POLL: YEAR OF THE HORSE -- Neil Young and Crazy Horse

posts from the deleted poll:

Oh man this is tough, love this all so much. This was the third Neil Young record I ever got, behind Mirror Ball and Decade so really my introduction to fucked-up Crazy Horse live goodness.

― you gone float up with it (jon /via/ chi 2.0), Wednesday, February 24, 2010 11:29 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

Me too, though I had Harvest and Decade. I went to go see the movie by myself on a gloomy day and it was just MESMERIZING.

I started this poll because I was just driving home from work, class is over at 9:45 on the south side, and I was driving home with the world's dirtiest windshield and listening to this album for the first time in forever. I couldn't see anything. suddenly it started snowing like whiteout style on lakeshore and i could see again.

danger bird was playing and it just seemed totally magical. i love all kinds of live ny/ch but this record has the best memory/feeling for me.

― figgy pudding (La Lechera), Wednesday, February 24, 2010 11:33 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

cmon, 9 min "barstool blues"?
that's a full 3x longer than the original! i love this album specifically for being a long bloated dirge.

also "prisoners" is a bit of comic relief after the long slog.

― figgy pudding (La Lechera), Thursday, February 25, 2010 7:36 AM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

I'll have to listen again in order to vote; it's been years and when I got it (prob. day it came out) I was kinda overwhelmed by this side of Neil---I'd seen him live a bunch on those tours, and didn't really think I needed another live Crazy Horse extravaganza (memories + Weld seemed sufficient). And for personal reasons I kinda fell away from old favorites for a while. So yeah: it'll take a relisten.

― begs the question, when is enough enough (Euler), Thursday, February 25, 2010 8:22 AM (19 minutes ago) Bookmark

How does "Prisoners" sound in this iteration?

I think it's kind of a silly song, but it sounds alright. Like I said, it almost sounds like comic relief at the end of this loooooong, sloggy, climb up a dark mountain.

is this the one where all his guitar strings break and he STILL keeps playing for like 5 more minutes?

electric pocahontas is pretty incredible ... danger bird amazing, too.

Songs like "When Your Lonely Heart Breaks" and "Slip Away" are not even remotely canonical classix, but there they are among megahits...yet there are no MEGA MEGA hits like Cortez, etc.

When I bought this I was disappointed that "Like a Hurricane" wasn't on the sdtk.

just realized i must have lost this CD in a move or something ... :(

woah, i've never heard this. good?

i mean, it's probably the least essential NY & Crazy Horse live album, but if you like NY & Crazy Horse you want it.

yes! i like that it has a very constant mood. also tylerw otm: not necessary, but if you like NY/CH why not? it's all going to be good.

the movie is pretty good too, intercuts old footage with new concert footage. i have <3 for jarmusch too because he is from cuyahoga falls, which is like 100 feet from where i grew up in akron. just across the gorge.

ah okay so not as good as rust?

but still awesome, b/c it's NY & CH?

yeah -- not as good as Weld either imo. But i still love it! Super cheap used on Amazon too. I might have to order a replacement copy ...

right, because the songs aren't really as HIT PARADE, but i don't think a person can go too wrong with live crazy horse.

exactly.

ok i am willing to admit that "big time" kinda sucks but i'm willing to give this whole record a free pass just because i love extended "danger bird"

a lot of these songs only really get cooking when they are done with the recorded song and they just go onto like 4 more minutes of total jam....

actually might go with "slip away" just cuz it's more unique to this one

Xgau on this album:

"Men of their word, they're great sometimes and good never."

wha' fuh teh

well?

Going to listen to this right now to figure out what I'm going to vote for. I remember really loving this when it came out.

It's perfect for a crappy rainy day too.

It is, very good weather for this today. Anyway, another listen only confirmed my original thought - "Danger Bird" it is.

yeah "Danger Bird" is the perfect fit for the lumbering latter day Horse. sounds huge on this record. there's a version from the Greendale tour w/ a whole choir coming in on the chorus. kind of intense!

