neil young

Loving this Roxy set. Not exactly worlds apart from the album as released, but weird to hear these very bleak tunes rendered this way. The band sounds like they're having a good time. There are some flubs (mostly lyrical ones) that actually bug me, but that's only because I know the original TTN as well as I know any record.

The banter is pretty classic, too. I love when Neil says "thank you very much, ladies and gentlemen, it's been real average." What a dick

Lol yeah real average def goes in the Neil banter hall of fame

did anyone watch the livestream?? i missed it...trying to find clips on youtube
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ljc1FgaoJBQ

this is great also lmao at Nils' Lon Chaney outfit and goth organ

yeah i love the goth organ, wish it was louder, like i always want everything to be louder. they're old though, i understand.
ugh i love this song so much!!

livestream was pretty great, shaky handheld cameras and all. stereogum has a good collection of fan video.

https://www.stereogum.com/1994333/neil-young-crazy-horse-reunite-in-fresno-watch/video/

watched a bit of it last night — sounded good, a little wobbly at times, but that is OK! little bit worried about billy talbot, he's looking pretty aged.

the final shot of billy, hobbling offstage with obvious difficulty, made me think touring would not be easy.

Many XPs They've always had the goth organ (actually a stringman synth)... Poncho played it in the Rust movie.

Also: More concert films should have Steadicam shots of aimless wandering around the theater during long songs.

Haven't watched but per the stereogum piece, did they really not rehearse before hand? I mean I wouldn't be shocked its just funny with a "new" member in the band

"Yeah Nils, just show up at like 5...yeah, well I dunno Like A Hurricane probably...yeah...I'll email you the link to the Archives. Cool, see you next week."

lol

that is totally how it went down

i love Neil's hair here, blowing like an aged god on the peak of a high mountain

"I'll bring my guitar Neil..."

"no...not the guitar."

haha, yeah, they must have had some kind of pre-game situation before last night — even without nils, they hadn't played a few of those songs in ... 20+ years? The Broken Arrow jams haven't been played in forever, anyway.

"Hey Nils you know that Broken Arrow record? No...ok no worries just watch me for the changes...ok let's start the concert"

maybe nils had an earpiece with sampedro feeding him the chord changes from hawaii — "Em! A! Em! A! Em! A!"

More concert films should have Steadicam shots of aimless wandering around the theater during long songs.

^^^this

I really don't think Nils needed that much rehearsal, if any.

Billy: "Hey Neil Nils keeps ending the song after three measures!"
Nils: "But that's how it is on the record"
Neil: "Goddammit Nils stop confusing them"

Nils:"Hey Billy I think yr hitting the wrong note there"
Billy:"Where? This one?"
Nils:"Yeah I don't think that's right"
Billy:"This is how I always play it"
Nils:"You didn't play it like that yesterday"
Billy: "NEIL!"
Neil: "Goddammit Nils!"

lol
it is pretty funny how different it must be to play in the e-street band compared to crazy horse

I think given Nils' skills they're both pretty amusing to him.

lots of Ds and E minors in both bands, iirc

And Gs! Don't forget Gs!

Plus some As and Cs.

For it is written, in xgau's Rock Albums of the 70s:
Crazy Horse [Reprise, 1971]
The rhythms are deliberately deliberate, and maybe the reason four different guys sing lead is that they don't really trust Danny Whitten with the job. But this should throw a good scare into Neil Young even if they moved on with his blessing. It's literate both verbally (Jack Nitzsche's "Gone Dead Train" is white blues poetry) and musically (they hoe down, they rave up, they phase out, they rock and roll). With temp worker Nils Lofgren pitching them two titles, there's not a bad song on the record. Not a bad cut, either. A- He really didn't like their other albums without Neil (or Danny or Jack or Nils) tho

Look at All the Things is one of the best songs ever

This is so great

I'd forgotten the backstory, never did know that much---how is the Rockets album?? (Bobby Notkoff and his violin were Rockets, only knew him from Michelle's Saturn's Rings, he was buddies with her and Curt Boettcher and Eliiot Ingber and Lowell George and other heads on her album)(but this says he was also on an Everybody Knows... track about the Rockets, so I've heard him there too, without knowing who it was). Don't think I ever knew that Young (according to this) also recorded "Look At All The Things," is it in the Archives? Anyway, they should have their own doc and/or book: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crazy_Horse_(band)#Early_years

Also educational (among many other details, there's an unreleased first version of this?)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tonight%27s_the_Night_(Neil_Young_album)

The Rockets album is good stuff, sludgy garage rock with some interesting detours (a couple, er, impressions of the Impressions, and a track called "Stretch Your Skin" which I shit you not is Roxy Music's first album four years too early).

