Neil Young & Crazy Horse - Americana

Tired of reviving other Neil threads for this! Let's keep it in here. Who wants to do this?

To celebrate the upcoming release of ‘Americana’ - an album that will deliver his authentic and rustic touch fused with traditional American folk songs - Neil Young is inviting musicians to submit their cover of one of the listed ‘Americana’ classics for the chance to have their rendition featured on his social media channels.

Neil Young’s Choice

The winner will have their submission featured on Neil Young’s social media channels and will receive $1000.

People’s Choice
The highest voted artist will receive a copy of Neil Young’s ‘Americana’ release and in addition will receive $500.
Get Involved

Submit by: May 7, 2012
Vote: May 8, 2012, 10am PST - May 14, 2012, 10am PST
Winner Announced:May 28, 2012

http://www.talenthouse.com/cover-song-for-neil-young

i'm definitely more intrigued by this than i would be by an album of new compositions.

his authentic and rustic touch

I get the image of his Pono music format being handcrafted by gnomes.

It'd be awesome if his next album was called "Canadiana," and included covers of, like, Barenaked Ladies, Rush, Leonard Cohen and BTO.

well ....
Made In Canada - Randy Bachman feat. Neil Young
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G4v-O9vdoRI

He did collaborate with Geddy Lee once...sorta...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VJN3u1wAWIk

oh, canada.
that bachman song's lyrics are pretty lol, but it's got some pretty rad neil guitar action.

OMG, that Northern Lights video! And they called themselves Northern Lights! Because they're Canadian!

It's a shame that Randy Bachman isn't a tribute to Merge Records' a la Michael McDonald's Motown.

"I'm working...but I ain't working for you!"

haaaa.
the northern lights thing is amazing. Sending their love down a well. Geddy definitely brings his A game. hockey team finale is perfect.

The Northern Lights clip only makes it weirder that Dan Ackroyd was at USA For Africa

I saw Daniel Lanois at a small venue a few weeks ago (at the behest of a friend--zero interest myself). I have to admit, a small part of me was hoping Neil would suddenly walk onstage.

I'm sure a Canadiana album would proabably consist of the Logdriver's Waltz and a bunch of Stompin Tom Connors songs.

looks like there are going to be live dates!

Neil Young & Crazy Horse, along with many others, will be co-headliners for the fifth annual Outside Lands Music & Arts Festival, in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park from Aug. 10-12.

Other co-headliners include Stevie Wonder, Metallica, Jack White and the Foo Fighters.

Will this festival spawn a Neiltallica album is what I want to know.

Hmm this sounds like a call to reunite the "Little Dog" (version 1) line-up from the Loutallica tribute album!

Wondertallica

You know the most likely person in that group he'd collaborate with is Jack White, and boy, do I not want to hear that record.

a veritable symphony of whiny vocals presumably

yeah, aside from the pearl jam record (which i like!), I'm glad that neil has avoided all-star kinda records, or records where he's working with some young hip producer.

i mean, i'm sure the neil / dangermouse album would be rad ...

he made a movie with Devo.

it was rad.

ha well, yeah it was. he should totally make an album with devo.

he did a great "Hey Hey" w them in Human Highway, it's also on Sad Movies. Haven't heard the new Dangermouse-produced Black Keys, but the first one def had its Neil-compatible moments, esp when Marc Ribot jumped into the fire. There's somebody I'd like to hear with Neil, even in a buckskin mode: Ribot wrote this first-class country ballad, "Meds," sung by Lee Ann Womack on Buddy Miller's Majesty of The Silver Strings (instrumentals get crowded on that 'un, what with Miller, Ribot, Frisell) Re younger musicians (well, Ribot's younger than Young), there is or at least was a revelatory version of "Down By The River" on YouTube, Neil with Phish--revelatory to me, who never prev had much use for 'em. But they bring a whole different vibe, an eerie yet more fluid "River" than Crazy Horse's caveman approach (not a complaint about CH, just sayin). The other best guest-shot clip I've seen (also on YouTube)is from his R&R Hall of Fame induction, where he's playing lead on "When The Levee Breaks," with Led Zep. Page, Jones, and I guess Jason Bonham provide this shuddering monster riff, NY and Plant go to town. Plant plays a bit of cool guitar too, but he knows when to get in and out.

Oh yeah, and the thing w Phish turned out to be 14 minutes long, but just went right by! From Farm Aid, forgot the year.

jesus christ Neil is a force of nature
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qUSj164pwEM

hey guys...this is from thrasherswheat....um....says its a transcript of WB execs hearing the album and asking Neil about it...but like this is kinda nuts and I can't quite tell if it's some super insider parody/fantasy thing or real, but it's presented as real...wtf

http://neilyoungnews.thrasherswheat.org/2012/04/behind-scenes-at-americana-album.html

Do we owe it to the song, the song's author or the music fan to prostrate ourselves before the energy that created that piece of music and deliver it into the 21st century in a way that retains, and even helps to convey or preserve a clear idea of the song and its history? Or, more importantly, to not undermine reality or contribute to confusing, or even rewriting, history?

nobody speaks like this in conversation, much less Neil Young

I wouldn't be surprised if that was the official press notes. It's a hoot.

(I mean, obviously it's "fake," but I wonder who wrote it. Tom Waits?)

It was written by Neil, who is turning into his dad. It happens to all of us -- but Neil's dad was cooler than most.

Dudes, look at the date of that post.

Do they celebrate April Fool's Day in Canada?

Christmas, Easter, Halloween--we're all over that stuff.

