#neil young and crazy horse

[iggyp0p]

[doomandgloomfromthetomb]

The Year In Doom & Gloom

Doom & Gloom From The Tomb celebrated its 15th anniversary this year, which is crazy. But what can I say, I keep finding cool live tapes and keep feeling compelled to share them with you ... whoever you are! A lot of this website is just me talking to myself, hashing and rehashing and re-re-hashing various obsessions, getting impossibly niche about some of my favorite artists, trying to shine a light into the darkest corners of music history. But that makes it sound like it's a serious endeavor. Mostly, it's fun. I hope it's fun for you too. So, if you need to catch up, here's a tip-of-the-iceberg rundown of what we checked out over the last 12 months ... as always, thank a taper!

Lou Reed - Sister Ray in the 70s

“Candy Says” - Lou Reed, Kongress Zentrum, Hamburg, Germany, March 29, 1979

Lou Reed - October 1974

Lou Reed - Lady Mitchell Hall, Cambridge, England, October 13, 1972

Lou Reed - City Hall, Sheffield, England, June 1, 1974

Lou Reed - Konserthuset, Stockholm, Sweden, May 14, 1974

Lou Reed - Parc Des Expositions De Colmar, Theatre De Plein Air, Colmar, France, August 12, 2004

The Modern Lovers - Radcliffe College, Cambridge, Massachusetts, October 27, 1972

The Modern Lovers - Sword in the Stone, Boston, Massachusetts, 1972

The Modern Lovers - Boston Center for the Arts, Boston, Massachusetts, February 23, 1974

Foggy Notion - The Bowery Ballroom, New York City, December 13, 2023

The Feelies - Daniel Street, Milford, Connecticut, July 22, 2011

John Sinclair - BAR, New Haven, Connecticut, September 28, 2003

Meg Baird + Chris Forsyth, Cafe Nine, New Haven, Connecticut, October 26, 2022

John Fahey - McCabe’s Guitar Shop, Santa Monica, California, December 1979

The Go-Betweens - The Gatekeeper To Your Soul

Frank Black - Wetlands, New York City, June 13, 1994

Jacobites - Hearts Are Like Flowers

The Replacements - The Ritz, New York City, June 21, 1986

Willie Nelson - El Rey Theatre, Los Angeles, California, December 20, 1997

Neil Young - Razor Love (1984-2020)

Neil Young & Crazy Horse - Control The Violent Side

“Peace Of Mind” - Neil Young & Crazy Horse, Community Theater, Berkeley, California, November 2, 1976

Neil Young & Crazy Horse - Festival Hall, Osaka, Japan, March 4, 1976

Neil Young & Crazy Horse - Copps Coliseum, Hamilton, Ontario, October 31, 1996

Neil Young & Crazy Horse - Shoreline Amphitheatre, Mountain View, California, October 1 / October 2, 1994

Fairport Convention - Harlow Town Hall, Essex, England, June 15, 1974

Richard & Linda Thompson - Dublin Stadium, Dublin, Ireland, November 10, 1979

Robyn Hitchcock & Richard Thompson - “First Girl I Loved (Incredible String Band),” The Barbican, London, England, July 19, 2009

Can - Nordseeheilbad, Cuxhaven, Germany, January 7, 1976

Bob Dylan and The Band - “Nobody ‘Cept You” (Outtake)

Bob Dylan & The Band - Chicago Stadium, Chicago, Illinois, Jan. 3, 1974

Patti Smith - Max’s Kansas City, New York City, September 1, 1974

Patti Smith Group / John Cale / Television - The Palladium, New York City, December 31, 1976

Television - Great American Music Hall, San Francisco, California, December 9, 1992

Television - Roseland, New York City, October 2, 2004

Grant Lee Buffalo - Shepherd’s Bush Empire, London, England, October 11, 1994

Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers - Vredenburg, Utrecht, The Netherlands, December 4, 1982

Wilco - Orpheum Theatre, Boston, Massachusetts, October 19, 2002

[neilyoungshearse]

[agirlnamedbone]

i must argue that "...and that's one more kid that'll never go to school / never get to fall in love / never get to be cool" from neil young's "keep on rockin' in the free world" is the single most devastating arrangement of words ever written in the history of man

[dollarbin]

Shakey Sundays #43:

Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere, Part 1

So, there I was: idling at a stop light this afternoon, my windows rolled all the way down due to a what-must-be-proof (as if we need any more) of-climate-change February heat spell as NPR updated me on all the day's hateful nonsense, when lo and behold, lo and behold, lookin' for my lo and behold, the silky and frantic vibes of Neil Young's first full masterpiece wafted in from the car beside me:

"Sweet tune dude!" I called out to the guy beside me while snapping off Ari Shapiro altogether. "Crank it up!"

