Vacant Horizon

BTW, Note to record labels: Find some new talent that doesn't suck.

Amen to the above!!!

They are also jumping on the covers album bandwagon - everyone who does one - hopes to match the sales of those albums Rod Stewart made (I guess) - but I don't think it is going to happen for them. They did a pretty good version of Blackbird back in the day - you can hear it on the CSN boxset, and the last CSN (first album) re-issue. I think that 74 Tour stuff is out there to be had - I have never heard it. If it is anything like Four Way Street, I am not sure I would want to hear it.

The 74 stuff is out there, but not he best quality sound wise. the band, however, is on!! of course neil is with them.

That will be the thing to have.

 

Along the lines of Another Stoney Evening [LIVE] - I would hope.

i agree, also the CSNY '74 show. hopefully get a nice clean version on neil's Pushed It Over the End.

Yea, really...

 

I read an article about Neil Diamond and his second album for Rubin and some how I simply can't get excited about this take a geezer and make him a significant artist again (not a star, because Diamond continues to be that...). Somehow it seems improbable that even the great Rick Rubin can do for any of these guys what he did for Johnny Cash. But we shall see.

 

LouieB

i think i agree with this. i mean, Cash was a fine candidate for Rubin's work, but hell, i could do what rubin does. take some slicked up classic rocker who hasnt made a good album in decades and make him/her do an underproduced acoustic album!!! i am thinking James Taylor, Carol King, CSN, America, maybe even neil young. it's so funny how it's revolutionary, when it's really just no production and a little intentionality about songwriting. these legends were just caught in their zietgiest. their old shit sounds good because, by luck, it was recorded in the 70s and not in the 80s. it amazes me to no end how much musicians and bands have no clue about production and how 'producers' like brendan obrien and steve lillywhite take them for a ride.

Ok, I'm now listening to the 7/30/97 Bowie > Cities > Bowie (a fine version but not my fave by any means) and it got me to thinking: there might be a couple of dozen Phish tunes that nearly always blow me away (YEM, Antelope, Reba! , Hood, etc.) but I will unequivocally state that the #1 song for me is David Bowie. It is a perfect example of all that I love about the band - the few, inane lyrics, the first section that has some of tightest, most difficult rock music to play this side of Zappa, and the two chord jam in the second half that could go anywhere...and often did!

 

This was the tune where, if I was in attendance, when I heard the hi-hat intro (and realized that it WASN'T Maze ) I KNEW it was time to start listening hard!

 

Anyway, I'd be innarested in hearing the thoughts of those here regarding their absolute favorite Phish tune.

Off the top of my head, probably Rift. I love the perfect studio version of that song. They botched it live, but the studio version with trey and page singing and the phat piano and guitar solos...awesome! After that, probably Slave and PYITE.

my view on Tweedy specifically was that he played a nice line between "rock deity" (i.e Neil Young) and somone who's 40 and has a wife and kids. Guys like Dylan and Neil Young expect everyone to bow down and have never had anyone shrink their giant heads (as seen here), while Tweedy seems generally easygoing and down to earth for somone who is a popular rock musician.

 

like I said, I figured people would be aghast at my opinion, and they are. Yeah, Wilco owes a buttload to Young, but that doesn't mean that the guy is some olympian figure. The only person, like I've undoubtedly said before on this board, who is owed the hyperbolic praise would have to be Brian Wilson. Otherwise, I see a lot of these icons as just people with overblown egos (Pete freaking Townshend, Bob Dylan--the most condescending egomaniac to ever become a popular American) who are pretending like they never got old and became (for the most part) irrelevant. Blame Rolling Stone. These guys aren't gods. Most of them aren't even that bright (Neil Young, for instance, ate weed sauteed in honey--go figure). They just happen to make music. It's their job, like somone's job is an accountant, or a clerk. If you strip away the mythology that's what you get. I'm not saying let's put Wilco on the pedestal now. I'm just saying that people should be more open to new things and willing to reign in the next thing instead of focusing on the old-- that's the attitude that got these past musicians where they are.

Otherwise, I think it's weird that people want to complain about new pop music sucking or etc-- they're not willing to embrace anything new.

you know, i can get on board with what your saying here. rock star mythology is cool, but ultimately ridiculous. i just happen to like some guys (dylan, neil) that have that mythology, but also make music i like. now, as far as new music goes, i do like magnolia electric and despite my issues with tweedy, i am hot and cold with wilco. oh, and i love dbt. and you are right, these guys are all working hard as musicians without falling into that whole rock icon stuff! that's why i don't feel like i have to meet jason molina, jeff, or patterson hood. they make music, i come listen. that's it.