Ah, the Neil & Phish "Down By The River" is indeed still on YouTube, now from several sources, several lengths--and this one even includes an "Arc' jam. Whole thing's from Farm Aid '98:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WoMSBkEQboQ

haha oh god i remember watching that down by the river with Phish, they are just such a terrible rock band i almost feel bad for them

yeahhh. there's also this.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zQfpaZGKhVk

haha the girls on acid are getting emotional in that vid

it was an important day in the 90s

neil really should have changed the lyrics at least once to "forever meeeeeeee, forever meeeeee!"

the arc jam w/phish has it's moments so far...too bad phish's drummer is such a fucking china crash piddler stop it dude god was that woodblocks u turd?

tyler do you know a lot about the dead? i'm no expert or anything but i like them...but were they a pretty pathetic operation towards the end? that vid is pretty terrible

Yeah, never liked that one, Re Phish, Hang in there for "River" (disclaimer: never seen the "Arc" part before)

re: the dead, i think they had their ups 'n' downs towards the end there. that performance is definitely terrible, but it may have been literally unrehearsed.

but back to neil young, y'all see this? www.themidnightcafe.org/?p=3639

Some of this stuff works better w YTC, YouTube Converter. The free version from cnet just converts to mp3, paid might do more--anyway, sometimes seems better when you don't have to see it, for some reason (I get tired of highlighted beardos livin' the dream)

i might try that, i find phish pretty grating just to look at so it could be poisoning the well of sweet exploratory jams

cool link tyler! that was one of my big disappointments on Archives 1, having no mynah birds...but maybe it was a problem with licensing and motown I guess...still that was kinda the band that i'd heard the most about and with the bruce palmer/rick james tie-in i think most fans were most curious about

yeah it is pretty cool stuff -- some of it sounds kinda Love-ish, though that was probably a coincidence, I don't think Love even had records out when the Mynah Birds were recording (could be wrong, not sure about the dates).

yeah i think that would have been pretty early for a love influence...seemed like randy bachman was neil's main influence at that time based on shakey

it is a pretty weird chapter in Neil's career -- you'd have to think that everyone in the Mynah Birds was like -- "Motown! We've made it!" And then, nothing.

too bad the deal fell through, because both The Fall and Neil Young being Motown artists would be the best lol thing ever

yeah, James Jamerson joins Crazy Horse! Hex Induction hour, produced by Quincy Jones!

I think Love did have some stuff out by them, but Mick Jagger was once asked about some songs like "Who's Been Sleeping Here?" having a Dylan influence, and he said it was more a matter of vocalists and songwriters the same age group, same sort of background and influences sounding like each other in some ways. I thought BS at the time, but later seemed more likely--especially back then, when the market and pool of records were smaller, plus the rise of To 40 and the border and other super AM stations in North America (could get those all over the place at night, way before rock FM), and the few legal stations in the UK, few pirate, for that matter. Didn't realize Bruce Palmer was in the Mynah Birds!

"stuff out by *then*"

yeah, I think this is the clip I saw before, minus "Arc," which might be trickier, being more freeform than "River"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4YK_XPZ_Xhg

oh susannah - http://soundcloud.com/oldmanemu/oh-susannah-web-preview
can't really crank this since it's the kid's naptime (lol dadrock). but it sounds nice and loose.

Sounds good! Vibe reminds me of Farmer John...choir isn't nearly as over the top as living with war

Yeah, the choir is unobtrusive, and everything else is nice and loud.

Yeah, this is basically exactly like I expected it to sound. I never had any doubts.

video for oh susannah! i like this song
http://youtu.be/ei2PVpSKkF4

haha smoking toddlers!

new display name testing 1 2 3

i'm glad we live in a country where stoned old men butchering children's folk songs with electric guitars can be released on a major label

^^^

Neil's career is really amazing

the first 20 seconds are the best because it's like jesus guys you didn't even bother to learn the song did you?

i guess Bruce and his band don't smoke up, huh

i thought springsteen claims to have never smoked pot

either way bruce is sooo not a stoner

his stimulant of choice is diet coke iirc

i wasn't implying he WAS. just saying that you're maybe overstating the craziness of a classic rock icon releasing a major label album of folk covers when an album like that hit #3 on Billboard a few years ago.

will the secretary treasurer please record some dude's reservations in the notes of our meeting?

neil young, always riding the boss's coattails

lol sorry neil stans, continue geeking out

tbh there's no point in being a neil young fan if you're not going to be a total stan/dork about it.

we've already established that neil conceptualized this album sometime in 1964 after eating several cheeseburgers at a Toronto diner.

Love this "Oh Susanna" as fuzzed out "Venus" or whatever, but I always wonder why Neil bothers calling them covers when all he needs to do is toss on a few new lyrics to make them his songs. I mean, they're in the public domain, anyway. I thought the same thing when Peter Gabriel did those radically rearranged covers a couple of years back. Just change the lyrics and call them new songs, dude.

think there's a publishing/legality rationale behind that iirc

i think it's mostly the artist doing what they want to do -- neil can write songs anytime he wants, but he wanted to do folk covers, he's not going to sweat how the label credits it or who gets royalties enough to change how he makes the record.

i keep forgetting to transcribe that section of Shakey but basically in that book it sounds like Neil's had these arrangement/reworkings since the early 60s and is just getting to them now

oh susanna sounds great. love neil's studio chatter at the end. it's funky!

What I mean is, Neil - or anyone - can skronk out songs like his "Oh Susannah" at will. So why not?

Like, it doesn't matter how it's credited. I'm just always surprised when artists cover a song that sound so unlike the song they're covering that they might as well call it a new song.

i think you're looking for logic and reason in the world of neil young, a long and lonely journey my man

At least he's not doing an album of Sinatra-ized standards.

don't say that too loud

recently it seems much more common for artists to claim songs as new compositions which "include elements" of other songs, which i always thought was lame.

Had a dream last night that neil put out a new album--cover photo was a grainy b&w silhouette of him now with his arm propped against a doorway. In a white marker block letter scrawl was the title, "THE YOUNG ONE"

Otm

tbh there's no point in being a neil young fan if you're not going to be a total stan/dork about it

Plenty of hardcore NY fans won't listen to anything after 1979. Plenty of hardcore NY fans only like the acoustic stuff, plenty of hardcore NY fans only like his Crazy Horse stuff

but that's so much less rewarding that trying to see the hidden genius in Re*Ac*Tor

I was talking to an acquaintance when "Le Noise" came out, and I asked him if he liked Neil Young. He immediately said, as he should, "I *love* Neil Young..." But then he added "...but not his loud stuff." Which honestly leaves ... not much!

