NEIL YOUNG ARCHIVES BOX: IT'S REALLY HAPPENING

It's kind of amazing that for something that was in gestation for so long, the archives projects have been released in such largely inept fashion.

The first time I heard about it was a 1990 interview in the Chicago Tribune; then, it was going to be a 10-CD set, which sounded absolutely massive at the time.

David Briggs mentioned in Shakey that Neil had a crew doing archives work at the ranch during the Ragged Glory sessions.

did not know this was on Spotify, lol

currently jamming the shit out of Fillmore 1970

stop bumping this if it's not about Archives 2 the wrath of shakey

I love Neil, but Archives remains a shit deal. I can't justify it. Such a pity that he isn't as laissez-faire as Dylan, and can't allow something à la Bootleg Series.

if something god forbid happened to neil, i wonder if there would then be a bootleg series type thing or if his will states that everything must be cremated with him

with the divorce who knows what's going to happen to his estate. obviously his kids can't take care of it.

Elliott Roberts

with the divorce who knows what's going to happen to his estate. obviously his kids can't take care of it.

There's still Amber! She apparently just married an investment banker or something.

truly hope his pov is "i'll be reissued to others satisfaction when i'm dead" rather than "bury me with the compumixes"

ah right I forgot about Amber

Pegi will get all the Archives.

I love Neil, but Archives remains a shit deal. I can't justify it. Such a pity that he isn't as laissez-faire as Dylan, and can't allow something à la Bootleg Series.

― Duke, Thursday, September 4, 2014 6:17 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

the performance series is pretty similar, no?

i mean, dylan is releasing the complete basement tapes and neil has 3 unreleased proper studio albums that are supposedly bona fide classics that haven't been released

it does seem increasingly weird that dudes like dylan and young with these deep archives of live performances aren't looking at what the grateful dead does and just copying that. neil performance series is great, but it's not quite dick's picks. if he just told jonathan bernstein to do the same thing as dick's picks, there would be tons of great (and complete) shows available.

iirc, the members of the Dead don't want to listen to any of the Dick's Picks series. Which is great for fans, obviously -- no meddling -- but I can see how artists a little more hands-on like Young and Dylan would be wary about something like that.

(and don't get me started on the Who's lack of a live series...)

yeah, as with almost everything else, the dead are a unique case. [don't know if i'd call dylan hands on though -- if he's listened at all to any of those bootleg series' i would be kind of surprised]

the best dylan quote ever i read in this article where a journalist was talking about doing an article where he got to hang out w/dylan during the Infidels sessions. he'd obviously heard all the songs and assumed the "Blind Willie McTell" would be the centerpiece of the album. He comes back to hear the final mixes and is horrified that Dylan has left the song off the album and starts to protest, Dylan says "Hey man, don't worry about it, it's just an album, I've made 20 of them"

i think clinton heylin had some conspiracy theory that dylan held back "blind willie mctell" because he knew that not releasing it would immediately catapult it into "classic" status. and it did! (not that it isn't a genuinely great song)

it does seem increasingly weird that dudes like dylan and young with these deep archives of live performances aren't looking at what the grateful dead does and just copying that. neil performance series is great, but it's not quite dick's picks. if he just told jonathan bernstein to do the same thing as dick's picks, there would be tons of great (and complete) shows available.

sactly

"Hey man, don't worry about it, it's just an album, I've made 20 of them"

ha, wonder where different singer/songwriters reached that degree of cynicism re: individual artifacts. Probably around the time they realized the wiggle room on their concert setlist was decreasing.

"ok i gotta play these 8 songs till the end of time, so reasonably this album is only going to provide one to four songs on future setlists, so fuck the b side"

"we're going for a sort of 'mediocre' vibe on this particular record, that song wouldn't fit"

Heylin's Behind the Shades basically repeats the same narrative for each and every Dylan album: that it coulda been something much greater had it been recorded/mixed/sequenced/whatever differently. You come away with the feeling that Dylan's career was just one huge missed opportunity

I love Neil, but Archives remains a shit deal. I can't justify it. Such a pity that he isn't as laissez-faire as Dylan, and can't allow something à la Bootleg Series.