Hurry before it dissapears: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KhsrENSFUCU

I watched the whole thing last night and man it was pretty fantastic, some clams and some Horse-y-ness in spots but fucking great. They could have played "Big Time" for two hours.

Nils fits in perfectly, he obv gets that the Horse aren't technicians, they're alchemists

1. I've never been able to find any footage of CH with Danny, very curious as to his onstage presence. Did they do the huddles? did he solo?

2. Don't have the time to got through it all: does Nils play any solos here? what's with the synth descending from the heavens draped with a ratty ass blanket? does he play both pianos and the synth?

3. Where's Poncho? did I read that he doesn't get on with Neil anymore?

2. He's not playing any solos, he's basically doing the Poncho role with some subtle differences, the synth from the heaves is the organ for Like A Hurricane and they've been doing that bit since Live Rust. Nils does play some piano.

3. No clue, don't believe anything has been said

I've never been able to find any footage of CH with Danny, very curious as to his onstage presence. Did they do the huddles? did he solo?

yeah, i wish there was more danny out there - i'm not sure i've ever seen any footage at all of him with neil

that live version of 'come on baby let's go downtown' on tonight's the night with danny on vocals is so great tho - he and neil play off each other in a palpably different way to neil and poncho

and live at the fillmore east with the original horse lineup just fuckin' whips from start to finish

"Yeah Nils, just show up at like 5...yeah, well I dunno Like A Hurricane probably...yeah...I'll email you the link to the Archives. Cool, see you next week."

lol, this all seems plausible. except i'm not sure that Neil knows how to copy and paste text, so he probably sent a picture of the link to the Archives

wrt Poncho I think Neil said something like "unfortunately Poncho couldn't be with us" or something to that effect and I read that he'd gotten his finger slammed in a bus door and really fucked it up?

who knows could be a cover for Neil passive aggressively cutting someone out for no reason...

...or honestly, maybe on some level he just needs Nils who's definitely way more pro to hold things together as Talbot's clearly not in great shape

1. I've never been able to find any footage of CH with Danny, very curious as to his onstage presence. Did they do the huddles? did he solo?

to me, one of the great "What ifs" in rock history...the Fillmore gig is so amazing, and yeah I love Poncho but he's limited, it's very tempting to wonder what would have happened if Whitten lived and Neil was pushed by someone who could really lock horns with him, like a Lloyd/Verlaine thing....

holy shit check out danny, billy and ralph here!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=53CSOJZ1bIs

yeah i think that is really the only footage of danny whitten out there, which is sort of nuts.

definitely too bad there aren't more early NY + Horse recordings — the fillmore show is from their last tour together, but they played pretty steadily throughout 1969.

I think the first-ever Crazy Horse footage is the mostly unreleased '76 tour stuff. The Whitten period was unfortunately during Neil's "Being filmed is for squares like CSNY maaaaaan" phase.

neil v much not otm, sadly :(

where was bernard shakey when we needed him

haha yeah ...

anyway, i've listened to the whole first night at Fresno and it is awesome. some totally raging jams there.

except for a few fleeting moments, I don't think you'd be able to tell it's Nils and not Poncho up there.

Just started listening to Danny By The River: NY&CH, Cincinnati 2-25-70, Opening w solo acoustic, "On The Way Home," now "Broken Arrow," sounds good, "Did you see him, in the river? He was there to wave to you."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E9K5UwZewJM

So is there an unreleased first studio version of Tonight's The Night, like Scott Young quotes David Briggs as describing, and Neil confirming, in that xpost wiki re the album?

the "Briggs" early version of the record doesn't circulate, but I think it exists in Neil's archives, yeah.

covered fairly extensively in the mcdonough bio

XP ...and a lot of what's on it ended up on the official album, On The Beach, and Decade. The big missing pieces are dialog tracks that were placed between the songs.