Album Review of the Moment: Psychedelic Pill | Jambands.com

"Driftin' Back" Artwork
"Psychedelic Pill" by Neil Young & Crazy Horse

#1, #2 on Amazon Top 100 List
The Album Review of the Moment on Psychedelic Pill by Neil Young & Crazy Horse will probably take some heat from Bob Dylan fans by suggesting that Tempest is half-asleep compared to Psychedelic Pill.

But such is life...

From Jambands.com - Need We Say More? > Reviews > CDs > Neil Young & Crazy Horse: Psychedelic Pill by Brian Robbins:

Well, there: here’s the album for all of those who complained that Neil Young and Crazy Horse’s Americana was made up of covers when it was released back in June. (Of course, the songs were twisted and cranked by Young and company into shapes and forms of their own unique design, but you know how some folks are, eh?) The nine tracks on the new double-disc Psychedelic Pill (eight originals plus an alternate mix of the title track) are all original NY & CH tunes – as NY & CH as it gets. Young has had some brilliant collaborators over the years (the late Ben Keith being one of the best and most unique), but when it comes to simply rolling up the sleeves and getting down to it, drummer Ralph Molina, bassist Billy Talbot, and guitarist Frank Sampedro are Young’s go-to team.

Always have been; always will be.

...

In “Twisted Road” Young tells us how hearing Bob Dylan’s “Like A Rolling Stone” nailed him right between the ears when he first heard it: “I felt that magic and took it home/Gave it a twist and made it mine/But nothing was as good as the very first time.” As we approach 50 years since the release of that particular Dylan classic, it’s interesting to compare where the two artists are these days. Dylan’s new Tempest album feels like the work of Uncle Bob the entertainer and his hot-shot band, strolling through a set of tunes that feel comfy and easy for him. Young, on the other hand, comes across as engaged, fierce, and intrigued by his own musical muse – playing the hell out of the songs on Psychedelic Pill and knowing just the right players to do it with.

“I want to walk like a giant on the land,” sings Young in the sixteen-and-a-half minute squall-and-roar-fest towards the album’s end.

Mission accomplished.

Thanks Brian! Let's hope that Dylan fans don't get too stirred up by your review. ;)

Read full review on Jambands.com.

More reviews compiled on EARLY REACTION: "Psychedelic Pill" by Neil Young & Crazy Horse.

And -- of course -- more on that rather unnecessary faux rivalry, yet fascinating, debate of Bob Dylan vs Neil Young.

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TONIGHT: Thrasher's Wheat Radio Hour - Streaming Broadcast #11

Thrasher's Wheat Radio
Tune in on WBKM.org
Logo design by
Geoff Moore - Silver Moon Graphics
Tonight, Saturday, Nov 3 at 9:00 PM EST, (in about 9 hours) the Thrashers Wheat Radio Hour will begin streaming on WBKM.org.

Feedback will be back and we'll ride the rusty human highway to bring you the best Neil Young news and reviews, rumors and musings....plus rare and unreleased tracks that will help keep you rockin' in the free world.

Thrashers Wheat Radio Hour is presented and produced each week by WBKM.org in the heart of Burlington, Vermont.

Some suggestions for listening. Go to WBKM.org a few minutes before the broadcast/stream begins. In the upper right hand corner (the flower) click to launch. A small plugin applet will load and then launch your media player.

Apple MAC listeners - Use the Tune In Radio app in iTunes store.

If you have technical problems, either email wbkm@comcast.net or comment below.

We would definitely like your feedback on the program. Drop us a comment.

Also, a podcast will be posted soon after broadcast @ PODCAST: Thrasher's Wheat Radio Hour.

Don't Be Denied.

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EARLY REACTION: "Psychedelic Pill" by Neil Young & Crazy Horse

"Psychedelic Pill" by Neil Young & Crazy Horse
#1 on Amazon Top 100 List
Today, after much anticipation, "Psychedelic Pill" -- the new album by Neil Young & Crazy Horse is being released.

After spending over a month in the Amazon Top 100 List, the album is now sitting at #1, with Taylor Swift and Rod Stewart following?!

Past, present and future, for sure.