New neil is better than any shit coming out today and the last 2 decades. i for one can't stand indie rock and all its cuteness and ridiculous punk attitude. talk about being nostalgia acts. wilco is in the same boat. i have tried for years to figure out what it is about tweedy that bothers me and it is him trying to be so cute. his little songs with the capo up so high on the fret board about aquarium drinking...give me a break! i'll take neil young any day. even new dylan!

personally, I hate his music (with the expection of some of that Massey Hall album and On the Beach), but it goes beyond that. I feel like if you're still kind of (relatively) an up-and-coming rock band getting more mainstream attention, the last person I'd want to go on tour with is Neil Young. Why? a) he's just another aging boomer relic who is pulling out the "rares" in order to wow the audience that grew up on his hits while simultaneously egging on your overzealous critic fans to give you more praise than you deserve. Each member of your band can singlehandedly outperform him and has made better records on their bad days than this guy's best days. however, due to the novelty fact that "he's freaking Neil Young!" you'll never be given the credit ('you' being Wilco) you really deserve.

 

I mean, come on, to be fair, I don't like Neil Young but I think we could all agree here Wilco puts him out of business in terms of actual showmanship. His songs, not that he can help it, are either given a folk rock or grunge rock treatment and they never are given the room to breath life. Whereas, you have a band like Wilco, with two superhuman musicians and probably the most likable singer-songwriter in his age group playing songs of more dense emotional (okay, opinion) and musical (this however I feel is fact) complexities-- the craftsmanship of the mentioned bringing a tight yet spaced out sound. I feel like Wilco going on tour with that guy is Wilco not giving themselves enough credit. Yeah, he's Neil Young, but you're doing now what he did yesterday in terms of making contemporary, fresh, new sounding music. You're not recycling as much as your contemporaries are, the music you make is as new now is his was then. You should be the ones on stage, you can't help it that the music business has (for the most part) aged more intelligently than him and you get overlooked.

don't get me wrong. if you wanna go see Neil Young, go see Neil Young. But everyone should be going ape over getting to see him open for Wilco, not the other way around. I'm sure I'm the only one that feels this way, I'm sure I sound backwards to probably 99% of the people here.

this might actually be pretty good. don't know how they are gonna deal with stills' voice though. it is shot! but i really love CSN(Y) and am excited about them doing something acoustic along the lines of Rubins work with Cash and Neil Diamond. Crosby and Nash still sound great. Unfortunately, the new CSNY live album is pretty rough.

Crosby, Stills & Nash To Record With Rick Rubin

2008 | July 17 | billboard.com

Crosby, Stills & Nash are plotting their first studio album since 1994 -- a covers set for Columbia Records helmed by Rick Rubin.

"Rick Rubin's a brilliant man," Graham Nash tells Billboard.com, "and what he wants is an album with no CSN songs. He wants to do an album of all the songs we love, all the songs we wish we've written. It's brilliant from this point of view because we usually wait five years to record an album. This way there's no pressure."

Nash says he, David Crosby and Stephen Stills have had "many discussions" with Rubin about the project, whittling the proposed list of songs from 60 down to a current 20, which the trio is rehearsing after sound checks during its summer tour. Nash declines to name specific songs but acknowledges most would be considered well-known.

He expects recording to start in early 2009 for a release later in the year. The covers set, which will be CSN's first new release since 1994's "After the Storm," is one of many projects on the trio's plate at the moment. "CSNY: Deja Vu," the documentary of Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young's 2006 Freedom of Speech Tour, opens July 25, with the companion live album due Tuesday. Nash, meanwhile, is overseeing a number of archival projects, including his own boxed set, which will be released in time for his 67th birthday in February.

He's curating a Stills box set as well, and recently discovered an album's worth of material of Stills playing with Jimi Hendrix that will be compiled for another release. Nash is also putting together a live album from CSNY's 1974 stadium tour, a set of Crosby Nash acoustic recordings and a benefit record for the Children's Defense Fund that will feature his and Crosby's collaborations over the years with artists such as Elton John, James Taylor, Bonnie Raitt, Phil Collins, Jackson Browne and others.

Nash -- who will be touring with Crosby this fall -- says the sonic spelunking is invigorating.

"You fall back in love with the reason why you wanted to play with Neil Young in the first place, the reason why you wanted to play with Stephen Stills in the first place, and with Crosby in the first place," Nash explains. "You go, '...I remember all this sh*t. That's what we were trying to concentrate on.' It's very interesting, very enlightening."

Apple is Fisher-Price of Sound Quality, says Neil Young

2008 | July 26 | fortune.cnn.com

Neil Young has slammed Apple's iPods for dumbing music quality down to "Fisher-Price toy" levels at a technology conference in California this week (July 23).

Speaking in an interview with Time Inc. editor-in-chief John Huey at Fortune's Brainstorm Tech Conference Young said: "Apple has taken a detour down the convenience highway. Quality has taken a complete backseat - if it even gets in the car at all.

