Here's an exclusive eyewitness report from Thrasher's Wheat blogger/Rustie Chris ‘CW Cannoneer’ Horn on today's announcement of the Archives on Blu-Ray DVD.
I arrive early and was able to get a front row seat, to the side. The Moscone Center was packed with all the conference attendees and press. I lucked out in attaining a press pass.
The keynote speaker was Rich Green Executive Vice President, Software and there were a number of presentations covering new applications. While discussing JavaFX a slide display showed various input/developer modules. The ‘Content’ bubble on the slide had a photo of Neil playing guitar. That was the first hint of what was to come.
After all the presentations were completed they saved Neil for last.
He came out dressed in blue jeans, t-shirt covered by an unbuttoned blue striped shirt and grey cap. He also wore sunglasses.
I moved up to the edge of the stage, right in front of him, to take pictures. I was the closest audience member and nobody else was around me. He looked at me numerous times and I was sporting my 1988 Bridge 2 button.
While there were some glitches during previous demonstrations Neil joked how they taped theirs so it would run smoothly.
Sharing the stage with Neil was Jonathan Schwartz Sun Microsystems CEO/President and Rich Green Executive Vice President, Software. They all interacted together, joking at times, while the taped presentation ran on the big screen behind them. With Neil songs playing in the background, the visual showed how versatile the Archives will be presented, viewing content while listening to music. It looked like it will be full of interesting visual material, both static and video, going back to the very beginning of his career. There was even talk of downloading Archive “updates” even after you have bought the product.
At one point they wanted to give a visual display of how many songs will be contained in Archives. They unraveled an ‘analog scroll’ that stretched about 30 feet. I think it was Jonathan Schwartz who asked where his favorite song (RITFW) was on the scroll, LA Johnson pointed to it about halfway down.
When a gong sound played, leading into a song, Neil and LA Johnson mentioned it was an old song broken out on the recent tour. I spoke firmly (not shouting) "Sultan".
Neil and LA both repeated it as if to remind themselves of the song title.
Not only did Neil see me, I fed him a line.
All too soon it was over. As he was turning to leave I shouted “Release Time Fades Away!” I may be reading into it too much but I thought he had the slightest of hesitations in his motion as if he heard me.
A wonderful experience and it made me salivate even more for the Archives to finally be released.
Thanks Chris! Great report!
More on the Archives at Sun JavaOne Conference.
"Release Time Fades Away!" Man, that's balls.......good job!
ReplyDeleteNeil Young Archives Blu-ray Preview
ReplyDeletehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KgSpVU50-m4
The North Country (1971) Nr.4 in the performance series????????
I'm buying the Archives, even though it’s going to be a bit expensive. It just looks incredible!!
ReplyDeleteI wonder how RITFW could be included ni the Archives release since it is only supposed to cover 1962 - 1973 - or, were they reviewing the entire Archives project spanning his entire career?
ReplyDeleteGreat report, Chris! Dx3 and I saw you taking pictures!
ReplyDeleteTo the other post re: RITFW... Volume 1 is through '73 ~ 10 discs... should be 5 volumes released, from what I heard.
Peace & love,
Ron
i guess we'll be getting the Journey Through The Past soundtrack in the Archives as well
ReplyDeletei wonder what kind of video neil'll include in this
i hope there's not much video we've seen already.
I'm unclear if NYA vol1 is 10 Blue-Ray discs or the entire collection of all volumes, is 10 discs. That's A LOT of content--far more content than the original 10 dvds/cds.
ReplyDeleteExciting NY Times!
-Chicago
At the end of the youtube preview, there is a shot of 10 title screens which I would guess are each of the 10 discs in Volume 1. As far as I can make out, it looks like this:
ReplyDelete1. The Early Years 1963-1965
2. The Early Years (1966-1967?)
3. Topanga Canyon (1968)
4. The Riverboat (PSA01)
5. ??
6. Fillmore East (PSA02)
7. ??
8. The North Country (1971)
9. Massey Hall (PSA03)
10. Journey Through The Past
Maybe someone with WAY better eyes/tools can make out the rest...
And for anyone still looking for the presentation, I found it here at the blog quoted elsewhere on Thrasher's Wheat:
http://www.news.com/8301-13953_3-9937142-80.html
Peace.
Awesome report! Thanks for being there for us.
ReplyDeleteIt finally all makes sense; the delay of the Archives while Neil was waiting to see which high-definition disc format would prevail. I take back any grumbling I had in my impatience.
I had the pleasure of being a few feet away from Neil in 1998 when he was receiving a lifetime achievement award. He used his acceptance speech to rail against the inadequacies of the Compact Disc, and how 16-but, 44.1kHz audio was a huge disservice to people who truly loved to listen. The great thing about that speech was that he was delivering it right in front of a bunch of Sony executives -- yup, the people responsible for bringing you the CD in the first place. It was great.
Anyway, I will be happily buying a Blu-Ray player (perhaps a PS3) and enjoying every nuance of the Archives... I don't even care what's on 'em at this point. :)
Stupid question: Will the user only be able to listen and/or view the Archives from a Blu-Ray DVD player? Or is there some possible way to listen to it in your car or elswhere?