Yeah, this is one of those Neil Young things that tends to get lost in the shuffle. Thanks for the reminder. It really is a good set. The more-or-less contemporanious 'Broken Arrow' was another overlooked Young/Horse gem. Not bad at all.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

haha lowest poll results ever?
ilx hates live latter day NY/CH?

i think i forgot to vote.

i have never heard this one, to be brutally honest.

it's good! when you're sick of all of the other live albums, there it is waiting for you. you should hear it.

yeah, I said I'd listen again but I never felt the spirit. Eventually!

Year of the Horse doc was on TV last night - it isn't particularly good and I'd seen it before anyway but watching old Neil in his Tide t-shirt and hair a-flopping as he whiny-wailed his way through Barstool Blues I was struck by how OLD and timeless he has always seemed to me. I'm sure part of this is because by the time I found out about him he was already pushing 50, but even as I worked my way backwards through his catalog to his earliest solo stuff, he always seemed like an old man, a force of nature, just doin his thing. his methods and essential songwriting POV haven't really changed or developed over the years, he's always been obsessed with the same themes and tropes and (in a lot of ways) basic styles - it's not like he started out raw and wild as a youth and then mellowed as he got older, there's no clear career arc, it's all just a tangled but highly distinctive mess. It's like he's been a cranky 70yo stoner his entire life.

i've really got to pick this up at some point. i remember the take on 'mr. soul' being a really good one.

Ebert didn't like the film much. In fact, he picked it as the worst of 1997.

haha I remember that episode – his worst movie the year that As Good as it Gets was nominated.

lol "endless loops of instrumental repetition that seem positioned somewhere between mantras and autism" -- i kind of like that.

I liked this movie when it came out but I haven't seen it in a long time. I don't remember it being terrible at all, really.

the end jams of a lot of the songs are better than the actual songs on this album

I dug the movie myself, but I love that band. If I hadn't been a fan, I probably would've had a similar (though not as tone-fucking-deaf) reaction as Ebert's.

yeah, it's a movie for fans, not something PBS-y like, say, this new george harrison doc. if anything, jarmusch could've dispensed entirely with the more straightforward rock doc stuff and made a more impressionistic movie.

Totally -- if memory serves, it's a really slow mesmerizing movie, not like Spinal Tap at all. I think there were like 3 other people in the theater when I saw it and it was more of a contemplative experience than a MOVIE, like the songs themselves.

yeah, i saw it almost alone in a theater when i was in college. i may have fallen asleep, come to think of it, but that wasn't really the movie's fault.

Ditto, I saw it at the Music Box in Chicago. Sat in the front row, was shocked when I got up at the end and saw other people (maybe three) in the theater.

I bet if you gathered all of the people who saw this movie during the original theater run they would fill up...one theater :(

jarmusch + young = box office boffo!
i actually have a pretty good string of seeing jarmusch movies in the theater pretty much all by myself. works for me!

Ive never heard this. Ive only heard the Zuma version of "Danger Bird" but man is that song awesome.

you gotta hear the super long version! it's great.

heyo, just saw that year of the horse is now on netflix instant. if only my wife and daughter weren't both napping right now...

Cool! Definitely gonna watch it again. Just listened to Weld and all I really want right now is for Neil to put out some insane, massive box of live Crazy Horse stuff.

Nice! I'll watch it again too when I am in a dirgey mood.

Listened to it this morning while going to work (its a hour and 1/2 car drive).
When it was released I found it a bit underwhelming: silly me, I didnt understand this is a totally different take to the Crazy Horse live experience. Slow, moody, subdued, hypnotic: truly great.

Does anyone know, or like, the LP REACTOR, by Neil Young & Crazy Horse?

know it, don't know that I like it

really only need two 80s studio albums from Neil, Trans (for the fun of it and the live shows with him and Nils wearing vocoders) and Freedom (which rules)

'Shots' is good