“It's got everything that the best Crazy Horse albums have had.” - Neil
Last week, Neil Young shared his deeply personal thoughts on the unreleased album "Toast" with Crazy Horse. (See "Toast" - A Roadstory: Neil Young Shares Thoughts on Unreleased 2001 Album.)
Back in 2008, we posted here on TW that:
""Toast" is named after a defunct recording studio. "Toast" is "perhaps one of the most under-estimated and deceptive Crazy Horse records of all time, with many songs originally discarded, and then re-recorded with Booker T. and the MGs."
Are You Passionate? - 2002
In a followup Comment of the Moment on "Toast" by Setz, he suggested would there have been a "Greendale" without "Are You Passionate?"?
And is there a linkage back to "Sleeps With Angels"?
To help us sort through all of these threads, our Comment of the Moment: "Toast" - A Roadstory: Neil Young Shares Thoughts on Unreleased 2001 Album by Meta Rocker:
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Many thanks to Neil for this tantalizing description.
With greatest respect to Dionys, I second Old Black’s motion for a release. I never expected another Homegrown, Chrome Dreams, etc. I’m not looking for perfection, revolution, or Revelation. I just am particularly fascinated by this period of Neil’s (and the Horse’s) career—Toast sounds like something of a lost link between SWA, AYP?, and the latter day Horse outings.
AYP? has long commanded attention from me, despite (or because?) of its idiosyncrasies and drawbacks. I think that’s partly because the same darkness, sadness, uneasy melancholy that Neil associates with Toast remains latent in AYP? as we know it. It’s somewhat oblique in the title track and others, but themes of losing love, regrets, and yearnings run through the set, albeit a bit camouflaged by the polish and swing of the MGs. A long time ago, I gave She’s a Healer the designation of “soul grunge”. I meant it as a compliment and I stand by that assessment.
That being said, I can understand why it wasn’t the first thing on Pancho’s mind when asked by RS about the Horse vaults. The sessions were probably not the happiest memories. Then again, look at TtN or SWA—sometimes, potent art comes out of pain. SWA may be my favorite post-Rust Neil, so clearly I appreciate the “sad” records. At their best, I find they can be incredibly cathartic.
I’ll just say that my feeling on Toast is more about curiosity than expectation and leave it at that....
That said, many artists tend to be "over-sharers", or at least relatively uninhibited about expressing themselves through their work.
Much like Homegrown, Toast may have been "too much" at the time, but my broad reading of Neil's comments is that, in the end, he wants to share it. If I detected greater reluctance, I might very well adjust my tone for sensitivity. On the other hand, it's difficult to imagine anything more unvarnished or soul-bearing than SWA, Homegrown, or the Ditch albums. I feel many of us are used to be experiencing a full spectrum of emotional territories with and through Neil's music. We shouldn't take it all for granted, of course, but it does seem to have become a way of life--for Ny and for many of us.
As an aside, I was unaware or had forgotten the Toast/Coast connection with John Coltrane. As far as I'm concerned, anything inspired by Coltrane is probably worth hearing. Interesting that, with AYP?, Neil ultimately went instead for the soul/rhythm and blues idiom, the common thread being the white rocker's heartfelt tribute to the deep well of black sounds that flows through the soil (and soul) of American popular music.
...
In my opinion, and I could be wrong since I am wasn’t there at the time, SWA is as much about the tragedy of Kurt Cobain as AYP? is about 9/11. In other words, the event had a heavy impact on how the project turned out, but most of the content is not directly related and much of it was already in place beforehand.
I suspect the other poster was referring to the sound and overall feeling of the albums in question. Thinking of say, the subtle jazz undertones of Safeway Cart or the moody noise of Blue Eden, the ambiance Neil ascribes to Toast seems not entirely dissimilar. Aside from memories or fuzzy fan films of the ‘01 Horse tour (the one where Poncho said everything sounded Latin), the only direct evidence we currently have for the sound of Toast is Goin’ Home as transposed onto AYP? I can hear a passing resemblance to SWA’s title track, though the subject matter is obviously different. I’m sure Toast is distinct from SWA and vice versa, but it would make sense if some of the Horse sound developed between SWA and YOH carried over in some form to these sessions.
