"Happiness is the valuable commodity and that's what makes life good"- Neil Young | WSJ

Neil Young
Photo by Matt Furman for The Wall Street Journal
(Click photo to enlarge)

"Happiness is the valuable commodity and that's what makes life good"- Neil Young http://t.co/OxhR0EOsUu via @WSJ

— Alexandra Wolfe (@AlexandraWolfe) October 17, 2014

Here's to all of our happiness.

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LIVE STREAM: Neil Young Keynote at DreamForce '14

Neil Young & Al Gore

“I don’t think there’s anybody, I know a bunch of musicians, I know the culture, and I don’t think there’s anybody in the world that has the position and respect that you have in the music community. All these young rockers out there, they look up to you.”
~~Al Gore

Final day at #DF14 - just settling down for the last keynote with @ariannahuff @algore @Neilyoung and @EckhartTolle pic.twitter.com/bZCCyX9jpU
— Anna Bratton (@annabratton) October 16, 2014

Here's the live stream feed of Neil Young's Keynote at DreamForce '14 | Reimagine. Everything.

About this session

We would like to introduce you to some incredible individuals whose work is literally transforming the world for the better. These speakers will inspire us, deepen our awareness and help us take action on what it takes to create a fully vibrant and thriving life for ourselves and the planet. Neil Young is here to talk about how we can access the highest quality music that has ever been created. Al Gore will talk about how we can - indeed must - develop greater awareness of our global ecosystem. And Arianna Huffington and Eckhart Tolle will talk about what it means to truly thrive as human beings. These amazing individuals, each in their respective fields, show us that by re-imagining the way we live and work, we can transform ourselves and the world.

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"He was definitely not like anybody else": Bob Lefsetz on Neil Young on Howard Stern Show

Neil Young On Howard Stern

Yesterday, Neil Young had a busy day in New York City.

He was the guest on the Howard Stern Show | Sirius XM, Mad Money with Jim Cramer | CNBC and , The Colbert Report | Colbert Nation | Comedy Central. Oh, and a book signing at Barnes & Noble that had a line out the door and around the block by 9AM, hours ahead of Neil's arrival.

OK, so Neil's out hawking product right? A book, album, film, music file player, etc. Well, yes and no. Actually, out of all this, not much news was made whatsoever. Way too much David Crosby for our tastes. Not that we have anything against C or S or N anything, but really. Didn't we go through this all once before in the 1970's?

So how about that Howard Stern interview with Neil Young yesterday? Lots of chatter and thoughts out there on the internets. From the consummate music industry insider/outsider Bob Lefsetz -- one of the very few music writers today that begins to come close to understanding Neil Young -- on the Howard Stern Show.

Neil Young On Howard Stern by Bob Lefsetz

What an original!

We’ve been told that selling out is a choice. But the truth is Neil Young is just wired different. You can’t emulate him, because you’re not him.

This interview was very slow to get going. Because Neil was reluctant. And he was mimicking his hero Bob Dylan, refusing to explain his songs and obfuscating in interviews. But then Neil started revealing his choices and they were so different from everybody else’s that you couldn’t help but marvel.

Like being pissed at the cameramen at Woodstock, to the point of yelling for him to get off the stage, the result being Neil’s absence from the movie. But he didn’t care.

And this is fascinating, because dedicated Stern listeners know that Leslie West believes his career cratered as a result of not being in the flick, that his manager’s decision for Mountain not to be in the movie hurt him forevermore.

But then there was the refusal to be on the “Tonight Show” with Buffalo Springfield because it wasn’t their audience. Can you imagine that today? Someone refusing to do press because the audience might not be right? Ever since the Police the goal is world domination, and if you’re not interested, I’m gonna beat you over the head and convince you.

And then the refusal to get back together with CS&N. Sure, he’s got a feud with Crosby, but even more interesting was the lack of motivation. Howard talked about the fans, Neil didn’t care about the fans, he cared about the music, to go play the greatest hits so people could hear them and everybody could make money held no interest.

And then Neil unloaded on AGT [America's Got Talent TV game show]. He repeated it a few times, wondered why Howard Stern did the show.

