#Ben keith

[meadow-dusk]

it's my birthday 🎉 so here are some pics from NYA volume III

[dollarbin]

Nickel Bin #9:

Emmylou Harris' Till I Gain Control Again

It's been a rough week.

Our former president is smirking, snorting and sneering at potential jurors for a trial he's likely to win in New York and someone stole my worthless-to-everyone-except-me bicycle out of my front yard in the middle of the day. My Dodgers are playing like they're in a Stephen Stills cover band, and Karl Wallinger, Tom Petty and Prince are still dead.

So I say that we deserve a moment of simple grace, a moment of musical perfection. Till I Gain Control Again comes compliments of Emmylou Harris and her third solo record, Elite Hotel.

The intro guitar, and the vibes that creep in around it, bounce without flash and welcome in Harris's already rich vocals with respect. Drums, bass, piano, eventual strings: "note perfect" is not a phrase I can use with any authority, but I'll use it here all the same.

Aside from Harris herself, the song's two key ingredients are so humble you may miss them the first time.

The first, steel guitar player Ben Keith, is well known to Shakey Sunday readers as one of the most vital cogs in Neil Young's career: Keith was on hand and vital for much of the timeless stuff - and some of the weirdest bits too - between Harvest and Chrome Dreams 2.

Here, he glows around Harris within the verses, providing solace and depth before backing off to let the more obvious lead electric do its melodic work.

And second there's Linda Ronstadt. Imagine Taylor Swift or Beyoncé taking time away from their mammoth new records this month to sing unassuming alto back-up for a lesser known artist. That's the deal with Linda on this song in 1975, and I can't say enough about the yearning yet controlled tone she adds under Harris on each chorus and on the shimmering, why-does-it-ever-have-to-end, fade.

Enjoy this song friends! And for god's sake, someone put the dumb jerk in jail already, and hey, Stephen Stills, give me back my bike!

[mitjalovse]

Neil Young would not be Neil Young without him doing something crazy every once in a while as this characteristic makes him the best version of Neil Young. Still, Hawks & Doves remain one of his headscratching moves. The LP even followed one of his finest platters with Crazy Horse, so the album should've been great, but this is not After The Gold Rush, to be honest. Sure, there are some fine moments, because Neil Young can sound intriguing even on an autopilot, though you do wish he would've done more here. Then again – shouldn't we accept this ramshackleness with Neil Young? He follows his own protocol, which continues to be hard to discern at times, yet these rules keep him working. Still, Hawks & Doves does feels like a warm-up for something radical.

[krispyweiss]

Movie Review: Neil Young - “Harvest Time”

As he speaks about the making of Harvest 50 years ago, Neil Young suddenly realizes he may have given away too much - seeing’s how moviegoers had just shelled out $15 to experience “Harvest Time” in theaters.

So he stopped talking, turned and walked back in to his ramshackle barn.

Taped specifically for the Dec. 1 and 4 movie house screenings, Young’s 2022 introduction serves to reinforce just how much time has passed since his shot-in-1971-but-never-released documentary went into the vault. The contemporary Young is a haggard septuagenarian - but one who still revels with the delight of the straggly, 20-something who stars in “Harvest Time.”

Filmmaking traversed the United States and Europe as Young records with the Stray Gators at his Broken Arrow Ranch in California and lays down “A Man Needs at Maid” and “There’s a World” on the London Symphony Orchestra’s home turf.

David Crosby and Stephen Stills travel to Broken Arrow to help with “Alabama;” Stills and Graham Nash join Young in New York to work on “Words (Between the Lines of Age).” In his intro, Young mentions James Taylor and Linda Ronstadt’s contributions to the sessions, but they do not appear.

The ranch hand who inspired “Old Man” is featured in a brief segment and gives his approval to the song. Young is now a couple of decades older than that man was at the time and many of the other people in the film - Ben Keith, Carrie Snodgress and Elliott Roberts among them - are now dead.

Back in ’71, daytime beers are consumed, joints and pipes are smoked and music pours out of Young, who lies in a field listening to playback echoing off the hills on his ranch as he struggles with celebrity and being, in his words, “a rich hippie.”

