Bob Dylan and Neil Young On the Same Billing

We do try not to speculate around here too often. But sometimes it's just too much fun and we can't resist.

When Electric Roulette mentioned that Bob Dylan and Neil Young are on the same billing at a Portugal festival this summer we got to thinking: what if?

The 3 day Optimus Alive! festival is at Passeio Marítimo de Algés, Oeiras in Lisbon, Portugal and Dylan will headline the Festival on Friday July 11. Neil Young is set to headline the three-day event's closing night on Saturday July 12.

Neil will be at Bospop in the Netherlands on 07-11. But Bob's tour ends on 7/11 leaving him free on 7/12.

Well, we can only wish for a Bob & Neil hookup. And if we were in Portugal this summer, we'd definitely try and get a ticket for this one. If for no other reason than to see if Neil upstaging Dylan is a myth.

Afterall, it's not like Bob Dylan and Neil Young have anything in common anyway.

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Neil & Ol' Black in London, 3/14/08: The Story Behind The Picture

Photo by Chris a.k.a Crris b

Here's an interesting photo from Apollo Hammersmith, London, England, 3/14/08. It was quite a night by all accounts as Neil Young wound down his Europe tour. The concert was filmed and at the bottom of the frame you can see the video screen for one of the cameras.

Another interesting aspect of the photo is the story behind the photo. Chris writes on her putting together the picture:

On the 2 nights saw Neil at Hammersmith I was miles away. On night of 14th decided I was going to take my DSLR. I was in stalls row L, right at the very end. My camera is a SONY A700. I do have a long white fast zoom lens, but thought it inappropriate/inadvisable to take that :) Minolta lenses with the same A mount are compatible. I have a Minolta 135mm f2.8 that I love. I took that, and a Sony 70-300 but latter too slow & soon swapped over to the Minolta. (A700 not full frame so 135mm=202.5mm).

After a couple of test shots realized needed to stop down by 2 stops, so all photos taken -2 exposure compensation. The "Neil & Ol' Black" is actually a cropped picture. I like to shoot on Aperture priority mode, so left open at 2.8 The A700 will do and give ISO settings down to 6400, but anything over 800 is so very noisy. Still one way of getting the shot, and then a case of seeing what you can do in Photoshop.

I've made various actions, but the one I actually used on "Neil & Ol' Black" was one I downloaded called LOMO [LOMOGRAPHY - over-saturated, blurry, cross processed look]. Then I took original crop & merged the 2 - the LOMO crop pic & the original crop pic into an HDR image [HDR stands for HIGH DYNAMIC RANGE. The idea is one takes RAW (unprocessed in camera) pictures of the same image with varying exposures, and then combine them. So one could have one picture with excellent dark tones and another with excellent light tones- combining them into an HDR image should then give the widest possible dynamic range.]

OK could not resist - just had a go at HDR combining the Neil & Ol' Black" Image with the "fill-flash/vig effect variant" - interesting punchy [bringing up blacks] result. I de-noised all pics using Noise Ninja but this can give some doll-like glassy skin textures, so I tend to fade the effect a bit & keep some noise.

Not sure I followed all that but sounds cool. Thanks for the effort and info.

paz!
Thanks Chris!

Also, see concert reviews of London, England - 3/14 & 15/08.

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Randomly Blogged: Deja Vu Film, Johny Barbata, My Morning Jacket

Interview with "Deja Vu"'s Mike Cerre: War experience feeds into album film

Johny Barbata Interview on 4waysite.com

An Open Letter to Neil Young in Response to His Recent Statements on Music Changing the World

The Switchback - Mr. Soul: Neil Young vs. My Morning Jacket’s Jim James on Crawdaddy!

Photos of Neil Young & Crazy Horse, Bilbao, Italy 1987

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Still "Lookin' for a Leader" Or Show Me The Way and I'll Follow You Someday

Hillary Clinton & Barack Obama

Someone walks among us
And I hope he hears the call
And maybe it's a woman
Or a black man after all

"Lookin' for a Leader" - 2006

Tomorrow, Pennsylvania's presidential primary will be held and -- more than likely -- we'll finally know whether it will be black man or a woman who will be the Democratic party candidate.

Many would agree that the country is finally ready for someone other than a white male to occupy the White House.

We've discussed Neil Young's song "Lookin' for a Leader" a few times over the years and readers at Thrasher's Wheat have had some lively and intense discussions on what kind of leader the U.S. needs.

And, of course, who could have imagined that Neil could write a song two years ago that would be so presciently relevant when it was all but sneered at by the establishment at the time of it's release?

So what was Obama's reaction to "Lookin' for a Leader" in 2006?:

"The 44-year-old Barack Obama said at a news conference before a fundraiser Saturday he has read the lyrics. But despite being name-checked by a rock 'n' roll hall-of-famer, Obama said he has no intention of running for president in two years.

That doesn't mean Obama is dismissing Young completely: "I'm a big Neil Young fan," Obama said of the Canadian musician.

He and Young met in Chicago at last year's Farm Aid concert. Obama said he sat in a trailer while Young rehearsed the song Southern Man.

"The acoustics in a trailer are terrific. It was unbelievable. . . . It was one of the best times that we've had since I was a senator."

And what did Hillary think of "Lookin' for a Leader"? Well, we've never heard her make any direct comments on the song but there are all sorts of theories about music fans voting tendencies.

And many argue strenuously that one shouldn't be taking voting cues from rock stars anyways. Witness the reaction of Bruce Springsteen endorsing Obama (and imagined). As for politics and music and whether the twain shall meet? We're not saying that music can change the world but maybe -- just maybe -- it'll make folks think before they pull the lever.

So my friends in Pennsylvania, go out and rock the vote tomorrow!


"Every American President has left an impact on his country and the World. This musical history lesson from Neil Young takes a look at the past, present and future of US leadership."

Here are some reviews of "Living with War".

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Grace Potter and The Nocturnals Cover Neil Young

We weren't really familiar with Grace Potter and The Nocturnals until we saw some mentions over on Rust. So we checked out a few of her Neil Young covers and thought they were pretty cool.

"Down by the River" - 2008-02-23, Portsmouth [mp3]

"Southern Man" (with Government Mule) - 2007-09-07, Boston [mp3]

Thanks Largehearted Boy!

More Neil Young covers.

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Neil Young Video Night in Milan, Italy

On April 21st, there will be a Neil Young Video Night in Milan, Italy, at the venue Spazio Oberdan.

A two hours video retrospective will include many videoclips from the whole career of Neil and some footage took from weird audience recording and TV broadcasts.

The video selection was assembled by long time Italian fan Cristina Guenzi and husband Gianmarco Picuzzi along with Stefano Frollano, author of Neil Young Discography Book. The show will be hosted by an Italian music writer and journalist, Enzo Gentile.

Spazio Oberdan is a 200 seats venue. Free entrance. For more, see
Neil Young Video Night.

Also, check out Stefano's band Young & Old, dedicated to Neil's music on MySpace.

Thanks Stefano!
Ciao!

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