Neil Young offers another look at his forthcoming album, Fork in the Road, with a self-directed video for the track "Cough Up the Bucks." It's a chugging Crazy Horse-esque tune that features Young chanting the title over and over and over. That occasionally gives way to some by-now-standard Young wanking. The noise parts every now and then for a pretty chorus: "Where did the money go? Where did all the cash flow?" Later he adds, "Where did all the revenue stream?"Other than another, seemingly incongruous line: "It's all about my car... and my girl... it's all about my world" (which seems a better description of the album itself than this song), that is the extent of the lyrics.

Neil Young - Cough Up The Bucks


The video shows Young in a suit and tie in the back of a stretch limo, talking on a cell phone, reading the Wall Street Journal and pecking at a laptop. That's it. Then again, all of the videos for the album have been self-shot, quickie productions that offer little more than an excuse to see what Young looks like these days and, more importantly, to hear the new songs. He has videos for at least four songs posted on his MySpace page, including the title track, the somewhat incongruous ballad "Light a Candle" and "Johnny Magic." As has been reported previously, the new disc is a concept album about eco-friendly cars. It's clearly a topic inspiring to Young, but the songs thus far haven't really resonated with this fan. The inspiration and execution seem similar to that for Living With War -- get mad, grab a guitar, hit "record" -- though the populist firestorm Young tapped into with that 2006 disc is absent here.

Labels: music, Neil Young

After a return (of sorts) to the kind of quality we all know he is capable of, Neil Young seems to have gone off the rails again. Not that Prairie Wind and Chrome Dreams II were great albums by any stretch, but if reports from those more privy to news than I are to be believe, his forthcoming album will be a stinker. Fork in the Road is reported to be a concept album about eco-friendly cars. Young clearly cares about this issue, having started LincVolt, a company that seeks to create a "clean automobile propulsion technology"

The first hint of the album's quality is the fairly awful title song, a video for which is streaming on Young's site (it features Young with earbuds plugged into an Apple (oh, Neil) lipsynching while standing in what looks like his back yard). It's the kind of chugging two-chord blues that Young and Crazy Horse can stumble through as soon as you plug 'em in, with lyrics about driving big rigs, blogging and the bailout. It's clear Young was inspired, threw something together immediately and plans to put it out. These efforts can be either raw and inspired (Living With War) or hamfisted and embarrassing ("Let's Roll"). This would seem to fall into the latter category. As the forthcoming Archives vol. 1 box set that was pushed back yet again because of this project (though those with $323.99 can preorder now) proves, Young a) has a lot of things in boxes that never see the light of day, and b) he's not his own best editor.

So, the saving grace is that there is a lot of great music from Young both in the vaults and (one hopes) in the offing, so it will be easy to politely nudge aside this codger's indulgence while we wait.

Labels: music, Neil Young

Another round-up, this one musical. First up: I took in a wonderful Alejandro Escovedo show at the Englert Theatre in Iowa City last night. You can read a full review on CorridorBUZZ.com here.

Neil Young’s long-promised boxed set, Archives, seems to have been pushed back yet again, but there is hope for those of us with specific needs from such a set. Live shows? Sure, bring ’em on. Alternate versions of well-known tracks? OK, I’m game. Unreleased songs and rumored studio sessions? Now we’re talking.

According to Young’s web site, an unreleased Crazy Horse session from 2000 is forthcoming. The songs were recorded “in San Francisco, south of Market Street, at an old studio called ‘Toast.’ Coltrane had recorded there, among many other jazz greats, known and unknown. The dot-com boom was happening and buildings were being bought and turned into lofts or torn down completely and rebuilt. New money was everywhere. Toast was a target. The place was a little run down and sort of on its last legs.”

The sessions didn’t go well, according to the report. Only one song was finished, while many of the others eventually saw release on the tepid Are You Passionate? album. However, the original material is being revisited, and Young has now deemed at least some of it worthy of release. “Many songs share a bluesy, jazz-tinged vibe as a common thread. Three solid rockers are interspersed in the mix. Other songs are long with extensive explorations between verses, a Crazy Horse trademark, kind of like a down-played Tonight's the Night, except these songs deal directly with love and loss, not drugs,” the site reports.

The result? Something the report calls “perhaps one of the most under-estimated and deceptive Crazy Horse records of all time.” We’ll see. If these were the songs rejected in favor of the underwhelming, largely uninspiring Are You Passionate? – an album that cries out for one of J.D. Considine’s patented short reviews: “No. And neither, it seems, were you.” – then I shudder to think of what the disc might hold in store. An artist isn’t always the best judge of his own work, however, so perhaps Toast will be just what it promises, a dark classic. If nothing else, it’s heartening to see Young throwing open the door to his vault for a series of unreleased albums.

