Comment of the Moment: First Impressions - Toast by Neil Young w/ Crazy Horse
Our Comment of the Moment is on post First Impressions: Toast by Neil Young with Crazy Horse | The Old Grey Cat by Lone Red Rider:
I've been listening to Toast on ATMOS.
Some may recall that Toast was recorded for 5.1 surround. ATMOS is as close as I think we can get to the original intent of the album. I recommend paying extra close attention to Ralph's playing. He is the unsung hero of this album. His playing is so masterfully creative that it almost invokes the Beatles. His textures hold so much to hear. And the production and mix really showcase his contributions so excellently. Usually I say that Poncho is Crazy Horse's unsung hero for what he brings to the songs. But this time it's pure Ralph, making this one of the most satisfying NYCH listens there is. To get this album at this particular point in the band's career is nothing short of a gift.
I would place the songs of 2001 in a pre-911 batch and a post-911 batch. The pre-911 batch are best represented by Toast. Post 9/11 you can pick the remaining songs from AYP and maybe add in Neil's live take of Imagine. After 9/11 it seems like Neil's focus shifted away from Pegi and more towards Amber and the future.
But the Horse wins this one.
The Horse wins on TOAST. More specifically, Ralph wins on TOAST. His drumming is literally tribal on "Goin' Home".
Thanks LRR as always for sharing thoughts here on TW. Most appreciated as we understand that your LRR posts are the "wheat of rust".
Also, see:
- First Impressions: Toast by Neil Young with Crazy Horse | The Old Grey Cat
- Comment of the Moment: Neil Young's Unreleased 2001 Album "Toast" w/ Crazy Horse
- "TOAST" Finally Pops: Unreleased 2001 album by Neil Young w/ Crazy Horse
- Comment of the Moment: PREMEIRE: "Timberline" from Neil Young's unreleased 2001 album "Toast" w/ Crazy Hors
- PREMIERE: "Timberline" from Neil Young's unreleased 2001 album "Toast" w/ Crazy Horse
- Comment of the Moment: "TOAST": Neil Young's Unreleased 2001 Album w/ Crazy Horse Set for 8th July, 2022
- Comment of the Moment on "Toast" - A Roadstory: Neil Young Shares Thoughts on Unreleased 2001 Album by Tony "Hambone" Hammond in the UK. (See "Toast" - A Roadstory: Neil Young Shares Thoughts on Unreleased 2001 Album.)
- More on interview with Frank “Poncho” Sampedro, Neil Young, Crazy Horse Guitarist [discusses TOAST] | The Aquarium Drunkard.
- Also, see ‘Are You Passionate?’ Turns 10 Years Old and Neil Young's Album of the Week: 'Are You Passionate?' + Defending AYP?
Labels: #CrazyHorse4HOF, albums, crazy horse, neil young, toast, unreleased
by thrasher@PermaLink: 7/14/2022 11:53:00 AM
6 comments
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6 Comments:
I have benefitted a great deal from reading about nuances in the music. Richie, Scotsman, Ian, Hambone, Dionys, Tomatron, and the list goes on. My hearing is bad, so the more detail the better. I am starting to get how the album Toast has a deeper sound...I will look for better words. Old Grey Cat, thank you.
After a few more listens, including a couple with some substances thrown into my system for added fun, I gotta say that Toast is a major Crazy Horse achievement. Although the sessions definitely have a "downer" feel to them, and the music is more polished than how I like my Horse, the songs and playing are so great, I can't get enough.
I'm in total agreement with how great Ralphie sounds on these songs. Matter of fact, these tunes make a GREAT argument for Crazy Horse getting inducted into the Hall of Fame. Albums like this, Sleeps With Angels, and even Americana show a side to the Horse that they don't get enough credit for. Truthfully, one could make the case that the Horse make Toast shIne even more than Neil does.
It's a classic, though I'm still down on the fade out ending to Goin Home.
I have been really enjoying listening to Toast on NYA (is it OK to ‘enjoy’ it given the subject matter? I guess Neil wouldn’t have released it if not). Great to read on here what other people think too – many great comments and insights.
I saw Neil and Crazy Horse in June 2001 at the NEC Birmingham England on their Eurotour ‘01 and I have been thinking about that show a lot and reflecting on the setlist and performances given what we now know about the background. Of course I didn’t know it at the time but Toast had been recorded the preceding Nov/Dec/Feb.
Goin’ Home was a major highlight for me that night. The battle drums, instantly catchy melody and epic soloing received a great reaction from the crowd. They followed this with When I Hold You In My Arms. Neil sitting on a stool playing piano with Old Black strapped on his back and switching effortlessly between the two throughout the song was great to see. I liked this song and performance a lot, but it was strikingly different to what had gone before it and not typical for Crazy Horse. Of course I can now see that Neil had already recorded it in May with Booker T and the MGs so it makes more sense now.
