Search and destroy: Neil Young

i'd avoided the Hawks & Doves album until someone sent me "Lost In Space" last week. Fucking great. There's actually a lot of worthwhile material on the album too.

I just recently picked up Harvest Moon, which is the first Neil thing I've owned post-Live Rust. So I pretty much have skipped the 1980s. And I really like it a lot - more than Stars n' Bars or Comes a Time, both of which I enjoy quite a bit.

hawks and doves is amazing, especially the 1st side -- even though the 2nd side has a cantankerous charm, too ...

listened to the new live release today, all the songs from harvest moon, and it sounds pretty great, better than you would think he would sound in the 90s.

Yeah, Dreamin' Man Live has me appreciating some of the lesser Harvest Moon songs, and everything sounds great stripped down and solo.

Plus he gets big points from me for changing up the sequencing. Makes it a new experience.

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Damn, I screwed that up big time.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p2WfUzNYPwo

homegrown's alright with me

I don't pay much attention to Fallon, so maybe thats a recurring thing for him, but I found it interesting to see him do a parody as early 70s Neil. I mean, does the average Fallon watcher even know who Neil is?

My guess is yes.

Ah, I must have a fairly skewed image of his audience.

I don't know, most of what I have watched of the Fallon show consists of aging rockers (like Christopher Cross) performing live on his show. His Neil impression is the best one I've ever see him do, so, can't hurt to trot it out in front of a young audience, imo.

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

Stringman is such a great song. weird that its only official appearance is on that Unplugged CD.

love love love that Unplugged disk though...the "Transformer Man" is so great.

yeah! I just got it recently after having lost my copy years ago. kinda annoyed it doesn't include the other Trans track he did for the taping, or Dreaming Man

what was the other trans track he did? love unplugged -- thought it was weird that the Shakey autor thinks it's horrible. Only thing that's not terribly exciting are the too-close-to-the-album Harvest Moon songs.

Sample and Hold

no kidding! are there bootlegs of it?

thought it was weird that the Shakey autor thinks it's horrible

and yeah I thought this was inexplicable too but put it down to Neil himself hating it. which is also kinda inexplicable but lolz temperamental artists...

the pump organ Like a Hurricane is another standout for me

he should play trans songs live again -- "computer age" and "sample and hold" live w/ Crazy Horse were pretty awesome

agree mostly about the Harvest Moon stuff but I did love that he had some backup guy actually SWEEPING WITH A BROOM for the title track

xp

ha, i forgot about that -- is unplugged on DVD?

I don't think so - feel kinda lucky I caught it when it aired tbh. VHS copies probably out there somewhere tho lolz

yeah ... i have Weld on VHS, haha. No VCR to play it on anymore ... Actually come to think of it, in Shakey, they talk about how the *laserdisc* of Weld has different David Briggs mixes of the songs ... Anybody ever found audio of that?

Yeah I'm normally not so keen on "Hurricane" but the Unplugged version is great.

Tyler - check your mail.

An oddball "search" (also hated by Neil & Jimmy MD): The 45 mix of "Cinnamon Girl". I got ahold of a copy (b/w "Sugar Mountain") over the weekend and had a listen last night. It has a different mix on the vocal, w/Danny Whitten given prominence over Neil. Sounds kinda fresh and cool--almost makes up for the the solo guitar at the end getting chopped off. Would have been a neat bonus on the Archives box.

I was just thumbing through my copy of Shakey and now I'm kinda curious to hear exactly what makes Landing on Water so bad (given that I pretty much never agree with any of the opinions of Young's material expressed in the book)

"Hippie Dream" off Landing on Water is great, the rest not so good

it's a weird record -- not a lost classic or anything, but worth hearing at least once.
Did everybody hear Neil is touring with Bert Jansch this summer!? Whoa.

wtf?!

yeah! http://bit.ly/bdoSud
also, here's a link to that batshit Hal Wilner tribute from last month: http://bigozine2.com/roio/?p=436

haven't heard Landing on... in years, but i seem to recall "Pressure" was pretty great

OMG: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cSamboTHc7U

Kaneoism is this a real record?

Haha. Kind of my reaction.

