neil young

Was putting together my year-end lists for The Wire tonight - 10 new releases and 10 "archival" releases and I gave a lot of thought to putting Way Down in the Rust Bucket on the latter list. It ultimately didn't make it, but I really do think it's the best thing Neil's released in 30 years.

Yes Rust Bucket is already in the pantheon of great Crazy Horse live albums to me

I’d rank it above Weld easily

So is that Nils playing piano on "Heading West?" I love how Nils' two long standing band gigs are for acts that really don't need his guitar virtuosity. Which reminds me, if Springsteen tours, as expected, in 2022, then I guess that mean Neil and Crazy Horse ... won't?

Promise of The Real, baby!

Ugh, I hate that band

Fun fact: Neil x Drive-By Truckers=back-up band on Booker T's Potato Hole, which, despite the downhomely title, is mostly gleaming arena rock, good of its kind, and occasionally making me wonder about the orange label mix of Boston's s/t, which was said to be better, if not even better than the regular blue label. Archive.org also had some good shows backed by the Truckers, dunno of Neil ever did that (of course Booker T.& The MGs did back him).

So we started talking about Dean Stockwell over on ILE's Harry Dean Stanton thread, and then he turned up dead, and somebody quoted a couple things, one about his co-writing Human Highway, and the following Tweet (although if you've read more of Shakey than I did, this may well be old news):
In Peru, Dennis very strongly urged me to write a
screenplay," Stockwell recalls, "and he would get it
produced. I came back home to Topanga Canyon
[in the mountains outside LA] and wrote After The
Gold Rush. Neil was living in Topanga then too,
and a copy of it somehow got to him. He had had
writer's block for months, and his record
company was after him. And after he read this
screenplay he wrote the After The Gold Rush
album in three weeks."

Stockwell's screenplay is long lost. Young's
biographer Jimmy McDonough was told that it
was "an end-of-the-world movie" which ended
with a tidal wave crashing towards its hero as he
stood in the parking lot of the Topanga hippies'
favourite hang-out, the Corral, whose regulars
included Young and Joni Mitchell, Stockwell's
friend Russ Tamblyn was set to play a rocker
recluse living in a castle, and wild-haired total
artist George Herms was meant to haul a "tree of
life" like Christ with his crucifix across the
Canyon.

"lt'J not a linear, regular storytelling kind of film,"
StoIkwell explains, "Really what was in my mind
was that the gold rush in effect created California
And the film took place on the day California was
supposed to go into the ocean. So that's what
happened after the gold rush."

It was meant to be part of Universal's short-lived "Youth Pictures" division, which was shuttered after practically all of their releases (among them Hopper's The Last Movie, P.Fonda's The Hired Hand, and Two-Lane Blacktop) bombed.

Hopper's The Last Movie, P.Fonda's The Hired Hand, and Two-Lane Blacktop

Inspired a young Jim Steinman to write "Two Out of Three Ain't Bad." (Truthfully, I haven't seen The Last Movie.)

Iirc the other produced films were Forman's Taking Off, and Diary of A Mad Housewife, which of course has a big Neil connection too.

There's a funny bit in Shakey about Stockwell giving some clueless execs a tour of prospective shooting locations in Topanga, and introducing them to locals he wanted to cast, "This is Janis Joplin...Yes, she's very famous & she's going to be in the movie!"

Iirc, Stockwell was the guy who introduced Neil to the music of Devo.

#onethread

Hey now now hey now now

don't dream it's over it dream it's over now dn't

Iirc the other produced films were Forman's Taking Off

Love this movie

HBD Neil!

Spotify just threw "Heading West" from Barn at me: A happy version of "Don't Be Denied"?

"Doobie Denied"! Doctor took another look in his head, "Better cut that out, " he said, so leaving the weed after 50-odd years, he wrote Waging Heavy Peace instead, he said in the intro. Happy results for me, not everybody.

