The pay off came quickly for the members of the Neil Young Archives Patron tier.
With the recent announcement of Neil Young Archives Membership Tiers: Rust & Patron, more details have been forthcoming on the features and perks of membership. Yesterday, NYA Patron tier members were invited to an exclusive Zoom meeting with the NYA Team and Neil Young himself. Neil spent about a half hour personally answering questions from over 200+ NYA Patrons.
From a comment posted on "I watched the needle take another man": Neil Young Takes The Jab by Greyrider:
The patron call was a lovely surprise and very homespun.
Neil answered questions submitted in the chat that were then asked to him by moderator Bonnie and a few other of the NYA team. Takeaways to share the love with you all:
- Neil looks great.
- The NYA team all seem like a wonderful group of people.
- NYA III will span the period from late 1976 to the early 90s(!).
- NYA III will come available in CD or Blu-Ray(!). All music on the CDs will be on the Blu-Rays as well.
- Noise + Flowers at the end of this year. It sounds like a tribute to Elliott.
- Boarding House may be package, with a movie (!), entire show and a collection that Neil is working on with Niko and Joel. He is listening to it now and looks like a 2022 release.
- Neil is releasing so much, so quickly, because he wants to control it and do it his way.
- Neil is not sure if 60-0 should go on Road of Plenty or be released separately. He doesn't feel it fits Road of Plenty but because we are all nagging him to release it (letters to the editor work!) he is seriously considering it anyway.
- If not there, he talked about this cool idea of a 33 single made to look like a 45 with 60-0 on one side and Ordinary People on the other. Sweet.
- Neil wants to get back in the studio in June with Nils(!).
Stay safe everyone. Get vaccinated. Spring is here and we can start dreaming about going back to gigs and doing normal stuff like hugging.
Thanks so much for the report GreyRider! Definitely all T-Bone and little mashed potatoes, if you catch our drift.
UPDATE: More details in comments below.
So thrilled for all the members of the Neil Young Archives Patron tier! It certainly is a new day for Neil fans after earlier decades of a virtual info drought.
Also, see recent announcement of Neil Young Archives Membership Tiers: Rust & Patron.
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".
"A Rusties Holy Grail"
It was a wonderful experience to spend a little time with Neil yesterday, I asked two questions, and although Neil wasn’t presented with them he ended up answering them anyway. I love his idea of 60-0 being a 12” 33 1/3 rpm single with Ordinary People as a B side. He said he wanted the record label to be a 45rpm adapter similar to what you see as NYA is loading. At the end, Neil asked the team to unmute everyone and the sound of ( what I saw listed on the screen as 248 people) all yelling at the same time. It was hilarious.
ReplyDeleteLooking forward to what comes next......Thanks Neil ❤️
Peace 🙏
..... P. S. I am over the moon that Archives III will be available on BluRay and CD separately. Neil knows it’s so much better sound quality than DVD. 👍
ReplyDeletePeace 🙏
So cool Dan.
ReplyDeleteGlad you and so many other rusties connected on such short notice.
It does seem that despite all of the troubles in these Times, the best is being made of it by many.
it gives us hope and let's us dream
peace
I regret having missed this meeting!!! I'm sick of spending my life in meetings on Zoom or Teams but this would have been a great joy!!!
ReplyDeleteYoung Shakespeare is available on NYA and also, big surprise, the concert on 9 July 2019 in Antwerp with POTR ! I was there and it was fantastic (better than the next day in Amsterdam)...With a totally unexpected On The Beach. Several excerpts from the concert will be released on Noise and Flowers at the end of 2021...
@phil I was at Antwerp and Amsterdam too, plus Hyde Park, amazing few days. Great to hear On The Beach in HiRes.
ReplyDeleteRight! In the usual tradition, I've written some bits and pieces on Young Shakespeare, ahead of release day of Friday. Posting shortly.
ReplyDeleteFirstly though, did anyone here actually attend the Shakespeare gigs back in '71? Any memories to share?
Scotsman.
Thanks Scotsman! Looking fwd to your thoughts as always.
