Neil Young On The Beach Reissued On CD

I can retire my obvious-if-listening-very-closely CDed from vinyl copy of OtB, etc.

That said, it is his best album.

anyway, it's probably a money-issue. i don't know what's gotten into old neil, but for attending his solo-gigs earlier this month in the Netherlands you were expected to put down €80-90! ridiculous.

willem's right about his ticket prices at the moment. £45 for a solo gig at Hammersmith Apollo is too much for me. Even more outrageous given he doesn't have a band to pay.

Get outta here, T-Bone's fuggin' genius - the only rock dinosaur who'd have the balls to put out a nine minute track, the only lyrics of which are "Got mashed potato/ ain't got no t-bone" is Lou Reed. In rock music it helps to be moronic every so often.

I can't believe these records were never on CD and 'Long May You Run' and 'Old Ways' were...

..and I'm glad that On the Beach doesn't have bonus tracks. Wouldn't want to ruin it.

REac.tor - What a great record.. Not enough people appreciated it. I get Rapid Transit stuck in my head all the time.

Tonight's the Night & Zuma meets Harvest with a more acoustic blues-feel...

(probably not very useful...)

I don't think it's very comparable to any of his other records. Yeah, it always gets lumped in with others as part of his "Dark Period", but a song like "Revolution Blues" is probably one of the most st8 ahead rock tracks he ever did and the title track is a prototype for Slint's Spiderland (or, keeping with NY's own work, "Like A Hurricane" and "Cortez the Killer", only more subtle). There's three different batches of songs, done with three different producers/line-ups, so it doesn't really have a same-y feeling throughout that would let you compare it to the other albums.

Ah, what the Hell, I'll just say it's a more rockin' Tonight's The Night, for argument's sake.

Out on the Weekend, Old Man, Journey Thru the Past, Heart of Gold, Don't Let it Bring You Down, A Man Needs a Maid, Love in Mind, See the Girl Dance

Also, "See the Sky About to Rain" and "On the Beach" are probably my two favorite Neil Young tracks (with "Though my problems are meaningless/That don't make them go away," being my fave NY lyric).

While this album does have "Like a Hurricane," it also features some pretty goofy filler, like "Homegrown" and "Bite the Bullet."

My favorite OtB track is, hands down, "For the Turnstiles."

Is Everybody's Rockin' actually on CD? And come to think of it, I don't think I've ever seen Life or Landing on Water on CD either, but I could be wrong...

I wonder if Neil saw this site? Some of the petition entries are great. Haha - I just randomly clicked on February 2002 and saw that I had signed it. I don't remember doing that, I was probably drunk.

old ways isn't completely terrible, but it IS completely mediocre. you'll play it for a couple days out of curiosity and then never, ever see the need to play it again. it's not one of neil's top five country-ish records, that's for sure.

Life is marred but the songs are getting better on that one, then he pulls out the greatest off key singing for Prisoners of Rock n Roll.

Landing on Water is more like a poor 80s Bowie record then a Neil record.

Mirror Ball (sold in disgust)

Life (had it on tape but gave it away to a curious newbie)

Landing on Water (and have only ever heard side one)

Time Fades Away (which I gave to my uncle as a xmas present because he seems to think it's the rarest record ever and he's a big fan. I can get it if I want it and he certainly wanted it more than I did, though it is a great record).

Broken Arrow (sold when strapped for cash - taped "Music Arcade" first)

I do own "Everybody's Rockin', but for the life of me I have no recollection of acquiring it at any point. I have and love all the rest in varying degrees, except "This Notes For You," which is without merit. Anyone want a copy of it on cassette?

1983 Trans - no review necessary. You either love it or hate it. I love it.

1983 Everybody's Rockin' .. Haven't heard it since 1984 .. but I liked it at the time. It's not "On the Beach" - but it's not bad ...
1985 Old Ways - Only listened to it once or twice .. never sparked much interest.
1986 Landing on Water - totally forgotten.
1987 Life - forgettable - Inca Queen was alright - the songs didn't seem that great, the production definitely wasn't. (Remember Eric Clapton's "Behind the Sun"?)
1988 This Note's for You - I remember thinking "Neil's Back" when I heard this in '88 - haven't heard it since.
1989 Freedom - Neil's truly back.
1989 Eldorado -?
1990 Ragged Glory - the crazy horse harmonies get on my nerves on this one .. but the songs are solid
1992 Harvest Moon - Great record that gets less great with age.
1994 Sleeps With Angels - gave up on new Neil records...
1995 Mirror Ball - "" ""
1996 Dead Man - No vocals, so a totally different animal.
1996 Broken Arrow - listened to once. Should I drag it out again?
2002 Are You Passionate? - haven't heard it except for streaming audio.

not to mention the brand new one, Summer Sun. (or was that a Yo La Tengo record? i can't remember.)

