POLL: What Song will Neil Young & Crazy Horse cover for Paul McCartney at MusiCares?

Select Up To 3 Songs Only*

The news that Crazy Horse & Neil Young will reunite to play for Paul McCartney at the 2012 MusiCares Honors has electrified fans and generated much speculation about what song they will cover.

The 2012 MusiCares Person of the Year for honoree Paul McCartney will be this Friday, Feb. 10 in Los Angeles.

This will be the 1st Crazy Horse & Neil Young gig since the 2003/4 Greendale tour.

So ... what Paul McCartney song will Neil Young & Crazy Horse cover?

The poll above represents a sample of the suggestions left in comments of possibilities.

Here's what we're thinking. Folks can vote for their Top 3 and then we'll have a runoff this weekend of the top nominations.

The format for Musicares in the past has been one song per band. But maybe Neil & The Horse will do a medley?

How cool would a road trip/car medley be? Long and Winding Road, Why Don't We Do it in the Road?, Backseat of My Car, Baby You Can Drive My Car?

Any medley suggestions can be placed in comments below. Also, feel free to suggest any Paul songs not already listed and we'll try and add to the poll.

Lastly, will Paul join Neil & The Horse?

If anyone accurately predicts whether Paul will join Neil & The Horse, the medley selection and sequence, Thrasher's Wheat will be awarding some sort of prize or honor. (you must submit as a registered comment).

*A fourth vote is allowed when selecting "Medley of songs".

oh, the possibilities...

Invitation for 2012 MusiCares | GRAMMY.org

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Comment of the Moment: Losing My Religion on Audio Quality

The Comment of the Moment is concerns audio quality from the Steve Jobs, MP3's & iPods thread by rkennke:

Not sure why most discussions about audio quality need to be so religious. The fact is that you can make very fine CDs (just take NY's CDs starting from mid-90s to today) as well as very crappy vinyl records (oh boy have I listened to crappy stuff in the 80's and early 90's).

The thing with CDs is that 16bit depth and 44KHz resolution is just fine for human ears. Sure you can create much higher-resolution audio, and it carries tons of more information, but it's effectively inaudible. That is a consequence of the inability of human ears to hear anything beyond 22KHz (heck, most people probably cannot hear beyond 16KHz already) and Nyquists laws.

Similar things can be stated about MP3s. At a high enough bitrate, they are indistinguishable from CD quality. Double-blind listening tests shows that beyond 192kbit/s MP3s basically are indistinguishable from CDs or MP3s of higher bitrate.

The problem as far as I can see is CDs that are not well done. There's so many ways that CDs can be screwed up. Digital is very unforgiving with regards to clipping. Go beyond the dynamic range of the CD (i.e. turn the mix up too loud) and you get very bad distortions since the signal will be clipped off (whereas in analog you'd 'only' distort the signal). Unfortunately this is a very common practice nowadays (loudness wars). One reason why SACDs sound much better is that the mastering process for SACD strongly discourages this cranking up to the max loudness. Another problem with digital lies in the mixing and mastering process. Each transformation of the original recording means loss of information. Mix 2 tracks together and you loose information. Adjust levels of a track and you loose information. Etc etc. That's why it's important to record, mix and master with high-res audio. That has not been done in the first decade(s) of CD audio and that's one of the reasons they sound bad.

On the other hand, analog recordings and vinyl have their own share of limitations that the guys in the studio need to have in mind. The resolution of magnet tape and vinyl is not infinite either. At some level you get crystals of stuff which ultimately define your possible resolution, and the depth of the groove and mechanics of the tonearm severely limit the dynamic range of vinyl records (that's why the RIAA curve has lower levels for the bass: when the bass gets too strong the needles would simply hop out of the groove). Also, the resolution of the signal depends on the running speed of the needle over the groove. You get higher quality on the outer end of the LP than on the inner tracks (and that is audible!). Well-made records only have stuff on the outer range for this reason. The best sound you get on EPs that only have one track on the outer end and run at 45rpm. Of course the same considerations apply with regards of the recording, mixing and mastering process: you need to use much higher-quality material during the process than you use for the end result because of all the inevitable loss in between.