And that’s when the gap was fully evident. Neil Young was refusing to play the game. He wasn’t gonna come on and reveal all his warts and make like they’re all friends just to sell his latest forgettable product.

And let’s be clear, that is why he was on, to flog Pono and his book and his album, which is kind of sad, I’d be more impressed if Neil dropped by with nothing to sell, but in these moments the divide between broadcaster and talent, between talker and singer, between performer and artist, could not have been more evident. Neil Young was gonna be himself, he could only be himself, and it made Howard and his show look small.

That’s how it used to be, when musicians were giants who walked the earth towering over all other media. Before the best and the brightest went into tech and all we got was an endless parade of yes people willing to bend over to get reamed by not only the industry but the corporations. Who can believe in people like that?

And sure, there was some detailing of how the songs came together, but to say this interview was great would be to overestimate it. At the end it finally flew, Neil relaxed, didn’t deny he was dating Daryl Hannah, said he loved to paddle board, but this was not a morning in the clubhouse so much as a glimpse into the mind of an artist.

Who lives in his own head and doesn’t follow the charts and has no idea of this popular culture of which you speak because he’s doing his own thing.

And I don’t agree with all of Neil’s choices, nor do I think much of his recent material is genius. Then again, even he thinks he’s repeating himself.

But you don’t often get a chance to peek into the brain of an original artist who impacted the culture and is still here, with his faculties intact, not retired, but continuing to push the envelope.

I implore everybody making music to listen to this interview. Not because it’s great, because, as I stated above, it’s not, but because it illustrates you’ve got choices.

You don’t have to write hits.

You don’t have to listen to your label.

Your manager’s job is to free you up, to respect your wishes, to allow you time to create.

We’re so far from the garden I doubt we can ever get back.

There will always be music.

But that does not mean it will be art.

Art requires artists. Who question. Who take chances. Who hew to the vibrations of their own inner tuning fork, who we pay attention to because of their strength in following their vision, in continuing to search without compromise.

Whew. It was definitely Neil.

But he was definitely not like anybody else.

Thanks Bob! And thanks Howard. We, listened. Yes, there will always be music but not necessarily art. And there will always be Neil but not necessarily music or art (maybe cars or tech gadgets or films or books) -- just the real truth. Neil's truth.

Everyone owns their very own real truth. All else is illusion...

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TONIGHT: The Colbert Report Interviews Neil Young, Oct. 14

Full video episode at October 14, 2014 - Neil Young - The Colbert Report - Full Episode | Comedy Central.

(Thanks Falko for screen grabs!)

Neil Young & Crazy Host

The Colbert Report

Get More: Daily Show Full Episodes,Indecision Political Humor,The Colbert Report on Facebook

Neil Young Enlists Stephen Colbert as 'Crazy Host' on 'Colbert Report' | Rolling Stone By Ryan Reed:

"Thank you for dressing up for the occasion," Colbert tells his guest. "Really nice of you for putting on your formal T-shirt." From there, the two engage in a spirited and hilarious liberal-conservative dialogue – first with Colbert calling Young a "hypocrite" for writing a book about cars while claiming to care about the environment. "You're one of these 'Save the Earth' guys, right?" he asks. "You got the T-shirt. Cars! There's a lot of pollution with cars!" But Young fires back by referencing the "green" fuel source ("electricity and cellulosic ethanol") used to power his vehicles. "You caught me right in the middle of driving a 1959 Lincoln from San Francisco to the Tar Sands in Alberta and to New York City without using one drop of gasoline," he says.

Elsewhere, after sneaking in a cheap insult about Young's Canadian heritage, Colbert asks if the rocker wants President Obama impeached for the country's military involvement in Iraq. "I think we should impeach him for fracking," he says. "It's not in the interest of the American people. . . I am part of the free world, and he is the leader of the free world!"

As for the Pono player, Young compares his high-quality music device to the iPod – the latter of which he considers a "bargain" but at the expense of quality. "You get to have millions of songs," he says, "but you just get a tiny little bit of each one." "You don't have to listen," Young says about the Pono. "You feel the music!" (Slow clap for Colbert's follow-up wisecrack.)

