Guitar World Neil Young Cover Issue (October 2009)

A little blast from the past of the Guitar World Magazine (October 2009) with Neil Young on the cover and an interview.

The normally reticent Neil speaks frankly about his past achievements, his songwriting and the making of perhaps the most ambitious music anthology ever created: the Archives Volume 1, 1963-1972 retrospective.

From Guitar World interview by Richard Bienstock on NYA:

Guitar World: On a more personal level, why did you feel the need to gather your work in this manner?

YOUNG: Well, my music and the way it’s presented here are really inseparable.

I have this thing that I’m doing -— I’m telling a story. It’s something that I’ve wanted to do for a long time, and in doing it I’ve become part of the creation of a technology platform that is so much more far-reaching than what I originally envisioned. And I’m fascinated by that.

My music has become a way to demonstrate a navigation system through time. And really, my life, my own content, is almost secondary at this point. I look at Archives and I go, “Well, there’s a hell of a lot about me in there.” If you’re interested in that, then great. If you’re not interested in me, then just listen. Because what you’ll hear is better than any record you’ve ever had. And there’s an era coming up in which this level of sound quality, and this level of interaction, is going to be the standard. Much like the CD was the standard for the previous era.

Guitar World: Assembling Archives afforded you the opportunity to view the contents of your musical life fairly comprehensively. Was there any overall pattern of behavior that revealed itself to you in the process?

YOUNG: One thing that really surprised me is how ruthless I’ve been in pursuit of the music. And for how long I’ve been like that.

I always knew I was callous -— if I had to do something I had to do it, and I didn’t make any excuses. That might mean changing musicians midstream, or dropping a project to go somewhere else entirely. If that’s what I had to do to keep the songs coming then that’s what I did. But when I saw it, and I remembered what happened, and thought about how I dealt with things in immature ways, it gave me a lot of pause.

But nonetheless, I continue on, and keep doing it anyway.

Another snippet of the interview caught our eye in particular.

Neil discusses Archives Vol.#2 which will include Time fades Away II. TFA#2 is an alternate version from the tour's second half.

"One thing I'll tell you about the next volume of Archives is that Time Fades Away II is in there. And it's interesting because the whole thing has a different drummer than what was on that album. I switched drummers halfway through the tour- Kenny Buttrey was in there for the first half, and Johnny Barbata came in for the second. It's a completely different thing, with completely different songs. So that's interesting. There's lots of stuff like that that I'm working on right now for the second volume."

C'mon Neil. We want TFA#1! Look, 15,000 fans have signed the Release "Time Fades Away" Petition and they don't want to be disappointed. We've been running this damn petition for years now and don't plan to run for eternity.

Could this possibly mean that TFA#1 will never, ever be released? oh, the horror.

Complete interview at Neil Young: Gold Rush - Guitar World.

More on Neil Young's guitars, amps, equipment, sound and technique.

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