Truthfully, I haven't seen The Last Movie

The Last Movie is amazing, although maybe a happy accident if you give somebody who made a road movie on drugs more drugs and free time with a camera where there are even more drugs. At times like Jodorowsky made a film within a film about a cargo cult

It's the reason why Stockwell's quote begins "In Peru..."

There's a Stockwell/Hopper/Marjorie Cameron link to the Stones and Kenneth Anger too.

I thought The Last Movie was good too.

Hopper had supposedly completed a conventional edit of The Last Movie when he showed it to Jodorowsky, who was visiting his home in Taos. Jodorowsky criticized this version of the film so harshly that Hopper decided to recut the film in its final form, so no one could accuse him of "selling out".

Random thought...The Breakfast in America thread had me checking Billboard to see where it ended up on the year-end album list, which in turn had me checking other years, and it still astounds me that Neil Young once topped such a year-end list.

https://www.billboard.com/charts/year-end/1972/top-billboard-200-albums

Mere seconds before the house was burned down...

pic.twitter.com/AWXroeRSv1

— SNL Hosts Introducing the Musical Guest (@snlhostsintro) November 12, 2021

https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x2s8diq

This was the first episode of SNL I ever watched. It was a big moment for me at the time, as a 10-year-old. Unfortunately I had zero interest in Neil Young (who I'm sure I knew only from "This Note's for You") and skipped this historic performance completely. 4 years later I saw him do the same song on MTV and he would eventually become one of the main musical touchstones of my life.

I didn't realize this until McDonough wrote about it in Shakey, but the original broadcast is even more amazing. Neil was moving so fast and so wild, the cameras struggled to keep up with him. I guess they recorded something like the video equivalent of a multi-track because for the re-broadcasts, they went back and re-edited the performance so that Neil is always centered for whichever rigid camera shot was chosen.

Most YouTube uploads have come from Comedy Central re-runs or the SNL 25th anniversary music DVD box set, but I know at least one person out there who uploaded a VHS copy of the original broadcast - quality was low, but I was able to rip it and put it somewhere on a drive.

I remember reading about that before I saw the clip; it was less that the cameras struggled to keep up with him and more that he was purposely fucking with the cameras, ducking out of shot whenever possible. I first saw it on a 1990 rerun on NBC, and was confused: Neil was squarely in all the shots. I still haven't found/seen the original live broadcast, but yeah, SNL made sure that even the first reruns on NBC had Neil in frame.

I think I saw it live as it broadcast. Does he break almost every string on his guitar in the retake version?

It was the same exact performance for both versions, they just re-edited the multi-camera footage. I know because when I found the crappy YouTube upload of the original broadcast, I swapped the audio out with the audio from the SNL 25th Anniversary DVD and it was a perfect match. I still need to find it - the video quality was so poor (looks like a dub of a VHS dub, etc.), I never felt compelled to watch it that often.

OIC

A great video to show people on the Stones thread who were all "lol Steve Jordan, what a snooze."

Thanks to that host intros Twitter account, I went looking for info about the actual shows themselves, and I happened on this blog: https://www.onesnladay.com/reviews/, which goes over each episode in pretty good detail (excepting, sadly, most of the music) with many blanks being filled in by that rarest of internet beasts, the Quality Comments Section.

One of my big takeaways from it that I hadn't really realized before was how much chicanery goes into even first-run SNL reruns, anything from 'correcting' musical performances like Neil's and minor edits to sketches to replacing live takes with ones from dress rehearsal (or editing hybrid 'Frankenstein' takes from both) and rearranging the running order of bits.

Does he break almost every string on his guitar in the retake version?

This was the part that stuck with me for 30+ years, the way he yanked all the strings off the guitar at the end of the song. Non-guitarist me immediately thought, "I bet that hurt like a motherfucker."

There's a bunch of different SNL rehearsal bits up on YT, including the dress rehearsal versions of Neil in '89 (including an exclusive "Needle &..." prefacing a nice "No More"):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JHs_f063EzQ

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xiey2l4mLBc

Non-guitarist me immediately thought, "I bet that hurt like a motherfucker."