I didn't like what I heard on Silver & Gold, way too slow. And I haven't heard anything off Are You Passionate. But After revisiting Broken Arrow I'd like to hear it.

Isn't it true that Geffen sued Neil Young in the '80s, circa Everybody's Rockin' and Landing on Water, for not sounding enough like Neil Young and therefore breaching his contract? I heard this somewhere and thought it was pretty funny. "Look, Mr. Young, we want another Harvest and we want it now! Put down the Vocoder!"

"on the beach" is of course fantastic, ive had it for some time on a cdr bootleg ripped from someone's vinyl which was a little grainy and played slightly too fast probably due to the turntable it was ripped off being just that little bit too fast as well. but i still loved the songs even then, everyone of them means something special to me and i often listed it as my favorite neil young album even though i only had that crappy cdr. of course the remaster is a big improvement in terms of quality (a great remastering job, looks like theres been a lot of effort put in, it sounds alive!), and i love it. if you havent heard it before, now is the perfect time.

and now onto the 3 lesser known and sometimes critically dismissed records that i hadn't heard before, ive tried to do mini reviews:
"american stars and bars" - i like this a lot, a lot of country rockers, all of them pretty good i think ("old country waltz" is a lovely opener i think). and the second half of the record is even better than that, "star of bethlehem", "will to love", the already well known "like a hurricane", and "homegrown" all classic i think.
thus all in all a good album, and the second half is classic.

"hawks and doves" - i like the first and mostly acoustic half of this record, "little wing", "the old homestead", and "captain kennedy" are all pretty lovely. the second half, mostly country rockers (which feel a bit second rate compared to the ones on american stars and bars) hasnt made much impression on me yet, i think theres supposed to be some sort of political context to the songs "union man" and "hawks and doves" but its difficult to make out how serious neil is. i need to listen to these songs again, but to me the second half seems a bit meh.

"re ac tor" - certainly not neil and crazy horse's best, but i enjoyed it still, i actually rather liked "t-bone", its a good metaphor for my life "Got mashed potato, aint got no t-bone"... most of it sounds like neil and crazy horse just whacked it out in a few hours in a garage, and sure theres a certain tossed off element to it, but often gloriously so, the band plays it very loose, and they just jam out the songs. sure a lot of them aint lyrically expansive (although "shots" is quite deep and is an absolute gem of a song, probably best on the album) but for a lot of songs it works, on "opera star" and "surfer joe and moe the sleeze" the lyrics are simple but say everything they need to say. "rapid transit" is a little disappointing, i think its trying to make a point about the "new wave" movement, but the music is too stuttering for it to fit crazy horse's playing and it just doesnt really work. but all in all, i liked this album, its not classic but i think its rather underrated. mind you, if you arent interested in neil and crazy horse doin good long jams, then you probably wont get as much out of it. but i do.

and the lyrics on the last two tracks still bug me even though i love the arrangements

this thread does not have enough discussion of RAGGED GLORY, for my liking. What a great album THAT is!

title track really gets me
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CKgj1FNToWY

I need a crowd of people... but I cant face them day to day

Thought this revive would be about: https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/hear-boz-scaggs-cover-neil-youngs-on-the-beach-666042/

incredible album. the first time i heard this i had found a copy on a cassette tape in a thrift store. it had On the Beach on one side and Re-Ac-Tor on the other. i ended up going on tour soon after that and it ended up being the perfect road tunes. just sheer beauty from top to bottom. "Ambulance Blues" is so heartbreaking. An ambulance can only go so fast holy fuck that's a spooky line.

title track is all-time

Is "Ambulance Blues" the Greatest Thing Neil Young Ever Did?

