Michael Moore Directs New Video for "Rockin' In The Free World"

The new video for "Rockin' In The Free World" directed by filmmaker Michael Moore is now posted on the Warner Reprise site, Quicktime , and a .wmv file stream as reported by Baron on BNB.

The video intercuts footage from the film Fahrenheit 9/11 and performance footage of Neil Young and Crazy Horse performing the song on the 2003/4 Greendale tour. Much of the audience footage appears to come from the May 18, 2002 broadcast of the Rockam Ring Festival in Nurburgring Racetrack, Eifel, Germany.



There is a great deal of Iraq war footage edited into the explosive Crazy Horse performances. The montage of explosions and tracer fire at night is quite effective when intercut to Billy's heavy throbbing bass line and the strobing stage lights.



Unfortunately, the video uses the film's song edit and deletes the lines:

"There's a warnin' sign on the road ahead
There's a lot of people sayin' we'd be better off dead
Don't feel like Satan, but I am to them".

Running about 3:10, nearly two minutes of the original 4:59 song on Freedom has been eliminated. More on the song "Rockin' In The Free World" and the original music video.


"There's one more kid that will never go to school
Never get to fall in love, never get to be cool."



Also, see more commentary and reaction to the new video.

Rock the free world & Post a comment below! (Note: Contrary to a poster below, the only comments that have been deleted are those that were obscene and/or spam related. Otherwise, no one's freedom of expression has been impacted whether pro-USA or anti-USA.)

Getting Connected to Neil-ness

Well this falls into the category of fun Neil stuff. From Music Plasma, a music visual search engine. Kinda innnaresting.

Six degrees of separation from Neil. Note how connected Neil is to Bob Dylan and The Beatles' John Lennon and Paul McCartney?! Whoa...

Also, Neil is closely musically connected to Rolling Stones, Warren Zevon, Johnny Cash, and Richard Thompson.

Anyways, it's a fun little tool that you can navigate around. Very Cool!

And here are a few more Neil Young connections like with Emmylou Harris, Sonic Youth, and Uncle Tupelo.

Bridge School 2004 Concerts Torrents & Photos

Over on Roel's Rust Radio, most of the 2 day concert is available as FLAC file torrent downloads. Sets available include Neil Young, Tegan and Sara, Eddie Vedder, Los Lonely Boys, Sonic Youth, Ben Harper & The Innocent Criminals, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Tony Bennett and Paul McCartney.


photo by Tim Mosenfelder

Also, here's something to look at while downloading -- lots of great photos of the concert.

The Bridge downloads and photo pages are Thrasher's Wheat's Links of the Moment. It's a two-fer!

More on this year's Bridge Concerts reviews and setlists.

Also, more on Paul McCartney and Neil Young.

Enjoy and Happy Thanksgiving!

Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Songs of All Times

Rolling Stone magazine has selected Bob Dylan's "Like a Rolling Stone" as the Number 1 Greatest Song of All Time. Rolling Stone senior editor David Fricke writes:

“No other pop song has so thoroughly challenged and transformed the commercial laws and artistic conventions of its time, for all time.”

The #2 song is the Rolling Stones' "Satisfaction". Over on Rust, the appropriately handled Barrel of Laughs, found it very amusing that:

"A magazine named "Rolling Stone" declares that a song named "Like A Rolling Stone" is the best song AND a song BY the Rolling Stones is the second best song ever. Can you say 'shameless self cross promotion'!"

So how did our man Neil stack up? Looking at the recent Neil Young's Greatest Hits CD, one would think Neil would have garnered a handful of slots. Actually, it looks like Neil wound up with a total of six slots. Of the six songs, Neil wrote four of the selections and performed only on two of the songs ("Suite:" and "For What It’s Worth"):

#63 "For What It’s Worth" by The Buffalo Springfield
#214 "Rockin' In The Free World"
#297 "Heart of Gold"
#321 "Cortez The Killer"
#385 "Ohio"
#418 "Suite: Judy Blue Eyes" by Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young

There has been some dispute about the credit of Young on "Suite: Judy Blue Eyes" which was on the first CSN album and subsequently appeared on CSNY's 4 Way Street album. Was this the album the Rolling Stone editors were thinking?