Joe Pernice, meanwhile, is working on two projects. The first is a novel for Riverhead/Penguin Books. “There's isn't much I can say, except that it's written in the first person, is set in the mid 1990s on Cape Cod in the off-season” he writes. “And my narrator doesn't have a name. I might name him Joe just to beat to the punch anyone who thinks (incorrectly) he's me. Or I might name him Bob and let my brother mop up for once.”

As for the album, it sounds like it won’t be a Pernice Brothers album. He writes that he was asked often about why he used the names Chappaquiddick Skyline and Big Tobacco for two earlier albums, and says, “I'm going to think long and hard before I put a band name on this little honey.”

He reports that vocals and some mixing are all that is left to complete it. The disc was largely played by Pernice, Ric Menck and James Walbourne, with recording by his brother, the aforementioned Bob. “It's my most spare album since Chappaquiddick. I like the songs a lot, especially: ‘I Can't be around People,’ ‘Easy to Leave,’ ‘She Should of Came’ and ‘The Adulterer's Moustache.’ I'm sure you can tell by the titles, we're shooting for stardom with this one. I'm tired of making a living releasing my own records and being respected by a coterie of people I respect. I want to be adored.”

Labels: music, Neil Young

One constant over the time I've kept this blog is that Neil Young will issue an album with an interesting story behind it. Greendale, his rock opera/film soundtrack about environmentalism preceded it by a bit, but Prairie Wind, his post-aneurysm album, and Living With War, his anti-war screed, helped me to fill some space in 2005 and 2006, respectively. It's 2007, and Young has delivered yet again, issuing Chrome Dreams II, his (not really a) follow up to the unreleased 1977 album Chrome Dreams. You can read elsewhere about parallels between the two discs and more. Listening to the disc over the past couple of weeks, I've hit upon some one point that I haven't read elsewhere that I thought I'd share.

While "Ordinary People" is getting the most ink thanks to its 18-minute length and the fact that it's a leftover from the This Note's For You album, the last two tracks are the most meaningful for me. "The Hidden Path" is a 14-minute rambler that wouldn't sound out of place on one of Young's lesser Crazy Horse discs. But it's message, particularly in the lyric "Show me the way and I'll follow you today" perfectly sets up the next track, not so coincidentally called "The Way." There, Young is joined by a chorus of children who share the fact that they know "the way:" "We'll show the way to get you back home to the peace where you belong."

I've heard a lot of people give lectures recently who all point to the extraordinary differences between the current generation of young people and those preceding, my generation included. While most of us probably thought that we would be the generation to save the world from the ills foisted upon it by previous ones, we never seemed to get around to it. By all indications, this generation, which has grown up with unprecedented technology and the knowledge that things like global warming and religious-based strife are givens, is ready to do something about all of it. It has been heartening to hear about this, and I can only hope that these lecturers are right.

Young seems ready. While "The Hidden Path" might meander, it seems like a not-so-hidden aural metaphor for the aimless drift his generation and those that followed have found themselves on. They all wanted to change the world, but things never work out the way you planned. In frustration, his guitar wailing away in the background, he asks to be shown the way. On the next track, the children reassure him: We know the way. It's the kind of spiritual moment that Young has flailed about in search of for a few albums now. From the overreaching bombast of Greendale to the sweet but unfocused Prairie Wind, he always just missed the mark. He doesn't do so here with his most inspired music -- I long ago conceded the fact that while Young will always make albums worth hearing, the chances of him making another truly great album, more than a decade after his last, are slim -- but his aim and his execution, coupled with geopolitical events, have rendered this one as meaningful as anything he's done despite the limitations.

UPDATE: Young has made some interesting videos for some of the songs on the disc, using photos shot around his homestead for visuals.

Labels: music, Neil Young

If nothing else, Neil Young always keeps things interesting. According to his web site, he has a new album coming that recalls one of his long lost unreleased albums. Chrome Dreams II, which according to Billboard.com will be released Oct. 16, will include three old songs and seven new songs. It was debuted for Reprise Records staff on Monday.

The original Chrome Dreams was slated for release in 1977, but, like many announced Young projects, was shelved in favor of something else, in this case American Stars 'n Bars (though some tracks slated for both of these albums were also planned for the scrapped album Homegrown). It didn't take long for most of the Chrome Dreams tracks to see release; a handful ended up on American Stars 'n Bars, while others trickled out over the next few years. It included classics like "Pocahontas," "Powderfinger" and "Sedan Delivery."

Little information has been released about the new version of the album, save for the fact that it's more than 60 minutes long and that two of the songs are very long -- at 13:00 and 18:30. It has not been revealed what the three older songs are, or if they are songs from the aborted original version of the album.

Billboard.com also reports that the long-gestating first volume of Young's Archives box set project is still slated for a Feb. 18 release. Don't hold your breath for this one, however, as it has been forthcoming for years. There is a trailer for the set, which is said to cover 1963-1972 and will include 8 CDs and 2 DVDs. Offering proof for the constantly shifting release date, the page on the Reprise site hosting the trailer still promises that it is "coming in 2007."

Labels: music, Neil Young