Both very good albums.

 

Rider, if you haven't listened to Devils and Dust you should give it a try. I've had it on my iPod for quite a while but just started listening to it 2 days ago for whatever reason. It's fantastic. Through and through, fantastic.

 

The new one, Magic, is decent.

good point, i do actually like some of devils and dust as well as the rising. saw bruce in atlanta in april. got a ticket for 20 bucks down in the 100s section. great show.

was in the local indie record store with my 2.8 year old. he had his snack to keep him occupied while i browsed. music was playing of course and as we walked past one of the clerks my son says, "Dad, they're playing Feist. I like her, but i also like 'eil 'oung." That last one is 'neil young'...so the clerk heard and we all thought he was such a badass! too damn cute!

he's starting to sound like george lucas or something. why on earth is he so bothered about sound quailty? let someone else worry about that - ultimately i'd rather have "after the gold rush" in shitty 128kps than anything he's done in the last 10 or 20 years in some mythical crystal-clear format, but he doesn't seem to be spending a 15 year learning curve trying to sort out that short-coming in his output. the man's gone to piddle.

well, i am a huge neil young fan. love everything and actually think that his last 3 albums have been excellent. i do think neil is spreading himself a bit thin with all his projects like linkvolt, archives, touring, writing, the 'new itunes'...but it's gotta be the artists that get their asses in gear and start caring about how their record sounds b/c record companies could give a shit. neil has a specific sound in mind and he gets it on his records. this is like wilco and magnolia electric who have a specific sound in mind. it just blows my mind how artists have no clue about production and sound. i mean, bruce springsteen is a good example. does he even listen to his records after recording them. the production is atrocious! you can't blame the big pop stars and nu rockers. they are just part of the machine, but i just wish more artists cared about their production. with this, 256 is as good as it needs to be and we already have that at amazon. no need for anymore innovation. i agree with the mythical format. it's elusive!

quick story, i am friends with a fairly well known singer/songwriter here in the south east and he confessed to me that he never thought about the 'drum sound' on his albums until his 5th album. that blew my mind!!

c

T-Bone Burnett came up some new thing also - I suppose this is all well and fine if it gets accepted - but if not, then people will be stuck with something they may not be able to play on anything.

 

 

Link (CODE)

why waste this New Sound on John Melloncamp. God help us!!

His name is spelled 'Stephen' dammit! It's on the cover of the book!!!

Anyway, have never been able to get through one of his books. They really arent that scary and the supernatural stuff is just plain dumb.

BAD ASSSSS! nothing better than a phat, straight ahead rock solo. Saw AD in atlanta in 04 and it was prolly one of the best shows i have ever seen. the cover of big stars you can't have me was incredible. really wish we heard more from pat either in wilco or outside. how bout a band with pat, mikeal(sp), glenn, and john. could be incredible!

well, i have finally been listening closely to SBS. I got into AGIB immediately, but SBS took a year. I think it is an excellent album and very well crafted. As with others, I could do with out Please Be Patient With Me and adding The Thanks I Get. Other than SBS the song, each of the songs is like a mini suite with a great melody, interlocking guitar lines, textured piano/organ, and an awesome breakdown. Impossible Germany being the best example. Really digging it.

c

the first installment is to include about 128 songs, 18 of them never released before. There are to be 200 photographs, 160 lyrics manuscripts and more. Among the 90 articles and reviews are some less-than-favorable ones. "There were a lot of choices to be made," Mr. Roberts says. "Neil's choice was to leave the warts on."

Okay, I think i am finally formulating a less reactionary opinion about the archives. Given the actual content listed above, i am really not excited at all. Just more waiting time for vol. 2 which i hope has more surprises than this. i find buffalo springfield basically unlistenable. just that very reverbed 60s sound is overwhelming. so, that and anything before that is really just necessary to hear once for historical purposes. (and no mynah birds??) alternate takes of the BS stuff is mostly on their box anyhow. along the same lines, alt. takes of songs we've already heard that didn't make the cut for his first album will be interesting to hear once too. the unreleased tracks, like sea of madness, we have already heard, but in terrible quality. so it will be nice to have a pristine version of those 3-5 songs. And, we already have filmore east and massy hall which are great. now i really want river boat and hopefully that will be released on it's own. or i'll just dnload it. JTTP will be worth one watching as will all articles and stuff. the only stuff i really love is info about where when how songs are recorded and written and put on an album. there doesn't seem to be much of that. i would rather have the cds, a dvd of articles etc., and a book written by neil with blurbs about each tune with accompanying lyric sheet shots.

so, am i excited. in a sense, yes, i am glad it seems to be actually coming out now. i am not excited about the content at all. like i said, we have the best parts already, the performance series. mostly, i'm worried neil might change his mind a hundred more times before the motherload, vol. II is released. at least i hope its a motherload. maybe neil doesn't have as much unreleased stuff as we thought and maybe he really has released his best stuff.

c

If I am to be honest with myself, you, and everyone else on this board, I must also confess a deep hatred for your iPod.

i knew it!!