In London, Young plays a snippet of “Harvest” in a dressing room while discussing the symphony sessions with producer Glyn Johns. Back at home, a giggly Young, stoned out of his gourd and lying on his back, picks out a version of “Out on the Weekend” on banjo and plays “Journey through the Past” on piano. An in-concert performance of “Heart of Gold” leads into the closing credits.

Just before this scene, Young is in Nashville. He drops into a radio station to get some free, on-air promotion and tells the DJ he expects the film-in-progress to be released “maybe pretty soon.”

At its premiere 51 years later, “Harvest Time” looks its age and its age is what makes the amateurish “Harvest Time” work, for its vintage is its charm. That charm renders the shaky camera work, the overlong barn jams and stoned strolls through Broken Arrow worth the time. All of this said, the two-hour film could’ve easily been trimmed to 90 minutes with nothing being lost.

“Harvest Time” is also available in the just-released, 50th-anniversary Harvest boxset.

Grade card: Neil Young - “Harvest Time” - B-

12/2/22

[allthingsgrunge]

The Golden Cage: Trapped at Work

Friday, September 6, 202412:00 PM  Sunday, October 13, 20245:00 PM

Mini Mart City Park6525 Ellis Avenue SouthSeattle, WA, 98108United States (map)

The Golden Cage: “Trapped at work” is an art exhibit featuring 4 Seattle based friends who for many years worked together in the music business as Tour Managers. While on the road most of their time was spent in 5 star hotel rooms stuck at work, they called this situation “The Golden Cage.” Artwork became a favored pastime and this exhibit will contain works from this history as well as the growth of work that ensued.

Featuring artwork by: Eric Johnson, Regan Hagar, Kevin Shuss, and Cary Kemp

Friends and family wall participants:

Wayne White, Mimi Pond, Stone Gossard, Jeff Ament, Spooner Oldham, Ben Keith, Dave Place, and John Luccasini

[longliverockback]

Neil Young  Time Fades Away 1973 Reprise ————————————————— Tracks: 1. Time Fades Away 2. Journey through the Past 3. Yonder Stands the Sinner 4. L.A. 5. Love in Mind 6. Don’t Be Denied 7. The Bridge 8. Last Dance —————————————————

John Barbata

David Crosby

Tim Drummond

Ben Keith

Graham Nash

Jack Nitzsche

Neil Young

* Long Live Rock Archive

[spilladabalia]

Neil Young - Time Fades Away

[anthonysperkins]

“My philosophy was always that art really could communicate to larger numbers of people instead of that elitist group of people that could afford it and ‘understand it.’”

Keith Haring: Street Art Boy (2020) dir. Ben Anthony

[filmjunky-99]

t h e t h i n g, 1982 🎬 dir. john carpenter

'You catch anything he was saying?' - garry

'Am I starting to look Norwegian to you, Bwana?' - childs

'Yeah. I caught that he wanted the better part of my ass to come apart.' - norris

[casxmanis]

They're all literally me rn

[superman86to99]

Superman: The Man of Steel #37 (September 1994)

Zero Hour is here, and so is Batman! And Batman, and Batman, and Batman, and, yes, even Batman! Clark Kent and Lois Lane are strolling down beautiful, half-destroyed Metropolis when Clark sees a Morse code message coming from a rooftop. It turns out to be Batman, who's looking rather... Neal Adams-ish. Superman should have realized something was off when Batman called him "old friend," even though these two have only been able to stand each other for (in DCU time) about a year at most.

Not only does Batman not recognize Superman's post-resurrection mullet hippie hair, but he seems confused when Superman mentions that little incident where he had his back broken by a 'roided-out wrestler, which suggests that he hasn't experienced the '90s at all. If Superman was truly Batman's friend, he'd rush him to the nearest arcade to play Super Street Fighter II Turbo right away.

Anyway, Batman dropped by Metropolis to warn Superman that there's some sort of "time anomaly" going on that's making "people from the past" show up in the present. You don't say.

