Oh To Live on Sugar Mountain's Setlist Database & All Things Neil Young
So you've been a data miner for a Heart of Gold, eh?
Then if so, then presumably you're not "Lost in Rock
Formations" and actually living on Sugar Mountain.
And if so, then you must be aware of "some lesser-known features of the Sugar Mountain website @ www.sugarmtn.org.
No, you say?
Well then, be sure to check article on Members| Times-Contrarian | Neil Young Archives by Robert Broadfoot:
Many think of the Sugar Mountain website as ‘just’ the definitive listing of Neil’s live performances and setlists to date – which of course it is.
But there is so much more information there, and so many more great features which many may not know about. Here then, together with direct links, is a selection of some of the most interesting of those lost ‘rock formations’.
Check them out!
Examples include:
- Timeline Concerts Locator
- Neil Young Song Raps
- Neil Young’s singles, compilation albums and more
This is Robert Broadfoot's (facebook.com/groups/ny.unreleased) third in a series of features based on the fascinating information to be found at www.sugarmtn.org .
Thrasher (Thrashers Wheat), Scott Sandie (Broken Arrow Magazine | NYAS) & Tom Hambleton (Sugar Mountain | Neil Young Setlists)
(* We just missed Roel of RustRadio.org by a minute for a full RUST Quartet!)
Labels: neil young archives, setlist, sugar mountain
21 Comments:
Sugar Mountain is great for discovering when a song was first played live, or working out songs that have never been played live.
I also really like the library of Broken Arrow issues that you can find on there. I haven't read them all yet, but I will.
Good point on Broken Arrow back issues Steve.
Sugar Mountain is really a gold mine and all rusties owe Tom a huge debt of gratitude for maintaining over the decades.
Thanks for readin' & Keep on rockin'!
thrasher
More thoughts while exploring these long-awaited official bootlegs: the first time I listened to the full show track of Royce Hall, I didn’t notice that the songs were in a slightly different order. The main release of Royce Hall places See The Sky About To Rain in the middle of the set, when in actuality it was near the end, same as Dorothy Chandler. They must have moved it up to make it fit better on a vinyl side. Was it like this on the original unauthorized boot? I still can’t find any evidence of Royce Hall’s previous recorded existence.
Interesting too that these shows (thanks sugarmtn.org) do have identical setlists with the exception of Down By The River having been removed for the final performance of the tour. I had previously noted that Royce Hall feels more rushed than Dorothy Chandler, and indeed if we look at the runtime of the two official releases, Royce Hall is a minute shorter but includes one more song. Based on these observations, I feel like Neil purposely cut DBTR to give the songs room to breathe and therefore perfect the setlist for that final show at the Music Pavilion. Some examples of the result of this edit are moderately slower tempos on a few tracks and a looser Cowgirl In The Sand with its cool and dreamy instrumental break in the middle. Nice!
good points here Tomatron. Thanks for sharing.
yes, recall yours and others making comments about which boots are essential. Helpful to know.
Interesting on DBTR and vinyl timings. Probably right.
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# wsanjose01
maybe i missed out on something, but I do not see how you could have been part in a "mass exodus". I check in here regularly and came to the conclusion that at the moment people have to deal with more important things: temperatures here (Bavaria) are in their 100's this early in the year, cost of living is exploding, The Rolling Stones playing Munich, the war in Ukraine, natural gas being shut down in many European countries, and, according to the former 45-ambassador to Denmark, the Danish royal family now has to use bicycles to get around because they can't afford the sky-rocketing gas prices. (Incomewise and regarding the GDP Denmark is among the top ten countries world-wide; how can somebody live there as an US ambassador for a whole 4 years and not even notice that?)
And everybody is awaiting "Toast" and the further roll-out of Archives III, "Smell the Horse", the new CH album, the missing bootlegs ("The High Flying Ducks"!) and what have you.
So if you do not want to drool about the things to come, you maybe keep quiet, either because you feel embarrassed about your selfish little needs and wants (me) or because you can't afford to spend that much on the avalanche imminent (many others).
@ Dionys - thanks for effort here.