And speaking of popularity contests and "shameless self cross promotion", over on Amazon.com, the sales rank of the Greatest Hits has been bouncing around the Top 25 and is now at #26.

The Greatest Greatest Hits Disc Ever?

To say that Neil Young's latest release - and probably his last on the Reprise label - is the greatest greatest hits package ever released might be your typical reviewer hype ... or a fan's hagiographic overkill.


But say what you will about Neil's Greatest Hits, it undoubtably will cement his status in the singer-songwriter Hall of Fame. The disc's first 11 cuts are -- to you use the most cliched reviewer phrase of all time -- classic. But really. Look at these titles that we've all heard 100's of times:

1. Down By The River
2. Cowgirl In The Sand
3. Cinnamon Girl
4. Helpless
5. After The Gold Rush
6. Only Love Can Break Your Heart
7. Southern Man
8. Ohio
9. The Needle And The Damage Done
10. Old Man
11. Heart Of Gold

All of these songs were written and recorded during the stunning period between January 17, 1969 and February 8, 1971. This amazingly prolific two year period captures Young at the height of his creative genius. It was a time as if "Neil Young was rock's Joe Dimaggio." Furthermore, this is a guy that wrote both "Down By The River" and "Cowgirl In The Sand" on the same day!

Remarkably, these are only 11 songs from this incredible period -- mainly from the three albums Everybody Knows This is Nowhere, After The Goldrush, Harvest.

Has any artist during such a short period produced such an enduring impact?

Fans might quibble with what is and is not included. The CD jacket states that the 16 song selection is "Based on original record sales, airplay, and known download history." Chronologically presented, it really is hard to argue with the selection of these essential Young songs from his canon representing 9 albums over a 20 year period.

While nothing from the Ditch Trilogy period ('Time Fades Away', 'On The Beach' and 'Tonight's The Night') is represented, the selection clearly favors Young's earlier work. Only two songs are post-1978: Rockin' In The Free World (1989) and Harvest Moon (1991). This is mainly due to the fact that this a Reprise release and could not include any Geffen label cuts. All but four of these songs are available on the three disc Decade, the Godfather of Greatest Hits packages.

In a review on Pitchfork (link via Chromewaves), Stephen M. Deusner writes:

"Young's stubborn integrity extends beyond his politics-- which inform all of his songs, but only define a few like "Ohio" and "Rockin' in the Free World"-- and saturates his music. His catalog is riddled with sharp contrasts and sly contradictions, not least of which is the fact that this bearish-looking man sings with such a fragile falsetto. More crucially, Young moves from ragged guitar epics to jangly country ballads with impressive agility."

From Jambase review by Kayceman (via BNB):

"But here is where the duality of the "greatest hits" issue falls into place. We're talking Neil Young here, unquestionably one of the most important and influential musicians of all time, so when we hear his songs over and over we are able to cull new meaning from them at new times in our life, and having these re-mastered marvels all in one place is certainly a plus.

So while we are not breaking any ground and both Young's early CSNY days and his last ten years are completely omitted, we are still left with a beautiful glimpse at Young's vast and necessary discography. For those getting started with Neil Young it's a good place to begin, but don't be misled, like all of the successful greatest hits CDs, it's designed to pique your interest and cause you to dig in deeper, much, much deeper."

Here's what some Neil fans have to say about the song selection on the Greatest Hits package and thoughts from Blogcritics.org.

The DVD-stereo sound does seem to be improvement over the conventional CD format, although only listening on a state art sound system can one expect to hear the differences. At the opening of the bonus DVD, Neil writes of the experience as "high resolution listening". Riding around town with the CD playing in the car stereo really doesn't do justice to the DVD-stereo mix. But hey, when else are you going to be listening? "Hey Hey, My My (Into The Black)" from Rust Never Sleeps is so pristinely grungey that Neil's guitar sounds like power lines snapping from overload.

