New Neil Young & Crazy Horse Album Completed

I have said it before and I'll say it again - Neil Young is at his best with Crazy Horse. This is when he rocks out the hardest, and improvises the most.

Neil seems to space out the Crazy Horse albums, like he needs to store up the energy to make them happen. But reports from Thrasher's Wheat, and confirmed by Rolling Stone, indicate that Neil and The Horse have finished recording a new album and are in the midst of another one.

Neil broke this news at the Slamdance Film Festival during a sit-down with Jonathan Demme, who has worked on various films with Neil including the recent Heart of Gold film. You can see a video of the conversation between Neil and Demme at Thrasher's Wheat.

Neil's stuff is always touch and go - you never know what you are going to get. His last album, Le Noise, was great - well, I liked it. But it got mixed reviews. I thought it was sonically really interesting and with Neil and just an electric, it was something he had never done before.

From Rolling Stone:

Neil Young is recording a new album with Crazy Horse, according to a post on Young's fansite Thrasher's Wheat – and now confirmed by Rolling Stone: "It's looking good," a representative for Young says. According to the fansite report, Young shared the news over the weekend at the Slamdance Film Festival in Park City, Utah, at an event with Jonathan Demme to promote their new movie Journeys. The audience "erupted in applause" when Young said that he was working with Crazy Horse again. Multiple fans subsequently posted on Crazy Horse drummer Ralph Molina's Facebook wall to ask if the news was true. His response: "Yes!"

Young began playing with the garage rock band in 1968 and they back him on many of his greatest albums, including Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere, Zuma, Rust Never Sleeps and Ragged Glory. Their last album was the 2003 rock opera Greendale, though it didn't feature guitarist Frank "Poncho" Sampedro. The band (including Poncho) toured with Young in 2003 and 2004 to support the disc, though they haven't played together since the tour ended March 21st, 2004 at the Mullins Center in Amherst, Massachusetts. This has been the longest time Young has gone without performing with the group since their formation, though Crazy Horse drummer Ralph Molina played with Young on his 2007 disc Chrome Dreams II and the first few legs of the supporting tour. He was replaced by drummer Chad Cromwell in the summer of 2008 for unknown reasons.

The full line-up of Crazy Horse hasn't backed Young on an album since Broken Arrow in 1996, though they did record an LP in 2000 called Toast that Neil opted to shelf. "It's great rock & roll, very moody, kind of jazzy," Young told Rolling Stone in 2008, who was then contemplating a release of the disc. "It's really dark. It's got everything that the best Crazy Horse albums have had. It won't be the most commercial Crazy Horse album ever out."

In that same interview, we asked Neil if he had any desire to work with Crazy Horse again. "I'm not thinking about that right now," he said. "We'll just see what happens. Something might happen. You never know. Or something else we don't even know about could happen, and that would be really good, rather than go back. But if the vibe's right to go back and grab what's back there and yank it into the future, that's a big job."

According to the report on Thrasher's Wheat, Young said that he's already recorded one album with Crazy Horse and another is in the works. It's unclear if Toast is the finished album. There's word of a spring release for the album, but don't get your hopes up too high. Things change very quickly in the world of Neil Young. Remember that 30-date Buffalo Springfield that was supposedly happening this year?

That last point is the truth, and you never know when Neil is going to have a whole, finished album in the can and then never put it out. Well, whatever happens, I will always have my favorite Neil Young & Crazy Horse album, Ragged Glory:

Jimmy "Neil Young" Fallon Joined By Crosby and Nash

Props to nedmusic for turning me on to this. Jimmy Fallon has been doing these dead-on Neil Young impressions for a while now, but this one takes the cake. He does a song by Miley Cirus a la 70s Neil and has fuckin David Crosby and Graham Nash come out to harmonize. Not only is his version of Neil so creepily accurate, but Crosby and Nash laying on gorgeous harmonies makes me think this is the best Neil has sounded in a long time! Ha ha. Below is the clip, and below that is the song they are actually covering.

