Neil Young - 2001
The Comment of the Moment is from post VIDEO: Neil Young w/ Crazy Horse @ Fuji Rock Festival 2001 by Tomatron:
Great time for the Horse.
When the timeline concert from that
tour was uploaded, the melody from Gateway really stuck in my head. And
that’s no small feat since those things aren’t the most easily accessed
content, other than the concert of the moment.
But the tune kept coming
back to me. Neil now expresses real regret over not having released
Toast at the time. I say, don’t be so hard on yourself, sir. Are You
Passionate, while not a banger in its time, has grown in appreciation
from the fanbase. For me, it beats out the three studio albums that
followed. If he had put out Toast like he says he should’ve, AYP would
never have been. And I venture to say Toast, for its part, could very
likely have been panned at the time.
Now, with patience, we have both
records. What a treat. Can they be reconciled into one grand statement?
With the magic of playlists, this is possible.
Here’s my favorite way to
overdo it:
1. Boom Boom Boom
I just really love this song as a warm
up to the journey to come. It’s totally original, with plenty of space
between the notes for the studio stank to seep through. Plus, it was one
of the first tunes recorded for the sessions and is a more tantalizing
introduction than either of the albums’ kickoff tracks.
2. You’re My Girl
3. Mr. Disappointment
4. Differently
5. Quit (Don’t Say You Love Me)
Since
AYP was what we heard first, it’s only fair to proceed with a quadruple
threat from that 2002 CD. You’re My Girl is just the sweetest
dedication that I bet a lot of parents can relate to. Then you get
immersed in the MGs’ treatment of otherwise unheard Toast material and
the super soulful Differently and practically go swimming in that soupy
B-3 sound.
6. Standing In The Light Of Love
7. Goin’ Home
8. Timberline
9. Gateway Of Love
10. How Ya Doin’?
This
is a perfect point to switch off into Horse territory. We are ready to
rock! Standing In The Light Of Love was the first fully Toast Toast we
got to hear. It kicks ass. The heart of Toast remains intact and the
heartbroken vibe does not let up for over half an hour. Awesome. I think
that’s enough time to return to Mr. Disappointment; he sounds even more
disappointed with the slower tempo and more honest voice.
11. Let’s Roll
12. Are You Passionate?
13. Goin’ Home
Yes,
that moment is here. That moment when we listen to Let’s Roll. We can’t
skip Let’s Roll, can’t pretend it didn’t happen. When heard as an ode
to the bravery of regular people in the face of terror rather than as
the hawkish call to deployment it could be taken for, Let’s Roll is
actually a pretty cool song, and the band more than do it justice.
Somehow, despite all the strife of blowing off one record for the next,
enduring pained relationships and national trauma, a loose narrative
still seemed to break through in Neil Young’s sequencing of AYP,
something we can see he took seriously with all the possible
permutations of song orders on the back cover. The family and marriage
themes of the early tracks give way to the shock of attack and burden of
war. Nothing else needs to be said about the title track but it’s
perfect and beautiful. And what an impact the AYP version of Goin’ Home
made, and makes still. We all love the brutal drumming and the brutal
ending. It was a characteristic stroke of genius to include one Crazy
Horse song on the album, and it was *this* song. This is the mythical
Crazy Horse, from the lost sessions. It retains this quality here.
14. When I Hold You In My Arms
15. Be With You
16. Two Old Friends
17. She’s A Healer
And
yet, Are You Passionate rolls on. Again, contrasts are crucial when it
comes to the flow of an album, a film, a story or work of art of any
kind. The epic bleakness of Goin’ Home gives way to the folksy hand
wringing of When I Hold You In My Arms, and it wouldn’t have worked
better in any configuration. We are lucky to have the ebullient Be With
You to buoy us up into the warm embrace of the best Motown feel the MGs
have to offer. And Two Old Friends, a fan favorite, serves the purpose
of relieving some of the weighty themes posed by the mid-album 9/11
inspired songs before She’s A Healer performs a similar function for the
heartsick husband of the earlier tracks. Thrasher’s Wheat contributors
seem to generally agree Healer is a high point of the record and
possibly exceeds the excellence of its Toast counterpart. Either way,
it’s a hell of a finale.
18. Quit
Ok, I’ll say it. This is the
superior version of the song. The funny thing is, the two are so alike,
they should stay as far apart as possible: 20 years, or at least the
better part of a playlist’s distance. But that’s not the only reason
Quit landed here. Inclusion as a coda to our listen symbolizes the wait
we had to finally hear Toast. And the sadness of “don’t say you love me”
turned out to be the truest end to this story, taking us back to the
beginning in a legendary little San Francisco recording studio.
Let’s go
listen to Toast again, on vinyl this time.
Thanks for our Comment of the Moment Tomatron! What a playlist. As you say, the magic of playlists makes this all possible.
More on post VIDEO: Neil Young w/ Crazy Horse @ Fuji Rock Festival 2001.
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(Off topic – sorry.)
Do we know when Toast (the released version) was mixed?
Because if you listen to the Are You Passionate mix of Goin' Home, you can instantly hear why Crazy Horse (from the other side of the mixing control room) weren't totally impressed by these recording sessions back in 2001.
The mix is limp and grey and flat sounding (what I call the "wet cardboard" effect). The vocal is tentative — it struggles to find the melody, and is submerged by the guitars. The lead guitar hits a series of bum notes that kill the mood.
The bass has no real depth or presence. The overdubs might as well not be there. Poncho's masterful second-guitar performance is buried.
And in the end, Neil just aborts the performance.
The feeling is: "this isn't quite working". Which is frustrating. For the musicians and producer and the listener.
But the mix on Toast is the opposite of all that. And it's the *same* take — the same version! Neil and John Hanlon knew there was something special in this performance, and they went in and brought it to the surface.
This is an album where the production, the overdubs and the mixing all play a huge part in the success of the music.
That's not a criticism! The production is part of the art.
Similarly, many people wear makeup to accentuate their natural beauty. Nothing wrong with that, and it's the same principle.
In the music world, an audible sense of production only becomes a problem when a) it detracts from the music's natural beauty and b) when the production covers up a lack of substance.
(Much of Le Noise, in my opinion, is an example of the latter. The production is impressive, but the effect is a hollow one.)
On Toast, extensive work has gone into making Goin' Home sound as good as humanly possible. The bum notes have been chopped (as minimally as possible), the vocal has been heavily compressed to even it out and add some heft, there's a 3D sense of vocal echo, the abrupt ending is faded out...
It sounds magical. And, unlike the Are You Passionate attempt, it's been mixed with both gutsy horsepower and real colour. This is the spirit of David Briggs in the mixing room.
The Are You Passionate mix of Goin' Home is like a documentary. We might imagine it's Neil telling us "this is why I re-recorded this album".
Whereas the Toast mix is designed to take this rough diamond of a performance and present it to the world in the best light possible.
PS: the mixes of Goin' Home are different enough that some listeners have imagined them to be two different takes. Understandable!
But there are some extra overdubs on the Toast mix — so the two aren't musically identical.
E.g notice the twinkling piano (and what sounds like the church organ) rising out of the mix just before the final guitar solo — helping propel it into a higher gear.
I think these are inspired touches, instantly reminding of the overdubs we hear on Drive Back from Zuma. Another power-chord-based song that somehow feels entirely different to its 2001 cousin.
Scotsman.