There are extensive technical notes on the audio transfer process on Neil's site. The painstaking transfer and mastering of the package came from the original 1/4" stereo 2-channel 15 IPS analog master tapes. These tapes were than sampled at 176.4 khz/24 bit in order to derive the 44.1 khz 16 bit PCM stero CD master.

The bonus DVD is really astounding in a number of respects. Each song is featured with video of a turntable playing the song in real-time! Spin the black circle, Neil.

Here's the 45 rpm single of the anti-Vietnam war protest song "Ohio" with the dongle-spindle thingie in the big hole.

The DVD also features some rare photos over the years like this one from 1971 circa "Old Man".


Also included are two music videos for "Rockin' In The Free World" and "Harvest Moon". In addition to the photo gallery are lyrics, and album artwork.

So is the Greatest Hits disc something for the die-hard fans? A Thrasher's Wheat Neil Poll on the Greatest Hits package indicates that fans are still holding out for the long awaited and ever delayed Neil Young Archives Box Set. But with the audio upgrade and bonus video, maybe so? For the casual fan or as an introduction to the vast body of Neil's work? Definitely.

As Joel Selvin writes in the San Francisco Chronicle:

"Nobody's greatest are any greater."

UPDATE 12/8/04: From Billboard via Bad News Beat: Top 50 debuts this week include Neil Young's Warner Bros. "Greatest Hits" (No. 27, 51,000 units). More on "for the turnstiles".

More comments on Blogcritics.org.

Lionel Trains Files For Bankruptcy

Lionel Trains, which is 20% owned by Neil Young, filed for bankruptcy protection after a U.S. jury found the company used designs for toy locomotives stolen from a rival.

More on story in the Detroit News.

Also, see more on Neil Young and Lionel Trains and the Greendale train controversy.

Thanks for link Lou!

A&E Biography of Neil Young

The airing of the premiere of the A&E cable channel Biography of Neil Young was not exactly prime time. Try 10:00 AM on a Sunday morning. Oh well. You can't exactly expect to find "rock's ultimate survivor" on during family hour.

Nonetheless, as expected, the A&E Biography was certain to both please and disappoint the fans. First off, the positives.

A&E interviewed what are definitely considered to be Neil experts:



biographer Jimmy McDonough, author Dave Zimmer, author Ken Viola, Neil historian John Einarson.

Without a doubt, these guys know their Neil history. The program script was factually correct and relatively straightforward.

There were some rare photos which was nice.

But obviously, Neil did not cooperate with the program and there was little background music variety and live footage. The principle performance footage consisted of the music video of "Rockin' In The Free World" and Neil's appearance at the Winnipeg Reunion "Shakin All Over".

The emphasis was on Neil's early years and the first half of the segment was the best focusing on the Canadian Years and The Buffalo Springfield era.

This gave author John Einarson the opportunity to tell some of his wonderful stories about the Squires, Rick James and The Mynah Birds, and Randy Bachman. Good stuff.

Ken Viola had the best quote on listening to Crazy Horse live just after the recording of the album "Everybody Knows This is Nowhere":

"Like standing at the top of the highest mountain on the most beautiful day and hearing the wind blowing, air so pure that it hurts to breathe."

"Shakey" biographer Jimmy McDonough dominated the program, with material from his book and several innnaresting anecdotes.

As for criticism, I can't say I'm in disagreement -- like many others before -- about some of the techniques that the A&E Biography series employs such as "scene recreations" intermixed with stock footage. I was particularly troubled by the scene about Neil contracting polio at the age of six. A&E gives us a re-enactment of a small boy clutching his shoulder with blurry hand held footage and then intercuts archival photos of polio wards and then back to a photo of Neil. I'm really apalled by this technique because it makes Michael Moore's "Fahrenheit 9/11" look like it was produced by Edward R. Murrow.