Finally, I would say that although it’s probably not possible to dissociate SWA from Cobain once that emotional connection is established, I do think it’s theoretically possible that, if you could find someone who had never heard of Kurt Cobain, they could still listen to SWA and get a lot out of it; likewise for AYP? if perchance we could play it for aliens with no knowledge of 9/11. “
‘It’s old but it’s good’, like any other primitive would.”
Thanks so much Meta Rocker! You're definitely onto something here that Toast is a link between "Sleeps With Angels" and "Are You Passionate?"?
(See Neil Young Album Reviews:
Sleeps With Angels + Preview Tracks)
So much good commentary that one is left without much more to add other than the trite but true observation that: "It's all one song!"
But is it really just all one song?
They say history doesn't repeat but it rhymes. So while the relationship between the continuities and the discontinuities of history and music may rarely have been better expressed by Mark Twain's or Neil Young's epigrams, we continue to search, learn and grow on the road of life.
And so glad we found you guys.
Also, see Whatever happened to... “Toast” by Neil Young & Crazy Horse?
Also, see ‘Are You Passionate?’ Turns 10 Years Old and Neil Young's Album of the Week: 'Are You Passionate?' + Defending AYP?
Also, see Neil Young Album Reviews: Sleeps With Angels.
Perhaps "over-sharers" within the practices of art are really those people who somehow bring everything back to themselves. Art as therapy or something similar and it is a bad mistake. I think I wrote on a previous post that SWA is about shared elements of the human condition that are flatly inescapable: mortality, finitude, and contingency. And again, I don't think Neil Young has ever really confronted these categories of reality in such a mature fashion on any other album (although here I totally admit my lack of knowledge. I think I listened to AYP three times). I do think the album is "about" the Cobain tragedy throughout as it centers the categories of human reality in one song and then Neil moves outward and continues to follow the same themes. To say that the album is about "Cobain specifically" is distinct from my meaning. In fact, any album where every song was about the Cobain tragedy specifically would likely be a failure. All art is finally about the universal.
ReplyDeleteTo me, Sleeps With Angels is more than just a Cobain tribute, it's an album about death, the pondering of "what could have been", and ultimately as usual with Neil, an oddly upbeat message about rebirth and the continued search for something meaningful and constructive in life. As with the best of Neil's work, an obvious bleakness hides an optimistic outlook.
ReplyDeleteI've revisited SWA at various times when I felt it necessary. In the days following 9/11, I listened to it a lot. After my mother passed away, I listened to it multiple times. Same case a couple of years ago when my best buddy from my Deadhead years succumbed to his addiction.
That album, much like Tonight's The Night and On The Beach are actually pretty effective tools for closure. It's helped me through rough patches before, and I'm sure will do so again.
It's quite possible that Toast might end up being the same kind of experience.
@Abner, Yes--I caught your previous comments. Art tends to take discrete, individual experiences and show how they reflect the "universal". Re: art vs. therapy, I always say that if it offers fulfillment only for you, it's therapy; if it brings fulfillment for others, it may be art. Which does make the distinction look slippery and potentially subjective--which I'm entirely okay with, since other people have had revelatory experiences with pieces of music, poetry, painting, etc. that just do nothing for me. So who am I, any more or less than anyone else, to be an arbiter of the aesthetic? I just want as many opportunities as possible for people to offer their expressions, with the possibility that we'll find works which resonate with us in ways we'd never have expected.
ReplyDeleteAll of this discussion is theoretically interesting, of course. I just worry about certain ideas, if applied in indiscriminate, heavy-handed, or totalistic ways, bleeding over into impulses to somehow "regulate" art in accordance with personal tastes and/or institutional agendas, etc. As it is, distribution of art in our culture is more or less regulated by market economics and various commercial interests. I'm not sure how much better that is, but at least it gives us a few levers to make choices about what we consume--within in the limits of 1)Whatever the commercial enterprises are choosing to sell us at any given time and 2) Our own ingenuity, as individuals, in knowing where to look for stuff that appeals to us the most.
Also @Abner, I forgot to mention: I encourage you to check out AYP? again at some point, just to see/hear if anything resonates differently than you may remember. It's often worth revisiting, in the fullness of time, even works one was lukewarm about in the first place.