Following the interview, the duo teamed up as "Neil Young and Crazy Host" for a comedically modified performance of Young's stunning new track "Who's Gonna Stand Up." In the clip below, the singer performs his environmentally conscious verses ("End fracking now; let's save the water / and build a life for our sons and daughters") with a straight face, while Colbert sings from the perspective of a disinterested conservative caricature. ("I know it feels good to save the Earth / but what if the dolphins attack us first?" goes one line. "Solar power is bound to fail / I say it's time we frack the whales.")

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Tonight, The Colbert Report | Colbert Nation | Comedy Central will have Neil Young as a guest.

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CNBC Interview: Neil Young's new music venture

A CNBC interview with Neil Young today on Mad Money with Jim Cramer on CNBC | Neil Young's new music venture.

Young told the "Mad Money" host that he spoke with Steve Jobs about his intention to release Pono to improve the music experience.

"Steve Jobs would have loved this. He was a real music lover, and listened to vinyl in his living room. I talked to him about it, and he understood why we were doing this…They made a lot of inroads to this, we are just perfecting it" said Young.

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CLIPS: Neil Young on Howard Stern, Oct. 14

Neil Young interview clips.

YOUNG: The things that we don't know, you know, we can do little things to fight climate change. And yet our army and our armed forces are the biggest CO2 providers into the world, they just...it's amazing. And yet we are fighting what? ISIS...

STERN: What do you think about that?

YOUNG: ...al-Qaeda. And we are fighting these wars against these organizations and their carbon footprint has got to be like 1% of our huge army and our navy and all of this stuff that have with all our big machines. We're doing more damage to the earth with our wars. And you try to find out? Hey, freedom? No, freedom, you don't get it. You can't find out what that carbon footprint is of the military. It's not available for us.

STERN: Are you upset about what's going on in the Middle East? I mean of course you're upset about, everyone is...

YOUNG: You know, I don't like war and I, you know, I think it's all about energy. In the end, it's all about energy. That's what's about. And it's going to be about water.

STERN: We're over there because there's so much oil. There's a lot of hotspots...

YOUNG: We ought to just start getting smart and use what we have: renewable energy. There's energy from the sun. Hello? It's right there. You go outside and if you don't wear a hat, you can burn a hole in your head. There's something there. Let's use it.

From 12 Things We Learned From Howard Stern's Interview With Neil Young | Rolling Stone:

3. He wasn't kidding last week when he said he's never going to perform with Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young ever again. "Playing with Stills and Nash in that band was really great," he said, intentionally leaving out a certain other member. "I wish [Crosby] the best with his life. There's love there. There's just nothing else there. [A reunion] will never happen. Never happen, no, not in a million years….You have to think about things before you do them. If you make a mistake, you have to fix it right away. [A reunion] will never happen. You don't have to worry about it. It's easy to say 'no.'"

5. Even 45 years later, he's still pissed about all the cameras onstage at Woodstock. "They didn't have to be right there on the stage," he said. "They're cameras, hello! Use zoom, dickhead. We were playing music and there's some jerk standing there in black clothes. We're playing music, get out of there."

7. Bono gave him advice about how to write more commercial music. "I sung all the songs in Greendale," Young said. "And Bono commented that the songs needed hooks that went over and over again and more people could hear them." Young didn't take him up on the advice.

8. He's tremendously disappointed in President Obama. "He just opened up the Gulf of Mexico to fracking," he said. "Like the Gulf of Mexico didn't need a break…Politicians are empowered by the system to do nothing but take money from the corporations that control them. Obama campaigned on change and hope, and they're fracking in the Gulf of Mexico. Barack, hello! Wake up, buddy."

9. The first batch of Pono players are sold out. "We're going to try and make more in January," he said. "We're starting to build and scale up, but the demand for them was awesome…We're making this for people that want it. We're not making it for people that don't want it, but they may not know then want it until they hear it. It's a gentle revolution. We're not trying to bowl over the world. We don't think success is anything you can tangibly see. It's a smile."