― Duke, Thursday, September 4, 2014 6:17 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

the performance series is pretty similar, no?

― mizzell, Friday, September 5, 2014 5:48 PM (3 hours ago)

Fair point. But there could be so much more.

You doubters will be shocked and saddened when Neil suddenly makes dozens of shows available for download exclusively to those who bought the Blu-ray edition.

http://www.rollingstone.com/music/features/neil-young-guitarist-poncho-sampedro-wants-one-last-crazy-horse-tour-20140905

He's always thinking about what he's doing today and tomorrow, and right now he has acoustic shows, Pono and he's working on a fiction novel."

Not mentioned: Archives 2.

Ha those poncho interviews are so funny. For a guy who has been pretty close to shakey for 40 years he still has zero idea what is going to happen next.

Yeah, and apparently they don't exactly hang out while on tour if Frank had to send Neil an email about set list suggestions.

After he wraps his current tour in October, Young will continue work on Archives II, the follow-up to 2009's Archives, which collected unreleased material up to 1972. Young says the project will include Dume, an album of songs from the Zuma era, and Hitchhiker, an acoustic LP from the mid-Seventies. The major holdup has been developing technology for presenting the ambitious project: "We're gonna have a website that's, like, 60 years of music in chronological order, with links so you can look at my archives and play the music off the high-res source at the same time." So what's it like to reflect on all he's accomplished over the years? "I don't," he says. "I need to take a break and go to the bathroom."

Read more: http://www.rollingstone.com/music/features/inside-neil-youngs-nature-themed-opus-20160705#ixzz4DY1hmDqk
Follow us: @rollingstone on Twitter | RollingStone on Facebook

so much about that is amazing

can a website be pono

poll

I wonder if they could do a *Pono Certified* program for websites like those Energy Star ratings they have on washing machine and shit

also no mention of the albums Homegrown, Oceanside/Countryside, or the original Chrome Dreams??

would "Dume" or "Hitchhiker" be another name for one of those?

Chrome Dreams definitely existed, I have a bootleg of it, and it think it might have even gone to test pressing before being pulled

yeah i think this is just in addition to those other ones -- Dume and I'm assuming Hitchiker are collections that have been recently put together, as opposed to albums that were sequenced and prepped back in the 70s.

but it's just crazy, does neil young even look at the internet? why does he care about a website. put out DUME on vinyl, that's all you need to do. it'll look and sound great!

tbh I really love the version of "Hitchhiker" one Le Noise, I love the songs on that where the song quality actually rises to the level of the production and that vers. is p psychedelic

yeah that one is great ...
probably mentioned above, but neil's people talked about these coming out separately
Four unreleased albums from this period are being rebuilt and will be available in the NYA Special Release Series. Chrome Dreams, Homegrown and Oceanside-Countryside are the three unreleased studio albums. Also from this period is the unreleased Odeon-Budokan live recording produced by David Briggs and Tim Mulligan. These albums initially will be released in vinyl from analog masters as they originally were created for that format.

sweet i hope they stick to that plan

or better yet can Bob Dylan's management and production team stage a hostile takeover of Neil's archives and handle it from here on out?

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Just then, his Samsung phone rings; the ringtone is his own voice shouting "Hello?!"

<3 <3 <3

Oh, man, what a bummer. If Neil is designing a website to play music, that means the internet is truly on the cusp of irrelevance. RIP internet.

http://www.neilyoungarchives.com/notescroll.html

holy shit

tyler do you know anything about this based on your recent writing/research etc?

cuz that sounds fucking amazing if true

though does this mean they aren't going to do physical stuff anymore??

Hm, he says you can "see" unreleased albums, but doesn't explicitly say you can stream them. It would be incredible, though, if he just dumped everything onto the site. And "associated...films and videos" would theoretically mean the '76 Crazy Horse tour...!

haha, yeah, pretty vague at the moment -- will there be things on here from 64-72 that weren't on the archives box set? i don't really know anything else.

can we change this thread title to "IT'S REALLY NEVER HAPPENING"