The driver - white, younger-than-me, and pensive - stole me a look of fear ("who, oh who, is yelling at me?") which turned quickly to joy ("oh wow, they like my song!") and then just as quickly to permanent disassociation ("this whole interaction is weird: that old guy hollering must be drunk"). He did not turn up the song.

But man, I was fired up all the same. Down By The River! Where else does Young summon up that much surprise and drama without employing dense, original poetry and/or a whole fleet of effects pedals? The song is pure Neil: lunching about over a tremendous groove, he's all shimmer and doom.

Be warned: it's likely to take me five or six posts and just as many weeks to get to the bottom of Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere, Young's second solo record and his first with Crazy Horse. Today's post is merely a warm up. So before we dive fully in, let's set a few things straight about my drive-time moment with Neil...

Why, you ask, was I listening to NPR instead of Neil to begin with?

Glad you asked! My records aren't my only possessions harvested from the dollar bin. My everyday ride, a battered silver Honda Civic with 224,648,425 miles or so under its cracked belts and our other car, an equally old Toyota Sienna with half the miles but just as much debris within it, were both plucked from a dollar bin of sorts: namely, my lovely, aged parents didn't want them any more so my wife and I gladly paid them very few dollars.

The Honda recently rechristened itself Lurch, and the new moniker isn't an ode to Neil and The Horse's sweet rockin' vibe in 1969, nor is it an ode to Neil's increasingly staggering and sloppy new efforts with the freakin' Chrome Farts; rather we now call my car Lurch because that's about all it does these days: accelerates and then reconsiders; brakes and then shudders. Indeed, the odds are good that someday very, very soon my own Little Honda will decide that first gear ain't all right after all as it lurches to a stop, then starts sliding down the hill I was attempting to mount. When that moment comes I'll throw the thing into park and then order my students, children or pets out. They'll have to then push me to wherever it is that I need to go.

In short, it's time for me to get a new, very-used, of course, car asap, and that's why I was driving our Sienna instead of the Honda this afternoon when the pensive kid I hereby name Rockin' Joe Scaredy Pants heard me shouting at him about his sweet song selection.

You can put 2 and 2 together and know why Lurch doesn't let me play Neil: it barely plays NPR. But what about our Sienna? Well, even in that vastly improved setting I've got access to nothing but FM stations. And no one out there is gonna make me listen to Coldplay songs about all the colors I abhor sandwhiched between ads for new cars I cannot afford. So NPR it is.

And, even if I miraculously got my hands on some smooth new ride, I still wouldn't be able to listen to Neil in the car. After all, every CD I own sits forlorn and despised in a closet, not because of the music on it but because of the technology behind it. I guarantee you that every one of those circular plastic pieces of waste will still be choking up the planet when you and I are Gilgamesh-level ancient history, and I guarantee you that if I tried to play any of them at this moment it would skip.

And Bob Dylan, while dreaming, is the only person I know who might have access to a record player inside a car...

Then again, maybe he leaves the Cadilac before attempting to pay his Con Ed bill...

But, even so, why not use your freakin' phone to play Neil in the car, you reasonably suggest. Dude, my phone flips, and I don't mean in the Nils Lofgrin sense. I mean that I can swing my circa 2006 phone open any time I want and, usually, it will make a successful phone call. But that's it. Texting? Nah. Spotify? No way.

Even so, Dollar Bin nerds will remind you that there is yet another way I could and should be listening to Neil in the car instead of begging Rockin' Joe beside me to provide the entertainment: my classic Ipod. The thing has over 23,000 songs on it, and over 3k of them are by Neil. I'll bet I've got 16 different versions of Down By the River digitally harnessed within its slim form, from the Booker T take I just about lost my lunch to while in the ninth row of the Fabulous Forum in 1993, to Le Noise era live electric solo shoutings to so many slow and terrifying Massey Hall era acoustic takes, to International Harvesters 20 minute hoedowns to... okay you get the idea.

So why don't I just plug that Steve Jobs thingamabob into my cars already?

Are you kidding me? My Ipod hasn't held an undocked charge for more than 16 seconds since 2016. Both cars, theoretically, if you have the right cord, and I don't, let you plug the device in but there's no foolproof way to simultaneously slip it some juice. My Ipod is not car capable.