ReplyDeleteNot many of us left from the days that used to be. Certainly not us. A bit too young and out of our area.
incidentally, as we don't really have any posts lined up on YS as yet, feel free to share thoughts directly @ thrasher ATSIGN thrasherswheat.org
maybe bypass the CotM committee?! ;)
Thrasher: have sent my ramblings directly via carrier pigeon. I will unleash them on the unfortunate masses here when you set up a dedicated Young Shakespeare post.
DeleteRight - it's my bedtime. Night everyone!
Scotsman.
Were there any European patrons involved? I did not get an e-mail message. Maybe they take it a bunch at the time? And then there is the time difference. "I need a crowd of people, but I can't face them day to day" might still be true if it comes down to stomach that crowd right after breakfast.
ReplyDeleteWhat a great development in the unveiling of the tiers! Thanks for passing along the goodies, Patrons. Just got a reply from NYA about Rust Bucket DVD audio quality replacements. Send an email to mailto:NYDVDReplacements@wmgcustomerservice.com with your name and address, a photo of the DVD or of your receipt, and the name of the store where you bought it.
ReplyDeleteHot Dog! It looks like my incessant bitching about the lack of Blu ray format may have paid off after all! I would not be surprised if NYA2 was eventually sold on Blu ray also. Alan in Seattle
ReplyDelete@Dionys I'm in the EU and so do not think the patron email was limited by country. Just fortunate I happened to check my inbox 15 mins before the call...
ReplyDelete@tomatron Thanks for the info on DVD. Huge help!
@Scotsman love your in-depth analysis of new releases. Sort of thing that makes this blog special.
@thrasher thank you most of all. You should be made an honourary NYA patron...
@Dionys - glancing at the chat questions they were coming in from all places - Germany, UK and saw a few Scandinavian names too. The timing of the call (7pm UK time = 12am Pacific) seemed to be covering all bases when I guess the main fanbase in the North America & Europe would be available during the day or evening.
ReplyDelete@Thrasher & Everyone - apologies for the catch my drift comment. I was genuinely in excited shock after the call and when no one else posted I began to wonder if I had dreamt the whole thing. I do not get to break news like that - it doesn't happen to me. So the comment was almost a feeler - if no one knew what this was about I'd know I was dreamin man. Will be more up front next time.
Am I being cynical in suggesting this may be a move to get more people to sunscribe to the Patron tier?
ReplyDelete@ Scotsman - got it. working on committee approval as we speak. ;)
ReplyDelete@ tomatron - thanks, we'll try and get up soon more prominently.
@ Alan in Seattle - the squeaky wheel winds again!
@ Greyrider - thanks for suggestion. truly appreciated.
we're a bit torn on accepting anything from NYA, labels, etc. as bizarre as it might seem, we do try and walk the line of fan blog & music journalism with a modicum of independence.
by paying our own way here @ TW on albums, subscriptions, tickets, etc, we're not under any obligation to hold back on criticisms or be captured by promotional demands.
@ Hambone - no apologies whatsoever.
likewise, our toss off was w/o malice, but rather the joy of NYA sharing so much.
another chapter in a beautful relationship, if you catch our drift.
we're all just dreamin men.
@ darlobuc - speaking as a recovering cynic, we think not. seems genuine.
NYA is a business and makes sense to be in touch w/ core customer base. Sure, there's a marketing angle. but isn't everything?
[he inquired cynically]
***
ReplyDeletelastly, thanks HtH & RB!
THE ZOOM CALL
NYU OFFICIAL THREAD via Robert Broadfoot.
So Neil is due back in the studio on June 20th with Nils and....
Here is the pick of the new information which Neil shared on his suprise Zoom call with NYA Patrons today. I hope I haven't missed anything important. If so, please add in the comments.
° Archives Vol. 3 will cover a wider span than we all thought and will run from late 1976 to early 1990 (!) and be “bigger than all the other ones”. It will come in a Blu-ray and a CD-edition, the former with a lot of movies.
° Neil is really excited about Toast. He describes it jokingly as being “part of our PTSD Series” – a record so good you can only afford to listen to it once!
° Eldorado was never on analogue tape. It was “sourced on CD-level from the dark ages of digital sound”.
° Neil says he is putting so much stuff out now because he really wants to be able himself to “control how they are”… “I don’t want to have a lot of other people doing that stuff.” If you want them, they will be there, he says. You don’t have to buy them. You can always buy them later or even not at all, just listen to them on NYA, he says.