The Grammy Awards - Neil, Vultures, Maiden, Jeff Beck Win

I did not watch the Grammy Awards tonight. In fact I stopped watching the annual show ages ago. My last good Grammy memory was watching Train perform Drops of Jupiter in 2006 and thinking that they were so fucking good even though that song got way overplayed.

Train won again tonight for a far inferior song but there were some other nice wins. Neil Young won for Best Rock Song with Angry World - his first Grammy win for an actual song (he won for "best art direction on a boxed or special limited edition package" last year - come the hell on), so that injustice has finally been righted.

Them Crooked Vultures took Best Hard Rock Performance for New Fang, beating out Ozzy, Stone Temple Pilots and Soundgarden. They for sure deserved it - that band is super and I look forward to the second album this year.

And Iron Maiden took Best Metal Performance for El Dorado, beating out Megadeath and Slayer - I guess Jethro Tull didn't have an album out this year.

Jeff Beck took best Pop Instrumental Performance and Best Rock Instrumental Performance, and Paul McCartney took Best Solo Rock Vocal Performance for Helter Skelter from Good Evening in NYC, so good for him.

Of course the filmmakers who brought us Rush: Beyond The Lighted Stage got snubbed for The Doors film, proving that the band can't get into any of these awards or Rock and Roll Hall Of Fame spots even through the back door.

But overall some nice solid rock and hard rock was acknowledged tonight, and for that I am thankful.

But now I can't get that goddamn Train song out of my head again. Here it is so you too can relive the over saturation (right after the youngling's cello solo):

CD Review - Neil Young - Le Noise

I never know what to expect from Neil Young, and I like that about him. But what it means is that I approach each new release with caution. I am not a 'completist' who feels the need to own everything he has ever put out. I check out the videos, the samples on iTunes etc. More often than not these days, I actually pass on Neil's new stuff.

But I have been fired up to get Neil's new Le Noise album ever since I saw the video for Walk With Me. Available today, this is a special Neil release unlike anything he has ever given us. And as a guitar player who also loves raw tones, gritty production and 'real' playing, there is a lot to love. From the insane overdriven electric of Walk With Me to the gorgeous acoustic tone of Peaceful Valley Boulevard, Neil hits this one so far out of the park, the ball is the next county.

The closest I can compare Le Noise to is some of the material from Paul McCartney and Youth's The Fireman Electric Arguments album, which I also love for its sonic insanity and experimental bent.

One of my favorite Neil albums is Ragged Glory from 1990, with Crazy Horse. On Le Noise he has the same dirty-assed electric guitar tone but no band. The absence of bass and guitar leaves room for all sorts of ear candy. Weird effects on the voice, delay loops on everything, ghost guitars in the background.

The opening track, Walk With Me sets the stage for the whole album - Neil solo on gritty electric with delays and loops on the vocals. The next tune, Sign of Love, could be great with Crazy Horse - sounds like an outtake from Ragged Glory. Track 5, Angry World, is so far my favorite tune - it could be a beautiful acoustic song, but Neil chooses to deliver it in what sounds like the same tuning and tone as Cinnamon Girl, with a mesmerizing vocal loop that runs underneath the whole song.

There are two straight acoustic tunes on Le Noise as well, and these are up there with Neil's best. For example, Love and War is an INCREDIBLE song, vocally, melodically, everything. Neil sings, "I've sang songs about love, I've sang songs about war, since the back streets of Toronto." Yes he has. The song is gorgeous and poignant but again, in the hands of Crazy Horse this song will be a killer live.

The other acoustic song, Peaceful Valley Boulevard, clocks in at a hair more than seven minutes and is stony and slow, but with that 'drunken Indian' chunky rhythm Neil has been using since Down By The River. Despite a couple of lyrical head scratchers, those seven minutes go by fast.

Vocally, Neil vacillates between powerful over-the top shouting a la Rockin In The Free World and fragile delivery like on Silver and Gold. Props to producer Daniel Lanois who made the production on the whole CD something really special. Lanois clearly encouraged Neil to be as live and crazy as he could. There are loads of mic pops, string slides, amp hum and general noisiness especially as the songs fade out.