ReplyDelete@Thrasher, thanks for the shout-outs. More NYA2 observations... LA Boys and Ocean Girls sounds like the beginnings of Danger Bird--fascinating how it started out so different. Letter From 'Nam clearly evolved into Long Walk Home... I suspect the Springfield instrumental "Slowly Burning" (NYA#1) was the first incarnation of this one, with lyrics that were seemingly never recorded but were show in the NYA#1 book.
I wonder if Everybody's Alone is essentially the "Time Fades Away 2.0" Neil discussed in (I think) Waging Heavy Peace? Or was he referring to Tuscaloosa? I ask because Everybody's Alone actually includes more of the original TfA songs, a few in alternate versions. Speaking of the Stray Gators, Last Trip to Tulsa works a treat in this form. Gives the line "I used to be a folk singer" a little more bite. Whereas on the acoustic versions, Neil still sounds a lot like a folk singer, the raw Stray Gators deliver a sense of an artist whose sound is in breakdown and flux.
As much as I'm enjoying the Gators/TFA material, however, Old Homestead may prove to be the highlight of the set. It's certainly the most packed disc thus far, running at 71 minutes. Three versions of Love/Art Blues somehow does not feel like overkill; my preference is for version two, track 15, but ymmv. I just love the slow, spacey feel and sparseness of the solo acoustic tracks...with all these songs about oceans and sailing, it feels like we're floating along.. then Pushed it over the End comes in. This was a clever mood, since the two CSN+Y electric cuts provide contrast and energy to a disc that some people might otherwise have found dull and samey.
Speaking of CSN+Y, their original recording of Human Highway is a tearjerker. I'm still trying to make some sense of why I responded so emotionally to it. The song has always been poignant, but this take, with just two acoustic guitars and those delicate, soft harmonies, really lifts it. Occasionally, Neil's country tunes run the risk of sounding like overly sentimental, twangy affectations, but just by slowing the song down a bit and going for a gentle arrangement, it transcends all those potential genre trappings to become a truly beautiful piece of music. Also, am I over analyzing, or is Neil singing a little lower than usual to blend better with CSN?
One final note: it's interesting to hear Winterlong side by side with the OtB cuts. Neil seems (quite rightfully) partial to the song, as he chose it for Decade and it has cropped up intermittently in set lists down the years, but I can sorta hear how it may not have been a close fit with the Ditch albums, and as I'm revisiting the NYA/Decade version for the first time in a while, I can't help wondering if they just never got the best possible take of this one? I remain fond of the Red Rocks version with vibes. As to Greensleeves, it's not something I ever expected to hear, but it's actually rather affecting. Hey, who said Sting is the only rocker who can pull off Renaissance music? (See the album "Songs from the Labyrinth" if that reference is lost on anyone.)
~Om Shanti.
ReplyDeleteIf Neil says that Toast reflected a relationship going sour, then it almost as if the touring of that time was part of that realisation. The 2001 Euro Horse tour debuted many of the Toast tracks with Pegi in the backing singer line-up along with the Horse.
And then links and moods between Toast, AYP? and Sleep with Angels all collided oh so briefly with the 5 Poncho & the MGs shows. I had the great fortune of being at Brixton Academy in May 2002 and have come to realise that it was my "Bottom Line" show - rare live outings and Neil in a real transition mode but utterly in control.
I'm not one for assuming that an artist lives their personal life on the stage, least of all Neil, but you can almost read this as a year long conversation - let's get away from home, see the sights, be with friends and colleagues but also lose ourselves in work.
What to make of a sequence of Differently, Sleeps with Angels, Are You Passionate? and then Goin' Home? It was thrilling to hear at Brixton and there must have been a compelling reason to include SWA 8 years after release and an even more compelling reason to go out to do these few shows in the first place - maybe one last try at healing with a different group of friends?
I can't say any of this was obvious in any way on stage, it's just what we now read on the Archives allows us to re-assess all these lesser known songs.
At the time I thought the real centrepiece was the Cortez, Let's Roll and Powderfinger sequence - the "violence" trilogy of sorts. The lame political criticism of Let's Roll especially was blown away by the realisation that it was simply a powerful modern retelling of Powderfinger, about people being placed a a desperate and hopeless situation, coming to terms with this and taking action, however doomed. Whilst Powderfinger gives the protagonist's lone act an epic musical cinemascopic treatment, Let's Roll has to deal with real people and treads an almost brooding documentary path. It was clear that No one has the answer, But one thing is true, You've got to turn on evil, When it's coming after you was hardly a ringing endorsement of Bush's foreign policy but a call for ordinary people to face down unimaginable hatred.