Please stop being religious.

Listen to the music not the technology. Give me any well done CD, vinyl or MP3 and I'll be happy! It doesn't get better only because I listen to it on the highest resolution format on the most expensive stereo ever. Music is good when it touches our hearts. And I remember how some music touched me very deeply even when I listened to it on the crappiest cassette player ever in my parents house.

Thanks rkennke!

Our take on this isn't so much that folks get religious on audio quality as much as that they are passionate about how their music sounds.

More on Steve Jobs, Neil Young, MP3's & iPods.

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Neil Young and Crazy Horse: "When I Hold You in My Arms" - Farm Aid 2001

Neil Young and Crazy Horse performing "When I Hold You in My Arms", live at Farm Aid in 2001.

The Concert for America in Noblesville, Indiana was held just 18 days after the September 11 attacks on September 29, 2001.

The Concert for America honored family farmers as a resource for the nation.

This version of "When I Hold You in My Arms" is quite unique with Neil playing both the piano and Old Black guitar.

And -- needless to say -- this rendition given the context is unbelievably poignant and heartfelt.

More on Farm Aid: The Music Industry’s Longest-Running Philanthropic Concert.

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Comment of the Moment: "Horse Back" and Audio Quality

The Comment of the Moment is concerning "Horse Back" and Audio Quality from the Steve Jobs and Neil Young thread by Kimball:

Now, on the subject of Horse Back Neil, wow, that is an assault of rich guitar tone. I can tell that even through the lossy compression of the video on Neil's website. Its going to be great to hear the record(s) when they come out.

Remember that little note on Neil's own news page on his website, that 2012 is going to be the year that the record companies bring high quality or high resolution audio to the masses. Seems like that was there back in August or so, and now Neil's speaking about the subject in public. I can't wait to see what the format is, and what it will require for equipment.

While I've been watching these videos of Neil speaking about digital sound quality, I've noted his lack of mention of the previously available forays into high rez that have been available in SACD and DVD-Audio (he even re-released several of his albums on DVD audio). He also has been spanking the 128 kbps MP3. He does not mention the availability of equipment that plays CD quality flac files, like the Cowon J3. I know he's got his sights on players that will support 24/192 files. I would love that support too. But perhaps he'll get more critical public mass momentum if he gets people to understand flac equipment that at least does CD quality, which is a great deal better than 128 MP3s.

(AIFF and WAV are lossless formats that maintain full CD quality, but are also uncompressed meaning they take up maximum space. FLAC is the same in that it is lossless, but it takes up less disk space. The same quality, but compressed. That is the difference between lossy and lossless compression. Its the compression that relates to how much space the material takes up. The lossy vs lossless relates to whether there is a loss of information. Think of a .ZIP file of a document. It takes up less space, but you can still expand it to get back to the original. That's lossless compression. Imagine if you wrote your life story and then saved it with LOSSY compression to be able to save it to fit on your thumb drive. You might lose every other letter or maybe you'd lose years of passages. With lossy compression the information is gone and it doesn't come back when you read out the material. Think of it in terms of your autobiography and you're approaching how Neil and other artists feel about their personal musical compositions going through the lossy shredder.)

Thanks Kimball! Great comment.

More on audio quality, Steve Jobs and Neil Young.

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"Piece Of Crap" (Live Complex Sessions) - Neil Young & Crazy Horse

Given all the recent hoopla over today's crappy sound quality, crappy MP3's, and Apple's crappy iPods, what could be more appropriate?

Here's "Piece Of Crap" by Neil Young & Crazy Horse from the Complex Sessions.

This goes out to all those Restless Consumers everywhere.

And what could be more appropriate for a Stupor Super Bowl Sunday???

(Thanks doc! Never thought we'd say that...)

More on The Complex Sessions directed by Jonathan Demme.