Lots of interesting reviews have been dropping for the last few weeks falling into the usual range of opinions. From "improbable and brilliant" (SPIN Magazine) to "loose and indulgent" (Telegraph).

From Neil Young album review; Psychedelic Pill reviewed - chicagotribune.com by Greg Kot:

Like the blues, the albums Young makes with Crazy Horse have almost become a genre unto themselves.

This review captures the essence of " Psychedelic Pill" on American Songwriter By Jim Beviglia:

It doesn’t take a math major to figure out that several songs have to be extremely long to fill out that space; indeed, three tracks combined take up an hour’s worth of listening time. That bit of knowledge will probably send certain Crazy Horse fans into fits of joy at the free-form, rocking possibilities, while fans of Young’s more efficient songwriting are probably smelling the fumes of indulgence in the air.

And, our favorite review snippet, Album: Neil Young & Crazy Horse, Psychedelic Pill (Reprise) - Reviews - Music - The Independent by Simmy Richman:

"moments of sublime majesty" making it "the best non-essential album Neil Young has ever made".

From review on Rolling Stone by David Fricke:

In "Twisted Road," one of eight new songs sprawled across this turbulent two-CD set, Young recalls, in a brilliantly mixed metaphor, the first time he heard Bob Dylan's "Like a Rolling Stone": "Poetry rolling off his tongue/Like Hank Williams chewing bubble gum." And Young tells you what he did with the impact. "I felt that magic and took it home/Gave it a twist and made it mine," he sings over Crazy Horse's rough-country swagger, as if the marvel of that time and his dreams are still close enough to touch.

So are the mess and his dismay.

NEW VIDEO: "Ramada Inn" - Neil Young & Crazy Horse

From Blogcritics.org by Glen Boyd:

But because Neil Young – at least when he is hitting on all four cylinders, and despite all of his hits and misses over the years – has established such a high artistic standard, his fans just as often place equally lofty demands on the man. Taken on that level, Psychedelic Pill delivers the goods and then some.

From Neil Young and Crazy Horse: Psychedelic Pill :: Music :: Reviews :: Paste by Douglas Heselgrave:

One of the first things that becomes apparent while reading Waging Heavy Peace and listening to Psychedelic Pill at the same time is that they are deeply interwoven and operate together.

Most of the songs on the two-disc set refer to episodes, issues or emotions expressed in his book, as MP3 sound quality, drugs, old friends and the passage of time are all contemplated in what must certainly be the most unassuming and artless collection of lyrics that Young has ever recorded. It may strike one as ironic that Young’s autobiography runs at nearly 500 pages long, while the words he sings on his new record are perfunctory at best. The good news is that it doesn’t matter one bit. Young has obviously said all he has to say for the time being in his book. Psychedelic Pill is a flat-out guitar record, and it’s one of the best ones you’ll ever hear.

The music on Psychedelic Pill has its own groove and tempo that—despite the often harsh and raw timbre of the songs—encourages the listener to relax, wait and feel all of the communicated emotions in an unhurried manner. The record’s sonics are grounded in the language of rock music, but there’s something truly unique in the thick stew that Neil and Crazy Horse have brewed here. Miles Davis in 1970, Jimi Hendrix’s “Moon, Turn the Tides” from Electric Ladyland, Grateful Dead live “Dark Star” from around 1973; it’s hard to think of better comparisons.

From Review: Neil Young, 'Psychedelic Pill' : NPR by Tom Moon:

It's almost impossible to not be cynical about rock stars working the myth one more time; it's what they do when they reach a certain age. The thing is, even when Young deploys a chord sequence we've heard from him before, or sings a melody that echoes something he wrote in the '80s, the jagged, relentlessly fierce Crazy Horse is there to inject new backbone and spirit into the mix. The band doesn't just redeem Young's mawkish moments — it transforms them. They won't let this guy phone anything in, or rest on any laurels. He might prattle on like an old crank about the sound quality of digital files, as he does in one tune here. But it hardly matters, because when the singing stops and Young falls into step with the Crazy Horse ethos, the music positively erupts.

