INTERVIEW: Micah Nelson on Joining Neil Young and Crazy Horse: ‘I’ve Been Rehearsing for This My Whole Life’ | Rolling Stone

Particle Kid (aka Micah Nelson)

Farm Aid 2019 Highlights - Alpine Valley, Wisconsin 

photo by thrasher 

  (Click photo to enlarge)

A major interview with Micah Nelson on Neil Young's upcoming  “Love Earth Tour”: w/ Crazy Horse where the guitarist, "who cut his teeth on the road with dad Willie, breaks down his journey from loving the band as a kid to actually joining the band.

From Micah Nelson on Joining Neil Young and Crazy Horse: ‘I’ve Been Rehearsing for This My Whole Life’  | Rolling Stone by Andy Greene:

 

Rolling Stone: Tell me what Neil Young’s music meant to you as a kid.

Micah Nelson: Neil was always just kind of this being, this overarching energy in my life, and that music is always there. 

But it would kind of come and go in cycles. I would sort of venture off into these other worlds, and then he would come back into my life in these moments that always were so prescient, so synchronized, and exactly what I needed at that moment to remind me about rock & roll, and rawness and just honesty and songwriting and how that transcends everything else in production or sonics…All that shit.

There’s just something so primal and primitive about Neil, especially when he is with Crazy Horse. I saw them at Golden Gate Park at the Outside Lands Festival in 2012, it was a full circle moment and just sort of a slap in the face. It reminded me what I felt like I’d gotten too far from. 

Neil Young & Micah Nelson
Song of the Day - 5/29/18: MONSANTO YEARS

...

Rolling Stone: When did you learn you were playing Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere and Tonight’s the Night straight through? [see Neil Young w/ Crazy Horse @ Roxy Night Club, Los Angeles, CA - September 2023]

Micah Nelson: About a week before. 

He said, “Oh, hey, we got Nils back.” So I had already kind of started learning all Nils parts on guitar and I was like, “Okay, this is what I’m going to be doing.” And then, “Oh, great, we got Nils. Okay, cool. He can play all his original stuff.” And Neil says, “Listen to the Ben Keith stuff.”

I don’t know how to play the pedal steel. I had never played the lap steel. So I’m like, “Okay, shit, I can probably fake this on my Telecaster with some delay and a volume pedal.”

So I started learning how to kind of fake the parts and get the spirit of the parts down. And then once we got there, Bill Asher was tech’ing at the time and he said, “Hey, I’ve got this lap steel that I made. It’s got palm benders on it, so it sounds more like a pedal steel. You can make it bend to the fifth or the fourth or whatever.” I was like, “Yeah, I’ll try it out.” And that was two days before the show.

I basically spent the next 48 hours learning Ben Keith’s parts on the lap steel with the palm benders and doing the best I can. And thankfully this is Tonight’s the Night where the guys making this record were fucked up out of their head. This is drunk Ben Keith. And so I was like, “Okay, I can fake this.”

But I also ended up falling in love with that instrument, and it was so much fun. And this is the story of me and Neil. He pushes me all the time to be better. 

And those types of experiences where you’re under pressure of making the music as good as it can be, I think have made me a better musician and a better person.

Full interview @ Micah Nelson on Joining Neil Young and Crazy Horse: ‘I’ve Been Rehearsing for This My Whole Life’  | Rolling Stone by Andy Greene.

Also, more on Micah Nelson and  Neil Young.

Micah Nelson  

Austin Lifestyle - Feb 2023

(see Micah Nelson "Teases" as New Crazy Horse Band Member w/ Neil Young)

 Also, see INTERVIEW: Micah Nelson -- Channeling Neil Young's band Crazy Horse | Guitar World.

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PLAYLIST: "Long Walk Home" | Neil Young Archives

PLAYLIST: "Long Walk Home" | Neil Young Archives (Click photo to enlarge)

 

A new playlist has been added to the Neil Young Archives titled  "Long Walk Home" by rustie extraordinaire Omar "Lone Red Rider".

The playlist -- imagined in an alternate universe -- could have been a followup to Neil Young's album Harvest. 

Omar "Lone Red Rider" describes the playlist as follows:

NYA is featuring something new that may be worth listening to! 

 

For a while, there has been a feature on NYA which allows users to create playlists  but those playlists can not be shared among users. I had created a particular playlist which I shared on social media and garnered some interest. I wondered, if I sent it to NYA, would they consider sharing it so that others can hear it? 

 

Well, I did and they did!

Partly out of my frustration that the latest batch of NYA outtakes were not presented in any useful context and also harboring a dissatisfaction with how post-Harvest era tunes were presented on NYA, I created a speculative tracklist of what a studio follow-up to Harvest might have been. I organized it as a vinyl album called "Long Walk Home" and it is there for all to listen to both on desktop: https://neilyoungarchives.com/playlist?id=P_012 and in the mobile app. 

