Neil Young in the "Big Cadillac Giveaway" 1983 MTV commercial.
MTV teamed up with "your local record store" and Neil Young to give away a pink Cadillac. Neil's performance is supremely entertaining, too.
And this comment from the announcer, Dan Clear himself:
I am Dan Clear in the commercial.
What a blast working with Neil and his crew. The driving force of the backstage hijinks was L.A. Johnson who recently passed away. Larry was Neil's creative force for many years, his Son and Daughter still work with Neil and continue L.A.'s legacy.
Any admiration for Neil is well placed... he is the real deal.
It was the hardest and most fun project in my 40 years as a performer.
Guess there was a reason Neil's band was called the Shocking Pinks...
shocking indeed.
Pink Cadillac
Goofiness. It's always been there with Neil. Hard to place alongside his more "serious" personality traits, but there it is. And thank God. We never would have gotten so much color from his career, e.g. Greendale, the Shocking Pinks, the Life tour, the RNS tour, etc., etc.
ReplyDeleteOne of my favorite Neil quotes of all time was his comment about the staging of the Greendale show: "The girl who plays Sun Green -- Sarah White -- is a friend of my daughter's from high school. I watched her and my daughter Amber in productions all through high school, and I became very impressed with what could be done with a couple of pieces of plywood. I don't need anything more. It fit with my sketchiness of things." Sketchiness, goofiness, goofiness, sketchiness. Anyone who saw the show, and didn't understand the goofiness of the cutout set, didn't fully understand Neil's goofiness factor. There's no accounting for it a lot of times, it's just there. Like I said, thank God.
A Friend Of Yours
# Ain't singing for Pepsi...#
ReplyDelete@Greg - ah yes, the goofiness of Neil.
ReplyDeleteJust one more reason to like the guy.
This Shocking Pink period was definitely way up there on the goofy scale. The music videos during the time were quite outrageous.
Wonderin' is hilarious, if you haven't seen it. Still chuckling after all these years...
Neil's "regular" site is back up...come on tour dates!!!
ReplyDeleteSo my question is: Who won the car back in 1983 & do they still have it?
ReplyDelete"Young and Crazy Horse are currently working on two new studio projects, including an album of re-imagined children's songs."
ReplyDeleteRe-imagined children's songs? That is what used to be Americana?
http://www.neilyoung.com/news/
This is hilarious, definitely a shining example of his `goofiness`. Nicely put Greg!
ReplyDeleteI`ve almost got to the point where nothing Neil does,or has ever done, surprises me any more, anything`s possible with him, the doors are wide open. I love the way he`s so comfortable with this side of his character. In fact he runs with it…long may you run (with it) Neil!
"Re-imagined children's songs" sounds perfectly dreadful. What a bummer. Another one of Neil's famous efforts where he makes music that nobody would otherwise listen to but for the fact that it's Neil Young. I've stopped buying his garbage, as have most other fans.
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ReplyDeleteDidn't Brian Wilson re-imagine Gershwin?
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