From Album Of The Week: Neil Young & Crazy Horse Psychedelic Pill - Stereogum by Tom Breiha:

If you’ve ingested enough psychedelic pills yourself, you’re well aware of the phenomenon of the flashback, that brief and disorienting instant when you have no idea if you’re five or 25. And Psychedelic Pill is flashback city, Young lyrically calling back to nuggets of thought from decades ago, sounding vaguely amazed by how vivid they still feel. The album has lyrics about hearing “Like A Rolling Stone” for the first time, about playing the same venue where he once saw Roy Orbison, about the province where he was born. And when he and Crazy Horse launch off on one of their extended instrumental journeys, which they do often, there’s an air of sense-memory about it all.

Young’s generous solos here don’t blaze or soar or shiver. His guitars and those of Frank “Poncho” Sampedro murmur back and forth, having quiet conversations that they’re not sure they want us to overhear. The vocal harmonies bring a sighing, comfortable awe that’s not quite as expected. Even on “Driftin’ Back,” that 27-minute opener, where Young occasionally steps to the mic and issues another old-man complaint, the complaints aren’t the real point of the song. The real point is in the stretching-into-infinity instrumental passages, and in the quieter bits where Young and his friends just repeat the song’s title softly to themselves. And I’ve found that the best way to listen to the album is to unstick myself from time, to let all those currents of guitar and voice carry me to a place deeper inside my own head.

Neil Young & Crazy Horse: Psychedelic Pill | Album Reviews | Pitchfork by

Bob Mitchum:

Thankfully, the album's final epic, "Walk Like a Giant", scrawls a jagged line through that cuddly history with a single chord change, coming immediately after an immensely dopey verse about how Neil and his friends were gonna save the world. In fact, "Walk Like a Giant", is easily the best studio Crazy Horse performance since Ragged Glory. Once again, the formula is unchanged-- it even swipes pretty heavily from the "Hey Hey My My" riff-- but between the verses the Horse is whipped until it foams at the mouth. Everything great about Neil Young, electric guitarist, is on full display, his singular tone veering from feral growls and feedback to blistering fury while the other three egg him on with subtle, perennially underrated counterpoint.

Despite the patience required to get there, the track underlines the greatest trick of Neil Young's long career: that his most self-indulgent mode can also be his most crowd-pleasing. At this point, the "these old guys still know how to rock!" angle for Crazy Horse is itself old enough to collect Social Security. But there's enough life and fuck-you attitude left in Psychedelic Pill to remind a listener that "it's better to burn out than to fade away" wasn't necessarily about dying young, so long as you avoided phoning it in. If circling the wagons is what it takes to keep Neil Young's fire raging, then just be happy he lets us pay to watch.

Bring on the self indulgence and revel in its ragged glory!

 

  

From Psychedelic Pill by NEIL YOUNG & CRAZY HORSE on Blurt Online :

And while Pill probably isn't destined to be held in the same regard as such stone ‘70s classics as Zuma or Rust Never Sleeps (and its concert counterpart Live Rust), it's easily as tunefully unhinged as 1990's Ragged Glory and as sonically immediate as 1994's Sleeps With Angels; it's as pure a distillation of the band as one could hope for in 2012.

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Hurricane Sandy: You Are Like A Perfect Storm

"Like A Hurricane"
RUST NEVER SLEEPS (1979)

Neil Young & Crazy Horse's 1978 concert tourIt looks to be that "The Perfect Storm" -- Hurricane Sandy -- is now upon us.

She's being called "unprecedented".

So, Neil Young's "Hurricane" is the song of the moment.

There's calm in your eye, but we're getting blown away.

Lookin for somewhere safer...

We're hunkering down here @ TW.

Stay safe.

Hurricane Sandy - The Perfect Storm
"Like A Hurricane" - Music Video
Neil Young & Crazy Horse

"Like A Hurricane"
Alchemy 2012 Tour, Pittsburgh, PA - 10/9/12
Neil Young & Crazy Horse

"Like A Hurricane" - Chicago 1976
Neil Young & Crazy Horse
Here are a few other interesting "Like A Hurricane" versions over the years courtesy of Sugar Mountain (Thanks Tom!):

Acoustic guitar with Stills-Young band
1976-07-18, Charlotte Coliseum, Charlotte, North Carolina, USA

Electric guitar/Piano with Crazy Horse
1976-11-14, Dane County Veterans Memorial Coliseum, Madison, Wisconsin, USA