I dunno, if you stick with Harvest, Comes A Time, half of Rust, Old Ways, Unplugged, Massey Hall, Harvest Moon, and whatever mostly-acoustic stuff he did after that, you'd have a not-necessarily-skewed portrait of Young.

You'd also be missing a more than healthy portion of his best stuff.

you'd also be getting pretty much noe of the really terrible stuff

none

not-necessarily-skewed

seems to be the very definition of "skewed", actually

I meant more that yes, it'd be a skewed picture of Young, but not wackily unrepresentative.

True, I bet there are people who do only know his quiet stuff. Seems a shame, though, really.

well, i mean, my mom *prefers* harvest/harvest moon to ragged glory, but she's perfectly aware of the loud stuff.

preview for the latest demme film
http://movies.yahoo.com/movie/neil-young-journeys/trailers/neil-young-journeys-theatrical-trailer-29214537.html#jumbo
annoying that the *last* demme film is nowhere to be seen on DVD.

It'll be on Archives V, due in the year 2525:

i think you're looking for logic and reason in the world of neil young, a long and lonely journey my man

― l0u1s j0rdan (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Tuesday, 1 May 2012 19:10 (6 days ago)

LOL, missed this before

i haven't read up on NY as closely as others but i always get the impression people are playing up and romanticizing how crazy and unpredictable he is or deliberately misreading a tendency to be indecisive or secretive.

i wouldn't say crazy at all.

but unpredictable to the core, and we're not exaggerating that at all, read shakey and he literally walks out on huge stadium tours with 50+ sold out dates booked...or, after a CB radio argument with stephen stills actually instructs his tour bus driver to take off in the opposite direction of the next date on the tour and never returns to the tour

but crazy in the actual sense is not neil, more cunning and weird and self-interested, he just does what he wants at the time and that's it...that's sort of the essence of his work, he feels things very strongly and believes that a certain way is right...until he doesn't and one day ppl wake up and find neil has left them or changed his mind about this album or that album and he's already moved on without them...

but i said logic and reason, i guess i meant to other ppl, everything makes sense to neil...in a neil way

he's certainly unpredictable compared to his big 60s rock peers, only Dylan really comes close i think, (dylan might even be more predictable). i mean, neil has scrapped numerous completed albums in order to follow weird tangents.

neil has scrapped numerous completed albums in order to follow weird tangents.

^^i was seriously getting kind of angry reading shakey again a few weeks ago

so between oceanside/countryside, homegrown, and chrome dreams we have 3 albums that are said to be among his best, plus the supposedly "better" david briggs version of tonight's the night

i have a bootleg of chrome dreams and if it's an accurate picture of what it was supposed to be, i'd put it in my top 10 neil albums

ha, yeah it is frustrating. this announcement came almost two years ago!
http://www.spinner.com/2010/07/28/neil-young-archives-lost-albums/
and don't forget about Toast!

oh god yeah toast haha...

the part when he was talking about homegrown was really irritating he basically said it was too good or too honest and he didn't want to put it out

yeah, in addition to being weird, neil is definitely good at mythmaking. "this album is so rad, i couldn't even put it out, dudes. think about that!"
it will be interesting to see what "chrome dreams" actually is/was -- i'm not sure if there's an actual tracklist out there. there's that "memo" with a tracklist but someone told me it was a fake.

just looking at the proposed lost albums series though -- 'Homegrown', 'Oceanside-Countryside' and 'Chrome Dreams', plus 'Odeon-Budokan Live'
those records in the span of about three years, any artist would kill to have made them.

the tracklist of the chrome dreams that i downloaded (it's on my ipod, but i lost a bunch of computer files so i dont know if i have it anywhere else) is:

pocahontas (different than the rust never sleeps vers)
will to love (the vers from american stars n bars)
star of bethlehem (ditto)
too far gone (differnt, far superior vers to the one on freedom)
hold back the tears (stars n bars)
homegrown (from stars n bars, though was this supposed to be the title track from the unreleased homegrown album?)
captain kennedy
stringman

stringman was only formally released in a live version from Unplugged right?

yeah i believe so.
this is the supposed memo, which certainly looks authentic
http://29.media.tumblr.com/BHtcu8LoLljo9ttnQV4NYizro1_400.jpg

captain kennedy sounds like the hawks & doves version to me, so maybe it was a leftover or this is just an assemblage made by a bootlegger?

yeah it's the same version on hawks n doves i believe.

oops i left some off here's the tracklist:

pocahontas (different than the rust never sleeps vers)
will to love (the vers from american stars n bars)
star of bethlehem (ditto)
too far gone (differnt, far superior vers to the one on freedom)
hold back the tears (stars n bars)
homegrown (from stars n bars, though was this supposed to be the title track from the unreleased homegrown album?)
captain kennedy
stringman
sedan delivery (different, slower versions, but similar to the rust never sleeps version)
powderfinger (totally different acoustic version)
look out for my love (sounds identical to the comes a time version to me)
like a hurricane (stars and bars version)

either way it's a hell of a lot better of an album than american stars and bars and lot of these songs i think flow together better in this form even the ones that were released otherwise

the version of Too Far Gone is a real gem, so much better than the freedom one

yeah who knows? when neil puts it out, it'll probably have none of those songs.

haha yeah no shit

reading shakey again made me so curious about the briggs version of tonights the night, it's hilarious briggs was so pissed and acted like neil was chickenshit and put out the "clean commercial" version as if the released version of tonight's the night was rumors by fleetwood mac in comparison to his version

of course, briggs comes off as genuinely crazy though so who knows

there are so many truly insane fucked up people in shakey

yeah judging from shakey, that's neil's MO -- find these nutty characters and feed off of them. neil might not actually be the weirdest guy in the world, but he gets a certain energy from weirdos.

would just like to say that Stringman is such a great song

yeah it is a beaut
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M6MiCj8tlUI

I thought it was odd that, on the memo, it's credited as a Neil Young & Crazy Horse album even though the band only plays on 4 out of 12 tracks (and Poncho shows up on a 5th).

