Neil Young

Of all the rock stars I’ve admired, I think Neil Young is the most approachable, relatable and just plain human. I’ve always seen him as a regular guy who had the courage to follow his muse. It turned out he was an artist of rare sensitivity and profound performance skills. When I first moved to Denver in 1968, one of the first places my brother took me was Underground Records on 724 So. Pearl Street. Twenty years later, I would buy that store at a tax auction and turn it into Twist and Shout, but back in the day I bought my first bootleg LP there. It was called Young Man’s Fancy Live On Sugar Mountain. I still have it; in fact - I'm listening to it as I write this. It still sounds great. I was already a fan of Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere and Déjà vu, but hearing him speak in that same quavery voice he sang with was extraordinary. And the unreleased songs like “See The Sky About To Rain” and “Love In Mind” blew my mind. It’s been a long affair. I’ve never lost interest in Neil and have excitedly awaited every new release over the years. He’s had so many peaks in his career. After the initial run of classics there was the Ditch Trilogy, Rust Never Sleeps, Ragged Glory, Harvest Moon, Sleeps With Angels, Psychedelic Pill. Just like Dylan, Neil has defied expectations and surpassed my hopes so many times. During the recent pandemic madness, the kaleidoscopic depth of his website (https://neilyoungarchives.com/) has provided a daily balm to the negativity all around. I can’t count how many times I’ve seen him in concert, but many of them have been highlights. 

Some of the best:

-C.U. Fieldhouse, November ’76 w/ Crazy Horse - blistering through material from his mid-period masterpiece Zuma, the energy just poured off the stage.

-McNichols Arena, 1978, Rust Never Sleeps tour - entire audience is handed 3-D glasses so they can see the band rust in real time. With oversized props and everyone wearing the glasses it was surreal.

-Cheyenne Frontier Days, 1984, International Harvesters tour - pouring rain, Neil and his band played a total hoedown.

-Red Rocks, Freedom Tour - A fog-shrouded stage revealed Neil by himself opening and closing with "Rockin’ In The Free World."

-Red Rocks, Alchemy Tour - Neil’s manager Elliot Roberts (one of the coolest guys ever- may he rest in peace) arranged for a few record store owners to meet Neil in Elliot’s tour bus after an incendiary 2 1/2 hour guitar-fest. We sat on the bust admiring Elliot’s orange plastic bong, when Neil came bounding in full of energy and enthusiasm. He looked amazing and was totally friendly and excited to talk about his new Pono device. After a couple of questions from me he realized I had concerns about the Pono cutting traditional retail out of his music. Instead of being taken aback, you could see the wheels turning in his head and he said, “Well, we’ll still make you records and Blu-Rays - nothing sounds better than that.” He was so gracious and open. My party walked off that bus two feet off the ground. We knew we had been in the presence of not only a great artist but a truly kind human soul.

Through each new album, every tour, the books and movies, even the technology projects Neil has been an artistic and spiritual companion to me since the 1960’s and he means more to me each year. I hope he never stops!

- Paul Epstein

I'd Love to Turn You On #215 - Neil Young – On The Beach

Neil Young’s 1974 album On The Beach marked the middle of what has become known as his “ditch trilogy,” whereby he deliberately drove his career (on a major high after the one-two punches of CSNY and his own top 10 album Harvest) off the road to success and into a ditch of excess. Although recorded after the even bleaker Tonight’s The Night (his most controversial and emotionally raw album), and the somewhat baffling live album Time Fades Away (which contained all new material played in a ragged, almost haphazard style), On The Beach was released before, thus preparing the public for the darkness to come. While the production was comparatively crude, and Neil’s voice sometimes reduced to a pained howl, I have always found On The Beach to be one of Neil’s most honest and personally affecting albums. In many ways, the startling image on the cover tells much of the story. We see Neil, dressed in a thrift store leisure suit, his back to the camera, facing the ocean of Zuma Beach, while in the foreground are the accoutrement of a burned-out, artificial and pointless society: a potted palm, gaudy patio furniture, a crumpled newspaper with the headline Senator Buckley Wants Nixon To Resign, the back fins of a vintage Cadillac stick out of the sand like some weirdo, hipster version of the Statue Of Liberty from Planet Of The Apes and a couple of Coors tall-boys stand by like dead soldiers. Surreal in the extreme, the image also seems to sum up an age of Watergate, Vietnam, disillusion and the shattered hippie dream with tremendous clarity. It remains my favorite album cover.