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Complex Sessions: Neil Young & Crazy Horse "Change Your Mind", Director Jonathan Demme

Neil Young and Crazy Horse's "Change Your Mind" from the Complex Sessions masterfully captures the group in all their power and beauty.

Recorded at the Complex Studios in Los Angeles, where Neil Young and Crazy Horse had recorded Sleeps With Angels, director Jonathan Demme filmed them performing four songs from the album. Shot over two nights on Oct. 3-4, 1994, the 30-minute video contains "My Heart," "Prime Of Life," "Change Your Mind," and "Piece Of Crap."

In this 15-minute "Change Your Mind," with its lengthy instrumental passages, Demme varies the lighting from near darkness to excessive brightness.

(Thanks Keith W!)

From NEIL YOUNG'S - and Rock n' Roll's - Finest Moment (Fi - The Magazine of Music & Sound, June, 1996) by Paul Williams:

At my local record store, I recently came across a videocassette which apparently had been available for a year, but which I'd never heard about, called Neil Young and Crazy Horse: The Complex Sessions. Bought it, brought it home, watched and listened and was absolutely astonished.

Don't fall into the trap of believing that the great moments in rock and roll history are all in the past. This twenty-seven minute performance by one of rock's greatest and most enduring artists and bands is headline news. What rock and roll has always tried to achieve has never come any closer than this, or Chuck Berry's "Johnny B. Goode," or Janis and Big Brother live in 1967, or Springsteen and E Street in 1975.

You shoulda been there.

And in this case, thanks to the miracle of recording technology, you can be. This videotape will wear out no faster than your all-time favorite 45, it is just as deserving of repeated plays, just as possibly able to continue to deepen its resonance through the rest of your lifetime. The best argument I've ever heard for owning a "home theater" setup with superior audio capabilities.

The mix on this tape is so brilliant it even sounds good on a damn TV set, but I keep wanting to turn it up louder than the TV will go.

The Complex Sessions seems to me to represent a pivotal moment in rock history (as, say, "Smells Like Teen Spirit" did), not only because it's so good but also because it is a breakthrough in the creative use of a medium (the long-form rock video as a work of art) that has defeated most supplicants, including Neil as often as not. On the other hand, it isn't selling many copies, and in our increasingly corrupt pop culture, that and inches of press coverage are the only measurements of "significance." Oh well. Great music is still great music.

If a tree falls in the forest but nobody writes a review, did it make a sound?

Complete article on Complex Sessions NEIL YOUNG'S - and Rock n' Roll's - Finest Moment (Fi - The Magazine of Music & Sound, June, 1996) by Paul Williams.

More Jonathan Demme and Neil Young, Sleeps With Angels reviews, and "Change Your Mind" lyrics analysis.

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Steve Jobs and Neil Young: Comment of the Moment

Neil Young & Steve Jobs

Quite a bit of discussion regarding the news that "Steve Jobs Preferred Vinyl" Says Neil Young.

The widely picked up quote was preceded earlier by Neil Young's announcement that he supported the Occupy Audio movement due to his "anger over today's sound quality".

Which brings us to the Comment of the Moment:

This story grabbed my interest, because I know of Young's long term dedication to sound quality. And also just because it was an interesting idea that these two could be discussing a major move forward.

But realistically, I wonder how far he could ever have got with Jobs (or could get now, with just Apple). I suspect Jobs and Young would have struggled to find common ground. Jobs may have liked vinyl, but he liked Apple a whole lot more.

True, the iPod itself is quite an innovative product, but from the very beginning, it was about quantity over quality, "1000 songs in your pocket" and all that crap.

And mainly what it is is a shamefully locked piece of equipment, a vehicle for Apple's proprietary obsessions.

Consider.

We've had "hi-def" digital sound for at least 15 years now, even DVD Video has 24-bit sound written into its standard (Google the Bob Stuart interview in Stereophile). Yep, you can run off a lovely hi-def audio disc on a cheap DVD-V blank.

