"Smell the Horse": Ragged Glory Extended + Comment of the Moment: NYA FIRST LISTEN/WATCH: ‘Way Down In The Rust Bucket’ - Neil Young w/ Crazy Horse

Neil Young w/ Crazy HorseThe Catalyst - Santa Cruz, CA - November 11, 1990

The amazingly relentless Neil Young news continues unabated.

Neil Young has just announced that the new, extended Ragged Glory edition will be titled ‘smell the horse,’ with four added tracks.

"We are presenting this in all analog for the first time, remastered from original analog 2 tracks under the loving care of John Hanlon. John has wanted to do this for years and now it’s here, coming in triple vinyl and remastered for CD and Hi Res from the original analog mixes. This will most definitely be the greatest version of this record ever made."

‘Ragged Glory - ‘smell the horse’ features 4 added tracks:

• Born To Run
• Interstate
• Boxcar
• Don’t Spook the Horse

Produced by David Briggs, Neil Young and John Hanlon

 

‘Way Down in the Rust Bucket’  - Neil Young w/ Crazy Horse

 

Which brings us to our  Comment of the Moment on NYA FIRST LISTEN/WATCH: ‘Way Down In The Rust Bucket’ - Neil Young w/ Crazy Horse by the "Inextinguishable Scotsman":

Way Down In The Rust Bucket:

Impressions of the Inextinguishable Scotsman

I'll start by saying just this:

You know you have a special Neil Young album in your hands when even T-Bone sounds like some sort of masterpiece.

Need I say more?

If the answer is "yes", then here's some context:

Long-time readers here know I think Weld, the record of 1991's Ragged Glory tour, is Neil's best electric live album.

It's also seriously intense. The musicianship, already pretty damn fierce on Ragged Glory, has by this point dropped all pretense of mellowness. The guitar solos have become ruthless enough to slice through steel.

And the best synopsis I can give of Way Down In The Rust Bucket is this: it's the sound of Ragged Glory transforming into Weld. With a looser setlist than the latter, and without the explosions of noise, the guitar strangulations, or the frenzied eruptions of feedback.

The sound at the warm-up Catalyst gig hasn't yet mutated into the (regimented, Gulf War inspired) brutality of the following 50+ shows. But it has started to. You can hear it developing, intensifying - sometimes mid-song.

Many tracks agreeably gallop (or chug) along, in no great hurry to get anywhere. And then Neil's lead guitar suddenly escalates and has you by the throat. There's a slightly Jekyll and Hyde feel to it.

You get the sense, even without the onslaught of the Gulf War, that the Ragged Glory tour was always destined to be a mighty affair.

(And you can also hear the seeds being sown that would grow into the Old Princeton Landing series, 5 years or so later.)

It's an epic 2 hour+ album packed with songs fresh from Ragged Glory. Along the way we get an abundance of Crazy Horse classics (Cinnamon Girl, Like A Hurricane, Cortez The Killer...) and a generous scattering of mind-blowing ultra-rarities (Danger Bird, Surfer Joe, and yes, T-BONE) that Neil would banish from the setlist straight after the warm-up gigs.

The more "cheap and cheerful" material here (Farmer John and T-Bone again, as examples) is mostly included as an entirely-justified excuse for Neil to go berserk on his Gold Top guitar for extended periods. Behind the *appearance* of the relaxed vibe of this period is a musician more focused than ever.

The Catalyst gig is looser than the '91 tour; but it's not *that* loose. Neil and the band road-tested most of the songs the previous night, with several of the others also appearing well-"rehearsed".

The same cannot be claimed about Sedan Delivery: thrillingly, the band are clearly re-learning how to play it, on-stage, after a full 12-year absence from the setlist.

The song staggers around uncertainly, more than once threatening to careen overboard (a bit like me as I write this column). Then, against all odds, it gets second wind and concludes with an explosion - Neil lurching into a warped guitar solo that will strip the paint from your walls.

This nightmarish sound is the twisted result of him using (abusing?) an old Alesis reverb simulator; one of the effects units within the big red box that you'll see at his feet at all his electric gigs.

(If you found that last sentence boring to read, that's because you're not a lead-guitar fanatic. Bottom line: this is an album not remotely suited to anybody unwilling to become a lead-guitar fanatic.)

Like many of you, I'm sure, I think the decision to fade out the audience noise between songs is an odd one. It kind of leaves the record halfway between an immersive concert experience and a series of isolated tracks.

An analogy: a fish can survive in a pond or in an aquarium, but not half-way between the two.

And yes, I like Rust Never Sleeps - a hybrid exception that proves the rule. But I think producer David Briggs would have preferred to seamlessly crossfade the audience chatter on Rust Bucket, instead of leaving gaps between the tracks. Would that have made Rust Bucket an even more thrilling experience? I err towards "yes". You decide.

Overall, the sound mix is fantastic. It has warmth and energy and (literally dozens of) guitar solos as piercing as razor blades. Billy Talbot's bass on this album is the warm and inviting kind: impactful, but not the room-shaking earthquake you'll enjoy on "studio Greendale", if you crank up your subwoofer.

The one real disapointment is an unavoidable one. Cowgirl In The Sand has been excluded because of technical reasons. This is one of the elite Poncho-era versions of the song, and its absence is an annoyance.

Still, it's out there on bootleg in decent quality, and also on the DVD version of the new album.

(Are there any rascals out there who were sneaky enough to find a way to download the video stream of Cowgirl, last year? That means you have the stereo soundtrack of it from the multi-track, too. Just patch it into the album playlist and smile broadly, by all means.)

The question on all our lips:

How on earth has a classic gig like Way Down In The Rust Bucket remained unnoticed in the vault for 30 years? What in heaven's name has the Archives team been doing for 3 decades?!

It's odd. It's weird. it's perplexing.

But, in 2021, what a treat for us all.

Thanks NY and NYA. It's an album that I think people are going to enjoy listening to for many years to come.

...And thanks for reading, everybody.

Scotsman.

Oh, our dear "Inextinguishable Scotsman". To say we've missed you here @ TW is a massive understatement.  So glad you could drop in and share your thoughts on the Horse and Rust. 

Your immortal quote from 2019 on the RUST BUCKET tapes as "the missing link between Ragged Glory and Weld" is spot on and has been thoroughly memorialized.  To which we now can add: "RUST BUCKET: the sound of Ragged Glory transforming into Weld."

We somehow have to think this is all part of the plan given that there are no coincidences.  So somehow Neil delivers his entire catalog online for $20 just as the world shuts down?  

Deluxe Box Set Edition (DVD, 4 LPs, 2 CDs)

Pre-Order Now: WAY DOWN IN THE RUST BUCKET" by Neil Young w/  Crazy Horse 

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Well --  as we like to say:   May The Horse Be With You & Yours!

 #MayTheHorseBeWithYou

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