It looks like wsanjose01 has deleted their original comment which you replied to.
yes & no on missed out on something, we really do not want to get into a big rehash here on comments, policy, behavior, etc.
But simply put, this blog supports free speech. That said, our comment policy is simply put:
"Our House, Our Rules" (In the 'Spirit of 1776', of course)
Obviously, over the decades and 1000's of comments, there have been all sorts of behavior here.
But it does seem that there was some level of coordination amongst various commenters around various subjects. Please be aware that what happens on the net, lives forever.
IOW, while wsanjose01 may have deleted their comment, we read it, saved and have archived. Just like every single TW comment in history.
so please don't F w/ the wheat.
As you mention, there is a lot going on in the world more important than Neil's comings and goings. We have tried very hard these past few years to stay on track w/ our mission.
But it becomes increasingly difficult in this atmosphere of repression and suppression.
Our main challenge right now is that all of our outbound emails end up in SPAM folders or are never delivered.
So in terms of privately communicating w/ Alan in Seattle, or Dan or Jonathan or Ian, we have little choice but to use this platform.
So to all of our Neil brothers and sisters out there -- lost or otherwise -- we love and miss you dearly more than words can convey.
We will still always honor our pledge to buy a round of beers at the Neil summit for Alan and Jonathan and anyone else who attends. Hopefully a CH reunion tour concert.
So peace to all of our Neil brothers and sisters.
And happy Father's day as well.
Be the Wheat.
Keep Calm, No Fear & Keep on Rockin'!
(pss .. here's how ...)
Nothing can impact your legacy. I am but a dust mote floating lazily in a partially shaded room.
Sugar Mtn. Best setlist website ever. Neil probably uses it as a part of his research. :-)
NYA + Sugar Mtn is the killer combination for Neil Fandom. Can't have one without the other. On the one hand, it would be so ripe for NYA to take over SM and integrate it with NYA. On the other hand, I do not think they would do as good a job as the SM creator is doing.
Occasionally the Archives team has made references to the vast and most accurate Sugar Mountain data base and I'm sure that Tom Hambleton could tell more than one tale from behind the scenes. The fact that he doesn't might be based on very good reasons. Even if the Archives brought new transparency and insight concerning the hero's life, music, and circumstances I prefer to rely on and entertain myself with more or less independent sources. Even a ephemeral activity like fandom only can profit from a checks and balance system. While neither TW nor SM are NYA's explicit antagonists, they are more like complementaries. I believe that the structure is healthier if the artist's representation and the most knowledgable audience observe certain lines of separation. A concert with the audience on stage might be fun for those on-stage, it's not for the rest of the audience who primarily did come to see and hear the artist (and later discuss their experience with others over a beer or on the internet).
Noise & Flowers pre-orders are on greedy hand - release date 5 August
Dionys and others, my recent absence due to a wedding in France (and then some travel), celebration for our son and his spouse, and finally and perhaps inevitably getting COVID. Absolutely NO ONE was wearing a mask in Paris. Fortunately, the illness did not last long. But the few days I was sick, not pleasant.
And then the rest? Whatever time I have had in the last few days, I have spent watching the January 6 hearings and now today? Once again, we are a laughing stock and a near theocracy. Too much to think about.
I am, however, quite excited about the 13 minute song Chevrolet, can't wait to hear it, although I have to admit I really hope it is not some fossil fuel protest song.
Congratulations to your son and his partner, and the proud parents, of course. Mask discipline has waned significantly all over Europe, I guess. Hereabouts it is still mandatory in public transport, but not at mass entertainment events. Everybody wants "their life back", while it is an obvious banality that one can't swim the same river twice.
My first American car was a Chevrolet Caprice station wagon that took me swimming on muddy near dirt roads to Yellowknife, NWT. So "Chevrolet" could be a half-ironic nostalgia song as well, I clearly remember that there was a NY song of that kind... I remember singing it for myself in that Chevy on the endless drive through a midsummer night to the north because the car just had AM radio.
Noise & Flowers will be a treat although I am somewhat disappointed that there is not even one of the Munich tracks on it. As someone pointed out on a German website (Rusted Moon) the listing of locations on the published cover art is not correct. "Fucking Up" was not played at Berlin's Waldbühne, it made its appearance on several dates down the road, however, among them Munich. Neil Young's comment on NYA on the Munich show was almost euphoric back then, but maybe that was surpassed by his perception of the following Antwerpen show a couple of days later being even better.
