Neil Young
photo by DH Lovelife/Courtesy of the artist
A 7 minute interview with Neil Young has been posted to NPR at "A Legendary Collaboration Continues: Neil Young And Crazy Horse Reunite For 'Colorado'" by David Greene.
Neil Young: "I think that I do the best when I'm right here."Full interview with Neil Young has been posted to NPR at "A Legendary Collaboration Continues: Neil Young And Crazy Horse Reunite For 'Colorado'" by David Greene.
"We're thinking about making it sound real, like you can feel that this means something to the people playing it," he says. "We're not trying to impress anybody."
"The raw thing that we create is the soul of music and the stories and the feelings of being human. The technical thing that happens is trying to capture that. If you try to capture that and you use tools that are less precise, then you get less of it. You know the feeling that you have when you hear something that's really great and it touches your soul? The chances of it really touching your soul are much better if you hear all of it."
"Mostly I would like a lot of people to see what's going on [with] the planet — that's so obvious to me," he says. "I just don't know why people don't get it. Or if they do get it, then why don't they get with it?"
More on album Neil Young & Crazy Horse's 'Colorado'.
COLORADO is now streaming on http://NeilYoungArchives.com.
COLORADO by Neil Young & Crazy Horse
Release Date: October 25, 2019 - Pre-order now
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. Thank you!!!)Also, see commentary on STREAMING PREVIEW: "Milky Way" on COLORADO, New Album by Neil Young & Crazy Horse.
What a week to be a Rustie! Wasn't able to catch Mountaintop in the theatre on Tuesday (hopefully, it makes it to the Hearse in full), but was more excited anyway to get to see In A Rusted Out Garage in the Hearse Theatre, a show I actually attended at the Cow Palace. I remember the video cameras swinging overhead of the pit during the show at the time, but could have never imagined that it would be 33 years later that I'd get an opportunity to relive the show.
ReplyDeleteThen we get Weld the next night, another video I've been longing to see. Missed that tour, but always loved the ragged glory of the live release. And now we have Colorado streaming on NYA. Took a listen last night. In the canon of NYCH it's probably going to end up somewhere in midfield, but there are some definite gems that stood out. Loving, in particular, Help Me Lose My Mind and Shut it Down.
Thanks Neil, to all at NYA and to the Thrasherswheat community. In the midst of these dark times of the late anthropocene and late capitalism as we careen towards extinction as only few take up the mantle to rebel, I find at least a glimmer of comfort (and maybe even hope) through the music.
Oh dear...
ReplyDelete'Milky Way' really had me hopeful that Colorado would be great...
After an initial stream, I'm afraid I was wrong...much of what I hear sounds like a loose demo...and where's Nils?
I'll give it several more listens for sure.
Hello from Paris
ReplyDeleteThanks for the music Colorado, between 2 or 3 Hearse Theater .... third or fourth listen (I do not count any more) my first listening is good I'm not excited like a crazy horse HiHiHi but in the horse's ear I already have preferences of titles but I will avoid this because it does not leave me the appreciation of the whole. This being, a good rebellious music not baclée for me it is NYCH.
We have untimely cuts in the NYA that harms the work of rebel artists.
Good evening from Paris
José
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteJust finished my first listen to Colorado and even though it was on my phone I could hear the passion, honesty, intensity and directness I have come to expect from Neil and the Horse. This man continues to share his life with us through his songs, and for me, this is his mission. I’m sure there are many who just don’t get what Neil is doing, and that’s okay. I get it. Perhaps after he’s gone they may understand, but for now it’s just too personal for some. I feel privileged to be sharing the same moments with Neil. Sharing the space. Future generations will listen back to his music and think he was either a fortune teller or just a visionary artist. Either way, they will listen.
ReplyDeleteColorado is a stream of consciousness record to me. Neil is in the moment all the time and this is just one more chapter in his life’s work. As he mentions in the above interview, each thing is part of everything. It’s truly all one song for sure. Just different chapters. Every song on Colorado is a unique part in Neil’s epic opus, and I loved each one for what it was. The ebb and flow, the contrast and relief is classic Neil Young. I’m really looking forward to hearing this on vinyl. Feeling the music and not just hearing it.
Thanks again Neil. Keep em’ com in’ brother, I’m in for the long haul.
Peace.
Not sure if it's been shared already, but here's an in-depth interview with Nils:
ReplyDeletehttps://variety.com/2019/music/news/nils-lofgren-interview-neil-young-crazy-horse-bruce-springsteen-1203381654/
Scotsman.
Colorado impressions.
ReplyDeleteColorado is an album, as you'd expect from Crazy Horse, with some serious character, guts and attitude.
That's half the story. Colorado also features some of the most subtle, delicate and beautiful playing on a Neil Young record in the past 25 years. It's an album of two musical personalities.
On first listen, I found Colorado to be a decidedly unsettling record. There's a definite sense of unease there, in the doomy drone of Help Me Lose My Mind and the "ignored" warning calls of Green Is Blue. In the chasm between the safety of 'Eternity' (a song which really comes to life in this lovely studio version) and the encroaching danger of those "old white guys trying to kill Mother Nature".
You can see it, too, in the cold-looking album cover, and in the cruel contrast between the free-flying narrator of album opener Think Of Me and the suffering souls down below. In the ominously shifting minor chords of She Showed Me Love, and the urgently whispered lyric and quietly threatening bass growl of "I Do" (a magnificently restrained low-key performance that concludes the record with a feeling of lingering chill).
None of this is expressed directly as being acutely sinister, it's just a sensation of unease that creeps up on you as you listen. I think this is the most haunting Neil Young album in many years.
The production is exciting and uncluttered, with thoughtful touches added throughout that give the songs a lot of colour: the harmony vocals, the beautifully spacious piano, the striking flashes of dream-like echo to Neil's voice on the unique Milky Way.
There's an edgy gutsiness in these recordings, a trace of David Briggs' enduring influence. Its not just the sound, which is a blend of the workman-like with the serene and delicate; it's the attitude, the personality. The sense of mystery, the perception of a sense of space. The arrangements of these songs are memorable, catchy. And the overall feel they have is really quite unique; whatever surface similarities they have to some of Neil's old warhorses.
Nils Lofgren makes his long-awaited return to a Neil Young album, and his contributions are predictably masterful. Masterful, but not obviously so. You can't hear him? That's the point. He's working his magic without drawing attention to himself at the expense of the songs. Often you won't even know he's there unless you know what you are listening for, but all the time you can feel his presence. His playing on "I Do" is exquisite.
It's true that the most powerful songs of all, the ones that really get through to us, aren't often the most direct or one-dimensional ones. And that guy you heard ranting from a soapbox when you passed by the town square yesterday? You (and everyone else) ignored him and walked on by, and that's his problem, not yours.
But not all great songwriting has to win the Nobel Prize for Literature. Some of the lyric writing on Colorado is blunt, stylistically, but it is not bland. One of Neil's old tricks is taking something that could be considered a weakness and putting it into a context where it becomes a strength. I found Colorado to be inventive, entertaining and very heartfelt, with an engaging blend of haunting ballads and grinding, attitude-driven abrasive rock. It gets two thumbs up from me. Crazy Horse is back, and not a moment too soon.
Scotsman.