This show is now my absolute candidate for a Timeline Concert submission on the Archives for all the surprises and being a genuinely unique musical occasion.
And then the following year we got solo acoustic troubadour Greendale which sent us on a completely different musical journey.
Tony "Hambone" Hammond in the UK
Ian, I don't think so- honestly. There is such a thing as aesthetic criteria, clearly it has changed and remains somewhat flexible, which is probably what you are thinking of as "subjective." And art is finally about the universal in many and various ways. There is no escaping these basic points. The history of aesthetics bears out these points in so many ways it is useless to point them out.
ReplyDelete@Abner, I’m not sure precisely what you’re disagreeing with, since I put a lot in there. But the crux is, at what point—or under which guises—do “aesthetic criteria” become detrimental to the generation of new art and knowledge? For any easy example, look at all the dramas that bend or break Aristotle’s unities. Even if you believe knowledge is potentially finite—i.e. that there’s theoretical point when one would know “everything”—I suspect you’d agree we haven’t reached that point currently. That’s why it’s important not to present the criteria prescriptively, or proscriptively. As I have said, I think the main criterion currently, materially regulating which works can gain mass distribution is whether someone thinks they can sell it, and market value does not necessarily equate to artistic merit.
ReplyDeleteI’m all for articulating aesthetic criteria, as long as we acknowledge they are flexible and perhaps prone to growth and change. “Everything in the universe is unfinished”—Yoko Ono.
Total agreement, the problem was probably with my reading of your earlier comment. I just finished reading some Herder on radical difference in interpretation and translation. Aristotle's criteria for tragedy are still being used by some people and they are not even distinguishing between different forms of tragedy. I think my only worry is over losing criteria in the pursuit of legitimate criticism. So yes, we are not disagreeing.
ReplyDelete@ Ian: Thanks for the Yoko Ono quote, I love her approach to the arts on many different levels.
ReplyDeleteAs far as articulating aesthetic criteria, well that my friends is an eight headed monster. How someone articulates anything is purely based on the individual doing the articulating, and that is completely based only on what they know. Some people know more than others. That certainly doesn’t make them better than someone else, it just means some people have studied the subject material in more depth.
I’ll use “life” as example. We humans have over centuries curated a definition of the criteria we use to recognize and determine what constitutes as “life”, and what’s not. Yet I feel that this particular definition may always be limited. Limited to what we know right now, and how we came to that particular definition. We don’t identify a rock as a living organism, but it may be that we simply haven’t found a way to actually determine whether a rock is a living organism. Humans are constantly learning and developing technology that continues to challenge our understanding of pretty much everything around us. Maybe how we define what “life” is still a work in progress.
When it comes to the criteria of articulating aesthetics, that ultimately becomes a matter of personal taste. Therefore, there is no right or wrong definition. The criteria is based on a person’s knowledge of the subject matter, or the lack there of. “Everything in the universe is unfinished”—Yoko Ono.
P.S. Please feel free to tell me I’ve completely missed the point of the conversation, as I have had a rough day.
Peace 🙏
@Dan, I wouldn't say you missed the point, and I hope you have a better day tomorrow. Also, glad to find another appreciator of Yoko! It usually feels like there aren't terribly many of us, so you've assuaged a bit of my self-consciousness in even mentioning her name on a rock music blog.
ReplyDelete@Abner, Thanks for the clarifications. We're moving in somewhat different streams, so I'm not familiar with Herder. However, when it comes to radical differences of interpretation, it's always worth asking what we view as "radical" and what exactly are the stakes of someone else having a divergent interpretation of a given work at a particular time and place? I mean interpretation in the critical or literary sense, not a language interpreter in the cultural, business, or diplomatic arenas.
