neil young

"unreleased" with Neil has meant different things over different years

a lot of that stuff on Homegrown that came out last year was unreleased

now it's released. . .and it's good!

it's a weird thing to say about NY

you're assuming Neil's unreleased material was unreleased for the same reasons most artists unreleased material is unreleased

Sure, I know a lot of his material he shuffles: bits recorded in 1975 end up on albums released years later.

but he has a ton of unreleased stuff on all this that's just better than stuff that was released is what i'm saying

because he is a weirdo

Yeah, Dylan and Neil could almost swap their catalogs for their respective (at the time) unreleased stuff and still be major artists.

some of the previously-unheard songs in the Archive releases are among his very best, yep. it's staggering.

Alfred, you gotta hear Neil's original synclavier demo for "Doghouse"

did you hear the Four Tet remix of "Doghouse"?

"unreleased" with Neil has meant different things over different years

a lot of that stuff on Homegrown that came out last year was unreleased

now it's released. . .and it's good!

It's OK, they definitely made the right choice not releasing it at the time though.

I love Homegrown. That and Chrome Dreams are two genuinely great lost albums. Hitchhiker is very good too, but unlike Homegrown, I can't say Hitchhiker and Chrome Dreams should have been released back in the day since they were quickly and thoroughly cannibalized for other albums. American Stars 'n' Bars is a mixed bag but Rust Never Sleeps is one of my absolute favorites by anyone. (Tonight's the Night vies with it for my favorite Neil Young album now - I'm glad it was released, but I wish Homegrown had been put out there too, like in 1976 or 1977.)

Even On the Beach was out of print for 20 years, and that album is not only one of his best, it *had* been released!

I wish he'd pick up the pace, but TBH given what's been released already, I don't feel that unsatiated either. I'm sure there are more surprises that'll reward the fans (I didn't know about Hitchhiker, and maybe Toast will help redeem the lull at the turn of the century?), but I'm not expecting any more lost masterpieces. Great live albums/compilations are another thing, but Homegrown, Chrome Dreams and Times Square are the only shelved albums I'd ever put on par with his greatest LP's, and again releasing the latter two would've meant Rust Never Sleeps and Freedom as we know them wouldn't have happened.

(actually, it's not a lull so much as a solid dip in quality)

there's Oceanside Countryside which is probably closer to Hitchhiker

the Bottom Line show is a real gem, an important one (not sure if it's there's more than on the bootleg)

I think there's the full synth version of Trans but not sure if that's real or coming out

I wonder if there's more from the Mirror Ball sessions? I'd be into that

I really like Hitchhiker, great vibe

found this, a new song Neil did at the Orpheum Theater show cbesinger and I went to, goofy stage banter galore and crowd participation

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o0IOIeaZuaI

that one's on Colorado ... in fact it might be an overdubbed version from that very show. kinda cute.

ha i only made it through colorado a couple times tbh and didn't remember

click clack clickety clack WOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

yeah, i really think the quieter Colorado stuff is better, something is really off about the electric jams. maybe the missing ingredient is sampedro. listening to the odeon-budokan + rust bucket recordings gives a better view of what he's doing underneath neil and it is usually really nice. super simple, but that's the point.

nils is too good to be in crazy horse

(well this version at least)

ha, maybe. he might be a little too eager to please.

maybe i already shared this but if not, here's an hour of nice neil rarities/oddities: https://aquariumdrunkard.com/2021/02/08/neil-young-a-few-honey-slides/

imo a missed opportunity by not shipping Archives 2 with the ingredients and recipe for honey slides

but someone probably already made that joke upthread

yeah, i really think the quieter Colorado stuff is better, something is really off about the electric jams. maybe the missing ingredient is sampedro. listening to the odeon-budokan + rust bucket recordings gives a better view of what he's doing underneath neil and it is usually really nice. super simple, but that's the point.

I'll probably give it another try, but the one track that stayed with me was a very quiet number, "I Do." I've been doing homemade sequels to Decade just to have some place for stray tracks that I like, and that got a spot on Decade VI.

this place has Archives II pre-orders for $50 off

https://www.popmarket.com/neil-young-archives-vol-ii-1972-1976/093624926214

great stuff on that mix tyler. one of my fondest DJing memories is playing that mr soul version once and actually witnessing humans dance to it

ha! that's great.

Young wrote on NYA that Young Shakespeare is, “a more calm performance, without the celebratory atmosphere of Massey Hall, captured live on 16mm. Young Shakespeare is a very special event. To my fans, I say this is the best ever…one of the most pure-sounding acoustic performances we have in the Archive.”

This beautiful concert is being released on LP, DVD and CD, plus a numbered deluxe boxed edition that includes all 3 formats – LP, CD and DVD.
---from this (seems to be a trailer or some kind of vid linked in here)
http://view.e.warnerrecords.com/?qs=8fa041e93a7d32bbe6cd346dc10837e7be109a786966be7fc031d8d66b69b3502ea5afabfa3336128c98f9d21336bb39afd5efa7fe5864f283c471a2ac92d4f8aa05837cde321dcb

If they still have the film elements (and it sounds like he does), I really wish they'd put out a Blu-ray disc. He makes a big deal about audio quality, but I get the impression sometimes that he doesn't give two shits about picture quality. The Rust Never Sleeps film on Blu-Ray is a terrible transfer - nothing to do with the film itself, it's all in the authoring, with digital compression artifacts everywhere and what looks like poor grain management - frankly it looks like it could've been a good-for-SD video transfer up-res'd to HD.

If they still have the film elements (and it sounds like he does), I really wish they'd put out a Blu-ray disc. He makes a big deal about audio quality, but I get the impression sometimes that he doesn't give two shits about picture quality. The _Rust Never Sleeps_ film on Blu-Ray is a terrible transfer - nothing to do with the film itself, it's all in the authoring, with digital compression artifacts everywhere and what looks like poor grain management - frankly it looks like it could've been a good-for-SD video transfer up-res'd to HD.