° Outtakes will not be offered for download: “No, that’s why they’re outtakes. They are lucky to have gotten this far!”
° The Boarding House release on Vol. 3 looks like it will be (edit) one complete show as a movie “with no cuts”, from May 25, 1978 (though he didn’t say if it is the early or the late show) PLUS a Joel Bernstein audio-only compilation separately from the other shows. Neil admits he was a little nervous at first and made lots of mistakes. He was just starting to work with a small microphone attached to his harmonica holder, roaming around the stage, so “I couldn’t hide behind the microphone”.
° Timeline Concerts are coming “as fast as we can” but there are a lot of processes involved – converting analogue tape to digital and then preparing for hi-res streaming etc. etc. “Every couple of weeks” there should be a new one, “some weeks there’ll be more than one.”
° Johnny’s Island was made with “an acoustic version” of the Trans Band, “one of the most polished and finished records I ever made”. (Note: Originally, he said it was a different project to Island In The Sun, the record always said to have been offered to Geffen but which was rejected. It now seems Neil sees Johnny’s Island as being that rejected record.)
° Talking about possible lineups for future shows, Neil mentioned Poncho Sampedro, how fit he is swimming every day “250 days in a row”, and somehow implying that Poncho’s coming out of retirement at some point might not be totally out of the question. However, he also spoke of “maybe another tour with Nils or a combination of people. Micah Nelson would be great in Crazy Horse too.”
° But he said: “Nils will probably be the one who’s there when we go back in the studio”, and he even mentioned June 20 as a specific date. (Note: Full moon would be June 24!)
° Talking about the 18-minute version of Sixty To Zero: “I think we are going to put it on Road To Plenty… On the other hand, I can see this in my head…” and he went on to describe his vision of a maxi single running at 33 1/3 rpm with Ordinary People on one side and Sixty To Zero on the other and the label showing an image of a 45 rpm single adaptor, like the NYA logo. But Sixty To Zero “is a monster of its own, kinda stands on its own…”. I must say I like the idea of a big single, Neil. Go for it!
darlobuc -- I don't think so. It seemed like a genuine "hey, thanks" and Neil went straight to q&a. No sales pitch, or "tell all your friends." It was informal and low-key.
ReplyDelete>darlobuc said...
>Am I being cynical in suggesting this may be a move to get more people to sunscribe to the >Patron tier?
Ugh-I saw the email about the Zoom and then spaced it out until right when it was ending, so, did Neil talk about the expanded Ragged Glory, “Smell The Horse?” Does anyone know of a possible tirade date for that project?
ReplyDeleteSo exciting to hear all of the news. I am more excited in the Blu Ray audio on NYA3 than the movies, but I am prepared to be dazzled and amazed. Great times for us Hard Core Neil Young fans. Now if you'll excuse me, I must go play Young Shakespeare for the first time from my hard copy. I have only heard a song or two so far. Massey Hall was so killer; this is gonna be great! No reviews before I listen, of course! LOL. Alan in Seattle
ReplyDeletePS, @Thrasher, it seems Neil is paying attention to our discourse on your Blog. I am glad you are independent. We promote Neil partly because he is the Real Deal and he is not that into promoting himself. Evidence: Look at the quirky products for sale at Greedy Hand. The Homegrown stuff is super cool but there have been a lot of cryptic and otherwise not very "fetching" designs. i seem to recall a bizarre "Hitchhiker" product which was sure to turn anyone off. That Neil, such a Contrarian! Long live Neil Young!
Thanks Thrasher and Thrashette
@darlobuc I did think the same, however given he has put nothing on the front page of NYA about the call I genuinely think it was a spur of the moment decision, certainly felt like that on the call. I'm still buzzing about it 3 days later, worth the upgrade price on its own.
ReplyDeleteI'm a European Patron who was invited by email, three hours before the event. The message said: 'These calls will generally come on short notice.'
ReplyDeleteNeil answered my question about his favourite venues by saying that he didn't really have any, but then proceeded to mention the Rainbow theatre in London for having a good vibe. The Rainbow was originally built as a cinema, and is now a church: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rainbow_Theatre
Rob Hogendoorn