A Message From Neil Young: A PANDEMIC AND A RARE GIFT
A major update from Neil Young on the upcoming Archives Volume #3.
From A Message From Neil Young: A PANDEMIC AND A RARE GIFT | NYA:
JOHNNY’S ISLAND, OCEANSIDE-COUNTRYSIDE ( the origin of ‘Comes a Time’), GIVE TO THE WIND ORCHESTRA live at Nashville Musician’s Union Hall with the whole orchestra and the wonderful Nicolette Larson. What a giant recording - 10 or eleven songs with the orchestra, Nicolette and I singin’ live. Truly a great find! The Archives is deep! Then ‘THE BOARDING HOUSE’ record and film - a moment of captured time we had never even reviewed! We went though it all in that cabin on the lake as the pandemic raged on. We put together the record based on Joel Bernstein’s original performance notes. Joel is brilliant here. Then I found the ‘BOARDING HOUSE’ movie - a continuous document of one show beginning to end. Magical to have this!
As the winter howled outside, and the lake was covered with ice, we went back and rebuilt the original OLD WAYS record, better than the released one by a lifetime. With the time to listen to all the takes from everywhere during the period, we made a great and soulful record which hardly resembled the released one. I’m so glad we did that. Many unreleased songs and tracks were found and included. So beautiful! At the same time, Micah Nelson and I were finishing the TRANS ANIMATED MOVIE, finally telling the whole story behind TRANS as it was originally envisioned, enhanced with Micah’s masterful ideas and animation. That was followed by ‘LIVE FREEDOM’ - an acoustic live recording with just me, Ben Keith and Poncho Sampedro in Europe. I love this record. That brought us to the end of Volume 3. 1990.
Now I started looking at the films.
‘CRAZY HORSE WORLD TOUR 1976’ Tokyo Budokan and London Odeon Hammersmith,
BOARDING HOUSE by Bernard Shakey, 1978
RUST NEVER SLEEPS by Bernard Shakey, 1979
HUMAN HIGHWAY by Bernard Shakey and Dean Stockwell, 1982
TRANS ANIMATED MOVIE by Micah Nelson and Neil Young, current
BERLIN by Michael Lindsay Hogg, 1982
SOLO TRANS by Hal Ashby, 1984
IN A RUSTED OUT GARAGE by LA JOHNSON and B SHAKEY, 1986We started compiling the pieces and put together a CD set (12) and a Blu-Ray set (9) for NYA Volume lll. The Blu-Ray has every song on the CD set. Some Blu-Rays feature movies and records.
Full statement on A Message From Neil Young: A PANDEMIC AND A RARE GIFT | NYA.
Also, see more on future plans on Neil Young Archives Patron Tier Pay Off Comes Quick.
More on upcoming releases -- or an "avalanche of an embarrassment of riches" -- on Expecting to Calculate Neil Young 2021: Numbers Add Up To Nothin' ... or "A Rusties Holy Grail".
Labels: archives, neil young, neil young archives, nya
by thrasher@PermaLink: 3/27/2021 11:54:00 AM
24 comments
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24 Comments:
One question to you all
What will happen to the Geffen years.
Thank you
That is a question only Neil can answer, so I suggest a letter to Neil on NYA.
Peace🙏
It makes me so happy to see that Neil has such control over his legacy and career. The next few years are gonna be a GOLD MINE!
That is an amazing message! So much exciting material! I love how he frames it that the shutdown helped him focus on projects he never had time to get to. feel greedy even asking, but does anyone have insight about when ‘Smell The Horse,’ the expanded Ragged Glory might get released. He didn’t mention that in this most recent message.
In a sense the geffen years are being covered - an alternative Old Ways album, the new trans animated film, solo trans, Berlin, in a rusted out garage and maybe more
It doesn’t sound good for the Geffen albums being included in an ORS box set or individually from NYA though
Maybe Geffen will one day agree to re-releases?
Funnily enough the original archives release was from Geffen in 1993 when Neil put together the Lucky Thirteen comp
I’d love a vinyl reissue of that!