 

Currently, it seems to work better on iPhones, as long as you update to the latest version of the app.

The Time Fades Away era has been well researched by Pete Long and I recommend his article in issue 96 of Broken Arrow (NYAS). 

There, he shares an early tracklisting of an album called "Last Dance" which seems to represent an intended studio follow-up to Harvest, recorded mostly at the end of 1972 with the Stray Gators as they were rehearsing for their 1973 tour. Here is the running order: Side 1: Time Fades Away, New Mama, Come Along And Say You Will, The Bridge, Don't Be Denied. Side 2: Lookout Joe, Journey Through The Past, Last Dance, Goodbye Christians on the Shore. Of all of those tracks, Don't Be Denied was never completed in the studio. Hence, the studio album was never complete. It's been suggested that the album evolved into a mix of live and studio tracks and then evolved into what we got as Time Fades Away, effectively abandoning the studio album concept. This is where "Long Walk Home" enters the picture.

Starting with the "Last Dance" tracklist, I omitted Don't Be Denied. After this, I cut "Journey Through The Past" as it was, as Neil referred to it as a "song without a home". The only studio version we have of it, recorded in Nashville earlier with the Gators,has a very different feel to it than the rough and ready tracks done after Nashville. I added in "Letter From Nam" from NYA Vol2 Disk1 and noticed that I was on the way to building an album centered on American life and war and politics. From there, it was not a stretch to add "War Song", the much maligned duet with Nash previously released as a single. Sonically and thematically it seemed to fit with this playlist even though it would have likely never been considered for inclusion on a proper album. Finally I added "Soldier" from the soundtrack to Journey Through The Past. A classic Neil song which most of us know from Decade in a shorter version. That seemed to me to be a satisfying listen of tracks representing a feel and era. 

Some who have heard it appreciate it. Some have trashed it. That's OK. 

 

The more I listen to it, I can feel characters come to life in a way that they did in Greendale. Joe and his pregnant wife Annie. The ne'er do well Bill and Millie who struggle to get up every monday morning. Religious fanatics and war zealots. Politicians promising to end wars. It almost feels modern. Actually, it feels pretty damn contemporary to me.  Sure, it's ragged. It risks falling apart at times. It's ambiguous. But real.

Even though it was presented as an "alternate history follow-up to Harvest" it has to be taken as just a fan creation. We won't get the real "Last Dance" album until Neil decides we will. He actually seems somewhat open to it based on recent letters on NYA. So let me end with the Twilight Zone: Imagine, if you will, a phantom collaboration with a hero, across space and time. I feel honored that NYA has decided to share it with you and thankful for Thrasher for allowing me to post it here. 

 

Newsworthy? 

 

Enjoy it while it lasts, spartan artwork and all!

Thanks so much for building and sharing Omar "Lone Red Rider"! 

 

Here's the "Long Walk Home" playlist:

 

Side1:

Letter From Nam

War Song

Come Along And Say You Will

Lookout Joe

Soldier

 

Side2:

Time Fades Away

New Mama

The Bridge

Last Dance

Goodbye Christians On The Shore

 

Really cool that NYA Team uploaded and showcased.  What an era. Vietnam and Watergate. Deja vu, yet again. Over and over. In these times.

 

And a wonderful tribute to our departed friend who we never saw, Pete Long and his labors of love. ... gone but NEVER forgotten ... 

More on Neil Young Archives Playlists @ 

• New Curated Playlist on Neil Young Archives by PARTICLE KID
• PLAYLIST: Neil Young's Unreleased Songs on NYA 
• "Stumblin' with Neil": Kurt Vile's Curated Neil Young Archives Playlist #1
   
     
  ON A COLLISION COURSE WITH PARTICLE KID
  (see New Curated Playlist on Neil Young Archives by PARTICLE KID)

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A Comment on the Comment of the Moment: Neil Young "Rebrands" Crazy Horse

Neil Young & Crazy Horse

Alchemy Concert 2012 Tour & "Fu##n' Up" Album

(Click photo to enlarge)

 

Earlier this month, we explored the subject of what was up with Neil Young "rebranding" his band Crazy Horse.

And what ensued was, well, a wide ranging discussion across genres, fields, and centuries, that often veered into some rather head scratching territory for many an ordinary rustie-grain.