Then again, they're only on 4 of 9 tracks on Rust Never Sleeps.

coming round the mountain!
http://www.npr.org/blogs/allsongs/2012/05/11/152486586/song-premiere-neil-young-sets-americana-on-fire

damn this sounds good

guitars bein' mangled!

is he singing "she'll lead us to portal when she comes"? or am i mis-hearing that.

yeah it sounds like "she'll take us to the portals when she comes"....weird...that can't be in the original verses can it? maybe he's doing some weird sci-fi after the gold rush thing

man this fucking rocks

aaaah yeah that's the fucking ticket man.....loving this.

there's a point in every neil solo where he slides up from the low register to higher on the neck and that part always rules

portal is in the lyrics of the original spiritual , it's about the second coming of christ, i guess the portal leads you to the rapture

cool, didn't know that

hearing chops and slices of this song, really wishin my browser would play it. >:-[

so good

holy shit is this good

Apparently this video was rejected by Neil's record label:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ur93x7zN4To

omg. stressful!
love that these songs all sound like "fuckin' up" basically. and first takes.

blurgh, tix go on sale for neil & crazy horse at red rocks right now, but decent seats are well over $100. no way i can actually pay that amount.

Dude this is ”bad” advice, but...credit card

oh i can *afford* it w/o going into the poor house, i just have this incredible aversion to paying more than like $40 for concerts. The shitty seats are $65!

Yeah I guess not living there I have a way overblown idea of how amazing red rocks would be, mostly because of seeing that u2 video as a kid

eh, if you're back far enough, the sound can be pretty terrible.

o_0 at that video. getting more and more excited for this record!

This is going to be the best kids record ever.

yeahhhh. seriously, all of these songs are sounding pretty great.

Stoned at a dinner party last Saturday, I wandered into the living room where Sirius was playing. It took me a couple minutes to realize it was Neil doing "Oh Susanna."

It's weird, his website lists a bunch of tour dates, but only a handful show the location...and some are a month apart. But I'm definitely gonna try to catch him if he gets within driving distance.

Those aren't tour dates, they are the dates of full moons. Neil has a thing about full moons.

Tarfumes, you must be new to Neil's website.

a couple years back the "tour" link was a picture of the LINK/VOLT car, where the 'rivets' were meant to represent the tour dates. Lets just say that the bullet points on his website don't necessarily ever get filled in.

He's real coy about that shit.

Anyway, he always does this shit. Yeah, it's maddening

Lots of stuff here, mainly live, but check the info links for each dl: also incl unreleased albums etc. Neil-wise: the Trans Band and many other nice things http://www.ousterhout.net/music-menu.html

Tarfumes, you must be new to Neil's website.

Indeed I am. And yeah, maddening is the word for it.

jesus christ, this americana stuff is great

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZSpnfUx_o3E

ok that one might not be one of the highlights, still not bad

yeah, my least fave so far, but the guitar does sound pretty sweet.

I love Neil Young and I love most of this album but I don't know how anyone can even half-heartedly defend this steaming turd of a tune.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KH-DO3FgROI

http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/album-premiere-neil-young-and-crazy-horse-americana-20120528

This is really fun, but I wish he had just brought in new songs. The fact that it is old folk songs is exactly what a) makes it a novelty and b) will keep me from listening to it more than once or twice.

Though, who knows, you know? "Tom Dula" is pretty awesome.

OK, this version of "Get a Job" - what the hell is that doing here? - is taking the piss terrible.

Does not exceed my expectations of the stylistic vehicle/approach, but gets its paws purty far under the hood. Might wanta fast fwd halfway through the 8-minute "Tom Dula," and a couple others get a little bogged down in the middle (also expected, of apparently live-in-the-studio [except maybe the deft backing vocals] stomping grooves with gnarly solos), but overall, damn good. No prob atall with "God Save The Queen", especially as closer--he might be singing to an American queen--esp with sweet little surprise slipped in towards the end. Good after "This Land," with verses I do not recall singing in Cold War grade school, and "God Save," at least this version, has "Con-found their politics, frustrate their e-vil tricks," amen! A very satisfying first listen, at the very least ("Get a Job" is the scariest ol' folk song!)

loooooving this Tom Dula.

40-minute film posted over at http://neilyoung.com (incorporating all the videos previously posted). typically goofy.

really enjoying this album! maybe more than any of the neil albums in the past decade or so. get a job is the outlier here, but it's got to be some kind of nod to crazy horse's origins as a vocal group.
album is not a masterpiece, but it's a lot of fun.

I'm on the opposite end of the spectrum. I find this album a massive chore to listen to; I want to skip to the end of each track about half way through.

However, I think this material will be a blast live. Just don't make me listen to the record again.

I hope they play it in its entirety when they tour this fall.

No I don't.

While I welcome the return of the Horse, this is pretty much a one-listen novelty for me. I would have been happy with one or two of these tracks dropped in the middle of a proper album, sort of the way "Blowin' in the WInd" pops up in "Weld," but this thing? Nah. I'd sooner put on "Living with War" again.

(And I don't want to listen to "LIving with War," either)

dunno, guess it's pushing the right crazy horse buttons for me.

How were you on the electric car record? (xpost)

Not that OK in it, but this is better than that. Guy always has a track or two I dig, but this album is pretty half-assed by design in a weird way. Would have had more symbolic weight if he had given it away on his website.

josh did you ever listen to the re-release of living with war that didn't have the choir?

