Comment of the Moment #2: NYA FIRST LISTEN/WATCH: ‘Way Down In The Rust Bucket’ - Neil Young w/ Crazy Horse
"My Country Home"
Neil Young & Crazy Horse
Catalyst Club, 1990 via Neil Young Archives
(More on TW @ RUST BUCKET PREMIERE TODAY: "Country Home" - Neil Young & Crazy Horse, 1990 Rehearsals | NYA )
Rapturous shouts of joy continue to pour out across rustdale and into TW.
A somewhat not atypical comment on hearing and watching ‘Way Down in the Rust Bucket’:
"You ever see little kids bouncing forward and back on a couch?
That's what this record has me doing haha."
As the "Inextinguishable Scotsman" declared succinctly: "RUST BUCKET: the sound of Ragged Glory transforming into Weld."
So here is our TW Comment of the Moment on NYA FIRST LISTEN/WATCH: ‘Way Down In The Rust Bucket’ - Neil Young w/ Crazy Horse by Dan S.:
No surprise; I completely agree with Scotsman’s observations.
Like Alan, I actually like the fading between songs, as it honors each individual performance. The obvious joy that is evident here is contagious, and as Neil has said,”they were smoking some incredible weed that night”, yet every song (for me anyway) is a highlight. I can’t think of another live concert recording where every single song is a highlight, although Talking Heads, Stop Making Sense comes pretty darn close.
Without question, my favorite officially released live Crazy Horse recording. That could change with the Alchemy Box of course, as the pure joy experienced on that stage at Red Rocks on that tour was palatable to everyone there. They were genuinely happy that night, as they were on this show. Really looking forward to that release.
Neil’s guitar work is completely off the charts, with uncanny moments of contrast and relief, allowing layers of emotional intensity with a master’s touch. Vocally relaxed and confident. Nobody’s in a hurry, it’s such a relaxed and loose performance. This show also illustrates the subtle impact of Poncho. With his ability to play with grounded positivity is inspiring, always leaving room exactly when it’s required.
Billy and Ralph are both committed throughout the show, and it’s inspiring to hear the joy they both share when the pocket never waivers.
The Deluxe Edition is beautifully presented. Sturdy cardboard outer box, much like the Deluxe Return to Greendale, there is an embossed number on the back. Inside, each of the four LP’s are sealed in shrink wrap, as are both the CD and DVD. The pressings are perfect on every level, perfectly flat, and absolutely no surface noise. Thanks to Chris Bellman the vinyl mastering is remarkable, as is usual with his amazing ear for detail. The running time for the two CD’s totals 2 hours and 34 seconds, but the DVD says on the back, running time 3 hours and 52 minutes. So the pause between songs may have to do with fitting all the songs in the correct sequence on four albums, minus Cowgirl. I’m just guessing of course, perhaps it was more to do with aesthetics.
I’m looking forward to watching the DVD (although BluRay would have improved the sound quality), but we have a sick cat that needs to see a vet today. He’s 17 1/2 years old, so we may be saying goodbye to our sweet friend. Then I have to take my mother in law to get her first COVID vaccine ( she’s 88).
So hopefully later tonight I’ll have a chance to watch the whole concert.
Can’t wait.
Peace 🙏
Thanks as always for the thoughts on the Horse and the Rust Dan!
Really sorry to hear about your cat. 17 years is quite a long run. Good luck and maybe your cat has another life or 2 somewhere? And good luck with your mother in law, as well. Enjoy your Saturday night!
So -- as we often like to say to anyone who cares to listen and hear: "May The Horse Be With You & Yours!"
. Thank you!!!)
They'll be calling this "The Rust Bucket Miracle" long after we're gone over how the 1st concert performance of "Danger Bird" was filmed with 6 cameras and soundboard audio. Thank you L.A. !!!
As we
mentioned yesterday, somehow, we have to think that 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?
Labels: @NeilYoungNYA, #CrazyHorse4HOF, #DontSpookTheHorse, #InductTheHorse, #MayTheHorseBeWithYou, #MoreBarn, album, concert, crazy horse, neil young
by thrasher@PermaLink: 2/27/2021 01:54:00 PM
14 comments
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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.