To wit, here is a comment on the Comment on the Moment on Neil Young Rebrands Crazy Horse by Dionys:

To summarize at the end of this babylonian thread with 11 persons participating, we have been mentioning, referring to, quoting: 

Neil Young
Crazy Horse (individual members and various incarnations)
The Rockets
The Grateful Dead (and various incarnations)
The Beatles
Creedence Clearwater Revival
The Rolling Stones
U2
Phil Lee
Nils Lofgren
Danny Whitten
Drive By Truckers
Michael Jackson
Bob Dylan
Little Richard
James Brown
Booker T. & The MGs
Steve Earle

Las Vegas
Portsmouth
Paris
San Francisco
Myrtle Beach, SC

William Shakespeare, Much Ado About Nothing (drama)
V.M. Straka “Ship of Theseus” (novel)
William Faulkner
Bertolt Brecht, Tales of Mr. Keuner (parables)

Proteus 
Theseus (Mythology)
Ship of Theseus (Plutarchy / Aristotle)
Greeks, Romans, Punians
HMS Victory
Lakota
Crazy Horse (Lakota Chief)
Walter Benjamin
Jean Baudrillard
Donna Haraway
Woody (Wooden cigar Indian)
Atheneans
Dionysos
Ariadne
Crete
Philbert Bono (Powwow Highway)
Dada
Surrealism
Immanuel Kant
Buddhism
Hinduism

Horse
Herring
Chameleon
Camel
Pony
Dinosaurs

Thanks for the summary Dionys.  We here at TW have had -- over the decades -- some comment threads  that were wide ranging, deep and complex and strange. 

But this one really sticks out.

From Shakespeare to Vegas. From Bertolt Brecht to Booker T. & The MGs. From Faulkner to Dada & Surrealism.

And the marvelous thing about the thread was how remarkably polite everyone was in addressing a potentially sensitive subject. The depth and breadth of our readers and commenters is truly humbling and we are honored to host this forum.

 

“Love Earth Tour”: Neil Young w/ Crazy Horse Concert Dates (UPDATED)

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Timeline Concert Highlights on Neil Young Archives | Only Castles Burning | SubStack

Only Castles Burning | SubStack

One of our recent discoveries is Only Castles Burning | SubStack by Keith Pishnery. The SubStack by Keith covers "writing about the works of Neil Young in some kind of order."

A recent article on NYA Timeline Concerts goes into the treasure trove on NYA:

The Neil Young Archives may look like an outdated website full of oddly formatted ephemera, but it hides one of the best archival experiences of any artist. 

There’s a chronological list of every song Neil has written, played, and released. High resolution streaming access to his entire catalog of music including numerous outtakes that have never been officially released. Special concert presales. An exhaustive collection of movies and videos from throughout his entire career. The overflowing and somewhat difficult to navigate NYA Times-Contrarian, Neils’ own online newsletter filled with cherry picked articles, news, and even correspondence to and from the artist. It’s true: Neil accepts letters through the website and answers them weekly. His personality is fully on display all over this website, but it’s one particular gift that I want to feature here.

For decades, Neil has maintained recordings of nearly every concert he has performed. High quality recordings straight from the soundboard, most often recorded by long-time “front of house” engineer Tim Mulligan, and frequently, producer David Briggs. 

A few years ago, Neil began sharing these recordings on the “Timeline,” a side-scrolling representation of his catalog. If you were paying attention, you’d see these little diamond-looking icons below some of the albums, as well as a column of dots. The dots were concerts and the diamonds were actually tiny graphics of tape boxes. If you saw one of these icons, it meant there was a full recording of a show hidden there. To date, there are 37 of these wonderful recordings spanning 1969-2019. I said above it’s a gift and I truly mean that. Sure, we pay for Neil Young Archives, but there’s just something “extra” feeling about these recordings that feels incredibly generous of an artist.

I have no intention of reviewing or featuring every Timeline concert, but I did want to highlight a few of my favorite ones and fun moments from them.

Nice work Keith! Full article with key Neil Young concerts @ NYA Timeline Concerts | Only Castles Burning | SubStack. 

 

Timeline Concert: Holmdel, New Jersey - 1992 

 

More on Neil Young Archives Timeline Concerts.

Also, see Neil Young Archives: Complete Listing of "Timeline Concerts of the Week" + UPDATE: NYA Subscriber News.

Here is a listing of all of the Neil Young concerts on the NYA Timeline.

 

TIMELINE CONCERT OF THE MOMENT | NYA

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ATTENTION TW EMail Subscribers: Service Disrupted

This Note's For You  

Hello TW EMail Subscribers,

Apologies, but here's yet  another update on TW EMail Subscriptions. 

In 2022, we issued an alert to all of our email notification subscribers regarding the issue of TW email being tagged as SPAM across major platforms. 

Because of the relentless targeting of TW as a misinfo/disinfo/malinfo site, we are considering dropping email service entirely.  At the moment, the service has been suspended.

As we weigh options, one suggestion has been to move to the X/Twitter subscriber model.

We would like to get something in place prior to the start of the “Love Earth Tour” this spring.

Again, we would apologize for the disruptions, but the inconvenience is due to the paranoia of "They"/Big Tech threatened by "We" the Lilliputians.  Clearly, we must be doing something right here @ TW.

Thanks to all for your unwavering support of free speech!

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