Neil Young - Time Fades Away

 

[I'm in Vietnam at the moment (which is why posts have been infrequent) so I'm trying to use blogspot in Vietnamese, so any weirdness in this post is probably due to that]

This is very hard to find Neil Young record from 1973. Usually 'hard to find' is synonymous with 'not very good', but that isn't the case here.  While this record isn't for those who are only fans of Harvest, that can be said for most of the rest of Young's career. Instead, this album is very much in the vein of Tonight's the Night. In fact, this is musically and chronologically the missing link between those two albums.

To provide some background: after the massive success of Harvest Young embarked on a huge tour to support the album. Like many artists before and after this lead to a fair amount of disillusionment, as well as some exhaustion and vocal problems. As well as material he had released to that point, Young played a number of new songs on the tour, and these are what feature on this album. So, while it's a live album, it's not one in the traditional form.

Until around 10 years ago this album was one of the Neil Young's 'missing' albums, that had never been released on CD. However, about 10 years ago all of those missing albums were finally remastered and rereleased; except for Time Fades Away (check out On the Beach if you want to hear an album that is arguably his best ever, but not well known, at least in part because of the delayed release on CD). I don't understand enough to explain the details, but apparently the master tapes for Time Fades Away were recorded in a manner that was seen as cutting edge, but is now very hard to work with. So for those worrying about the fact that this is an official release, it is one that is only available on vintage vinyl, at very high prices, and even then only after significant searching. So for those who can't be bothered with that, here it is for download.

Time Fades Away

Journey Through the Past

Yonder Stands the Sinner

LA

Love in Mind

Don't Be Denied

The Bridge

Last Dance

http://www.mediafire.com/?gsodwweu2ocg1

Classic Bootlegs - Pearl Jam Pinkpop '92

Looks like there is a clear preference for Pearl Jam in the classic bootlegs poll, so I thought I'd upload a few in addition to the Atlanta '94 show.  This is a pre-Vs show in front of the biggest crowd they'd played to that date.  As a festival set its fairly short, but everthing is a gem. There is also a pro-shot video of this, which is worth the download simply for Eddie climbing onto the camera boom and insisting they swing him out over the crowd for stage dive, followed by the crowd attempting to tear him apart.  The show is followed by an interview.  Normally things like that are pretty boring but there are a few gems in this.  My favourite:

Interviewer: Now Eddie, your name is 'Vedder' it sounds very Dutch.

EV: Yeah, I think it was, it was um, it was from ah, ohhh, Denmark, yeah it is, uh, Dutch.

Interviewer: Its almost Holland, but its a different country Denmark.
EV: Yeah but, it doesn't matter, ah uh, because uh the people in Holland have been so good to us really its like family, especially places like Utrecht, and people at the Tivoli, uh guy named Eric and all those people there, its like family y'know.

I'm not sure but I'm guessing that maybe all those people that have treated you like family might think the difference between Denmark and Holland is kind of important.

Why Go
Jeremy
Deep
Alive
Black
Outshined/Leash
Suggestion/Pulled Up/Rockin' in the Free World
Leash
Interview

http://www.mediafire.com/?1qq1i438urcou

Classic Bootlegs

One of the ideas I had to keep things interesting when there aren't any new shows to put up is to make some classic bootlegs available.  These are ones that I've listened to a lot and enjoyed.  To kick things off I thought I'd have a poll so people can indicate what they'd actually be interested in listening to (you can vote for more than one).  Some info on the options is below, vote using the poll on the right.

Pearl Jam - Atlanta '94

To my mind this is the greatest bootleg ever from a band well known for producing some great shows.  It captures them just before the release of Vitalogy (this is about the last time you get to hear Betterman without a singalong).  They play most of their first two albums, a few tracks from Vitalogy, some non-album tracks, and some covers.  Particular highlights are WMA (which has hardly ever been played), and an extended version of Porch.  Soundwise this is perfect - the show was broadcast by the band with any radio station able to broadcast it.

Wilco - Brooklyn '09

Like the Pearl Jam bootleg above this is a recording made available by the band, so sounds perfect.  The show has a festive atmosphere, with guest appearances from Feist, Yo La Tengo, and Ed Drost (from Grizzly Bear).  Highlights: an extended version of Spiders with Yo La Tengo, and Bull Black Nova.

Wilco - Singles Collection

Wilco are one of those bands that produces an enormous amount of material that doesn't make it onto their albums.  Hardcore fans put the effort in to track these tracks down benefit, but for more casual fans they miss out, which is sad given the quality of some of this stuff.  The version I have only goes as far as Summerteeth, but I'm working on updating this to cover everything up to the new album.

Bob Dylan - Munster (Germany) '00

Dylan's recent bootleg series has done a great job in filling the gaps in his recorded career.  My only real criticism of it is that its skipped most stuff since the 70's.  I suspect this is for commercial reasons, but its sad nonetheless because his material since then has actually been really good (particularly if you cherry pick the best of it).  This album is from after his 'comeback' with Time Out of Mind, but only features two track from that album (plus the non-album track Things Have Changed).  Instead this album focuses on reworkings of his back catalogue.  Again, the sound is perfect - (there have been a few calls for this, or one of the other similar quality live recordings) to be officially released.

Neil Young

I haven't figured out what Neil Young show would be the best to put up.  Probably something from the mid-70's (maybe '76 when he played both acoustic and Crazy Horse sets?).  There are lots of good quality ones, I'll just have to figure what is the best of the ones I have (any requests are welcome).

If there are any other artists, or particular concerts feel free to request them in the comments.

Note: all requests may be ignored.