Meanwhile, the big "concert to rebuild Metropolis" that's been teased in recent issues is about to get started. The organizer, Lois Lane's douchey ponytail-wearing ex-boyfriend Jeb Friedman, is jumped by some guys who look a whole lot like the Mutant gang from Frank Miller's The Dark Knight Returns, who hate Jeb because they don't want Metropolis to be rebuilt (as opposed to any of the other 99,999 valid reasons for hating Jeb). Tragically, Jeb's life is saved by the grittiest, most violent Batman of all: yes, Ben Affleck.

(Just kidding. I know that's actually Adam West.)

After saving Jeb, this Batman runs into Superman and says he came to warn him about the time anomalies, but it's pretty obvious he already knew about them, considering he's hanging out with two separate Batmen and all. The Batmen barely have any time to get acquainted before a third Batman drops by, this one looking like he came straight from 1939's Detective Comics #27. Oh, and then the Neal Adams Batman suddenly turns into a different, much more pointy-eared Batman in the middle of a sentence.

(The DC wiki claims it's Kelley Jones Batman, but our resident art expert Don Sparrow says it could be Marshall Rogers Batman.)

Since Superman's all-purpose science guy isn't in his lab right now, he decides to bring the Batmen to the benefit concert in case the Mutants cause any more trouble -- especially since the music is so loud, it's "interfering with [Superman's] super-hearing." We just discovered another Superman vulnerability aside from Kryptonite and magic: '90s death metal.

As predicted, the Mutants do strike during the concert, and somehow even bring a whole tank into it (today, you can't even bring in a water bottle). Luckily, the music was so loud that most of the crowd didn't even notice it took one Superman, three Batmen, and some anti-tank explosives courtesy of DKR Batman to save them.

Superman finally finds Professor Hamilton, who was at the concert with some girlfriends, and asks him look into the mystery of the many Batmen. Hamilton employs his usual approach to scientific investigation: just put people inside a big glass ball (the isolation chamber first seen in Adventures #458).

Hamilton's instruments determine that "something very odd is happening to time," which Superman probably could have figured out without the need of a big glass ball -- especially since the Batmen are now rapidly turning into other Batmen and fading out of existence. Hamilton's conclusion is that Superman should probably look up the real Batman from this timeline. Just then, Superman hears a high-pitched noise: it's that precise Batman, who just arrived in Metropolis and used a gizmo to call his attention.

'90s Batman says the same thing as the others: weird time-related things are happening in Gotham... and Metropolis too, as is pretty clear by now. Just then, Metron of the New Gods shows up in his funky time-and-space-traveling chair to say that this isn't a mere "time anomaly" -- it's a CRISIS™!

TO BE CONTINUED IN ZERO HOUR!

Plotline-Watch:

That last scene is also seen in Batman #511 (in part) and Zero Hour #4 (in full). By the way, I'm pretty sure this is the first time Superman and Batman have met since the former came back to life and the latter got his back fixed. It's too bad they didn't update Batman's looks in some way when he returned, like maybe with a mullet showing through his cowl, Batgirl-style. In fact, they should give all DC heroes mullets when they come back from death/paralysis.

All through the issue, we see a Kryptonian ship (like Superman's birth matrix, but bigger) traveling through space, arriving on Earth, landing on Smallville, and, finally, its occupants getting off and going up to the Kent farm. They turn out to be Jor-El and Lara... and they think Pa Kent is their son. Maybe Superman's human parents aren't the only ones who need glasses.

The most dramatic part of the concert is when one of the Mutants shoots at the headlining artist, Jimmy Olsen's old friend Babe, and we see the bullet go through her chest. Then she dramatically turns into a giant bat and spooks her assailant while the audience cheers, convinced that these are just really good stage tricks. Later, Jimmy visits Babe backstage and congratulates her on the effects. She's like "yes... effects." (As a reminder, the last time we saw her, two years ago, she was bitten by a vampire.)

It's obscured by the big glass ball in the panel up there, but Professor Hamilton debuts his hydraulic robot arm in this issue, having lost his flesh and blood one in Adventures #514. Incidentally, the "girlfriends" of Hamilton's I mentioned before are Case, the white-haired girl he met in that Adventures issue, and her Riot Grrrl bandmates, who invite Ham to sit with them near the stage. I'm surprised he didn't lose his other arm in the mosh pits.