No, actually. That was another one just sort of spat out after the fact that I totally would have listened to were it not yet another $18 Neil Young CD on the shelves. Of all the acts you'd think would be operating outside the major label system, you'd totally think it would be Neil Young, but from his longtime relationship with Warners to his premature embrace of premium, proprietary formats to that fucking boxed set, habits like releasing an album twice in the span of months is ironically one of the reasons I stopped buying CDs!

Is the "War" re-release good? Probably!

Maybe he can release this one again in six months, comprising the second takes of all these songs.

Fans purchasing their concert tickets online will receive a copy of the brand new CD - AMERICANA, available in stores Tuesday, June 5th. Tickets for Neil Young & Crazy Horse will go on sale starting June 8th in select markets at Ticketmaster.com and LiveNation.com. General admission floor tickets available in all markets with the exception of Los Angeles.

I wonder if the tour tickets will be real expensive as he has done in the recent past?

yes, they are expensive. cheapest tix for the red rocks shows (in the nosebleeds) are $65. Best seats are over $200.

tbh, i don't know if people consider $65 "expensive" these days, but i have a hard time shelling out that much for shows. still might end up going, i haven't decided.

Springsteen tix this current tour are $45 to $105, give or take. And there are 15 people in his band.

Maybe he can release this one again in six months, comprising the second takes of all these songs.

haha what second takes

Springsteen tix this current tour are $45 to $105, give or take. And there are 15 people in his band.

you're counting wife Patty and her acoustic guitar/tambourine twice.

She's home with the kids! That's why they could shave so much off the ticket price.

i think the living with war reissue is worth hearing at least....it's on spotify

Ugh. Closest he's getting to me is a 3-hour drive. Also, I only go to concerts during a full moon.

http://blogs.wsj.com/speakeasy/2012/05/30/neil-young-cd-10-neil-young-lp-42/

I'm really not sure what LP is worth $42, but not this one.

Yeah, new Neil vinyl is crazy expensive.

man the highs of this are awesome but the bad shit...yikes, just listened to get a job and this land is your land

Why couldn't he have just put out an album of covers of things like, I dunno, "Wooly Bully" and "Louie Louie?" He could have still called it "Americana."

Because then he wouldn't be the halfway batshit Neil we all know and love.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EDTZLsscFz8

he already did!

Meh, save it for the Ramones. I wanna hear Crazy Horse do one-take covers of caveman rock.

that is but one of the 15 versions of that song i listened to yesterday, not the best one really

lol that version is pretty hilarious. i like the idea of americana being everybody's rockin': the phantom menace.

this is way better than everybody's rockin'!

that or old ways are my for-real least favorite neil albums

yeah both of those are pretty bad.
so, I'd say odds are 50/50 that Neil announces another album w/ Crazy Horse in the next couple weeks.

didnt' he already say there was another one?

did he? i'm getting confused.

It's Mexicana, where he and the Horse play banda tunes.

would listen the shit out of a Neil narcocorrido cover

the solo on "Las mañanitas" is so killllller.

Can you imagine Crazy Horse trying to play a mariachi tune? Can we make Mexicana happen?

ha, well, there's this live "road of plenty"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z2FnCTTEI2A

tyler i read somewhere he said they did an album' worth of original crazy horse stuff including a 26 minute thing

xpost Yeah, I was going to say, "Eldorado" is total Crazy Horse meets mariachi.

this probably won't happen, but it'd be cool if neil & crazy horse played one or two of the le noise tracks live on the upcoming tour.

tbh, I have no idea what they might play. I assume many of the usual suspects, but I doubt many of the "Americana" songs.

I want to say the last time the Horse toured, doing that greatest hits tour, ticket sales were weeeeeeeeeak. They played a half-empty arena here.

Neil just interview on "Fresh Air." I know he is a tough interview, but Terry Gross still sucks.

xp the greendale tour?

No, no. Maybe I'm thinking a Neil and friends sort of tour? They did arenas some time after Greendale but before Neil headed to theaters with his band of Molina, Rosas, Keith and Peggy and whomever.

oh right his "electric band." they were great on the boots I've heard, really a nicely varied set.

OK, 2008 hits tour. Guess that was more or less the same band, but with Cromwell instead of Molina. Half full Chicago hockey arena. It's been theaters ever since then.

He doesn't seem the type to vary setlists much, unfortunately. Part of it is due to constantly filming shows for various projects, which means keeping the camera cues and stuff the same. The setlist behind "Le Noise" was immutable, which made it even weirder when Neil would pretend to be debating which instrument to pick up. Good show, but still.

yeah he stuck strictly to the script on that tour. seemed like he shook things up a bit w/ the electric band thing http://bbchron.blogspot.com/2008/12/neil-young-2008-european-winter-tour.html

I wonder, though, how many of those he played each night, and how many he swapped out each set. Like, was it 95% the same each night, with a different encore epic or two? That's how I remember it. I also remember it being a great show! (That boot looks awesome)

Alas, those links are dead ...

yeah, it's a bummer, that guy has had all his links taken down multiple times.

lol this terry gross interview is awkward. "you've taken these simple songs and made them complicated." insightful. http://www.npr.org/2012/06/06/154420889/neil-young-the-fresh-air-interview

i admired how he handled that question! he corrected her language, but didn't embarrass her or make apologetic overtures for correcting her.

yeah, neil handled the interview well, he's good at interviews!

He's good at interviews on his own cryptic, elliptical terms. I find Terry Gross can be frustrated pretty easily when she gets a less than forthcoming subject - on the flipside, her inexplicable reputation as an interviewer stems almost entirely from landing subjects who are generally very forthcoming - but Neil fucks with interviewers more than most.

Q: Like, babble babble, when I first saw that "God Save the Queen" was on this, stall babble, you know like um I first though of um, you know, the Sex Pistols?

A: Who are the Sex Pistols?

Q: (nervous laugh)

a: (crickets)

ha, i loled at that

at least she didn't explain it to the audience amirite

For the listeners just tuning in, the sex pistols were a punk rock band that had a song called God save the queen.

is this the story of Terry Gross?