The old DVD wasn't even anamorphic.

Greendale was actually the first brand-new album that was released after I became a fan - bought it the week it came out and was pleasantly surprised by a bonus DVD that said Live at Vicar St. Thank god for it too, because I don't think I would've liked Neil's song cycle without it.

I noticed last week that an audio-only version of the Vicar St. disc was streaming everywhere: Neil's site, Apple Music, Spotify, Neil's own YouTube channel, etc. I tried the studio album first, and except for "Bandit" (by far my favorite track), the whole thing kind of laid there. It was especially disappointing as a Crazy Horse recording, but Pancho was more or less relegated to keyboards, so perhaps that may have been part of the problem. I tried the Vicar St. album today and even without picture, it was still a night and day difference - a rare instance where a solo acoustic performance is far more powerful than the Crazy Horse rendition.

In a lot of ways, it reminds me of Springsteen on Broadway. That idea sounded dubious when I first heard about it, but then the reviews came in and I got curious. Before I saw it, I knew it was Bruce doing solo renditions of old songs (a few with Patti) and telling stories that were already covered in his memoir - I could see how it might be good, but it was far better than I could have expected. The reasons why it were better are kind of applicable with the Vicar St. album. In either case, if they only played the songs, it might have been underwhelming. If it was just the spoken word bits, it wouldn't have been enough to sustain an entire show or even half a show. You really need both elements to play off of each other. In Springsteen's case, it created a context that gave a new life and a different perspective of each song - you were supposed to process them through the lens of the preceding words. The same effect happens with Vicar St., and it really helps with a narrative-heavy project like this because as the show moves along, Neil fleshes them out with more and more details, and it's especially engaging to hear how Neil views his own characters - it gives them more weight and makes the project feel much more personal. The performances themselves are especially good - Neil knows it's going to be a challenge getting this across, especially when he's never done anything like this before. He's more engaged with the audience himself, and he's more invested and focused when he performs each number on his own.

What did you think of the Greendale film itself? That's the only way I've experienced the songs, and I've never felt like listening to the album, or live versions.

I have a friend that saw him on the "Greendale" tour, and he said there was a guy in the row in front of him that just kept chanting "nooooormal concert ... noooooormal concert ... ! "

His concert docs are great. Rust Never Sleeps, Heart of Gold directed by Jonathan Demme...they're essential. But as narrative filmmaker, Neil's consistently terrible, and it never sounded like the Greendale movie was any different, so I've never felt compelled to see it. The fly-on-the-wall in-studio documentary accompanied the second pressing of the Greendale album, replacing Vicar St. - IIRC it's distinguishable by the negative cover art. That may be worth seeing, though I was under the impression that the music duplicates what you hear on the album.

I remember Greg Kot and Jim DeRogatis both reporting that a lot of fans were upset that the Greendale shows were mostly Greendale songs. They both agreed that it was asinine for longtime fans to complain because they should know better - i.e. Neil has consistently done this before, even when the album in question hasn't been released yet (as seen by the steady trickle of archival live albums that are straight up live versions of previously released studio albums).

It never ceases to amaze me how little the average person seems to know about what they're about to see, especially considering how set, er, setlists are for most major acts.

We're talking boomers here tho.

I'm talking generally, not just Neil Young. I saw Sufjan Stevens behind "Age of Adz" and Bon Iver behind his second album, and no way was the crowd prepared for an evening of Not The Hits.

I also saw Neil solo some years back where he made a big deal of wandering over to his array of instruments (pipe organ, a particular guitar, a piano, etc), which got everyone's hopes up that it would be this song or that song, but then just playing whatever was on his mostly-set setlist anyway. I think that may be because it was being filmed for one of those Demme docs. Trunk Show?

I saw him on The Twisted Road tour (right before Le Noise) and it was like that.

i saw him in 2019 solo acoustic and he did the same thing haha

neil has a lot of old school fans that basically like harvest, after the gold rush and that's about it

I had just gotten pretty turned on to NY and I was more than a bit confused when the first time I saw him live was during the Greendale tour.

Could be worse. I saw one of Grant Hart's last shows and he asked, "what do you want to hear?" A hail of Hüsker Dü requests was greeted with "I ain't playing that old shit." A little later, someone in the front requested a solo song, and Hart told him "I ain't playing that either...it's a good song, but I ain't playing it." Poor guy just stood there and replied, "...but I love that song..."

Heh. I saw Alex Chilton once, and when someone requested a specific Big Star song he played "Rock with You" by Michael Jackson ... twice, iirc.

Could be worse. I saw one of Grant Hart's last shows and he asked, "what do you want to hear?" A hail of Hüsker Dü requests was greeted with "I ain't playing that old shit." A little later, someone in the front requested a solo song, and Hart told him "I ain't playing that either...it's a good song, but I ain't playing it." Poor guy just stood there and replied, "...but I love that song..."

― birdistheword, Tuesday, 16 February 2021 18:30 (one hour ago) link

My fave Grant bit would be you call out a song

"Flexible Flyer!"

Grant plays the opening chords. Stops plays another song. Then another. Then plays the "Flexible Flyer" opening chord again and stops. Plays yet another song.

You yell out again

"Flexible Flyer!"

Grant: "I already played that! Oh did you want to hear the whole thing?" and sometimes he would play it and sometimes not.

Grant Hart solo shows were a psychological experience

Were you at the show where he kept playing the first chord and singing "Bar-ba-ra" over and over? kinda the same deal.

Some of the most tense moments when he was in a mood I've ever seen at a show.