Im with you can’t wait for smell the horse release (toast and alchemy are top of my list too)
A while back in the letter sections he mentioned it would be this year (august 6) as a part of an ORS box which would include at least: freedom, ragged glory, weld and Arc
But like all these things I wouldn’t hold them to that release date
And the price of this on vinyl will be huge considering both ragged glory and weld are set to be 3LPs each!
@ !!!!!!
If Lucky Thirteen is "the original archives release", then what is Decade? I would say neither are Archive releases, and you got it right with "comp". I would call them both Compliations with a couple new or bonus tracks.....
It is interesting that, apparently, Geffen just owns rights to the actual releases, and not the rest of the recording sessions at the same time that the records came from.....
..... and what Neil still owns since the partial sale of his publishing rights.
True - I thought of mentioning Decade there too - i guess what I meant was Neil had been talking about the “archives” back in the early 90s and Lucky Thirteen was the first archival release that followed
It’s all academic - the floodgates have certainly opened now
What about Chrome Dreams? is this going to be forgotten or pieced together just for the website. i believe the sticky note is still on the website.
Now that we’ve seen/heard NYAI and II, Decade seems to me like the scaled down blueprint for the Archives. Note the ten-year timespan, and Decade establishes precedent of combining (at the time) previously unreleased cuts with an extensive retrospective of Neil’s released music during the period covered.
If Decade established that comps can include previously unreleased tracks, Archives looks/sounds a lot like a massive compilation. Not that I’m complaining about any of this; the unreleased stuff is utterly worthwhile for dedicated fans. It’s just interesting to note conceptual evolutions throughout a half century+ career.
Almost close to the topic -- have you guys come up with a collection of "ways to stream NYA through your audio system" suggestions? I'm hoping to find a way that doesn't involve buying a new "wifi and/or bluetooth enhanced" receiver. Is there an NYA "skill" for Alexa -- similar to the one for Spotify? A dot-to-receiver setup would be perfect -- and cheap. (I'm not a gottahavehiresornuthin' guy.)
thanks!
I always enjoyed Old Ways, especially Misfits. This song belongs with Bandit as singular and strange in the way it appears. There was not enough coherence to see something so great coming at us.
I am very excited to hear that an entirely different and "better by a lifetime" version of the Old Ways era music is coming our way. A Treasure is such a revelation. My personal favorites on the album are Southern Pacific and Amber Jean, but so much of it is awesome. I must admit that Old Ways sounded overproduced to me, which is typical of 1980's country music. I expect the next release will have a lot more soul. Not to say Old Ways is a bad record. I need to give it another listen before "going on the record" here.
I would love to hear 5x as much Shocking Pinks stuff too. I think I recall reading that Geffen halted the recording sessions early. The live shows would be great to have also, even if there is nothing more from the sessions. Decade and Lucky 13 are indeed similar to the Archives. The live stuff on Lucky 13 is worth the price of admission, especially back in the day when we had no idea when the Archives would ever get a release. I am so interested to hear Toast. And Chrome Dreams. And Johnny's Island. So fortunate that Neil Kept that stuff for himself and us.
Art, I am not up to speed with the systems advice you seek. I think that using Wifi or blu tooth to stream to speakers directly limits the sound res in a drastic way, but there may be a way in the modern era. I have my old wired tower speakers to enjoy.
Alan in Seattle
Alan -- the system I'm describing uses a receiver wired to speakers. Marries wifi-delivered sound to an excellent sound system. Works great with Spotify. No diminishment in sound quality between playing a CD of a particular album though my setup and then streaming the same album via Spotify. I want to be able to run NYA that way. BTW NYA comes into my house via the Internet/wifi.