Saw him interviewed by Patti Smith at Book Expo yesterday. Neil was typically droll but told a great story about how he came to write "Ohio." David Crosby and marijuana were involved.

haha wait did Neil seriously pretend lack of awareness of the Sex Pistols

yes indeed he did

http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m598k5BJBg1qav5oho1_500.jpg

sweet serape

http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m59moasEZC1qdf09mo2_500.jpg

from a bbc interview

Young was clearly inspired while making Americana as straight afterwards they recorded another album’s worth of original Neil Young material.

“It will have to be a double CD because of its length,” he admits. One track, he reveals, is 26 minutes long.

In the same interview, he said he used to have to sing "God Save the Queen" in school every morning... that has got to be bullshit, British schoolchildren have never had to sing "God Save the Queen" (unless we're talking Victoria) let alone Canadian schoolchildren?

Haven't heard this yet--Christgau gave it a great write-up today:

http://social.entertainment.msn.com/music/blogs/expert-witness-blogpost.aspx?post=9a263a12-84c0-40c5-8df3-73dd94f0e5b9

Christgau is wrong, but then, this album is total Christgau bait.

In general, I've found him pretty reliable when it comes to Neil over the years; outside of Trans, I don't recall majorly disagreeing with him. Which is not say I'll like this.

haha wait did Neil seriously pretend lack of awareness of the Sex Pistols

hey hey my my is about the OTHER johnny rotten, a car mechanic from toronto

Xgau OTM (although Seegerstein's "sanctimonious overkill" is more a matter of slick instrumentation and slack "arrangements" doing it to death, like many a longwinded CD, however pure or not)Also, I got into "Susannah" right away, duh-huh, hey Beavis he said, "B.A.N.J.O. on my knee," huh-huh. Really likie the way he chooses all the right verses, incl those expunged; I knew the one about both sides of the sign in "This Land" (always figured it was a particular inspiration for early Bobby D.), but didn't realize the whole thing was "a protest song," as Neil says in the Fresh Air interview. So far, "Tom Dula" does get tedious, and at first I was put off by the vocal's detachment from doomy guitar on "High Flying Bird," but compartmentalization happens: "Look at me/I'm rooted like a tree," yeah tell me about it. But "Get A Job" is the scariest ol' folk song of all!

hey hey my my is about the OTHER johnny rotten, a car mechanic from toronto

― wack nerd zinging in the dead of night (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Wednesday, June 13, 2012 8:28 AM (2 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

lool

top five debut this week

i thought about getting tickets to the MSG show (never seen Neil live) but holy cow it's expensive

it is pretty amazing tho you should go

http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/q-a-crazy-horses-frank-poncho-sampedro-on-37-years-with-neil-young-20120614
funny that sampedro was kevin eubank's personal assistant.

I've seen Neil live a grand total of once - a "surprise" show in Santa Cruz with Booker T and the MGs sometime after Harvest Moon came out - and he was amazing, played a great range of material (including "I Believe in You"!)

but ever since then I've been unable to bring myself to cough up the huge amounts of money necessary to see him in some venue I'll probably hate. really can't imagine a scenario that would ever top the show I saw

^ ditto. Saw him with Crazy Horse in 1991. His last encore was "Welfare Mothers," with the (huge basketball arena) house lights on. If I'd never seen them before, I'd find a way to see this tour, but cripes, $70 for nosebleed seats?

yeah, i'm still on the fence. totally want to go, but the cash! i have a family to feed here, neil!

He'd feel bad for you if you were a farmer.

i'm growing tomatoes in my backyard this summer.

You'll be too far away to throw them at him.

Tyler, how are the tomatoes doing? That may have some bearing on getting a break on tickets.

TERRIBLE. Help a farmer out, neil.

""Homegrown" wasn't about tomatoes. Sorry dawg."--Neil

tell neil you're inventing a car that runs on tomatoes, maybe he'll go into business with you

these tomatoes make mp3s sound like vinyl

but can only be chewed using a special blu-tooth setup

yes but does your tomato patch have a model train track running around it

yes

Flag Post Permalink

these tomatoes make mp3s sound like vinyl

― tylerw, Thursday, June 14, 2012 3:18 PM (2 hours ago) Bookmark

genuine lol

I've still got my ticket stub for Neil's pre-Rust show at Toronto's Maple Leaf Gardens, Oct. 1 '78. Centre floor, 25 rows back. $9.00.

i bet the show was awful though, wasn't it? totally sucky.

Terrible. I was about to turn 17, stoned, he led with "Sugar Mountain," and then played strange new songs about Johnny Rotten. The worst.

http://www.setlist.fm/setlist/neil-young/1978/maple-leaf-gardens-toronto-on-canada-5bd1e72c.html

your story checks out
http://www.sugarmtn.org/extras/19781001stub.jpg
Chum and Chum!

were you all like PLAY THE HITS! CINNAMON GIRL! WOOOOO!

that sounds like torture

That's amazing, Tyler--I thought at first it was something I'd posted. I was row Y, seat 16, sitting with my friend Steve--not too far at all from whoever that ticket belonged to.

I just remember being awestruck the whole night. I don't think we were the kind of people who'd call out requests, but I'm sure I hoping for lots and lots of Tonight's the Night, Zuma, and Gold Rush (and, yes, "Cinnamon Girl").

"was hoping"

haaard times

Don't google "Chum and Chum" unless you want to be disappointed.

Saw him with Crazy Horse in 1991. His last encore was "Welfare Mothers," with the (huge basketball arena) house lights on.

― Tarfumes The Escape Goat, Thursday, June 14, 2012 12:40 PM (2 days ago)

so i'm just catching up w/ this thread right now, busy week, but man this post kinda depressed me!

I was at the same tour, the one with Social Distortion and Sonic Youth opening up. And yeah, we got "Welfare Mothers" at the end with the lights on.

