cortez remains so great and compelling even after hearing it a million times? In theory, or on paper, it doesn't sound very promising-- a seven minute+ plodding song featuring some half-baked corny lyrics about the evils of imperialism and the nobility of the Aztec people or some such...but somehow it turns out to be one of the greatest things ever.

Three simple chords and I don't know what the fuck he's on about but it sounds so beautifully morose and resigned.

That is a good description...

i think just with those beautiful opening lines -- "he came dancing across the water" -- neil pretty much wins ... sure, the lyrics are kind of naive when you really think about them, but as a kind of dream, they work. and of course, the music -- that billowing sail thing in the guitars, the sloooooow, waves crashing on a beach vibe. it's powerful.

he's been doing a pretty great solo electric "cortez" on his current tour.

Cool, I think that's a nice take on it...and maybe I am too harsh as far as the lyrics are concerned!

imho, lyrically the song's a marvel - as with Pocahantas there's a kinda willful naivete/idealized history going on, but then he throws in a bunch of ahistorical details that make the song both less specific and more universal, like yes he's singing about Cortez but he's ALSO singing about this bigger, more inscrutable thing

gotta say in general I don't find this album so hot tho, compared to the other stuff from the period. I like Don't Cry No Tears and Cortez and actively dislike Stupid Girl, with the rest being okay-ish but not amazing

The only song on Zuma I don't particularly like is "Drive Back"; everything else, including "Through My Sails," I more or less love, and count it as my favorite NY album after Gold Rush and Everybody Knows. The appeal of "Cortez"...hard to put into words, although you guys above do a good job. I can't resist linking to my high-school grad yearbook ('79), where I quoted the final line!

I wonder if Debbie Eyre ever got to marry Billy Joel...

omg allen east

also wkiw high school clemenza

totally

Help me out--I have no idea what "wkiw" means.

would kick it with

Yes--I kicked it here, there, and everywhere in high school.

it is very apparent that you were the guy with the good weed

allen east probably the guy with the good model airplane glue tho

haaaaaaaaay penny

I guess I was pretty open about that...Thing is, in '79, you could show up to a high-school class drunk or stoned, and--at least if your grades were good--it didn't seem to be a big deal if you confined yourself to being giggle-happy. I don't how that's received today; I suspect not as well, unless it's viewed as much less of a problem than bringing a gun to school. I shouldn't talk about former most classmates, but the two most...unusual people there are Keith Davies, who really did talk like Kermit the Frog, and Joy Fenton, who was a Trekkie.

Standard post-after corrections:

1. "don't know how"
2. "talk about former classmates"

golf, tennis, and foxy women.

having a hard time hearing kermit say that

questions:

1) can anyone direct me to a really good cover of "danger bird"? has such a thing ever happened?
2) what is the longest, most freaked out version of "danger bird" that ny/ch has recorded?

thank you

don't know if i've heard a cover of "danger bird" -- I'm sure one exists.
this is interesting -- it was recorded before "Danger Bird" -- but maybe not released? some similarities.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lO_b44e84zM
as for long, freaked out versions, I've heard him do it on the greendale tour where there's this big massed choir singing at some point. pretty freaky.

whoa @ link wray!!! a lot of similarities. great song!

is the greendale tour version available/recorded? i want to hear it reaaaaaally noisy.

i think just on bootleg. lemme see if i can dig it out for you.

I still can't remember when
Or how I lost my way

dume is def my favorite disc on archives 2 so far. never loved danger bird but at the same time a 7 minute doper jam fits so well right there in the 2nd slot, especially balancing out cortez at the end. the dume version of powderfinger probably works as a good replacement

Blues Guitar Solo Heatmap (Free Download) (upper mississippi sh@kedown), my point was that the quality of Neil's songs isn't consistent with how many chords they have.

for real though, i remember the first time i heard "cortez," i thought the extended intro was like slowly pulling back layers of an onion or something, it was almost bewildering in its meandering raggedness, but obviously the feeling of the thing has a pretty direct and strong trajectory like almost everything neil did in the classic years.

One thing that can be said in favour of songs based around a limited set of chords is that the form is highly conducive to improvised lead work. (John McLaughlin would doubtless disagree, but whatevs)

https://dangerousminds.net/content/uploads/images/made/content/uploads/images/neil_young_zuma_1975_465_240_int.jpg

The best album ever.

The best beach ever.

Santa Monica Beach is the location chosen by photographer Bob Seidemann for the cover of Neil Young's fifth album, “On The Beach ” which was released in 1974.

why the hell would you do that when zuma is like 10 miles down the road, lol. pure laziness? some money thing?

On the Beach is a different album from Zuma

Only 70s Neil album I'm all that bothered about (and maybe Rust) and what is surely now one of my favourite album billboards.

On the Beach is a different album from Zuma

― Josefa, Wednesday, August 31, 2022 6:25 PM (two hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

jesus, what a brain fart lol

James Mazzeo, the Zuma (and other Neil projects) artist, passed away recently: http://neilyoungnews.thrasherswheat.org/2022/08/james-mazzeo-1944-2022.html

Wow, that Zuma drawing looks great in color.

RIP "Sandy" Mazzeo, one of the standout supporting players in Shakey