Translation seems like a different issue, since one of the goals in translating a text should be fidelity to the meaning of the original text as the translator understands it. In that sense, there could be serious issues with distorting a text's content, whether through ignorance or deliberate manipulation for ulterior motives. The word "interpretation" usually implies some creative license on the part of the one doing the interpreting, whereas a translation is supposed to be as close an approximation of the original content as possible, based only on linguistic knowledge. In either case, subjectivity will inevitably creep in, but it's helpful to keep the two terms distinct. I would particularly consider any divergent usage of the word "translation" to be less than precise.
Herder was Kant's student and became a very important person in the development of philosophy of language, linguistics, etc. The radical difference thesis is quite specific and it is an implication of his view that thought is bound by language (which he defends in detail). To simplify, thinking goes on with concepts and concepts, for Herder, are words. The meaning of words (concepts) depend on their use (here he foreshadows Wittgenstein by 200 years). Word use is then analyzed as very flexible, even having differences from person to person, creating some really interesting and difficult issues in translation. Currently, in my seminar, I have a first rate poet and translator auditing and she has a great deal of experience translating poetry from Spanish and several other languages into english. I have been drawing on pretty thick and definitely real examples from anthropology, Native American people who could not understand (fully) the western european concept of property (that was founded with Locke) and, on the other side of the coin, the western european people totally failing to comprehend the Native American concept of nature. This particular story leads to horrific crimes against humanity that are still going on today. we are about to discuss some good essays on hate speech. For Herder, and for us, getting these things right and working on the empathy that is required for a meticulous methodology is literally a matter of life and death and the survival of peoples.
ReplyDeleteThis is why the issues matter so much to me. There is a right way to interpret and translate but it is not so easy as many think it is. The danger is that we will simply assimilate the meaning of texts and spoken language to whatever we ourselves are thinking- thereby obliterating the reality of other people.
ReplyDelete@ Abner: I spent 16 years as a tour guide in Sedona Az. and my favorite tour was a trip to an ancient cliff dwelling believed to have been built by the ancestors of the Hopi. The site was filled with petroglyphs and pictographs and everyone always wanted me to give them a specific interpretation of what each symbol meant. Obviously that was impossible as even the Hopi elders rarely agreed on a definitive interpretation. These symbols are not only similar throughout the southwest, but around the world as well. Spirals, concentric circles, animal figures, human figures, the moon and sun, just to name a few of the thousands of different imagery.
ReplyDeleteMy studies revealed that the interpretation would be different for the Navajo, the Zuni and the Hopi. Dozens of different tribes had different spirituality and ceremonies, and many of the symbols were connected to their traditions, which all differ greatly. You mentioned the difficulty the indigenous peoples had with the idea of property. The tribes that helped educated me have no concept of owning land, they often say that their land was stolen, which it was. But it wasn’t about owning it, but it was that they were part of that land. In today’s world many people think the opposite. To the native cultures, the land was sacred, but they too had conflicts over land just like every other culture. So it is extremely difficult to interpret to someone unfamiliar with how unique each tribe is from another. Every person I guided through the site expected a black and white explanation, and there simply isn’t one.
Ultimately it requires years of study to begin to understand, which can be difficult for someone unfamiliar with all the specific tribes in this one small part of the country. For them, Earth is referred to as the Mother, the giver of life and sustainability, and the sky is the Father watching over his children. A Navajo elder explained to me that when they would performed a sky burial, which involved building a wooden platform to place the body on, and set it ablaze to cremate the physical body. It would then release the spirit from the physical world to the spiritual world. He told me that when you hear the wind blowing through the trees, the sound you hear are the voices of their ancestors. The western mind finds this difficult to understand, but it is their interpretation.
This is just one example of the difficulties in interpretation that I experienced.
Peace 🙏
Thoroughly engaging and fascinating example Dan. Great stuff.
ReplyDeleteThank you Abner, you and Ian are always stirring up some fascinating subject matter that really gets me thinking. I enjoy hearing both of you going back and forth about some interesting subjects.
ReplyDeleteBy the way, the traditional Sky Burial is mostly credited to the Tibetan culture, but that was how the cremation tradition was explained to me back in the day.
Peace 🙏
Abner, Thanks for the refresher re: Herder. So in the context you’re referring to, distortions and lacunae can directly cause serious, traumatic material consequences. On the other hand, imaginative critical reinterpretation can give voice and focus to the experiences, needs, and rights of disenfranchised and marginalized peoples—for instance, queer or postcolonial rereadings of Shakespeare (The Tempest has actually been read as a representation imperialism, particularly in the relationship of Prospero and Caliban).