Side note - why does Neil always have a Stones rip off on his best CDs? The chorus to Hitchhiker is basically No Expectations from Beggar's Banquet, and I have lost count of how many times Neil has nicked a variation of the Jumpin Jack Flash riff, from Crime in the City to Welfare Mothers to Mr Soul!

On the CD closer, Rumblin', it sounds like Lanois just fed the whole damn mix through a fuzz box as Neil sings "when will I learn how to listen, when will I learn how to feel, when will I learn how to give back, when will I learn how to heal?" Awesome closer.

There are only eight songs on this CD but that is plenty. The sonic experimentation on six of these eight is really interesting and sets the whole mood of course, but at the core the songs are good too - it's not just a gimmick. It would be classic for Neil to put out Le Noise part two and do all these songs with a band. I'd buy that too.

Here is the video that got me fired up for this album in the first place:

Neil Young Closes Olympics

Neil Young helped Conan O'Brien close out his show by playing Long May You Run on Conan's final episode. Neil busted the tune out as a surprise guest at the Olympics closing ceremonies over the weekend.

Fellow Canadians Avril Lavigne, Alanis Morrisette and others performed. It would have been great to have seen Rush or shit even Triumph do some actual rock and roll but having Neil is cool. See the performance here. Try to ignore the asshole announcers talking over the intro.

Neil Young and Will Ferrell Bring Conan to A Musical End

Last Friday, as noted earlier, was Conan O'Brien's send off final episode in the wake of NBC being a bunch of total dumbshits. Neil Young did a moving rendition of Long May You Run, probably devoted as much to long-time Neil collaborator Larry Johnson who passed away suddenly.

Johnson was behind many of Neil's visual projects including the Rust Never Sleeps film, which is enough right there to make him a God in my eyes. More on Johnson here.

On a lighter side, Will Ferrell dressed up as Ronnie Van Zant led a cast of rockers including Billy Gibbons, Beck and Ben Harper through a rousing almost 10-minute Freebird to take the show out. If you were under a rock and missed both, you can find them here. Neil is at about 27 minutes and Will Ferrell is about 10 minutes from the end:

Neil Young Will Be Conan's Last Guest, NBC = Dumbshits

So for those who have not been paying attention, NBC are a bunch of dumb shits. First they give Jay Leno a show at 10 p.m. Leno's show sucked ass so they decide to move him back to his late night time slot of 11:30 p.m.

But instead of consulting Conan O'Brien, who currently HAS the 11:30 p.m. spot, they just announce that they are going to bump Conan to 12:30, and the guys after him (Jimmy Fallon and Carson Daly) to the absurd times of 1:30 and 2:30 a.m. I may not have these times exact but you get what is happening...

Well, Conan said to hell with that and refused to budge. I guess these guys have all signed CONTRACTS anyway, so NBC found itself in a real pickle. They either ditch Jay or Conan. They picked Conan.

So Conan is taking $45 million ($45 fucking million!) from NBC to go away as of Friday, and it came out today that Neil Young will be his final musical guest, which is the real point of this post. As for what is the right decision, I don't watch late night so I don't know/care. The few times I have seen Leno he seems OK but not that funny. Conan wrote for the Simpsons and is generally a little crazier so I like him better for those reasons. Whatever.

In the meantime, and this is classic, Conan can do whatever the hell he wants until Friday's last show and is pretty much doing so. Check this out:

Jimmy Fallon Does A MEAN Neil Young

I don't watch American Idol so I had to get the back story on this. Apparently, when auditioning in Atlanta, the Idol crew was graced with the 62-year-old General Larry Platt who did a rousing original song called Pants on the Ground. You can watch it below.