And that means that when it comes to Down By The River there's just two foolproof methods at my fingertips. I can either drop the needle on my beloved dollar bin copy, or abandon my route, shift Lurch in high gear and follow Rockin' Joe Scaredy Pants all over town.

[raiseyourgoblet-of-rock]

Neil Young with his shirt open compilation post

[justaearthboundmisfit]

I can watch this man stumble around with his instruments for hours

[krispyweiss]

Song Review: Nils Lofgren feat. Ringo Starr - “Ain’t the Truth Enough”

Nils Lofgren takes the macro of MAGA and thrusts it into the micro of a marriage on “Ain’t the Truth Enough.”

Lofgren, who plays lap steel, organ and vibes and has Ringo Starr on drums, sings the mid-tempo rock ballad from the perspective of a woman whose husband was a Jan. 6 insurrectionist.

We built this dream together/don’t tell me what I know/don’t tell me what is real/my mind and heart are whole/ … ain’t the truth enough

The song is a success in that it’s the rare piece of modern political commentary whose lyrics are never wince-inducing. Musically, however, the lead single from Mountains (July 21) is generic stuff - even Starr sounds like 1,000 other drummers - a song that is vaguely familiar despite being brand new.

But solo records are good for Lofgren, given he still spends most of his musical time playing alongside Bruce Springsteen and Neil Young as a member of both the E Street Band and Crazy Horse.

Grade card: Nils Lofgren feat. Ringo Starr - “Ain’t the Truth Enough” - C+

5/4/23

[ninetimesbluedemo]

happy psychedelic pilliversary

[gerogerigaogaigar]

Shania Twain - Come On Over

A prototype Taylor Swift who isn't even half as interesting. Music for a generation that would genuinely find 'gaslight, gatekeep, girlboss' a feminist anthem. The ties to country music so tenuous that I can only assume it was the only market that would have her. Needless to say this album don't impress me much.

B.B. King - Live At The Regal

By 65 when this album was released the blues were over. Rock bands were stealing blues riffs and calling them their own while most of the original bluesman had either died or faded into obscurity. B.B. King on the other hand was a maniac whose career could only be stopped by his own death. So while the blues was dead, B.B. King was still going strong. This live album shows what over a decade of practice does for a performer.

Tom Petty - Full Moon Fever

You wouldn't think that Tom Petty, an artist who managed two pretty good records in the late 70s would manage another pretty good album in 89 but here we are. Full Moon Fever isn't a masterpiece, Petty just isn't capable of a masterpiece, but it has twelve good rock and roll songs with above average lyricism. If you want more from an aging 70s rocker in 89 then I don't know what to tell you. Actually I do, it's Neil young's Freedom but idk, Tom Petty is good too.

Peter Gabriel - So

Why can Peter Gabriel write a song about his penis and it's one of his biggest hits, but if I go around telling people about my penis it's all "ma'am this is a Wendy's" huh? Also why is there just a straight up penis song on an album that otherwise want to be all smart and worldly? It's a fine album, but it kinda pales in comparison to other art rockers of the time and, in the end, the penis song is the best one anyway.

Neil Young & Crazy Horse - Rust Never Sleeps

Rust Never Sleeps is a litany against stagnation. Fight all you want but eventually you will rust so isn't it better to burn out than to fade away? The Sex Pistols must have been a harrowing thing for Young to experience. A band that changed the face of music permanently but who rose tompromonence and fell apart during what amounted to a lull in Young's own career. No other band burned as bright but burned out as hard as the Sex Pistols. With this in mind it is clear why his litany against stagnation hinges on a tribute to Sex Pistols leader Johnny Rotten. How could Neil Young say it's better to burn out than fade away when his own career had been so long and successful? Maybe he saw the difference between success and impact. Either way the album is a masterpiece. Starting soft and growing in intensity until the the opener is reprised with the acoustic tenderness replaced by ragged electric guitars and wild solos. Young himself never burnt out. He experimented a lot in the 80s and 89 even saw him put out one of his best records, but by this point in his career he must have known that he'd faded out. Still one must imagine Sisyphus happy.

[noleftexitlistens]

Apple Music | Spotify

[greensparty]

BEST LIVE ALBUMS OF 2024

Honorable Mentions:

Neil Young & Crazy Horse  Fu##in Up

1. Paul McCartney & Wings  One Hand Clapping

The often-bootlegged live album Wings recorded in 1974 finally got an official release, including some covers and rarities. A real treat for Sir Paul fans!