ReplyDeleteThe point being, in the sphere of arts and cultural productions, interpretations or readings some would consider “radical” be turned to constructive, progressive projects. If art didn’t have this kind of positive potential, why not disregard the field of aesthetics altogether as so much “bourgeois”, ludic frivolity? In other words, are we Plato or Aristotle in our approach to valuing the arts in public discourse?
Thanks, Dan, for your spot-on observations—your input here is truly appreciated.
@ Abner, Meta Rocker, Dan - you guys are really joy to have around here.
ReplyDeleteReally thought provoking comments. So much wheat, so little chaff.
It is an honor and a privilege to host this blog with the high quality discourse that goes on here.
we learn, we grow, we share.
repeat
Thanks so much Thrasher. I don't get many chances to share with such great people like Ian and Dan. Ian is right that the other side of my coin is better understanding. But this is reached only through intense work. I hope all of you are well and getting through this shit.
ReplyDeleteNow, you guys are really amazing, discussing Herder, whose writings I teach at school, Herder being a key figure in the development of classical German literature. My students and I even made a rub-off (or frottage) of his grave plate inside the church in Weimar that he administered.
ReplyDeleteBack in the 80's I spent a couple of months shepherding on the big rez, living with a traditional Dineh family for a while and later on together with others we hosted Hopi elder Thomas Banyacya on several occasions here in Europe. Banyacya being the spokesperson for some traditional Hopi had a rather apocalyptical interpretation for some of the petroglyphs on Hopi Lands, not everything in his teachings being my cup of tea. Thus in the early days of the anti-nuclear movement in Europe indigenous persons became important witnesses for our struggle against this industry.
I am just stunned by how some of my superficial, but biographical coincidences intersect with what is written down in this online conversation above.
@ Dionys - our dear friend that we've never seen ...
ReplyDelete1st, thanks again for the marvelous Greendale brochure. It is invaluable to this site and the full comprehension of the Greendale philosophy. fyi, see https://thrasherswheat.org/2003/greendale-brochure-photos.htm
re:, "I am just stunned by how some of my superficial, but biographical coincidences intersect with what is written down in this online conversation above."
we call those synchronicities here @ TW. Like you, we have seen mind boggling biographical coincidences intersecting here @ TW. See
http://neilyoungnews.thrasherswheat.org/2016/03/comments-of-moment-synchronicity-of.html
or
the image of Thrasher Road sign & Wheat's Landscaping sign we took one serendipitous day just a few blocks away.
http://neilyoungnews.thrasherswheat.org/2015/01/happy-neil-year-is-2015-year-we-find.html
Which can only lead us to 2 conclusions. There are divine higher powers out there guiding our little rust community. Or something has some really great AI they're goofing us all with.
Dionys, I wish I could have gone on that field trip!
ReplyDeleteThe excursion to Weimar was about exploring the universe of the German classics. For a week I had the students (12th graders and older) dressed up in 18th century clothes, dancing menuets in these old palaces, doing interviews with Goethe, Herder & Company, using horse drawn carriages to get around, documenting grave stones and putting our hands on original manuscripts at the vast archives and libraries there.
ReplyDeleteDoing tthis grave stone thing became an obsession with me. So I started my own Dead Poets Society, which today also includes the heroes of my early and present days: Melville, Cooper, Clemens, Kerouac, the jazz musicians buried at the Bronx Woodlawn Cemetery, Hannah Arendt, Rick Danko and Levon Helms, Lovecraft, to name a few of the American branch. One day this will go on exhibition and the stones will begin to speak to each other...
If you should ever come this way once we are through with the pandemia let me know.
Thanks, all, for your wonderful input and insights here. “A person with only one theory is lost. He must have several... as if they were newspapers, always the latest... If one is to get on, one needs to know that there are lots of theories.” -Bertolt Brecht.
ReplyDeleteWow, this is so cool. You can bet I will look you up. I am getting a vaccine on Friday!
ReplyDelete# Abner,
ReplyDeleteI am serious. A vaccination might not be enough at this point. Travel restrictions apply in Germany regardless of being vaccinated or not. But if you make it to Munich one day you are welcome and if you are adventurous anything might be possible.