He used the Bigsby tremolo arm to yank the strings off. That said, as a guitarist, I would be far too afraid of a string hitting me in the eye to try something like that.

i hadn't seen the rehearsal performances before! they're just as good if not better than the broadcast ones, so excellent to get some more! how long were Jordan and Drayton in the band? not that long, right?

They were brought in from Keith Richards' X-Pensive Winos for the taping, as Chad Cromwell & Rick Rojas were out on the road with other acts. Supposedly there's a studio take of "Fuckin' Up" by this band in vault somewhere, but any further recordings were derailed by people blowing off sessions.

Basically that day & night on SNL was it for that band.

retire while you're on top imo

Another thing was that by the time of the taping, David Briggs had returned to the fold, edging out Niko Bolas (who put that SNL band together) and setting the wheels in motion for a reunion with Crazy Horse and the whole Ragged Glory/Weld album-tour cycle.

retire while you're on top imo

Unfortunately, they never addressed "Doghouse".

While I trust Bob Dylan’s (and/or Tony Garnier’s) impeccable taste in assembling a band, it’s rare that I’m excited about whoever’s in his touring band that year. But I am very much looking forward to seeing Bob next week knowing that Charley Drayton is his current drummer.

Oh yeah. In the latest Flaggin' Down The Double E's (Dylan show download newsletter) that I've received, guest commentator and field correspondent Jon Wurster reports:

Knoxville was my first show of this tour and I didn’t want any spoilers, so I chose not to listen to any recordings of earlier concerts. I was aware that there had been a couple lineup changes since those November 2019 shows. Charlie Sexton, now out with Elvis Costello, had been replaced by Patty Griffin/John Hiatt guitarist Doug Lancio. Matt Chamberlain is one of the greatest drummers of the modern era, and I was sorry to hear that he would not be participating on this run. Any concerns I had about the change behind the drums disappeared when I learned Charley Drayton was the new kid in town.

My favorite drummer (Steve Jordan) is playing with the Stones, and my second favorite drummer is now with Dylan? If Topper Headon joins the Replacements I’ll know this has all just been a beautiful fever dream. Charley is one of those rare drummers (like Jordan, Alex Van Halen and Charlie Watts) whose feel and snare drum sound are instantly recognizable and one-of-a-kind. The Divinyls’ “I Touch Myself”? That’s Charley. The Replacements’ “Merry Go Round”? Charley. “Love Shack”? Charley, too. AND he’s the bassist for what might be the greatest televised rock ‘n’ roll performance in the history of Earth. (links to xpost SNL vids)
...Dylan seems to thrive on chaos, and Knoxville had several great chaotic moments, particularly during a somewhat extended “Most Likely You Go Your Way.”

I couldn’t take my eyes off Tony Garnier as he studied Bob’s hands to see where they might next land on the piano keyboard. Charley, who really impressed me later in the show with subtle brush work and understated-yet-driving, Kenny Buttrey-style drumming, broke into surprised smiles several times during “Most Likely” as he reacted to where Bob was taking the song...

To check this newsletter out:
https://dylanlive.substack.com

One of the best things about those SNL clips is Neil & Poncho's brilliant onstage chemistry with Drayton.

to replacing live takes with ones from dress rehearsal (or editing hybrid 'Frankenstein' takes from both)

Friend made of dead people?

Wake up, smell coffee!

This was the part that stuck with me for 30+ years, the way he yanked all the strings off the guitar at the end of the song. Non-guitarist me immediately thought, "I bet that hurt like a motherfucker."

Would have seen some blood and severed fingers had Poncho tried to rip out his own guitar's practically piano wire strings.

I couldn’t seem to see the string ripping incident in the posted video. Was it edited out?

I don’t remember the string ripping but I do remember the last 10 minutes of him playing without strings and thinking every other rock musician currently alive is a total poser