I guess it went immediately viral and there are scores of YouTube imitations up already. Jimmy Fallon took it one further and did the song as Neil Young on his show last night. It's a pretty amazing impression if you ask me. Anyway, enjoy:

General Larry Platt does "Pants on the Ground, an original composition:


Jimmy Fallon's version (as Neil Young):


And for reference:

Neil Young on SNL 20 Years Later

I posted about this last year while reading the Neil Young biography Shakey. I have no idea how long this video will be posted so feast your eyes on it while you can. The one I posted last year has been long gone.

About this performance, Neil said:

I don't like TV. Never have. It always sucks and there's nothing you can do about it. You can't just walk on and do 'Rockin' in the Free World,' or you'll look like a fuckin' idiot. To perform that song the way it's supposed to be performed you have to be at peak blood level, everything has to be up, the machine has to be stoked. To do that I had to ignore Saturday Night Live completely. I had to pretend I wasn't there.'

In my original post, I wrote:

A couple of factoids from the book about this clip. Neil worked out with a trainer for an hour and a half right before getting onstage, so he could be in a physical and mental state similar to being at the tail end of a live show.

The drummer, Steve Jordan, had done so much televised work before that he knew he needed to bring the largest cymbals possible if he wanted to be heard. The author of the book says that the band look like 'a bunch of car thieves.'

I find this video so inspiring, I want to go out and form a band to just slaughter songs like this. And Neil was 44 at the time.

This embodies everything I love about Neil Young and for any of my friends who have never understood, just watch the video!

Neil Young and Paul McCartney Go Apeshit

I am really not sure what to say about this, except that even though it doesn't sound that great, make sure to watch all the way to the end. The last two minutes are the payoff.

CD Review: Neil Young Sugar Mountain - Live At Canterbury House 1968

As I said in an earlier post, Santa was very good to me this year, and I scored a bunch of CDs and DVDs. The first I dove into was Neil Young Sugar Mountain - Live At Canterbury House 1968.

This is part of Neil's archives series and is a solo acoustic gig at what sounds like a coffee house or very small venue, based on the audience response and the ambiance.

The gig took place just after Neil had split with Buffalo Springfield but before his very first solo album had been released. So, basically before Neil became a bonafide solo superstar. Hell, before he was even on the map as a solo artist.

The CD is a great snapshot of that time period. Neil does a bunch of songs that will appear on his first album in a few months, and some Buffalo Springfield tunes. The show starts with some very stoned sounding guy saying he hopes the waitresses are getting all the orders because there were way more attendees than expected.

This leads to a very stoned Neil running through 14 songs, most of which introduced with long and witty stories. For example, Neil tells that the job he had before joining the Springfield was a stint at a bookstore where he either lazed around doing nothing or was on uppers and sorted three days' worth of books in half a day. He was fired for 'being inconsistent.' The irony of this was not lost on me when thinking about Neil's whole career, especially the 80s, when David Geffen sued Neil for making 'noncommercial records.'

And it goes on from there. Neil Young fans should get this CD, and also the other archives releases Live at Massey Hall (1971) and Live at the Fillmore East (1972). They surpass some of Neil's studio releases in passion, performance and even recording quality.

And speaking of archives, this CD comes with a DVD of the same playlist at a higher quality bit rate. The DVD also has a trailer for the massive Neil Young Archives project, expected to be released this year on Bluray and DVD. A shorter version of the trailer can be seen below. It looks totally epic.

Happy Birthday Neil Young

Neil turns 63 today but the mo-fo can still rock! Here is one of my all time favorites of Neil, at a Bob Dylan tribute concert in 1992. Outside of Hendrix's version, this is my favorite version of All Along the Watchtower. See how Neil is large and in charge here. Not much has changed since then. Happy birthday, dude!



Love this one too, from the same gig:

Neil Young Touts New Digital Format

Good old Neil. Jamming out blistering live renditions of Beatles tunes and searching for alternative fuels aside, now he has told the Financial Times that he is "talking to record companies about licensing an alternative digital platform that he had been working on - something, he claimed, of far higher quality that could provide an alternative to the download world and perhaps even a new business model for music."