ReplyDeleteThanks.
The Sun JavaOne site has some pictures from the event. Two of the pictures have shots of the scroll. Here is what I can read of the red section (Archives Vol 1) of the scroll.
ReplyDelete1963
01. Aurora
02. Sulton
1964
03. Mustang
04. I Wonder
05. I Love You Forever
1965
06. I'm A Man And I Can't Cry
07. Hello Lonely Woman
08. Casting Him Away From You
09. There Goes My Babe
10. Sugar Mountain
11. Nowadays Clancy Can't Even Sing
12. Run Around Babe
13. The Ballad of Peggy Grover
14. The Rent Is Always Due
15. Extra Extra
(white space/gap in scroll)
16. Flying On The Ground Is Wrong
17. Burned
18. OUt Of My Mind
19. Down Down Down
20. Kahunna Sunset
1967
21. Mr. Soul
22. Sell Out
23. Down To The Wire
24. Expecting To Fly
25. Slowly Burning
26. One More Sign
27. Broken Arrow
1968
01. Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere
02. The Loner
03. Birds
04. What Did You Do To My Life
05. The Last Trip To Tulsa
06. Here We Are In The Years
07. I've Been Waiting For You
08. The Old Laughing Lady
09. I've Loved Her So Long
10. Sugar Mountain
11. Nowadays Clancy Can't Even Sing
(white space/gap in scroll)
12. Down By The River
13. Cowgirl In The Sand
14. Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere
(gap in scroll/no title)
01. Sugar Mountain
02. The Old Laughing Lady
03. Flying On The Ground Is Wrong
04. I've Loved Her So Long
05. I Am A Child
06. 1956 Bubblegum
07. The Last Trip To Tulsa
08. Broken Arrow
09. Whiskey Boot Hill
10. Expecting To Fly
01. Cinnamon Girl
02. Running Dry
03. Round And Round
04. Oh Lonesome Me
05. Birds
06. Everybody's Alone
07. I Believe In You
08. Sea Of Madness
09. Dance Dance Dance
10. Country Girl
11. Helpless
(gap in scroll/white space)
12. It Might Have Been
(gap in scroll)
01. Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere
02. Winterlong
03. Down By The River
04. Wonderin'
05. Come On Baby, Let's Go Downtown
06. Cowgirl In The Sand
(gap in scroll)
01. Tell Me Why
02. After The Goldrush
03. Only Love Can Break Your Heart
04 - 14 : I can't read these or the rest of the red section....
There is a shot of the 1994 - 2000 section of the scroll, but it is merely a listing of the albums released in that period. So, it looks like the contents of that section of the Archives hasn't been decided.
he could make it double sided. I have a mars volta album that is one side cd on side vinyl.
ReplyDeleteChris, thoroughly enjoyed your brilliant report. Would love to have heard that cry out for Time Fades Away, but must have been lost in the RINTW exit music.
ReplyDeleteThink Neil knows how we feel.Soon soon soon.... The future's looking bright and sunny :)
You can see also in the preview video that:
ReplyDelete06. Everybody's Alone
is listed as 'with Crazy Horse' i.e. a previously unheard full-band version.
There's no version of Danny Whitten's 'Look at all the Things' that was mentioned in Shakey. It's supposed to be good. Anyway, the partial track list still looks great.
ReplyDeleteYes, crris (3 comments above)
ReplyDeleteYou are correct in that the exit music RITFW had started to play as I shouted "Release Time Fades Away! "
So I was not certain, probably not, whether Neil heard me or not.
I tried to do my best, and found I could.
Thanks everyone for the comments and feedback.
Chris Horn
You know what's weird too. How Cinnamon Girl is seperated from Down By The River and Cowgirl, didn't he right those on the same day.
ReplyDeleteTo the poster above, there are a couple versions of Cinnamon Girl beyond the one released on EKTIN. There's one where Neil and Danny switch vocals (Neil sings the high harmony, Danny the lower) that I've been dying to hear. I'm counting on these kinds of variations to be available on the Archives.
ReplyDeleteWhat about: "Intestate", "Kansas", "Try" - seems to light on unreleased material - then again, this is only a partial list of the Volume 1.
ReplyDeleteI imagine that TFA will be the first disc in the Volume 2 release - has to be!
Also, I hope that Journey Through the Past will be the complete film - every bootleg version I've ever seen is a horrible 6th generation version from somebody's VHS copy...
Kansas and those other songs you mention will be on other volumes.
ReplyDeleteI hope Time Fades away gets a seperate release and that the archives instead has studio versions of all those songs. I know there is a studio 'Last Dance'.
And an acoustic 'Don't Be Denied' from the day after Danny Whitten died.
Let's hope he restores 'Cinnamon Girl' to the live Fillmore set. I don't see it there in the mentioned track list. Let's hope this Archives set makes it on vinyl, too, not just Blu-Ray.
ReplyDeleteCan you show us the URL for the pictures of the scroll? It would be nice to see what this looks like.
ReplyDeleteI haven't seen anything like that on the Sun site with photos fro JavaOne.
thanks.