Keith the Unlucky Orphan attends the concert with his new friend Alice White and her husband, Perry, but Keith wanders off when he thinks he sees his long-gone mom in the crowd. That's the last we see of Keith in this issue, so it's easy to get the impression that he got ran over by the tank or something. (At least we learn that Lucan, that other kid from last issue, did find his mom.)

At the end of the issue, Jeb confirms his scumbag status by bragging to Lois that Clark has never done anything as "awesome" as organizing a concert with extremely lax security, and then trying to get Lois to come to Paris with him. Lois is surprisingly patient with him and even gives him a kiss on the cheek. He urges her to get married quick because "that's the only thing that will keep me from coming back," which is the best argument for the Clark/Lois marriage I've seen.

Regarding the scene above, notorious Jeb-hater Don Sparrow says: "Lois' dodge on what’s so great about Kent might read to us like she’s talking about him being Superman, but--forgive me--from Jeb’s point of view, it just sounds like she’s talking about his dick." Okay, so it wasn't just me.

Shout Outs-Watch:

Bat-shout outs to our Bat- I mean Super-supporters, Aaron, Chris “Ace” Hendrix, britneyspearsatemyshorts, Patrick D. Ryall, Bheki Latha, Mark Syp, Ryan Bush, Raphael Fischer, Kit, Sam, Dave Shevlin, and Dave Blosser! We're currently giving away some original Maxima art to one supporter and have another cool art poll/giveaway coming up! Join them (and get extra non-continuity articles, plus the giveaways) via Patreon or our newsletter’s “pay what you want” mode!

The great Don Sparrow had a LOT to say about the art in this issue this issue, starting with trying to identify all the Batmen on the cover, so buckle up and keep reading:

Art-Watch (by @donsparrow):

We start with the cover, and it’s an instant classic, with Jon Bogdanove showing off by emulating the art styles of over a dozen Batman artists from comics history, while still maintaining his own personal style in the middle of all of it.  While I’m sure I’m wrong about a few, here’s as many as I could identify, starting counter-clockwise from top left:

1.    Moebius?  It kind of looks like the helmeted version of Batman from the final fight with Superman, but they already have a Frank Miller here. There’s definitely something European about this rendering, though, so I’m going with Moebius. [Max: This one looks elderly to me... is there an Elseworlds or something about a geriatric Batman?]

2.    Frank Miller

3.    Neal Adams

4.    Bruce Timm

5.    Dick Sprang

6.    Gil Kane (with the rendering looking like Murphy Anderson's gentle feathered inks)

7.    Kelley Jones

8.    Michael Kaluta? These backwards facing ones are tricky, because I’m not totally sure they’re supposed to be representative of any artist, but those distinct cape folds look like Kaluta to me.

9.    Michael Golden?  Again, not sure it’s supposed to be anyone in particular, but Golden was a giant for Batman covers at a certain point, and favoured the long eared look.

10.  Irv Novick

11.  Lewis Wilson (not an artist, but the actor from the low-rent serials of the 40s)

12.  Carmine Infantino—the lips are unmistakable, and again, the feathering looks like Murphy Anderson.

13.  Jim Aparo

14.  Bernie Wrightson—either that or Kelley Jones again, but the face looks a little more natural, which makes me think Wrightson.

15.  Jerry Robinson

16.  Walt Simonson?  Wasn’t sure about this one, but the cape folds looked like his geometric linework

17.  Bob Kane

What do you think?  Any mistakes I have here?  Please let me know!

Inside the story, we’re greeted almost immediately by the off-putting sight of Jeb Friedman, one of my least liked characters in all of Superman-dom.  Then again—we’re supposed to not like him, so the creative team is doing a bang-up job. I will say, Jeb’s noxiousness is cut in half when Clark also has a ponytail, which at one time I think was a design element intended to hint at a Steven Seagal-like irritating personality, before they had to add one to Clark to differentiate between he and Superman.  One odd detail—I haven’t seen many tour jackets where the band’s name is hyphenated.

On page three’s almost double page spread, we get our first Batman era, the Neal Adams version of the character, exemplified by the exaggerated hand gestures and warm rim lighting.  As the Riot Grrrls try to meet Babe Tanaka, they’re stopped by a very Chris Farley looking roadie/security guard, but the timeline doesn’t work.