Neil is a dreamer, and his "why can't I do this?" attitude is to be admired. So while sometimes I look at his big ideas with a big of a grain of salt, you also have to take the guy seriously. Because he is dead serious about his ideas.

From the article, Neil says:

"We're in discussions right now about developing our own media platform based on that," he said. Something record companies can sell their artists' works on. Something that can't be downloaded, something that's got much more depth.

"It has every media component you could want, and they're all married together in a platform. That means other artists could use it, other record companies could use it and gain the knowledge of our 15-year development curve."

This needn't be limited to music, according to Young. "How about the history of the civil war? How about the British empire? If you have a career spanning 40 years, maybe it's George Washington's life. It could be a lot of things. There's so much to this that we can't tell, that you can't see in one sitting. Maybe there's a structure there that could save the music business - a new thing, where it is creating new products."

Neil is great example of a guy who throws his weight behind ideas with relentless passion, and doesn't give up, even against long odds. The fact that he kept his Archives project on ice for more than 15 years until technology caught up with his vision is admirable.

If even half of Neil's ideas pan out, good things will happen! Go Neil!

Neil Young Does Day In The Life

Neil Young is one crazy mo-fo. A Day In The Life is one of those songs that you just don't cover. It's so rooted in its studio version that even when Sting did it live (really well, I might add), it was still a little flat.

But as usual, Neil makes it all his own. His singing in the verses is great - he's like a little kid. Like how he sings I Am A Child - with a lot of youthful innocence in his voice. It's endearing.

But of course the reason I am posting is due to what he does with the orchestral parts that lead into and out of the Paul McCartney part of the song (woke up, fell out of bed/dragged a comb across my head). It's full blown Neil on 11. Dig the end of the song - I think he has broken at least three strings.

Neil can still kill it at 62. For those of my readers in Europe, try and catch his tour if you can. The video below is from Dublin, Ireland on Sunday. His tour dates and set lists for the tour are here.

Neil Young To Get 100 MPG In His Late 50s Lincoln

Aside from being one of the most prolific and interesting musical figures of the last 50 years, a one-time part owner of Lionel Trains and an outspoken supporter of Biodiesel, Farm Aid, Blu-Ray DVD format, and his own Bridge School Benefit, Neil Young is working on converting his 19 foot long late 1950s Lincoln Continental into a fuel efficient auto that could net 100 MPG.

The car is a 1959 Lincoln Continental MK IV convertible that Neil has re-named "Linc Volt," as he works with alternative fuel and auto companies to covert the huge 2.5 ton gas guzzler into a fuel efficient vehicle. I guess the Smart Car is not large enough for Young!

One of the companies Young is working with has entered the The Automotive X Prize, a competition for 100 MPG vehicles. The team will drive Linc Volt in a qualifying race in 2009. The final race from California to Washington D.C. will take place in 2010.

The Linc Volt Web site has all the background, and these great quotes:

Neil Young's Linc Volt project is inspiring in that it takes a behemoth, gas guzzling automobile, and turns it into an economical hybrid electric car.

They [Neil] came to see Larry Dye at Electric Wheels in Salem, Oregon to help transform yesterday's American dream... into tomorrow's. Imagine a gas guzzler like a late 50's Lincoln blasting down the road without using a drop of conventional fuel, sparing bio diesel that's required to recharge the batteries. It sure doesn't add up to a car that could easily cost seventy dollars to fill when it is empty.

Finally, the four wheel electric that people have been asking for for so long has arrived and progress continues in all directions. Neil Young's Linc Volt conversion helps move us through the evolution of this new frontier in transportation.

A couple of cool videos here:

Neil Young Unveils Archives on Blu-ray at JavaOne

According to the SF Chronicle a few minutes ago:

Singer Neil Young, in dark sunglasses and a baseball cap, appeared on stage at the Java One conference to unveil his archive of music and photos on Blu-ray.