12. Sharing a Toronto apartment with Rick James in 1966 was nonstop fun. "We did some wild things," he said. "It's all very hazy to me now. I'm glad I made it through that stage. It got a little dicey. There were some drugs going on. I remember singing one song for about a day and a half."

Neil Young on environment: "You look at these leaders like Stephen Harper up in Canada where they have the tar sands in Alberta," Young said. "And the leaders in Russia and our own leaders here. Although we had this huge thing in the (2008 U.S.) acceptance speech back there in Chicago. 'I'm going to take on climate change and everything.' Obama just opened up the Gulf of Mexico to fracking for all the oil companies and gave all the rights away. This was like three weeks ago or something.

"I just don't see the prescience, I don't see the wisdom in that. Maybe it's that, 'Well there's only 10 per cent of the fish left anyway so it's not really going to hurt that many fish.' And that's a sick joke. So when all this crap starts coming out of people's faucets and they can catch their water on fire and people are dying and people are sick because of fracking, then the solution is, 'Let's do it on the bottom of the ocean because nobody will be bothered by it, they won't see it.'"

"Realize that if the United States of America is the leader of the free world, why is it that we are saying we can maybe have two per cent solar energy by 2020 and Germany has 50 per cent renewable energy right now," Young said. "It's because of leadership in this country but even more than that it's because of corporate control of democracy. In America it's hard to make a change against the corporate powers that are in control of us. They're in control of all the politicians, everybody that we elect they are all tainted.

"Why do we have Hilary Clinton when she was Secretary of State going to Europe to convince the little European countries, 'Don't get your oil from Russia! Don't do oil, we'll give you this fracking technology and it's really great. You can frack and you can get your oil and energy right out of the land.' These are our Democrats, these are supposed to be the saviors. None of them are empowered by the system that is here now to do anything other than take money from corporations and be controlled. I don't know one politician that isn't controlled to some degree by the amount of donations from corporations. That's who paid for their campaigns. All these laws are wrong. They made it legal for corporations to be people, corporations aren't people."

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Neil Young will be on the Howard Stern Show tomorrow morning, Oct. 14.

Anyone can listen for free with a free trial from SiriusXM, @ SiriusXM.

Listen to Howard Stern reveal the news:

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Comment of the Moment: "Thrasher" - Neil Young, Philadelphia - October 8, 2014

"Thrasher"
Neil Young, Philadelphia - October 8, 2014
Photo by TW
(Click photo to enlarge)
The Comment of the Moment is from 36 Years Since Our Last "Thrasher": Neil Young, Philadelphia - October 8, 2014 by TopangaDaze:

In my opinion, Thrasher is without question Neil's lyrical masterpiece (followed closely by Ambulance Blues).

To me, most of Neil's songs are incredibly "meaningful" but they're also "meaningless" when looking for clarity of intent. Lyrically, most of them lack directness (until his more recent literal works beginning with Prairie Wind). That is to say, they are very cryptic and mean different things to everyone (including Neil I believe). At his best, his songs just flew out of him in clever image couplets. To this day, no one has ever explained to me what a Cinnamon Girl is or a Cowgirl in the Sand. I could go on and on, but I know what they mean to me and that's the beauty of his writing.

As for playing Thrasher at his recent shows, it seems pretty clear to me. Thrasher is one of the few songs he's written that while beautifully poetic, also contains some pretty direct feelings about loss and age.

To me, his playing it now is his expression of brutally honest fear. Fear of potential dementia (like his father), fear of irrelevance in an ever changing world, fear of leaving something left unsaid and/or undone. There's no time left to wait (for us or for him)..

A truly beautiful song, by an incredibly moving artist facing his mortality. He's taking stock of what really matters and is opening up much of himself for us all. We are seeing and hearing what matters most to him now, and I feel at the same time he's encouraging us all to take action. With ourselves first, and then with the people and the things that matter most to us.

"How I lost my friends, I still don't understand"...

Thanks TopangaDaze! So fear? hmm. We always like to think of Neil as a pretty fearless character. Maybe his way of recognizing the fear but his way of pushing beyond the fear?

Because, as everyone knows, there is no point in living in fear.

Still livin' with fear? Check this... no fear... just be.

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