NEW SCREEN ADDED: 'Sleeps With Angels" Film Now Playing on #3 | Neil Young Archives
That Neil. He just keeps giving and giving.
Yet another theater has been added to Neil Young Archives -- bringing the total to 3 screens -- a virtual multi-plex, if you will. The latest development on Subscriber News | NYA is the film Sleeps With Angels, directed by LA Johnson and running about 31 minutes.
Neil writes:
This is a document of that album I want to share with NYA Subscribers to show my thanks for all your support. More Subscriber Features will be coming soon.
Enjoy!
The documentary film is a work progress left uncompleted by the sudden death of LA Johnson in 2010.
Sleeps With Angels
— Neil Young Archives (@NeilYoungNYA) July 10, 2020
Directed by LA Johnson
On The New Subscriber Features Screen in the Hearse Theater
This is a document of that album I want to share with NYA Subscribers to show my thanks for all your support. More Subscriber Features will be coming soon.
Enjoy! pic.twitter.com/O0uNWZcvUY
Larry "L.A." Johnson: 1947 - 2010
Photo by Pegi Young
(Click photo to enlarge)
(See Neil Young Album Reviews:
Sleeps With Angels + Preview Tracks)
all of which is "too late, too soon" ...
Kurt Cobain and Neil Young
Labels: @CrazyHorse4HoF, archives, crazy horse, david briggs, film, Larry "L.A." Johnson, neil young, sleeps with angels, studio
by thrasher@PermaLink: 7/10/2020 05:28:00 PM
11 comments
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11 Comments:
Thank you Neil and DH!
I don't use no social and this is my way to reach you.
Just a plea: please allow to pay per download!!!!!
Take care!
Love
Roberto
Wonderful to see Briggs and Young working together on one of my all time favorite albums. They certainly had a special relationship which produced some extraordinary recordings over the years. As this was only L. A. Johnson’s first pass on editing this film together, it still succeeds in capturing the whole vibe of the recording. The picture quality is less than ideal but this is still a work in progress. What a privilege to have this unique opportunity to experience this project at such an early stage. Looking forward to seeing how this film fleshes out over time.
Peace 🙏
It is general consensus, that SWA is refering to Kurt Cobain and his premature departure from this world. Watching the footage of SWA, a few scenes with David Briggs caught my attention and I wondered whether he at this point already knew about the limited horizon that lay before him. And if so, could it be that this is another reason why SWA has this dark, subdued and eerie sound. The triumphant re-emergence of first Neil Young and then Crazy Horse's ragged Glory just happened a few years before. That is a pretty steep drop in temperature, even if one considers the Booker T. & the MGs tour intermezzo.
There was some serious conflict in the final stages of SWA because someone (Poncho, the computer expert?) leaked files of the new album. Then followed the PJ & "Mirrorball" outing, "Dead Man", "The Year of the Horse", a title coined by Briggs as far as I know, and finally "Broken Arrow". The output of 1994 - 1996 does not make for another "ditch-trilogy" but definitely for another turning point in Neil Young's long and winding career, that could be termed the Briggs Legacy.
Seeing art through the psycho-biographical lens is both: tempting and dead-wrong in many cases. Just my two cents (as was added to comments of this type, back in the day of hyperrust)
Hi Dan,
it's kind of an innaresting coincidence, that we both have been thinking about Briggs at the very same time being an ocean apart.
Dionys
@ Dionys: It’s all one thought!
Peace 🙏
Nice to see. Pity all the music seems to be the same as the final studio versions. Great to see Neil with short hair and at one point even no sideburns. Cool to see him on the flute and playing distorted harmonica. Made me wonder if the characters in Trans Am are the start of the sort of thinking that led to Greendale.
I loved this record at the time and listening back I am still astonished by how good it is. Personally I think it might be Neil's best. I never thought about how different the sound is to Ragged Glory though it is true it is on a different planet. There is something of David Lynch to it, it would work as a soundtrack to one of his films, and I recall alongside grunge that was a major cinematic line art followed in the early 90s. Listening again I can feel Neil really tapping into that here and it is notable and logical that he then followed it with Dead Man.
I know a lot has been said about how Neil might have lost part of his muse when he lost Briggs, though sadly that is also clear listening again. Ever since Neil I feel has relied too much and too often on the just plug in and play approach that was first tested ironically here with Piece of Crap. Sleeps with Angels is very much so a studio record and feels and sounds like the product of one of those long experimental spells in the studio that started with The Beatles in the 60s and maybe ended with Radiohead at the millennium. The timing for Neil was perfect too, it was late enough after the 80s to not go over the top with studio sounds, drum machines, synths etc, and still early enough to have the enormous music industry support that allowed bands to really indulge themselves making a record. I guess that is it, Neil has always blown with the wind of his own muse, though back then there was also an entire industry and experienced team that in this prime of his life blew behind him too.
The main thing I noticed was that all of the studio recordings on the video are mono mixes, which leads me to think that they were all perhaps rough mixes that were made while they were making the album.
The original 1994 promo VHS version of this was in stereo. Not sure why NYA has converted it to mono. It's still a wonderful document.
@zuma11: The original 1994 VHS you’re referring to.... do you mean The Complex Sessions film?
That was a separate film made after the album was finished right?
I thought this behind the scenes studio stuff only started showing up in bits & pieces on the Archives.
@romat73 - No, this video containing the SWA studio footage was released on a promo VHS in 1994 and as you point out, is different than the Complex Sessions material. The info cards for the individual SWA songs like Prime Of Life, Sleeps With Angels, etc have links to the clips. NYA also broadcast several of the individual videos in the Hearse Theater in 2019 & 2020. All in mono vs the original in stereo.
Also - they have added about 90 seconds of new footage into the video - Briggs & Neil discussing the running order after My Heart and Neil riding away on a motorcycle at the very end.
@ zuma11 - thanks for clarifications, very helpful. it was a little confusing what we we were seeing relatively to the promos, Complex Sessions and NYA clips.
Maybe someday there will a definitive SWA documentary in stereo. someday
last we checked it seems there are hundreds of uncompleted NYA projects of various sorts.
may we all live a thousand years ...
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