But it really felt like an organic thing -- like, after the last encore (which I think might have been "Sedan Delivery"??), people were SO psyched about the show that they kept on clapping and clapping and clapping, even after the lights had come back on, that Neil and band were almost forced to come back out for one last one.

Like, you just never see that. Like ever. The whole business about "encores" is so rote and perfunctory and scripted. That Neil Young show -- when he came out with all the bright lights one to do "Welfare Mothers" -- is the one and only time I've ever felt that that scriptedness was done away with. And I've always regaled friends with the tale of how awesome it was ever since. So it kind of bums me out, Tarfumes, to hear you got the same deal, like it was just maybe something he *did* on that tour...

unless, of course I guess, you were actually at the same show as me -- Rosement Horizon??

Rob, I want to say he may have done the same thing when he did the show in Philly?

Hmm, looks like the encore of the second night may have been "Welfare Mothers" followed by "Like a Hurricane." First night was just an encore of "Tonight's the NIght." No idea which one I saw, but I do remember the crowd being super diverse (for white people). Hippies dancing to Sonic Youth, bikers getting down to Social Distortion, old boomers boogieing to Neil at his grungiest ...

I saw that same tour, in Madison Square Garden. One of the loudest shows I've ever seen.

this album is great!

^^ it really is, I love it.

As a sidenote, it looks like Eldorado is pretty much impossible to get anymore with this RIAA crackdown? Short of shelling out $40 for it on eBay. I knew there was something I should've looked for before this summer!

"Oh! Susanna" is the fuzz-laden will-she-come song he's been wanting to write since Ragged Glory

Wonder what he thinks of Neil Fallon and Actual Springsteen's cover of "Whip My Hair"? In the spirit of Americana (compliment to all concerned)

will-she-come song
wait a sec
1) what does this mean
2) i always thought the lyrics were "when she comes" -- she'll be comin' round the mountain when she comes, she'll be riding six white horses when she comes, etc.
3) am i missing something?

it's sototown

where everyone can come!

sounds like a great place to live

i always thought the lyrics were "when she comes" -- she'll be comin' round the mountain when she comes, she'll be riding six white horses when she comes, etc.

I wasn't quoting the lyrics, just interpreting what it's about. It reminds me of "Over and Over."

you're wel come

Tired of enduring his botched attempts, I gave up on Neil successfully writing that fuzz-laden will-she-come song around 2005. Listening to Americana, I almost spit out my brandy when i realized he'd accomplished the task, at the same time choking on the delicious irony that he'd done so without actually writing it.

unless, of course I guess, you were actually at the same show as me -- Rosement Horizon??

― Stormy Davis, Saturday, June 16, 2012 5:05 PM (1 month ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Yes, same show! I remember the place was maybe 2/3rds full, and Sonic Youth killed -- still the best performance of theirs I've seen. During their set, an older guy next to me (probably mid-40s; I was 18) said, "You like this shit?!" He was wearing a shirt from the previous tour (3rd Greatest Garage Band). A couple of kids in front of me only came for Social Distortion and left after their set. At the time, "Welfare Mothers" was my favorite NY/CH song, so that encore just blew me away (and was definitely unscripted; I've never seen an audience so determined to hear more, even with the house lights up, before or since). I still have my t-shirt and ticket stub, and *might* still have an audience tape somewhere. The setlist I found online omits "Days That Used To Be," which I remember being played in a kind of understated way.

neil has talked about the religious implications of "she'll be coming round the mountain" -- ie the second coming of christ. get your minds out of the gutter and into the LORD!

I listened to this once through on YouTube a couple of weeks ago (someone put the whole thing up in a 50-minute clip). It didn't sound very good to me, though I wasn't listening very closely.

damnnn, dude is playing a ton of new songs live! http://bigozine2.com/roio/?p=1178

omg "Ramada Inn" - 18:04

That is awesome, those setlists.

omg "Ramada Inn" - 18:04

?!?!?! what is this??? is this actually new or something that's been floating around for a long time like "ordinary people"?

yeah what is that

new song. all the new stuff sounds great.

don't think any of these new things are songs that have been kicking around, afaik.

first show is here as well http://bigozine2.com/roio/?p=1176
walk like a giant is appropriately massive.

man awesome bootleg...his first solo on powderfinger is great so far :) :)

the lyrics to born in ontario are LOL

arc-style feedback freak out at end of "walked like a giant". 24 minutes in all!

you know, this just occurred to me, but neil's voice has held up pretty damn well, given what it is.

whistling! watch out now!

is there whistling on Walk Like a Giant or is it just me

lol xp

man walk like a giant is great

yeah this is really good. even so I ain't spending $85 or whatever it is to get a seat

aw Ramada Inn. lyrics are great. sounds exactly like something from Ragged Glory.

yeah, ramada inn sounds great, another long stretched out thing, super moody. ummm, if these songs are as good as I'm thinking on first listen, we may have a contender for neil's best album since the 20th century...? maybe i'm just excited. or neil won't even release these songs.

or neil won't even release these songs.

^yep

Ha.

lol at first i misread "psychedelic pill" as "psychedelic PHIL"

imagining like neil invented a "towlie" style kids cartoon mascot for peyote

neil doing unspeakable things to his guitar on fuckin up

lol ok, psychedelic pill is definitely the weak link of the new songs.

Man, some of these new songs are awesome. "Walk Like a Giant" ... goosebumps!

I wonder what it must be like to be Neil Young and know that you can get away with writing two chord songs that last 25 minutes and that people will think it's awesome because it sounds like Neil Young? Seems like a terrible responsibility, but the dude has proven he knows just when to step up.

BITCHES QUIT TALKING DURING RAMADA INN

on my third listen of "walk like a giant" -- so great!

Jesus, he opens with "Love and Only Love"?! I think I might regret missing this tour.

since this is the americana thread, here's the only song he played from it http://www.bigozine2.com/TRKS6/NY2morrison/NY2morrison208.mp3
jesus chariot. pretty great -- hope he brings at least a few more to the stage for future gigs. but it seems like he's moving on to the next album already!