Young, whose music dates back to 1963, said he's wanted to offer a complete retrospective since the 1980s but was held back by technology. Now with Blu-ray, the next-generation, high-definition DVD, he can offer an extensive library of music and photos on a disc. Fans can listen to high-quality tracks while browsing photos at the same time, as well as access an Internet archive with more information.

"This is all ancient history up close," he joked.

Neil was quoted in this press release:

"Previously, there was no way to browse archival material on a Disc and listen to a song in high resolution at the same time. The technology had not yet evolved to that capability," said Young. "It is important for me that the user experience the high resolution music along with the archival visual material. Previous technology required unacceptable quality compromises. I am glad we waited and got it right. And here is something really new, we will be able to add content to already released Blu-ray Disc archive volumes by downloading it, whether it is music, film or vintage recording sessions, recently found photographs, or other archival materials that were located after the release of that volume. Users will be able to download any of these archival materials and they will automatically be assigned to their place in the Chronology timeline."

Sounds pretty cool. Reminds me of when Peter Gabriel put out one of the first multimedia releases on CD-ROM in the 90s and everyone said, "what is a CD-ROM?"

Of course, it gives Ol' Neil the power to noodle with the releases years after they are 'done,' which I guarantee he will do until the day he dies.

Neil Young to Make Announcement at JavaOne - WTF?

My day job involves doing public relations for high tech companies. So I am very familiar with developer trade shows like JavaOne, which is put on by Sun Microsystems every year. In fact, we sometime try to get our clients to speak at this and other trade shows like it.

But I did a double take when I saw that Neil Young was going to make an appearance at JavaOne tomorrow. Not just to play some songs, but to make an announcement with Sun CEO Jonathan Schwartz.

Neil recently said he was postponing the release of his Archives project (in the works longer than Guns and Roses Chinese Democracy) so it could be released on Blu-Ray DVD, which uses Java scripting for the multi-media menu functions.

Could tomorrow's announcement be about the Archives project? Weird that Young would align with a big company though, given his very consistent and vocal stance against anything that smacks of corporate sponsorship.

But consistency hasn't always been Neil's strong point - he was pro-Reagan in the 80s and his musical genre shifts speak for themselves. So, we'll see what this is all about.

InformationWeek posted a funny send up of the appearance here.

Neil Young Flash Forward

I had a lot of great comments and emails from last week's post of Neil Young's face melting SNL performance.

Somewhere over the last fifteen or so years I stopped following what Neil was up to. That obviously didn't stop him. Below is a clip from last month in England. Man, did he get old.

But you be the judge - can he still melt faces?

Unreal Live Performance - Neil Young

I am reading the only officially authorized Neil Young biography, called Shakey. I really want to post a review when I am done but I am not sure where I will start. The book is almost 900 pages long and there is so much great stuff in it.

I guess it could be a multi-part review, but seriously, I have been reading this book for a month and am only up to 1989.

Which brings me to this post. As you may know, Neil had a pretty bad period in the 80s. He was struggling with some personal issues, and had a bit of an identity crisis. He released weird tangential albums - rockabilly, country, blues, 50s style rock and even a computerized album inspired by Devo, called Trans.

Put it this way - his 80s albums were so weird and sold so poorly that his own record company at the time (Geffen) sued him for making noncommercial albums. Classic!

So after being totally written off by everyone as a has-been and total hack, he comes out with this Saturday Night Live barnburner.

This is probably one of my all time favorite clips. It's up there with The Who slaughtering Young Man Blues at the Isle of Wight gig in 1970. Which is saying a lot (but that is another post altogether).

A couple of factoids from the book about this clip. Neil worked out with a trainer for an hour and a half right before getting onstage, so he could be in a physical and mental state similar to being at the tail end of a live show.

The drummer, Steve Jordan, had done so much televised work before that he knew he needed to bring the largest cymbals possible if he wanted to be heard. The author of the book says that the band look like 'a bunch of car thieves.'

I find this video so inspiring, I want to go out and form a band to just slaughter songs like this. And Neil was 44 at the time.

This embodies everything I love about Neil Young and for any of my friends who have never understood, just watch the video!