As for recent political developments: scratching and shaking our heads.
As for the error in the tracklisting maybe bumper stickers should be issued (as seen before on the original Trans-Cover).
My senior year of high school (summer) got a great job on a house-framing crew, $6 an hour under the table. I paid my tuition, which was $714 a semester (1978, University of Massachusetts at Amherst), and bought a 1968 Chevrolet half ton pick up (a C-10) with a three speed standard transmission ("three in tree"). It had a rebuilt engine and a new clutch. It ran and ran and ran. Damn. Chevrolet!!
Hyundai the Horrible took me to Amherst, had to get a rub-off of E. Dickinson's grave stone. It came off nicely but the iron-cast grid shielding the stone gave me some trouble. Somewehere in that cemetary homeless persons had left behind their cardboard sleeping pads and empty cans. There were some deer wandering about the cemetary reminding me of a verse in "Sixty to Zero".
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It was Hyundai the Horrible which took us to Amherst's graveyard. I had to get a rub-off of Emily Dickinson's head stone. It came off nicely although the cast iron grid shielding the stone's front gave me some trouble. It was getting dark already and in the corner of my eye I noticed several cardboard makeshift sleeping pads and empty cans some homeless had left behind. Two deer were wandering among the dead and I felt reminded of a verse in "Sixty to Zero".
Abner,
Well we may have been within a few hundred miles of each other as I have just returned from a trip to Amsterdam visiting old friends for the first time in 2½ years, which has kept me away from the computer froa a few weeks.
Congratulations to the family on the wedding and glad your Covid was short & sharp. I caught it in time for my birthday in April and though it seemed mild the recovery period has been noticeably protracted. Didn't stop us having a good time in Holland though. Masks were rare in Amsterdam, though I find the city so open and airy, even the indoor spaces, that I didn't feel at risk.
Oddly I had a similar insight to Dionys into curating an artist's work whilst at the Van Gogh museum - which we hadn't visited for several years and has had a major refit. Alongside the traditional life and great works of the artist displays there was an exhibition called "Why So Serious?" where 5 young Dutch people focused on the lighter side of art and selected Van Gogh pieces that they found amusing. Given the traditional tragic artist who died young narrative that forms the core of the museum, it was a refreshing alternative view. There was one piece called "A Crab on It's Back" which was almost completely different from the standard Van Gogh image - it was inspired by Japanese prints in vibrant reds on a green background - I could see similarities with the colour palette of Studio Ghibli animations.
It's good that sideways views of any important artists are given an airing every once in a while to freshen and challenge our outlook. I enjoy hearing from younger fans here whose first encounter with Neil was, say, with Mirror Ball or Fork in the Road rather than the traditional classics to stop us getting too caught up in a mythic past.
I rather hope some of the new songs take a similar sideways approach to Eco themes rather than a full on direct assault like Who's Gonna Stand Up. A 13 minute Thrasheresque/Ambulance Blues meditation on the lure and image of the classic car meeting the consequences of driving it would be something worth hearing.
Two weeks to Toast!
Tony Hambone in the UK
Thanks all for comments!
Looks like a great summer for Neil music. Let's hope we get a concert announcement for Farm Aid and some warm ups to top off the releases planned.
Tony Hambone,
I really enjoyed your comments. The sojourn to Amsterdam sounds great.
You have a lot going on with the car idea. The automobile was and continues to be a multi-symbol for freedom, prestige, power, even as it was once heralded as "the great social leveler" (which, of course, did not happen). Maybe Neil has tapped into some of this rich soil. He would be the one to do it.
Connection: my wife and I went to Arles and visited the Van Gogh Institute- there were two outstanding exhibits and no crowds. We went the road less traveled on this trip and it was consistently rewarding.
I was in Amsterdam one afternoon (total), looked for Spinoza's house and got lost. I ended up getting totally baked on some powerful pot, almost missed my flight to Dublin.
Can't wait to hear More Barn.
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