An ambulance can only go so fast

neil has an endless number of lyrics that are sort of banal but also somehow incredibly moving and deep and full of meaning to me

oh yeah absolutely. lots of examples on this album, but the best is obviously from tired eyes: "he tried to do his best, but he could not"

boz scaggs cover is surprisingly good

i love the arrangements on here, all the different instrumental textures that perfectly match the songs. you have your country rock throughout but you also have your stripped down back porch banjo of "For the Turnstiles", the watery tremelo Wurlitzer of "See the Sky About to Rain", that cosmic fiddle in the distance of that final track. Neil invoking some potent atmospheres.

Neil Young – vocals; guitar on "Walk On", "Revolution Blues", "Vampire Blues", "On the Beach", "Motion Pictures" and "Ambulance Blues"; harmonica on "See the Sky About to Rain", "Motion Pictures" and "Ambulance Blues"; Wurlitzer electric piano on "See the Sky About to Rain"; banjo guitar on "For the Turnstiles"; electric tambourine on "Ambulance Blues"

lol electric tambourine?

http://tvmiller.com/images/etambourine_3.jpg

funny what a big deal this coming out on CD was back in the day! tracking down the LP in the early 90s was a formative experience — a friend of my brother's had played it for us, and it seemed unbelievable that something so great could be so (generally) unavailable. definitely made me realize there was a whole world of music that you weren't going to find at the mall.

i found a cd bootleg of this backed with american stars and bars on my 20th birthday, the same day i bought a copy of shakey which has just come out

that was a fuckin’ great day

i listened to that bootleg so much that even now that i have access to pristine remastered on the beach i still expect to hear the bootleg’s needledrop and occasional vinyl pop and crackle during certain parts

dang, that's a nice combo. Stars N Bars rules too.

An ambulance can only go so fast

neil has an endless number of lyrics that are sort of banal but also somehow incredibly moving and deep and full of meaning to me

― The Desus & Mero Chain (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Tuesday, July 10, 2018 10:11 AM (one hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Want to say that line in particular, after listening to “Ambulance Blues” for all these years, hit me like a ton of bricks about a year ago.

funny what a big deal this coming out on CD was back in the day! tracking down the LP in the early 90s was a formative experience — a friend of my brother's had played it for us, and it seemed unbelievable that something so great could be so (generally) unavailable. definitely made me realize there was a whole world of music that you weren't going to find at the mall.

― tylerw, Tuesday, July 10, 2018 7:38 AM (forty-nine minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

god i remember this phenomenal little record store near where i grew up, i stocked up on so many classic LPs in perfect shape. everything was like $4.00, including my copies of all the key Neil Young LPs. I went there and in one fell swoop picked up the ditch trilogy, After the Gold Rush, Harvest, and Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere for maybe $25 plus tax. On the Beach was the real eye-opener. I think its unavailability meant it was overlooked or even dismissed by the mainstream critical community at the time, as was Time Fades Away. I remember so many pieces about TTN but nothing about those. But I remember spinning OTB and thinking what a great LP it was, like a sardonic sun-soaked "Rockford Files with a slightly bummer ending" type work it was, vs the noirish complete bleakness of TTN.

oh yeah absolutely. lots of examples on this album, but the best is obviously from tired eyes: "he tried to do his best, but he could not"

― supreme court justice samuel lance-ito (voodoo chili), Tuesday, July 10, 2018 9:13 AM (one hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

this is a great example too

I usually find it pretty bullshitty when musicians say "oh i don't know where my lyrics/music come from, i'm just channeling it from somewhere" but with Neil sometimes I really do believe he doesn't know exactly what his songs are about

I think always explains why Neil can pull such mind-blowing boners when writing lyrics too (like say 90% of the last ten yrs) cuz yeah I think he really is tapping into his subconscious and I can imagine when yr writing you might think "man that line is really banal & clunky but, hey it worked in the 70s!"

I don't trust a lyricist who never produces eye-wateringly bad lyrics every now and again tbh.

For real, you gotta swing for the fences

I read an interview around '90-'91 or so where he was asked about the lyrics to "I Am A Child."

"'What is the color when black is burned'? I don't even know what that means. It's...like a dark grey, I guess?"

lol

I first heard On the Beach my first time in Los Angeles in August 1999. I was out there for my friends’ wedding and after the rehearsal dinner I got extremely drunk then later stoned back in the hotel room where a friend had a bootleg copy on a burned CD. Maybe it was the circumstances, but it had a haunting, profound effect on me, at least the first side did. The second side didn’t have the same impact.