You have checked NYA for info? There was a post on this blog within the past month or so which focused on this question, I believe. Spotify is 1/10 the resolution of a CD? Or am I wrong about that. I don’t claim to know much about it. My biggest thrill came when Neil said NYA3 would also come in Blu ray form. I have a wired surround system I like a lot which I bought for NYA1 Blu ray. Alan
I was at the Trans tour in 1983, Lennox Massachusetts. A lot of drunken idiots yelling for Rust Never Sleeps. I was a real fan of Trans but at the concert I realized that the songs seemed damaged or obscured by vocoder business. Transformer Man, Computer Age, and Sample and Hold are beautifully melodic songs. But Neil sounded like he was singing from a tin can and it did not help anything. He came out with the Shocking Pinks for an encore and they were just plain great, a rocking band, with a lot of instrumentals. Old Ways has some songs that are just plain rotten, such as "California Sunset" (going down in the west? ughh). But I cannot wait to hear some other version of Misfits, with the wailing vocals in the background. That song is truly frightening, it belongs with Interstate and Bandit for its human desolation.
@Abner Snopes
I loved loved loved the Trans Solo concerts. Both versions. The first part of the tour that was just Trans Solo, and the second set of shows that included the Shocking Pinks. I found the Synclavier and the vocal manipulation genius and magnificent. Randy Clear before the show and the interview at "half time". The whole point of the manipulation was to obscure. That was the artistry and the point. And when Neil came out, with the electric songs, programed the synclavier and drums and bass live, and then jammed the songs out solo (Mr Soul was amazing), changing speeds with the foot pedal at will and rocking like a madman...... brilliant. One of the most amazing of all his outings. So original. Fulgurant. I am really looking forward to seeing and hearing what Neil and Micah have come up with on the animated Trans.
My first Neil Young concert was supposed to be the Trans Solo show in Portland Oregon, but he canceled because of illness. I still have the poster for the show framed and hanging on the wall of my music room, but I returned the tickets for a refund. Now I wish I had kept those tickets for a show that never happened, but I needed the money at the time. Hindsight....... Oh well, I have seen him live a lot since, both Solo, Crazy Horse, Pearl Jam, and Booker T & the MG’s) so no regrets.
Peace 🙏
@aer stephen,
I understand, after reading so many articles about Trans, the point was to obscure or however it should be precisely articulated. I also get your love for Trans, I love it too, but my experience in the live concert was not so good (as I indicated). The artistic intent did not seem to come through, but no matter. I am relying on memory from a hell of a long time ago. The bottom line seems to be that Neil once again defied expectations and came up with something brilliant and new. I really want to see Old Ways in a new form. But some of those songs are wretched.
@abner my first Neil concert experience was the Trans Band Euro tour which was quite a different animal from the later solo Trans, with the Neil/Nils vocoder duets scattered amongst the Johnny’s Island-style material. I didn't feel it was particularly obscure even with a few technical glitches.
I've always thought that Misfits was a sequel of sorts to Trans, the Lone Red Rider in the box canyon being the Computer Cowboy after a digital apocalypse.
And if the new Old Ways includes Depression Blues and Grey Riders (how could they have been missed off the original) then I will be one happy Hambone.
Hambone
oh and I forgot to add I was listening to Homegrown again tonight and was stunned to see that Like An Inca is listed as a possible track for the album - it's on the Album Related section on a page called "1975 early song list". Is that for real? I thought maybe it was alternative title for Cortez given the date.
Hambone again
Also off topic: So a new concert of the week is up - Boulder 1976!!! This feature is so great.
HG
Alan - I am just mentioning to you that Southern Pacific was first released on Re*ac*tor as a Crazy Horse song, rather than on Old Ways. There are acoustic versions of neil playing Southern Pacific solo on his guitjo in his 1999 tour that was pretty stellar. He also played "shots" from Re*ac*tor as a solo acoustic song sometime in the late 70s or early eighties that is nothing short of haunting.
At one point I had a compilation of every song he played on the 1999 solo tour and I think it contained over 75 different songs - many of them were exceptional. I would love for a compilation from that tour to be released that was not sourced from the audience. This was the tour that included the famous "Shut-up Asshole" comment from Neil to some drunk jerk at the Tower Theater in Philly.
@ DREman :
Alan was referring to the live performance of ‘Southern Pacific’ from ‘A Treasure’, which only includes one song from ’Old Ways’ ( ‘Bound For Glory’).
I’m with you on a possible compilation of songs from that 1999 solo tour. Neil really dug deep into his catalog for that tour.
Peace 🙏
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