Standing in the Light of Love and Gateway of Love were the first songs following a short acoustic set from Neil. I thought these were good at the time but they were kind of overshadowed as they were followed by Hey Hey My My, Like a Hurricane, Sedan Delivery, Rockin’ in the Free World and F*!#in’ Up. The intro to Gateway was so long I thought it was maybe going to be an instrumental. I now love the Toast version of Gateway of Love though.
All in all it was a great show and had me eagerly looking forward to the next album. I found a great version of Goin’ Home from Montreux on YouTube and played that regularly but when Are You Passionate? came out in April 2002 I have to say for me it was quite a disappointment. I was expecting/hoping for a Crazy Horse album I guess. The sound of Goin’ Home didn’t seem quite right and somehow didn’t quite live up to the live performance. It was still my favourite track on the album though. I know others really like this album, and I like some of Neil’s guitar playing on it and some of the lyrics were strikingly personal even then, but I am not a big fan overall and much prefer the Toast versions of the songs that are on both. The tracks I have listened to most since it came out are the ones that are also on Toast plus the closing Are You Passionate? track. I think it would be great to hear Crazy Horse tackle this song.
So last night I watched a recording of Neil and Crazy Horse from the Fuji festival July 2001 on YouTube. This show immediately followed the completion of Eurotour ’01 and was just 6 weeks after I saw them in Birmingham. The recording is not the complete show as it does not have the closing run of classics but it includes Goin’ Home, When I Hold You In My Arms, Standing In the Light of Love and Gateway of Love. The performances are great and I can thoroughly recommend it to anyone interested to see how Neil and Crazy Horse performed these songs back then.
One thing that struck me watching the show was the choice of the other tracks that made up the setlist for that tour. Given what Neil has said now about his personal life at that time, the inclusion of Don’t Cry No Tears, I’ve Been Waiting For You and Only Love Can Break Your Heart for example are perhaps more significant than I realised back then.
So in conclusion and as others have said what a great time to be a Neil fan! So much to listen to and watch. Neil sounds pretty excited about the new album with Rick Rubin – can’t wait!
"Goin' Home" did not appear anywhere before the Eurotour 01's first night in Sheffield and from then on continued to be a highlight of this specific tour. Could it be that Neil Young fans are just as prejudiced with regards to the "first take" as their idol? While Europeans on this blog prefer the "Toast" version because it apparently resembles their first perception of the song, North Americans somewhat claim the canonical version to be the one with the abrupt ending on "AYP?" which actually is just their first perception of "Goin' Home". American audiences did not see this song in a Horse live performance with the exception of a single Las Vegas show (according to Sugar Mountain), all other North American performances were during CSNY tours. To listen to the 2014 Horse versions might just give an idea how the song was defined later on.
@Abner, I have to say that most of the time, I’m winging it: recording thoughts as they pop up, influenced no doubt by all the non-Neil stuff that I regularly absorb. However, your encouragement reminds me that I am want to finish the multi-part breakdown of NYA2 that I started about a year back, sidelined both by my own chaos and by thrasher’s late summer/early autumn break for personal reasons.
In fact, I have ambitions to “blog” properly (oxymoron?), if I can ever focus on one thing for long enough. Not just about Neil but a range of odd topics that interest me. So it’s reassuring to get some positive feedback to my erratic contributions here.
On AYP? generally, its biggest stumbling point for many fans may be that it consistently refuses to be what we expect from a NY album, like the Bluenotes, Shocking Pinks, and other genre projects. As eclectic as NY can be, there are certain elements or kinds of song (and sound) that we may have come to expect because they do recur. Toast, as a Horse project, is nearer to many folks “ideal Neil” than AYP?—it’s more familiar, though simultaneously fresh. In fact, Toast sounds to me like a logical person extension of much of NY’s work with the Horse post-Ragged Glory: experimental garage rock or avant-grunge as it were. Toast adds a cool jazz element that works well with the murky, mellow noise aspect of the Horse.
AYP? by contrast, has a confluence of factors isolating it within NY’s catalogue: the different backing band, pronounced style of the music, leading to moments that may sound uncharacteristically saccharine and/or overproduced by NY standards, and of course the 9/11 connection. Let’s Roll does date the album, whatever anyone else thinks of it.
I suspect my fascination with AYP? is precisely due to the challenges of pinning it down. I hear the album overall as an attempt to create a fusion of grunge and soul sounds. On its face, this seems like a weird clash. The songs sometimes seem to actively resist being heard as a cohesive. Ultimately, it may be that only a few tracks touch the heart of the soul/grunge synthesis I keep trying to articulate. The word that comes to mind for AYP? is “elliptical”. Nonetheless, it is not to be dismissed as a facile, formulaic genre pastiche.
*Songs resist being heard as cohesive unit, that is.
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