"I firmly believe that both the Kurgan and Def Leppard were quoting Neil Young when they said, “I’ve got something to say - it’s better to burn out than fade away.”
This is mainly on the strength of the song ‘Animal’, which - although one LP later than the quoted Leppard song, ‘Rock of Ages’ - says, “Like a restless rust, I never sleep.”
Clearly that is a ‘Rust Never Sleeps’ reference. QED."
— Playmixt, on Neil Young’s likely unwitting influence on both Def Leppard and the filmHighlander.
(Videodrome (yup, a David Cronenberg homage) is a new recurring feature in which we’ll highlight exceptional videos and/or performances. The series kicks off today with AD contributor (and New Orleans native) M. Garner’s take on Neil Young’s post-Katrina cover of the Bobby Charles penned, Fats Domino hit)
From IndyWeek comes an interesting article entitled Why indie rock continues to ignore the Drive-By Truckers, and what it’s missing. I have to admit when I first heard of the band and that they’d had a Southern Rock Opera to their credit, it wasn’t necessarily something that sounded appealing to me. Had a lot of preconceptions as to what “Southern Rock” was all about, I’m ashamed to admit.
But I’m proud to say that hearing this band changed my opinion on a lot of that, and especially on what’s probably the most misunderstood band I can think of: Lynyrd Skynyrd. The history of their relationship with Neil Young was really unknown to me, although there was an awareness of the “answer song” nature of Sweet Home Alabama to Neil’s Southern Man and Alabama. Growing up in a northern state meant that Skynyrd’s music - while played on the radio - was more often identified with the stars ‘n’ bars than anything else, and not in a good way. The song Ronnie and Neil on the Southern Rock Opera taught me what good friends they were in real life, Neil even writing Powderfinger for them, and Ronnie Van Zant constantly wearing his Tonight’s The Night t-shirt… maybe even beyond this world. In one song I learned more rock history than I’d heard of in five years of (pre-internet) obsessive music reading.
Getting into the Truckers’ music circa Decoration Day opened my ears to a lot of great music and a ton of great stories. It’s rare that I’ve missed a live show here in DC since getting into them. The reverence and revelry that they share for rock music - and especially its history - is one of the reasons their albums and live shows are simply “can’t miss” prospects. Their new one, Go-Go Boots, is out on Tuesday the 15th. Pretty good date for a band with a song called “Feb. 14” to their credit.
Hear Neil Young’s new album, Le Noise, at NPR right now.
Produced by Daniel Lanois, who’s produced or co-produced albums like: Bob Dylan’s Time Out Of Mind, Oh Mercy U2’s The Unforgettable Fire, The Joshua Tree, Achtung Baby, All That You Can’t Leave Behind, How To Dismantle An Atomic Bomb, No Line On The Horizon Emmylou Harris’ Wrecking Ball (whose title comes from her cover of Neil’s tune) Peter Gabriel’s So, Us, Birdy Robbie Robertson’s self-titled solo album
“We were playing an album that he wanted to turn people on to that hadn’t been released. He was an icon already in England, everyone expected to hear his hits and he played none of them. He played the record from beginning to end starting with Tonight’s The Night, finishing with Tonight’s The Night. And the English audiences really were not… okay with it. They started yelling a lot, they started booing, they started complaining, whining, every show. He’d get to the end of the night and he’d say, ‘Alright, we’re going to play something you’ve all heard before’. And everyone would go crazy thinking it would be some Buffalo Springfield hit or whatever, and then we’d play Tonight’s The Night again.” ~~Nils Lofgren on the infamous tour of 1973
“I’m down at the ranch and Neil goes, ‘Hey Willy, wanna hear something?’ So we go down to the lake and row out to the middle in this rowboat and I think, ‘Jesus Christ, this guy’s been a fuckin’ mystery to me all my life - if he wants to talk to me privately, surely there’s more places to do it than in the middle of a fucking lake in a rowboat.’ What he’d done is he’d wired his house as the left speaker and his entire barn as the right speaker, and they played Harvest. And at the end of it Elliot Mazer comes down to the shore of the lake and goes, ‘Neil, how is it?’ Neil turns around and shouts, ‘More barn!’” ~Graham Nash
I’m reblogging this because everyone should read the More Barn anecdote (from the Shakey biography by Jimmy McDonough). It’s my absolute favourite Neil Young story.
Neil to Conan on his last Tonight Show: “Long May You Run”
Back in the early 1990s my job at a closed captioning company led to us doing the work for “Late Night with Conan O’Brien” when Letterman left. We paid close attention to the talk show wars and passed around a copy of “The Late Shift” book when it came out. Still remember that debut of his NBC show at 12:30 - how nervous he was, the constant questions of “who is this guy,” and the cold opening before the credits with him on his way to work that day and people all over New York City haranging him saying, “You’re not gonna be as good as Letterman!”
That opening bit ended with him standing on a chair in his dressing room about to stick his head in a noose… when he’s summoned by a PA to start the show. Almost remorsefully, he got down off the chair and headed to the stage. That fast-tempo opening theme then kicked into gear and he was off and running.
Back then my boss used to ask me almost daily, “How’s Conan doing?” and a lot of us really gave him about 6 months to survive. Ironically, 15 years later that became the case for his 11:30 show.
Eventually he came into his own and flourished, although he likes to say that the turnover at NBC was so fast that nobody who could’ve fired him ever got around to doing it. Watching all the shenanigans this year and the bone-headedness by NBC yet again with their late night lineup was riveting. Whatever side you were on, am pretty sure most of us agree on one thing: that Conan was treated badly. It made for terrific, fiery television though.
On his last night Conan had spoke directly to his audience explaining how thankful he was to have a home at NBC for most of his adult life. He also asked something of his audience:
“All I ask of you is one thing: please don’t be cynical. I hate cynicism — it’s my least favorite quality and it doesn’t lead anywhere. Nobody in life gets exactly what they thought they were going to get. But if you work really hard and you’re kind, amazing things will happen.”
An extremely positive message for these days; you can read/see all of that speech here if you like. Neil Young played Long May You Run for him last night, and afterwards thanked Conan “for all you’ve done for new music,” which was nice. Here’s the video.
This week finally saw the long-awaited reissues of Neil Young’s catalog. “Neil Young,” “Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere,” “After the Gold Rush,” and “Harvest” are all out. Have snapped up 3 of the 4 and I can tell you from listening to ATGR tonight, you don’t need your 1980s versions of these albums any more — get the new discs. Most of them are on sale at or under $10 at Amazon.
Tonight brought some sad but related news: Tom Wilkes, an artist whose credits include the design for “Harvest” has died at age 69. You will not believe the amazing list of credits he has - here are some highlights:
“Flowers” and “Beggars Banquet” for the Stones
“Gilded Palace of Sin” & “Burrito Deluxe” for the Flying Burrito Brothers
“Mad Dogs & Englishmen” by Joe Cocker
“Pearl” by Janis Joplin
“Song Cycle” by Van Dyke Parks
“Big Bambu” by Cheech & Chong
“You Can Tune A Piano, but You Can’t Tuna Fish” by REO Speedwagon
“Blue Kentucky Girl” and “Pieces of the Sky” by Emmylou Harris
and of course…
Click here for more of his work. The L.A. Times has his obituary. Sad news, amazing career. Are there any great books about album cover artists?