I've got a little 2 gig MP3 player (can't remember the make right now) that I love. It plays pretty much any music format, and it's the size of a lighter.

 

I only us CD's in the car because all my music is on my computer (which has a killer sound system).. I tried using an FM transmitter with my MP3 player in attempt to eliminate CD's, but the FM transmitter just sucks.. Too much interference and the volume is low.

yes, fm transmitters blow!!! when we all have cars with ipod jacks and not cd players...well...that's it. the cd is gone.

i enjoy having a iPod, but man, i couldn't agree more with the above statement.

thanks! i think the last cd i did that with was AGIB...just listened to that one over and over. others were Siamese Dream in college and Nomads Indian Saints by indigo girls in high school. oh and of course, neil young

i love my ipod! to the point that i panic if the battery goes dead sooner than i think it should. i had gotten so used to letting it drive on album shuffle, when i got my new car and the car stereo didn't recognize album shuffle, my whole ipod world went into a tailspin. i solved that problem by making playlists and ehmmm, ummmm, getting a nano to compliment my 30gb so i don't have to navigate through so much music through the car stereo interface (and the nano matches my car, dork i know). i did have to take all of my wilco shows off of the nano. although i am tempted to make the nano all wilco all the time.

yeah, i have thought about getting a nano to be dedicated to neil young. i love the new album cover interface with the new ones. more of a whole experience rather than just print.

Have you tried creating playlists? You could either create a bunch of playlists on your computer and then have a few on your iPod and switch them every so often or you can set them all on your iPod, depending on the space you have available. Maybe if you had some mixes ready to go you'd feel better about it. Or shuffle is good, if you have the time and know which songs you don't want to hear and shuffle and set them to skip when you have shuffle on. I had to go through and de-select all my Wilco live stuff because last week I heard Walken live 2 times in a row and then later on same day I heard it again..all from live shows.

 

 

Jen, yes videos are nice to have, I bought a few tv shows from iTunes and have those on there in case I get bored and want to watch them again, I have even found some really great video podcasts that I subscribe to as well

 

My favourite thing to have on there though are my podcasts of Sound Opinions and audiobooks. I already have my audio book borrowed from the library ready to put on my iPod for the trip down to St Louis Sometimes that helps me get through a long trip. The only thing with audiobooks are you have to do a little work to convert them and put them into one big file so that you dont have a ton of 'songs' all labelled part 1, part 2, etc cause it can be hard to remember where you left off if you listened to music for a while and then went back to the book.

well, i will try playlists again. havent done that in a while. shuffle is pretty bad as it's so repetative and doesn't seem random. not to mention, i get addicted to pushing skip all the time. what is party shuffle?

video is fun for movies and tv shows.

c

ya know, i hemmed and hawed about getting an ipod for long time. finally got one about a year and a half ago. i hate the damn thing!!! it's 30 gigs and i am ALWAYS taking shit off and putting shit on. i get so frustrated and just delete everything. it's just so hard to just listen to an album on their with all those artists and songs. it really makes me crazy. i can never decide what to listen to. should i put all my music on there? just some? should i downsize? go back to cds? any one else have this issue. i kind of miss the days of just picking up one cd every couple months and listening the shit out of it. now music is so 'available' i could have the entire neil young catalog in the next 24 hours.

After they did Falling Slowly in Oakland last month, Glenn said "don't leave... we do have other songs".

 

He described the overall experience of the movie, the Oscar win, etc., as something like standing in your yard, kicking a ball and hoping to hit the back fence. And instead, the ball clears the fence, keeps going over the neighbor's yard, across the river, past the next town... Part of him is thinking "cool, look at that!", and the other part just wants his ball back.

well said. i really respect him. my comment was more out of empathy than anything else. world tours were not on the radar.

Totally.

 

I'm an emusic member, but I can never think of anything I want when I sit down to use up my downloads. I usually just wait until the end of the month and throw them all at random junk that I never listen to. Maybe I should quit.

i have quit and rejoined so many times....

they have got to be tired of singing that song Falling Slowly...or whatever it is. gets old quick.

How about...

Shit Stick

or

Fuck Truck

good garage band names.

CLASSIC!

that shit happens on emusic all the time. i knew this was gonna happen. part of the reason i gave up on them. not to mention that mostly everything i download from them, i get on a whim and end up hating. great place to get all songs:ohia and magnolia electric and that is about it.

too bad though. their model is the way of the future if any RIAA folks care. I would gladly pay $20 a month for 30-50 downloads a month if they offered EVERYTHING.