As well he should, man. Nothing on "Americana" is close to "Walk Like a Giant," which I'm starting to think of as one of his best songs, ever.

Comparisons are the barnacles of ILX. Americana is a different deal, and I'm sold American on it from the get-go! Though could def live without "Tom Dula" and maybe "Gallows Pole."

"Gallows Pole" was a mild disappointment for me; a bit too jaunty for the Horse. The rest of Americana is ace, though.

"Giant" is fucking insane, especially the breakdown. And the display on my iPod abbreviates the artist name to "Neil Young & Crazy Ho..."

Indeedio, glad for that too-- and weren't they gonna put out another album this year?

That's sort of my point (xposty): like "Americana" or not, there's not a single song on there I would want taking up a fraction of the time that "Walk like a Giant" takes up.

no meters, no worry. But speaking of time Here he is or was at that Outside Lands (awkward name but it is outside, in Golden Gate Park)
from RStone:
By the time Young did take the stage, with his band Crazy Horse, the infamous San Francisco fog had enveloped the main field, creating an eerie backdrop for what turned out to be a spooky feedback jam-packed session. The first song alone, "Love and Only Love," stretched past the 17-minute mark with multiple jams between verses. Midway through the set, Young played a couple of songs straightforward solo on his acoustic – "The Needle and the Damage Done" and "Twisted Road" – before getting his ya ya's out, back on the electric, including a wild improvisational romp through "Fucking Up."

Young may not have performed any actual songs from his latest album, Americana, but the point of his set was not to promote product so much as to play music of the moment, in the moment, like so many great bands have done in Golden Gate Park before. Snubbing convention and even punking the audience, Young introduced one number by saying he wrote it that very morning and that it "sounds like another, but I can’t remember which one it is." He then launched into "Cinnamon Girl" from 1969's Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere. might be more info on the site, but I gotta go

sounds like another, but I can’t remember which one it is.

LOVE

he says the same thing during one of the red rocks shows -- and then plays "psychedelic pill". which does sound like another song, but, like Neil, I can't quite place which one.

Something off Le Noise, I believe. And another Le Noise song borrows from "Like An Inca." Dude's a regular Ray Davies, with the self-plundering.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TEPPuyA3GOs

"It's all one song!"

"Psychedelic Pill" = Le Noise's "Sign Of Love." Exact same riff.

ah, you are correct. thought it was something older, but no!

Wow, "Walk Like A Giant" really is good. Definitely bodes well. Wasn't that excited for "Americana" but am hepped up now.

And another Le Noise song borrows from "Like An Inca."

It's actually the other way around: "Hitchhiker" came first and "Like An Inca" borrowed from it.

Weird, didn't know that. I've been digging into his 80s stuff lately, and his stockpiling tendencies/choices are kind of bewildering (e.g., releasing something like "T-Bone" in favor of, say, "Country Home").

I know I am really late, but..

It'd be awesome if his next album was called "Canadiana," and included covers of, like, Barenaked Ladies, Rush, Leonard Cohen and BTO.

― Josh in Chicago, Thursday, April 12, 2012 4:05 PM (4 months ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hymns_of_the_49th_Parallel

no barenaked ladies, no credibility. or are they the backing band? [jk! that album is quite good imo]

daaaamn now that I see these setlists I might have to get tickets to one of the Brooklyn shows

er one of the new york shows I mean. one at MSG and one at the new Barclays Center in BK.

BNL wrote no one's favourite Canadian songs when we've so much else to choose from ;)

might be seeing one of the NY shows so I'm still debating whether to hear these previews or let new Neil hit me live in person the way he'd like it.

I don't think I'll listen to the bootlegs but before I would consider getting tix I had to see that the setlists weren't 90% Americana ...

You know, dumb question, but I've always wondered why "Hey Hey My My" namechecks Johnny Rotten and not Sid Vicious, when the latter (rhyme scheme aside) makes more thematic sense. Johnny Rotten never burned out or faded away, and I sometimes wonder if Neil realized he got the wrong guy and just thought, hey, it's a great song so fuck it.

if wiki is correct sid hadn't died yet when the album was recorded

plus i get the sense neil didn't even *know* that much about the pistols, he just felt something in the wind and wrote about it

Yeah, isn't the track about Elvis, really?

So it sounds like Ralph Molina is using Hot Rods exclusively, instead of sticks. Don't really see it as an aesthetic choice...maybe he's protecting his hearing?

new album according to sampedro, will be called "Psychedelic Pill"
http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/inside-neil-young-and-crazy-horses-new-album-and-tour-20120814

Don't really see it as an aesthetic choice...maybe he's protecting his hearing?

Too little, too late, dude. You're in Crazy Horse!

i'm so in love with the 2nd night of the colorado bootlegs

someone just sent me a 35 minute mix of all the feedback jams at the end of Walk Like A Giant entitled Arc 2012. Noise album of the year?

Without a doubt. The "Giant" jams make Fushitsusha sound like the Magnetic Fields.

Let me be the upmteenth person to note that the noise-jam ending of "Walk Like a Giant" is completely awesome.

kind of sounds like they're slaughtering a whale

Dude, which "Walk Like A Giant" has this slaughtered whale moment, wanna listen! I guess I will listen to all of it, glowing recs, but I don't think the version I listened to reached quite those heights.

Well, there's a hair of hyperbole at work here. We're not really talking Fushitsusha (I hope). It sounds more like, dunno, Masaki Batoh. Or Neil Young.

ok judge for yourself -- here's Arc 2012: http://doomandgloomfromthetomb.tumblr.com/post/29629148690/arc-2012-for-nearly-two-decades-now-fans-have

Brilliant. Thanks for posting that!

I should admit that I've totally come around to "Americana" and now sort of view it as the closest we're going to come to a whole album of stuff like the "Farmer John" cover. As major an album as minor albums get.