As for the music - its stature grows in my mind’s ear with each passing year. On The Beach contains some of Neil Young’s most reflective and intelligent songs, set in rough-hewn settings that are alternately fragile to the point of breaking or roar with the anguish of a lost soul screaming in the wilderness. Let’s look at it song by song.

Side One

"Walk On" - The closest thing resembling a pop song on the album, this irresistible gem has a perfectly crushing guitar hook, exquisite slide guitar by Ben Keith and a rock-solid rhythm section provided by Crazy Horse alums Ralph Molina and Billy Talbot. The lyrics are an anthem for the disaffected hippies facing the cold realities of a new decade.

"See The Sky About To Rain" - A lovely ballad dominated by Neil’s cracked falsetto, memorable Wurlitzer playing, and, again, Ben Keith’s sympathetic steel. An ominous sentiment of lost dreams almost anyone can understand. Neil has an uncanny ability to poetically conflate natural phenomena with manmade turmoil. He never did it better than this one.

"Revolution Blues" - The most strident song on the album, this tale of an apocalyptic L.A. filled with psycho murderers (“10 million dune buggies coming down the mountain.” “I’m a barrel of laughs with my carbine on”) and a doomed, vacuous celebrity culture (“well I heard that Laurel Canyon is full of famous stars/well I hate them worse than lepers and I’ll kill them in their cars”). There’s obviously some insider-baseball irony here as he had recently married his second Hollywood starlet. The rancor feels real and fresh here though. Musically, the song is a barnburner with David Crosby and Young going on the warpath guitar-wise, while Rick Danko’s fretless bass slides the song along like mercury.

"For The Turnstiles" - A harrowing plea for sanity and understanding in a world that makes no sense. A spare recording of just Neil’s banjo and Ben Keith’s lonesome dobro and the two of them yelping like scalded dogs.

"Vampire Blues" - One of the fuller productions on the album, it features a classic, nerve-shattering guitar solo by Neil and some woozy organ work by Ben Keith, who, you may have noticed by now is the secret weapon on this album. Neil decries the petroleum industry as vampires “suckin’ blood from the earth.” The song is both moving and incredibly prescient. Oh yeah, and it rocks hard.

Side Two

"On The Beach" - One of the most hypnotic songs he ever committed to wax, Neil weighs the relative pros and cons of fame and fortune, discovering that’s it all pretty much nowheresville (“I went to the radio interview, but I ended up alone here at the microphone.”)  In the meantime the song staggers along like a lonely drunk in a dark alleyway. Neil lets loose with a couple of last-shred-of-sanity guitar solos and guess who adds the crucial backing with a simple hand drum part? Ben Keith of course.

"Motion Pictures (For Carrie)" - No question what this one is about. His relationship with actress Carrie Snodgrass had hit the skids, and he was broken. A beautifully touching ballad informed with equal parts heartbreak and scorn (“all those headlines they just bore me now”). Gently acoustic with a lovely harmonica solo and some great slide guitar by Rusty Kershaw.

"Ambulance Blues" - “Back in the old folkie days/The air was magic when we played” Neil comes to grips with the passage of time in this epic tale of days and friends lost. “Old Mother Goose, she’s on the skids” he moans as he contemplates lost innocence and the reality of now. “I guess I’ll call it sickness gone/It’s hard to say the meaning of this song/An ambulance can only go so fast/It’s easy to get buried in the past/When you try to make a good thing last.” Not that many artists have looked at their own lives and legacies with such an honest and jaundiced eye. But he’s not just tough on himself: “So all you critics sit alone/ You’re no better than me for what you’ve shown/ With your stomach pump and your hook and ladder dreams/ We could get together for some scenes.” It’s hard to imagine an artist who actually likes critics, but Neil spares no quarter in eviscerating them. In one song, he closes the curtain on the magic trick of 60’s idealism. A profoundly disturbing yet highly enlightening song.

On The Beach ends on that bleak and honest assessment of Neil Young’s own self-worth and place in the popular music cosmology. While not exactly uplifting in subject matter, the album succeeds wildly in terms of being an accurate snapshot of a great artist at a pivotal point in his career. This is not the only time he has done this, in fact it could be argued that more than any other modern artist, Neil Young has honestly bared his soul to his public for better or worse. He doesn’t shy away from the reality of his feelings, and, remarkably, the music he produces reflects that reality with clarity and beauty, lifting it from the merely confessional to the profoundly artistic.