Though “Big Dan” bears a striking resemblance to Farley’s security guard character from Black Sheep that movie wouldn’t come out for another two years or so, and the character design doesn’t look enough like Farley’s security character from Wayne’s World 2, so maybe it’s just a generic roadie character.  I do love Professor Hamilton’s awkward, hands-off reaction to Case laying a big old, 20-years-his-junior hug on him. 

A few pages later we get our first glimpse of both the timeline-lost Dark Knight Returns version of Batman, as well as his Mutant street gang.  I love how these pages employ Frank Miller’s caption boxes and tiny square panels.  It’s interesting to me that so many artists since DKR have depicted this version of Batman’s costume as brownish gray and black, when, to my eye, it’s a muted navy and gray in the original pages.  One of the animated adaptations of this story also went with the black and warm gray motif, which has always confused me—Lynn Varley is certainly a gifted enough painter to represent blacks and grays without the comic book trick of shading them with blue (like Superman’s hair, for instance) so that interpretations since have deviated from navy and gray perplexes me a little.  When you read DKR, what colour did you think his uniform was? [Max: I'm gonna go with grey. The brown-ish always baffled me.] At any rate, we lose Bogdanove’s style almost completely as the figures and even the scratchy finishes perfectly recall Miller and Klaus Janson.

Only a page or two later we get another Batman, this the slight, purple gloved version from 1939, and then on the next page, the Neal Adams Batman appears to give way to the Marshall Rogers version (or at least a different long-eared interpretation of the character).  On page 11, we have a stunning image of Superman overlooking three different Batmen on their personal gargoyles, and the one in the middle seems soooo familiar to me, but I can’t place it, perfectly. It could just be the Rogers Batman again, but the cape folds and body gesture looks like it could be referencing a pin-up from Michael Kaluta, Sandy Plunkett, or Michael Golden.  Any insights?  Certainly, as the story progresses, this version of Batman has the flowing geometric cape Rogers’ drew.  Babe Tanaka playing right through the assassination attempt is a great visual, though it’s jarring to see her Vampirella-meets-Cher stage costume in a code book. 

Throughout the whole issue there’s some really cool zip-a-tone effects, like when Superman descends to the first two Batmen, in a DKR cover callback.

Later as those same Batmen jump into action, the ben day dots lend a sense of depth, and finally the effect in the background during Babe’s supernatural transformation are very well used. 

Once the Batmen hit Professor Hamilton’s lab, the transformations come and go quickly, as the Bob Kane Batman gives way to what appears to be the Adam West version, then only a panel later the Marshall Rogers Batman switches to the “new look” Batman as imagined by Carmine Infantino and Murphy Anderson.  Just as quickly, the grim n’ gritty DKR Batman is subbed out for the grinning n’ gleeful Dick Sprang version of the character. Finally, as the alternate timeline Batmen disappear, Superman makes his way to Gotham, and it’s very cool that even with Bogdanove’s distinct style, we know this is the modern Batman.  I love that during this era they went back to the Cord Batmobile in Batman comics, but it’s extra appropriate here, where there’s already a bunch of anachronisms running around.

As an art fan, this issue was a real treat, but in terms of plot, there wasn’t much—just a series of different Batman costumes running in and saying “something weird is happening!”.  It reminded me of the monologue when my fellow 5’4” heartthrob Michael J. Fox hosted SNL, and the different Michael J. Foxes kept running in to warn him that his monologue was about to bomb.  But, it does mean we’re in the era of Zero Hour, at last, which is one of my favourite crossovers of all time, in no small part because of the story’s deep connection to the Superman books, from the writer/art team, to the Linear Men’s important role.

SPEEDING BULLETS:

There’s perhaps something funny about the Neal Adams Batman accusing Superman of “going hippie” when the Neal Adams version of the character was most famously written by self-proclaimed hippie, Dennis O’Neil.

It does my heart good to see that Jimmy indeed also doesn’t care for Jeb Friedman.  But between my hatred for Jeb, and Max’s dislike of Jimmy, does the disdain cancel itself out?  I can’t figure the math on this. [Max: I also hate Jeb, so I think the hate is multiplied and becomes uber-hate.]