Acoustic guitar solo
1992-03-24, Tower Theatre, Upper Darby, Pennsylvania, USA

Pump organ solo many from 1992 (~27)
1993-02-07, MTV Unplugged, Universal Studios, Los Angeles, California, USA
2003-05-08, Heineken Music Hall, Amsterdam, The Netherlands

"Like A Hurricane" - Rusted Out Garage Tour (1986)
Neil Young & Crazy Horse
Thrasher's Wheat Radio
Tune in on WBKM.org, Saturdays @ 9P EST
Logo design by
Geoff Moore - Silver Moon Graphics
Thrashers Wheat Radio Hour from Saturday, October 27, 2012 is now available for download.

Thrasher's Wheat Radio Hour - Show #10.[To download, right click on link, save target as, pick destination folder: the podcast will download. Select your preferred MP3 audio player and play file.]

With a special "Hurricane" and news on Bridge School Benefit Concert - Oct. 21, 2012 and Neil Young & Crazy Horse Alchemy Tour 2012 news.

END CLIMATE SILENCE
Climate activist group 350.org rallies in New York City on Sunday to connect the dots between extreme weather events and climate change

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Randomly Blogged: VoodooCast, Pill Drop, Waging Heavy Reviews, & Perfect Hurricanes

Neil Young & Crazy Horse
Photo by David Grunfeld, The Times-Picayune | NOLA.com
Neil Young and Crazy Horse highlights will stream Sunday at 9:15 PM CST on Voodoo Experience, Ustream.TV: STREAMING OCT. 27+28.



Having trouble with the "Psychedelic Pill" stream? Check for some playback suggestions here.

Early reviews thus far have been strongly positive.

From Album: Neil Young & Crazy Horse, Psychedelic Pill (Reprise) - Reviews - Music - The Independent by Simmy Richman:

"moments of sublime majesty" making it "the best non-essential album Neil Young has ever made".

From Neil Young & Crazy Horse, Psychedelic Pill, pop album of the week - Telegraph by Thomas H Green:

It’s a loose album, an indulgent album, and not all likeable but, unlike any other outfit of their tenure, they maintain a raw punch as if recording in a local bar for the sheer blast of it. The title track comes on like trashy Sixties garage punk and is the better for it but its three-and-a-half minutes are dwarfed by songs of up to 28 minutes long. These aim for the prolonged attack of live classics such as Like a Hurricane yet don’t quite have the dynamism and, despite rowdy fret-wrangling, often find it difficult to take flight.

Young is in nostalgic, often melancholy mode and lyrically ruminating over the death of the utopian Sixties dream, notably on the 28-minute Driftin’ Back with its heartfelt “Don’t want my MP3”, or the closing Walk Like a Giant, that announces, “Me and some of my friends were trying to change the world … then the weather changed.” She’s Always Dancing is equally impassioned, celebrating a woman who “has the fire but it’s burning out”.

From Neil Young, with Crazy Horse – Psychedelic Pill (2012) by Nick DeRiso:

Like many of his contemporaries, Neil Young will forever be associated with the 1960s. On Psychedelic Pill, he joins together with Crazy Horse to construct a fiery requiem for the decade, and to chart a path away from its crushing disappointments.

He begins, I think brilliantly, at the end: “Driftin’ Back,” a staggering epitaph for the 1960s, also intrigues because it’s initially presented as an utterly offbeat, pastoral reverie — something that’s maybe as far away as you can get from the familiar garage-rock glories of Crazy Hose. Young, instead, is floating for a time, feather-like, over what appears to be his own jagged personal history.

Then, as the song moves into a shared vocal for the chorus, Crazy Horse finally comes charging forward, and their ass-whipping feedback and skull-dragging rhythms blow apart whatever sense of twilit reverie remains. “Driftin’ Back” surges into a broiling, rough-hewn instrumental segment and when the lyric returns, there is a new edge to Young’s thoughts.