- Paul Epstein

Several Species Of Small Furry Thoughts

I had a great weekend last week. I went to Cleveland and saw The Rock and Roll Hall Of Fame. It is hard to describe what a powerful and exhilarating experience this was. Two things made me want to go in the first place. Fist was I recently read the late Harvey Pekar’s chronicle of the history of Cleveland and found it fascinating. I also noticed that the Rock Hall was doing a major exhibit on The Grateful Dead that was ending in January. I wanted to see that, and when I saw Neil Young and Crazy Horse had a date in Cleveland in October I decided it was time to do it. The Rock and Roll Hall Of Fame is something that every one of you should put on your list of things to see. If you are a Dead Head make it quick before their exhibit ends. The Dead Exhibit had all kinds of stuff you’ve never seen; Jerry’s stage outfit from Monterey Pop, handwritten lyrics of the unreleased song “Equinox,” four of Jerry’s guitars, the original paintings used for the covers of Live Dead, “Tiger Rose” and the back cover of Workingman’s Dead, the poster from the first show of The Warlocks, the Ampex Reels of 2-14-70 - and on and on- two whole rooms dedicated to rare and unseen memorabilia. And the rest of the Hall was, for me, the experience of a lifetime. I’m not going to bother telling you about individual displays (well John Lennon’s Mellotron was pretty special), but after walking around for over 6 hours I felt like I did when I was first discovering Rock music. It was amazing to see all the stuff that means so much to me being presented in a completely respectful and adult fashion. From the I.M. Pei building, to the interactive displays, to the thoughtful movie presentations in the Hall’s three theatres to endless amounts of historic, cultural and fetishistic artifacts, it was one gigantic hug and thumbs–up to music fans. It was like the real world saying - “Yes, you were right, Rock and Roll IS here to stay, and here’s the proof.” I just can’t recommend it enough.

 

 Next up, it was Neil Young and Crazy Horse. I was curious how the show would compare to his masterful set at Red Rocks in July. I also had just finished Neil’s autobiography Waging Heavy Peace so I was extra psyched-up to see him again. The show was musically very similar to Red Rocks, with a few new songs from his forthcoming album Psychedelic Pill (out October 30^th) replaced with different new songs, but overall it was another feedback-drenched electric fest that largely revolved around the half-dozen or so new songs he was obviously excited to play. The big difference was the stage setting, which incorporated oversized props from the Rust Never Sleeps, Weld and Rusted Out Garage tours to lend the proceedings a surreal, childlike ambience. These new songs are some of his most autobiographical and heartfelt in a long while. The process of writing the book obviously had a big effect on him, and the album almost seems like a companion piece, or an illustration of the things he talks about in the book.

As for the book, I found it to be one of the most enjoyable rock books I’ve read. Not because it was a shocking tell-all or because it revealed so many facts about Neil Young I didn’t know, but rather because it is told in such a straight-forward and clear narrative voice. No doubt Neil wrote every word of this book. There are two major take-aways from Waging Heavy Peace; Neil Young is a very uncomplicated guy, and Neil Young is a very complicated guy. Yes - his actions are sometimes hard to understand, but through the clear prose and emotional directness of his writing, Neil takes the reader on a trip through his own hobbies, obsessions, regrets and joys (all of which are pretty direct) and draws a picture of a thoughtful, brilliant, stubborn, eccentric but ultimately normal guy. Early on he realized he was serving the music not vice-versa and this realization and his ability to hold on to that thought seems to explain his remarkable career. He is an ordinary guy with average guy desires who has forged an extraordinary life of above-average dreams. He has stuck to his guns and as a result he is the envy of almost every other musician. Every musician wishes they could dictate their own career the way Neil Young does, and almost none have matched his sustained genius at making records and mounting tours. He is singular in his achievement, yet he seems just like you or me when he talks about his joys and sorrows as a working man, a family man, a nostalgic man, bound and determined to move into the future with purpose. Like almost everything he has done in his career, Waging Heavy Peace does not fully represent Neil Young, or explain what makes him so magical, but it is one more piece of the puzzle to an endlessly fascinating man.

Paul Epstein