Jimmy also seems unafraid to “be that guy” wearing the shirt of the band to the concert of the band.  I actually think this is kind of a dumb rule, myself, so you go Jimmy.

Speaking of resentment, my main issue with Ron Troupe, apart from his fashion sense, is that he seems to be a replacement Jimmy, sidelining him in the cub reporter role (and eventually in the romance department as well, though we’re not there yet).  But it’s nice seeing them team-up.  Maybe they’re only competitors in my mind.

I like that the Dark Knight version of Batman also includes his wry commentary, about the sounds of violence drawing Superman, and the slight diss that the mullet has impaired Superman’s perfection. 

Little Keith having a nice picnic day with the Whites does my heart good, and I do like the foreshadowing with Keith feeling like spending time with them is “almost like having a family” again.

I do like that pretty much all the Batmen who show up are too square to enjoy Shredding Metal’s music.  It does make me curious what it sounds like.  I imagine her vocals sounding like Cassandra Wong from Wayne’s World, but the sound might be heavier and screechier than Crucial Taunt. [Max: For some reason, I imagine it as Yoko Ono singing System of Down.]

(Controversial opinion coming up!) I kinda like that Superman stops the DKR Batman from taking out the tank, a nice echo of the Dark Knight Returns storyline, where Superman was the real hero of the story (had he not stopped that nuke, it wouldn’t matter how many Mutant Leaders Batman beat at mud-wrestling).

So who did Babe feed on that Mutant quickly after she got off stage?  I’ll admit, I wouldn’t have minded if it was Rob, Don or one of the other mutants out to kill her.

I get that Jeb is supposed to be an Henri-from-Cheers “I’m going to steal your girlfriend” like foil for Clark, but his line-crossing pursuit of Lois isn’t cute—or a relationship that Lois should indulge, even as friends.

The Vampirella connection is made even more clear with the zoom-in on Babe’s eyes, with pupils bearing a bat that looks a whole heckuva lot like the logo on Vampirella’s costume (which you can google yourself, as I’m struggling to find even a single worksafe image of the lone daughter of Drakulon).  The idea that she’s bummed about being a vampire, as exemplified her her teary eyes, is a novel twist.

It’s amusing that Jor-El and Lara are so unfamiliar with their son that they mistake him for Kal-El’s septuagenarian adoptive father on that last page.

It’s fun to see all these different interpretations of Batman, but if this story were released today, there would be even MORE iconic incarnations that didn’t yet exist in 1994!  Batman as drawn by Jim Lee, Tim Sale, Frank Quitely, Alex Ross, Gary Frank, Francesco Francavilla, etc. were all still ahead of us! I was glad to see Jim Aparo referenced on the cover, but my other personal favourite Batman artist, Norm Breyfogle, was left off this issue, perhaps because he was too recent to be considered “classic” in 1994.

With all the Batman artists referenced in this issue, we ask you: which Batman artist era costume would you like to see me sketch?   Sound off in the comments, or vote in our poll… [Max: Poll coming soon, but Bat-suggestions are welcome!]

Missed an issue? Looking for an old storyline? Check out our new chronological issue index!

[meadow-dusk]

Neil Young + The Stray Gators ©️ Joel Bernstein, 1972

[dollarbin]

Shakey Sundays #41:

Prairie Wind

We're midway through another deeply mediocre American decade. And that means it's high time for Neil Young do something bonkers.

Seriously: take a look at what he busted out at the midway point of every other one his 6 decades in the biz: round about 65 he joined a soul band; in 75 he shelved - for almost exactly 40 years - a masterpiece with no commercial potential whatsoever featuring absolutely no lead guitar; in 85 he followed up the dullest record in his career with one of his most abrasively misguided; in 95 he suddenly civilized the dinosaurs in Crazy Horse into a complex studio band then promptly ditched them so as to decivilize some studio savvy kids; 20 years after that he assembled a full orchestra for live takes of his personally concocted nothingburgers.