So I've been reading through Shakey (great bio, as others have said), which re-piqued my interest in the never-released Homegrown songs. Writing about the songs of this period, McDonough says "It is hard to be enthusiastic enough about this period of Young's work. The wordplay is magnificent, his singing never more impassioned. In terms of record-making, Young was at the top of his game. Pain, it seems, brought out the best in him."

But while Chrome Dreams is widely available, I haven't seen Homegrown. I'm not asking for a link or anything, I'm just wondering - is it out there? I haven't been able to find it, so far. I realize that some of the songs on Homegrown were released later (on Decade, Hawks and Doves, American Stars 'n Bars) But what about the other songs? Are they out there somewhere?

no, as far as I know, there's a ton of stuff from that period (a lot of which is mentioned in Shakey) that's never made it out on to bootleg. he's played a fair amount of the unreleased stuff live, you could probably patch together a version of it from live stuff.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/3/30/Homegrown.jpg
Pretty useful wiki page here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homegrown_(Neil_Young_album)

Give Me Strength is amazing, one of my fave Neil Young songs
"Give Me Strength" - "on December 16, Young recorded "Give Me Strength." The lyrics catch him struggling to make the final break from Snodgress. It features a bittersweet chorus: "The happier you fly, the sadder you crawl/The laughter in your eye is never all." Untrained singer Ellen Talbot sang along on harmony, providing a crazy edge more than suitable for one of the last Snodgress songs. The sound is almost mystical. Guitar and harmonica, plus luminous overdubs of a tinkling piano and a finger tapping a paper cup, add glimmers of color that come and go. An impressionistic sound, precisely constructed without losing any of its spontaneous feel."

I think I may have responded to this back in the day w/ another screen name, but what the heck.

Search: Everybody Knows this is Nowhere, Rust Never Sleeps, Sleeps w/ Angels, Tonight's the Night, Zuma, On the Beach, American Stars & Bars, Live Rust, Ragged Glory, Mirror Ball, Broken Arrow [I think that's the name...]

Destroy: Trans, Living with War

Just heard "On the Beach" for the first time last week, after about a week of tour, on a hot summer night driving through Virginia. I found it in a thrift store on cassette, a needledrop backed with "Re*ac*tor" which also blew my mind. Damn damn damn amazing. "Ambulance Blues" and "Motion Pictures" are sooooooo beautiful.

I think the turntable it was dubbed from runs slow, because I listened to it on youtube and it sounds a little faster. The slow tape burn really fits that last half of "On the Beach" though....

The second side of "Reactor" is really great. The guitar noise on "Shots" is just killer!

Also that one-note solo in "Motor City" (I think). And the cool stuttering in "Rapid Transit".

This looks like a case of NEIL YOUNG FEVER!

On the Beach kinda kicked off an obsession a few years ago with me. I eventually worked my way through most of his stuff, and there's a tonyo love, but I think On the Beach will always be my favorite.

Re: the speed of the turntable, here's some information on this issue (copied from this site)

And we can finally settle another issue that has been dogging collectors of this album on vinyl: This is bad news for UK and some German/EU fans of the vinyl - ALL UK copies regardless of vintage were mastered using a faulty cutting tape that played at the WRONG speed. The resulting LP played too fast. It really makes a difference to the sound of the songs so I suggest all UK pressing owners frame the damn thing and put it on the wall and listen to the CD. Sorry to be the bearer of bad news.
This also applies to later EU and German pressings that carry the 'strawberry' mastering stamp. Original 1st press copies from Germany are OK as are most other nationality pressings to my knowledge - but if it says K54014 or 'Strawberry' in the dead wax run-out area, it plays incorrect. ALL UK pressings are affected.
All US copies are OK.

I found a vinyl copy about a year or two before the cd-reissue was released and upon getting the cd I noticed the speed difference right away, checked the runout wax and yep, there was a "K54014". I quite like the slightly faster "Walk On" though...

The second side of "Reactor" is really great

1st side has "Opera Star" and "T-Bone", so it's none too shabby

from some kind of new jonathan demme doc?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GtM87hxp2FM&feature=player_embedded

goof whitney?

This marks the second time solo Neil has maintained more or less the exact same setlist night to night just for (I assume) the sake of a Demme film. Did this one ever get released?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vpltKhz8fVM&feature=player_embedded

i guess not? i haven't seen it. would watch.

um, i saw it.