He launches into a more direct accounting of how the broader goals from the ’60s ran aground. Religious leaders are revealed as charlatans, artists are turned into greeting-card product. Crazy Horse again offers its own thunderous musical retort, completing the transformation of “Driftin’ Back” from a moment tinged with regret into a song completely engulfed by thunderous anger. Twenty minutes into this nearly half-hour opus, Young then makes it clear that this is just the tip of the proverbial iceberg: “When you hear my song now, you only get five percent … Blocking out my anger now, blocking out my thoughts.” From there, this round-house raging against the dying of the light ensues. Even as “Driftin’ Back” seems to slow, a titanic interlocking exchange of guitar with Frank “Poncho” Sampedro renders that anger viscerally real. Young makes one last pass at the chorus, but he sounds spent, almost at a loss for words, so draining has this journey been.

By the end, “Driftin’ Back” has equaled and, in some cases, surpassed so many of the songs that seek to contextualize the 1960s. I’m not sure anyone has better illustrated the impotent fury that followed for those who worked so hard toward change, only to see it all come to such a thudding conclusion.

But not all critics appreciate the pungency that is known as "smell the Horse". From New music review: Psychedelic Pill, Neil Young and Crazy Horse (Reprise) | Montreal Gazette by Bernard Perusse:

The first sign of trouble comes with the opening track. At 28 minutes, Driftin’ Back is about 23 minutes too long, with Neil mostly soloing over two chords, breaking in here and there to rant about the terrible quality of MP3s or threaten to get a hip-hop haircut.

It’s one thing for musical explorers like MIles Davis, Frank Zappa or the Grateful Dead to go on for almost a half hour, but when you have a drummer (the ever-plodding Ralph Molina) who struggles to keep time and pounds away witlessly while the boss explores two or three chords and the seemingly limitless pleasures of sustained feedback, it can be rough going.

In the meantime, "Psychedelic Pill" is now #6 , #5, #4 on Amazon Top 100 List.

From Review, Setlist, Stream, Download, Video: Neil Young & Crazy Horse, United Center, Chicago 10/11/12 | The Barn Presents: Charting The World of Live Music - Chicago, IL by steve:

In advance publicity for his autobiography Waging Heavy Peace, Neil Young has been pretty public about his recent abstinence from weed and booze for the first time in just about forever. I’d like to provide (happy?) testimony that this decision has had no material affect on his stage demeanor or ability to perform long, psychedelic noise rock experiments. He comes through with the same twisted up and gnarled expression, the same feedback drenched guitar slashing, the same beautifully angry shouts and haunting asides. Though this is the first full-fledged Crazy Horse tour in many moons, the unit’s ability to craft so much out of so little remains at the heart of their appeal. The group spend the majority of the night in a makeshift huddle in front of the drum riser, seemingly poking and prodding aggressively languid sounds out of each other over the foundation of one of rock’s most timeless catalogs.

...

One last point. This concludes a run of three shows I’ve seen this fall in stadiums and arenas by established artists. As I mentioned before, the arena is almost a requirement for appreciating Neil’s huge sound, but it was a little off-putting to see so many empty seats (50% capacity?), especially in lieu of the very high ticket price. I would guess that the United Center was half full and nowhere was this as obvious as the General Admission floor. Would cutting ticket prices have produced a packed house? Even at a 50% discount these seats would not be what anybody would call a bargain. I think that in slashing prices, we’d see much happier fans, many more people willing to experience this incredible music and all at the same bottom line for Neil.

What gives?

MR.SOUL/ HEY HEY MY MY
Live Neil Young and Crazy Horse, Chicago on 10/11/12

In other reviews, from Neil Young’s ‘Waging Heavy Peace’ - NYTimes.com By HOWARD HAMPTON:

It’s not a dazzling literary edifice à la Dylan’s “Chronicles” or a tourist-­friendly nostalgia emporium like Patti Smith’s best-of-show outing, “Just Kids.” If you own fewer than a dozen Neil Young albums — and less than half of them feature Crazy Horse — this is probably not the book for you. Even die-hard Young-heads may be discouraged by the bottomless stream of minutiae, repetitious rants, airy-hairy musings and commercials for his Pono music program. If you want to retrace his childhood paper route, however, this is the place to go. And the rhapsodic, tenderly detailed way he speaks of the autos he owns or once owned tells you he would have been a great used-car salesman.