Let's hope 2015 finds Neil releasing Trans 2; its story and vocal stylings will center around a sentient being who shares a prison cell with Donald Trump after Kamala's landslide victory. But, terrifyingly, unless you and everyone else buys a clue, I have the increasing sense that we'll have to listen to Living With War 2 instead. I wonder what Neil will rhyme with Trump for his rewrite of Let's Impeach the President.

Prairie Wind, Neil's mid-decade Shakey episode for the Oughts, checks all his typically bonkers boxes. We've got an adoring reference to Kid Rock (what, was Hulk Hogan unavailable?), annoyingly busy horns mingled with jazz handed ladies, a few too many hooks borrowed straight from Harvest Moon and The Old Homestead, another signature rap about what the made-up-on-the-spot chords will be for his next number, not enough Emmylou Harris, plenty of Daddy references and, once again, no lead guitar.

Sounds kinda awesome, right? Well, frankly, it's a rather drab affair. Indeed, Prairie Wind, is the Neil Young album most likely to be used for the line dancing scene in an Ozempic commercial.

Okay, here's the deal: the wife and I are trying to watch Cormorant, or whatever his name is, repeatedly try to burn down his apartment and restaurant while sleep walking in The Bear, which means seeing this shite over and over again on mute.

Without fail, Neil's He Was the King runs through my nauseated brain every time these people shimmy.

Happily, Neil does hit a few very solid notes on the record. First, there's The Painter. Yes, I know, the song's opening could be pasted onto every single track on Silver and Gold. But Ben Keith is given room to echo in from on high, the backing vocals are tastefully rich and the chorus's message and harmony are fresh and challenging.

Apparently, even if you are Neil Young, the world's most reckless dreamer, some of your dreams need to be set aside.

Then again, maybe not. Neil changes his mind at the record's midpoint and embrace every last one of those dreams in his most achingly beautiful song - so far - this century:

Wow, here at least Neil lives up to the record's title: the sonic and lyrical vistas within this track are vast. Listen to those strings swell. Ben Keith surely occupies a personal corner of heaven and he's saving Neil a spot on the cloud beside him despite Young's penchant for ditching the women he writes such beautiful music for. It's a Dream describes that luminous cloud.

[mitjalovse]

Should musicians surprise us? Bonobo, for instance, does that by making the slight variation on himself througout his opus. The same can be applied to Neil Young, yet he makes things tougher for us, when he have to deal with Trans. The latter is – I have to be honest with you – one of my favourite records that shouldn't be considered as one of my favourites according to all the rules of the cognoscenti thanks to the sheer is-he-actually-for-real-or-something. True, that factor does not, ha, factor in the way of Dazzle Ships, but mind the context here – this is Neil Young, showing himself to tackle the 80's on his own terms. Sadly, many misinterpreted this statement of his and he retreated to the familiar sounds soon afterwards.

[krispyweiss]

Album Review: Neil Young and the Santa Monica Flyers – Somewhere under the Rainbow

For a guy who makes so much noise about sound quality in the digital age, it’s strange how willing Neil Young is to release virtually unlistenable analog recordings under his Official Bootleg Series banner.

Case in point: Somewhere under the Rainbow.

Credited to the Santa Monica Flyers, it finds Young and Nils Lofgren (guitar, piano, accordion), Ben Keith (pedal steel), Billy Talbot (bass) and Ralph Molina (drums) encased in a wall of thick mud as captured Nov. 5, 1973, in London during the sparsely documented Tonight’s the Night era.

But neither the rarity, nor the playful banter and loose performance that includes Buffalo Springfield’s “Flying on the Ground is Wrong,” CSNY’s “Helpless” and such solo gems as “Don’t be Denied” and “Roll another Number (For the Road),” make it easy easier to sit through acoustic material overwhelmed with non-musical sounds and full-band performances so lo-fi the individual players’ inspirations and flourishes are lost in the thick sonic wall of the low-quality audience recording.

There’s a small market for such stuff. It’s made up not of fans, but of obsessives. And they will likely be pleased.

Grade card: Neil Young and the Santa Monica Flyers – Somewhere under the Rainbow - D-

4/27/23

[ririchanva]

Am I impatiently pumping out spoiler stuff for my story

...yes, yes I am >.> Team Hero Force can be read on AO3 or Tumblr :3