We've had hi-def digital disc formats that didn't too well commercially - DVD-Audio and SACD, and now we have hi-def audio on Bluray. And we have what may be the true home of hi-def, computers. And where has Apple really been in all this? Nowhere. Jobs and Apple have been completely silent on the subject, and where their equipment can even handle this stuff, they're usually very late to the game.

Instead, they've had a separate but extraordinarily lucrative existence where they developed the iPod and iTunes, got people buying a song at a time for a dollar a time, and did nothing to disabuse people of the idea that MP3 was all they needed.

If Jobs knows vinyl sounds great on his billionaire-class turntable, why didn't he do more to promote higher quality digital audio for the plebs? He's had ten years with the iPod, more than enough time considering that during the same period, audiophiles have adopted high quality computer audio in a very big way.

Instead, the iPod is more about what you _can't_ do. No SPDIF or other way to get the digital signal out to a DAC. If you want to do that, you have to buy a Wadia box (licensed by Apple) for $300. And that's not the external DAC, it's just a digital middleman. Unlike an external DAC, which can be an extremely versatile audio device that deals with multiple sources, it presumably has no function other than getting digital off an iPod and passing it along. You can't plug it into anything else or do anything else with it. For $300! It's basically a license in box form.

http://www.stereophile.com/digitalprocessors/1008wad/index.html

Now it would be perfectly possible for Apple to just build digital-out capability into its iPods - in the same way a $30 PC soundcard can do it, a DAT player can do it, a CD player can do it (I do all three right now). Instead, the iPod is permanently prevented from reaching its full hifi potential - as a digital transport - unless you take Apple's approved, Apple-takes-a-cut-of-the-money route. Isn't it interesting how the iPod, in 2012, can't do things that a CD player or a DAT could easily handle in 1990?

Compare that to how you freely move music files around on a computer, swap between computers, send out to a DAC, basically do whatever the hell you want with them, and you see that the iPod is classic crippleware.

Now how many of us really believe that the Jobs-Young summit would have produced results that weren't weighted in Steve's favour? I've got the greatest respect for Neil Young and what he's achieved for audio over the years - he's a frigging _hero for the way he's pushed this issue - but I'm convinced Jobs would have obstructed or circumvented him one way or another.

So what have we got?

Neil Young: brought out the Archives - his BABY - on Bluray.

Steve Jobs: Blu-ray? What's that?

http://gigaom.com/apple/tasting-the-forbidden-fruit-blu-ray-on-the-mac/

And there you have the difference between the two in a nutshell.

A lot to consider in this comment.

So we'll just say that we're always searchin' for quality -- rather than quantity. But -- generally -- we can't always get what we want, but we're happy we get what we need. :)

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VIDEO: Neil Young Discusses Crazy Horse Reunion | Rolling Stone

Here's a video clip posted on Rolling Stone of Coffee with Neil Young and Jonathan Demme at Slamdance Festival where Neil made the surprise announcement about a new Crazy Horse album being recorded.

Coffee with Neil Young and Jonathan Demme (3 of 4) from Slamdance on Vimeo.

Also:
VIDEO: Coffee with Neil Young and Jonathan Demme Part #2

Also, see BREAKING: New Crazy Horse & Neil Young Video Streaming NOW!!!.

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Crazy Horse & Neil Young to Play for MusiCares 2012 Honoree Paul McCartney

UPDATE: REPORT ROUNDUP: Paul McCartney Honored at Musicares by Neil Young & Crazy Horse, others

Invitation for 2012 MusiCares | GRAMMY.org

STOP THE ELECTRONS!

Crazy Horse & Neil Young are scheduled to play at the 2012 MusiCares Person of the Year for honoree Paul McCartney in Los Angeles on Feb. 10.

This will be the 1st Crazy Horse & Neil Young gig since the 2003/4 Greendale tour.

Next question... what Paul McCartney song will Neil Young & Crazy Horse cover? "A Day in the Life"?

ps - sorry, event already Sold Out. :(

(Thanks Shawn!)