But if his ornery obsessiveness fascinates you in its own right and you perhaps count his coming-of-age-in-death anthem “Powderfinger” as an archetypal Western saga up there with “The Searchers” or “Ride the High Country,” then you’ll have a pretty good time with this book. Young’s voice here is pure, unadulterated Neil, which is not to say it doesn’t have filters. As with his sometimes haphazard albums, the ratio of self-exposure to camouflage is always in flux, carefully calibrated even when its disclosures feel as nakedly warts-and-all as a well-fed body can get. The random gush of information and observation starts to coalesce into patterns; the leapfrogging backward and forward in time is gradually shaped into history, or at least becomes dried handprints in the warped concrete of memory.
..
“Waging Heavy Peace” is his testimony before an audience conceived of as like-minded, if only as a brotherhood of the incongruous.

From interview Neil Young’s memoir: a gentle hurricane - The Globe and Mail by Sarah Nicole Prickett:

“When you’ve got a lot of memories,” he says, in that harmless growl, “you’ve gotta wonder where they’re all coming from.”

Young seems to wonder much more than he thinks. “Fiction is just as much a reality to me as reality,” he says, later. “It’s just on another level.” He reconsiders momentarily. “Another plane.”

More blowback from the peculiar New Yorker review of "Waging Heavy Peace" book which we chronicled earlier. Another counter response to the review on Paris Review – Helpless: On the Poetry of Neil Young, by Brian Cullman:

There was a fascinating if incomplete musing on the New Yorker website this week regarding Neil Young’s insularity and on the incomprehensible idea that he never reads. It seemed strange that someone who doesn't read would decide to write a book, though it’s often true that writing and reading aren’t necessarily two sides of the same coin. They are often very different coins, operating in very different currencies. When you go to a bank to make change, the exchange rate is never in your favor.
...
We’d all be better off for having Philip Levine and W. B.Yeats and Isak Dinesen in our libraries and in our heads. But Neil Young operates in a very different and a very special arena. His songs seem to be both post-literate and preliterate in a powerful and distinctly modern way, leapfrogging over logic and seeming to come straight from the unconscious. Maybe not even his unconscious, more out of a collective yearning or out of some deep and mostly hidden national or international dream state. If swamps or lagoons could hum, they'd probably hum Neil Young songs.

Nonetheless, "Waging Heavy Peace" still remains on Amazon's Top 100 List.

Neil Young live at the Hollywood Bowl
Photo by Kirk McKoy / Los Angeles Times / October 17, 2012
(Click photo to enlarge)
Nice photo Gallery of Neil Young & Crazy Horse live at the Hollywood Bowl - latimes.com.

"Rockin' in the Free World"
Bridge 2012 Encore
Photo by Jay Blakesberg Photography | Facebook
(Click photo to enlarge)

Axl Rose and Neil Young
"Don't Let It Bring You Down"
Bridge School Benefit Concert - Oct. 21, 2012
Photo by Miron Mizrahi - Picasa Web Albums
(Click photo to enlarge)
Cool little clip here, apparently Axl did his first live interview in over a decade on 'Jimmy Kimmel Live!' the other night and the subject of BSB and Neil came up, see the following at 2:00 on the third video (part 3).

Axl was quite deferential to Neil. (Thanks Dan1!)




31. Everybody's Rockin' (1983)
Ranked: Neil Young Albums From Worst to Best | Nerve.com

Music Is Love . A Singer-songwriters Tribute to the Music of CSN&Y

@ptholtz first you must forgive yourself #askneil

— Neil Young (@neilyoung) October 24, 2012

Read Neil Young's Entire Twitter Q&A (visual embeds)

Full Neil Young Twitter transcript @ Young enough now to change my name ...: The full tweet. (full text)

A fight for who gets to claim to be the hometown of Neil Young has broken out across Canada. Not really, but here's something historically amusing: Winnipeg vs. Toronto for Neil Young | Ballast by Andrew Unger (who lives and writes in a dystopian Mennonite town, but feels no Orwellian sense of urgency to escape):

Neil Young’s a legend, and he’s our legend — meaning, Manitoba’s legend. I should know; I have a picture of myself standing in front of his former home on Grosvenor Avenue in Winnipeg. You see, not only am I an asshole, but I’m a geek as well.

You Are Like A Perfect Storm. You Are Like A Hurricane - YouTube

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