[doomandgloomfromthetomb]

"Peace Of Mind" - Neil Young & Crazy Horse, Community Theater, Berkeley, California, November 2, 1976

More Neil Young & Crazy Horse! Sorry, not sorry. Neil's recent Archives Vol. III box included two versions of the semi-deep-cut "Peace of Mind" — a lo-fi/informal acoustic run-through with Linda Ronstadt and Nicolette Larson, and a stripped-down Oceanside/Countryside mix. Both are lovely!

However! Vol. III does not have a Crazy Horse "Peace of Mind;" the band played it several times during their barnstorming fall '76 tour. Maybe we can convince Neil to release it on the live album he teased a while back but then shelved, entitled Electric Judy Presents Chaos and the Horse it Rode In On. "The best record Crazy Horse ever made," Neil says. So ... let's hear it?

Until then! Here's my pick for the best "Peace of Mind" from 1976. The Chicago recording is a higher-quality SBD, but this Berkeley performance from 50 years ago this week has the edge in its pure windswept melancholy, those Zuma-esque guitars slicing through the night (and the murk of the somewhat blown-out audience tape). It's hard to find peace of mind ... but here it is.

[neilyoungshearse]

Neil Young and Mentally Stable Horse

[agirlnamedbone]

one of my forms of self harm is to rewind the part in "keep on rockin' in the free world" when neil sings "there's one more kid that'll never go to school, never get to fall in love, never get to be cool" over and over

it hurts

me

so

bad

[dollarbin]

Shakey Sunday #31:

Zuma, Part 4

Thanks for putting up with the piecemeal approach I'm taking for one of Neil's all time great records this week. Shakey often collages his records together from different eras, different bands and different moods so I feel justified in taking the same approach here. Zuma is loud, lovely and runs the gamut from hopeful to harrowing. And that's just Side 1!

Today let's flip the record and drop the needle on the album's two most problematic - but still awesome - tracks: Stupid Girl and Drive Back...

At some point in college my graduation requirements dictated that I take Sociology 101. I was a good boyfriend and an equally good student - always on time and meeting my obligations - but I was also a bit of a pretentious jerk, alternatively focused on vital topics such as E.M. Forster's colonial biases and the campus-wide compost program. Intro to Soc struck me as soft, beneath my level. Like I said, I was a bit of jerk.

Anyway, the course asked for a final paper on a topic of your choice. Other students spent weeks doing research into houselessness, mental illness and the human condition. I did no research whatsoever and wrote my 15+ page paper in one sitting, starting at 10pm the night before it was due. My thesis: classic rock is a hotbed for misogyny.

No research was needed because I played records all night while I wrote and every new album contained yet another topic for discussion. A young George Harrison, who'd go on to be a serial adulterer, pronounced his lady friend dead if she so much as looked at another man; Van Morrison considered every female he encountered as both a sex object and as a "little girl". Creepy stuff.

The paper wrote itself and I got a big fat A which I surely did not deserve. Art has - so far! - almost always served as a vehicle for patriarchy; the teacher should have given me a C- and said thank you for your contribution Captain Obvious.

Stupid Girl may be Shakey's greatest contribution to the whole hateful genre of man hate towards other genders. Not only does Neil spend the entire song telling the lady in question that she is dumb over and over again, he does it - thanks again in large part to David Briggs' menacing production approach - with venom and conviction.

Just listen to Neil's double tracked vocals. He hates ladies in every possible octave:

I am tempted to defend my musical hero by pointing out all the songs in which he sings with earnest praise for women of all kinds and by arguing that Stupid Girl is an aberration in his art. But then I remember a long ago NPR interview with his poor second wife Pegi, whom he summarily dumped not long before she died of cancer, and I feel that defending him here may be a well, stupid, move.

Neil's complicated, that's for sure. I'm glad I'm not married to him, and I'm glad my sister isn't either. But meanwhile, Stupid Girl freakin' rocks.

And so does Drive Back.

I long considered this song problematic only in the sense that it was not as incredibly awesome as the rest of Zuma. Why include this workmanlike track instead of any of the other essential songs Young had on hand at that point; we're talking Powderfinger (or Big Waves as it was known as way back in the After the Goldrush era), Sedan Delivery, White Line, not to mention the rest of Homegrown...

My entire attitude shifted, however, as soon as I heard Neil's Odeon/Budokan record in official release; there Drive Back sounds like a song David Briggs, Neil, you and me can get behind. It's frantic; it's taut; it cooks. It's on fire.

It's Neil Young.