A few years later I found my own bootleg CD with TFA on it as well. It was only after years of listening to it did I realize the second half is the heart of the album.

oh yeah absolutely. lots of examples on this album, but the best is obviously from tired eyes

lol Tarfumes I too distinctly remember that, p sure it was in a Spin profile (by Jimmy McDonough, iirc?) He asked him about a bunch of different lyrics.

Yep, I think that's the one. iirc, in that same interview, Neil said of his artistic comeback, "It's a good thing I didn't get hit by a bus right after Old Ways came out."

Which ... is not on this album
― Naive Teen Idol, Tuesday, 10 July 2018 19:38 (yesterday) Permalink

lots of examples on this album, but the best [is not on this album but] is obviously from tired eyes

can I praise David Crosby for his electric rhythm work on "Revolution Blues"?

Entirely by accident I ended up listening to this album earlier this evening. Yes to praising David Crosby's rhy gtr on "Revolution Blues"! But even more praise for the bass playing, listening to which I found myself thinking, "Is that Rick Danko?" And sure enough, it's Rick Danko!

ilx is a #croz positive space

crozitivity

can I praise David Crosby for his electric rhythm work on "Revolution Blues"?

Rhythm guitar not the guitar solo. He was always a good rhythm guitarist.

yeah, i got that - the solo is obviously neil, i was just taken aback that croz is playing the hairy rhythm guitar

pretty sure Crosby plays rhythm on "Cowboy Movie" which is nice gnarly & chunky

neil has an endless number of lyrics that are sort of banal but also somehow incredibly moving and deep and full of meaning to me

these are all the best lyrics imo

It can change you in the middle of the day

I think the main rhythm guitar figure in Revolution Blues, the spidery, scratchy one, is still Neil. There's another, muddier one behind it that's probably Croz playing chords. If you listen, the main rhythm guitar drops out right before the solo. There's even a little pause where Neil sounds like he's just taking a second to stomp on his pedal. Either way, not knocking Crosby, but I suspect all the more noticeable guitaring is Neil.

i feel like #Croz - If I Could Only Remember My Name is the sister album to On the Beach (at least in my mind)

totally

I'm a vampire baaabe

the sleazy dragging lethargy of vampire blues is so great, like the whole band is fighting its way through tar from start to finish

amazing anti-guitar-solo too

He's one of those rockers of that generation who tried mightily to avoid 12-bar blues, so when he succumbs it's kinda cool.

would love to hear just raw session tape from On The Beach.
crazy that neil has only played "motion pictures" live once! maybe he'll dig it out in boston tonight.

Maybe this is in "Shakey", I can't remember, but is Neil having CROZ playing on Revolution Blues some kind weird twisting the knife cuz weren't CROZ & Stills (and probably half the rock stars in Topanga Canyon circa '69) convinced that they were on the Manson Family hitlist?

I don't know what the fuck about "Revolution Blues" apparently scared Crosby to death – might be coke paranoia.

yeah i think stills and croz went out and bought shotguns or something after the manson killings.

xpost I imagine this line

"Well, I hear that Laurel Canyon
is full of famous stars,
But I hate them worse than lepers
and I'll kill them
in their cars."

wasn't CROZ's fave

ask him on Twitter

If he just blocks me does that mean he really was scared?

David Crosby = worst Byrd

In contrast, didn't Neil say Manson was kind of an OK guy?

(xp) Have you heard those songs Skip Battin wrote with Kim Fowley?

I don't know what the fuck about "Revolution Blues" apparently scared Crosby to death – might be coke paranoia.

― morning wood truancy (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, July 11, 2018 10:23 AM (thirty minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i think crosby was tight w/terry melcher, and obv neil had hung w/manson and dennis wilson...

Crosby's father was an award winning cinematographer, their family was very much in the film industry, which was one of the Manson cult's big targets. he straddled the line -- like many artists -- between old money and youthful revolutionary. pretty understandable that he would be scared when people are being brutally murdered.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Floyd_Crosby

Was just listening to the title track and although the ramble of it, the repetition, would probably make Auden blush, it did make me think of sections of the Age of Anxiety:

... The fears we know
Are of not knowing. Will nightfall bring us
Some awful order - Keep a hardware store
In a small town... Teach science for life to
Progressive girls -? It is getting late.
Shall we ever be asked for? Are we simply
Not wanted at all?