If anyone has any extra tickets, drop us a comment... we're willing to wait tables for this event.

Also, see Neil Young Honored As MusiCares 2010 Person Of The Year.

Also, see Paul McCartney and Neil Young.

Also, see new Crazy Horse album being recorded. Also, see BREAKING: New Crazy Horse & Neil Young Video Streaming NOW!!!.


Neil Young
MusiCares Person Of The Year - 2010
January 29, 2010 in Los Angeles, California
Photos by Kevin Winter/Getty Images North Americaon on Zimbio

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"Steve Jobs Preferred Vinyl" Says Neil Young

Peter Kafka, Walt Mossberg and Neil Young
AllThingsD Conference, Laguna Niguel, California, Jan. 31, 2012
Photos by Asa Mathat

Neil Young’s never ending quest for better sound continued today at the AllThingsD Conference in Laguna Niguel, California.

Last week, Neil Young declared support for Occupy Audio due to his anger about today's sound quality" and provided further elaboration at the AllThingsD Conference.

In an interview, Young said:

“Steve Jobs was a pioneer of digital music, and his legacy is tremendous. But when he went home, he listened to vinyl. And you’ve got to believe that if he’d lived long enough, he would have done what I’m trying to do.”

From Neil Young on Music Quality, Record Labels and Steve Jobs - Dive Into Media - AllThingsD by John Paczkowski:

“My goal is to try and rescue the art form that I’ve been practicing for the past 50 years,” Young said. “We live in the digital age and, unfortunately, it’s degrading our music, not improving it.”

“It’s not that digital is bad or inferior, it’s that the way it’s being used isn’t doing justice to the art,” Young said. “The MP3 only has 5 percent of the data present in the original recording. … The convenience of the digital age has forced people to choose between quality and convenience, but they shouldn’t have to make that choice.”

Also a topic of conversation during today’s interview: The recording industry, and whether the record label has outlived its usefulness. Young contended it hasn’t.

“What I like about record companies is that they present and nurture artists,” he said. “That doesn’t exist on iTunes, it doesn’t exist on Amazon. That’s what a record company does, and that’s why I like my record company. People look at record companies like they’re obsolete, but there’s a lot of soul in there — a lot of people who care about music, and that’s very important.”

Then why is it the case that some artists complain so much about the economics of the industry?

Said Young, “Those artists should go by themselves. They have a choice of what they can do. Artists who want to go it alone should just do that.”

Finally, Young discussed piracy, which he doesn’t view as the threat that some other musicians do.

"I look at [the] internet as the new radio," he explained. "Radio [is] gone. Piracy is the new radio; it's how music gets around."

From Business & Technology | Neil Young: Steve Jobs listened to vinyl | Seattle Times Newspaper By RYAN NAKASHIMA:

Young told the "D: Dive Into Media" conference Tuesday that he spoke with Jobs about creating a format that has 20 times the fidelity of files in the most current digital formats, including MP3.

Such a format, he said, would contain 100 percent of the data of music as it is created in a studio, as opposed to 5 percent in compressed formats including Apple's AAC. Each song would be huge, and a new storage and playback device might only hold 30 albums. Each song would take about 30 minutes to download, which is fine if you leave your device on overnight, he said.

"Sleep well. Wake up in the morning. Play some real music and listen to the joy of 100 percent of the sound of music," he said.

Although Young didn't have a practical plan for developing such a format - saying it's for "rich people" to decide - he said Jobs was on board with the idea before he died from cancer at age 56 in October.

"I talked to Steve about it. We were working on it," Young said. "You've got to believe if he lived long enough he would eventually try to do what I'm trying to do."

Young's opinion of Jobs was confirmed by interviewer Walt Mossberg, a journalist with News Corp.'s All Things D website, which has hosted Jobs at its conferences before.

Mossberg said Jobs in the past expressed surprise that "people traded quality, to the extent they had, for convenience or price."

UPDATE:



Also, see Neil Young Supports Occupy Audio.

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