Thankfully, this sort of creative license was used sparingly but clearly the show's producers were challenged and used all sorts of bizarre edits. Lots of punk audience footage was edited in with little relation to the time frame or narration as if to imply these were Neil's fans during the late 1970's.

The program raced through much of the 70's, 80's , 90's & 00's as if not much really happened. Oh well, maybe when Neil chooses to cooperate with a more serious effort we'll get a more balanced portrait.

The good folks on RUST blasted the program for it's numerous factual errors and poor editing. All of the A&E Bio slamming led a Rustie to comment that they were "glad they didn't have cable."

Still, all in all, the interviews with the Neil historians McDonough, Einarson, Viola,and Zimmer were definitely worth the price of admission.



(Thanks Bill L. for the heads up on the program!)
For more, see Dave Zimmer's Neil Young Biography.

Happy Birthday Neil!!!

Neil Young is 59 years young today. So Happy Birthday Neil!!! Or maybe we should say Neil Percival Kenneth Ragland Young to be specific.

Just another great year for Neil. During 2004, Neil had quite a few memorable moments:

- concluding the one year world tour of Greendale,
- performed at the Farm Aid Benefit,
- Berkeley Community Theatre Benefit,
Clean Air Benefit Concert in Duncan, Canada,
Vote For Change tour,
- Adopt-A-Minefield Benefit with Paul McCartney, and
- headlined the Bridge School Benefit Concert 2004 with Paul McCartney.

And if that wasn't enough, Stephen Stills named his son Oliver Ragland, in honor of Stills' frequent bandmate Neil Young, born Neil Percival Kenneth Ragland Young.

Also, you can sing "Happy Birthday" to Neil along with a few hundred Pearl Jam fans. From over on Human Highway, a MP3 file is posted from November 12th, 1997, when Pearl Jam played the Catalyst Club in Santa Cruz, CA. During the set, Eddie Vedder pulled out a cell phone and called Neil to wish him a Happy Birthday.

Also, in honor of Neil's birthday, internet radio station Mansion on the Hill will be playing sets of Neil throughout the day today and this weekend. In addition, MOTH will be playing covers of Neil throughout the day as well as Neil inspired music.

And if that's not enough for your Neil weekend, A&E cable channel will be airing a biography program on Neil this Sunday, Nov. 14.

Also today, organist Booker T. Jones of Booker T. and the MG's is 60.

So enjoy your birthday Neil.

Leave Neil a birthday message by clicking on the COMMENT button below.

Bruce & Neil in St. Paul Photos

photo by Muriël Kleisterlee and Jos Westenberg

The latest Thrasher's Wheat Link of the Moment is an awesome photo gallery of Bruce Springsteen & Neil Young on the Be True website from the Vote For Change tour in St. Paul, MN on October 5.

Lots of great shots of Neil and Bruce playing "Souls of the Departed" and "All Along the Watchtower." Check out the interplay. Makes for nice surfing while listening to the set. Torrent download of the concert is available on Jungleland. More photos from Vote For Change tour and here.

Uncut Magazine Puts Neil on The Cover

UPDATE 11/10/04: A comment is posted below indicating that the original info below on the Uncut interview is incorrect. Thrasher's Wheat report came from a BNB post which appears may be inaccurate. Since the issue is not actually out yet, it is hard to say exactly what the article includes. From the comment : "The Neil interview in Uncut is with Nigel Williamson and took place in mid-Oct 2004, not 1992." More comments below. Please keep those corrections and updates coming! Thanks!
***
On the cover of this month's Uncut magazine, Neil Young is featured not once but on two different cover versions. One could be called the "young Young" (below) cover and the other the "old Young".

The article is titled "The Classic Songs & Secret Histories" and focuses on the upcoming Greatest Hits album scheduled to be released Nov. 14.

Surprisingly, the Uncut article provides more background detail than the actual CD release itself. With recording location information and brief descriptions of the songs, the article captures Neil's personal recollections on the era and provides context for his career evolution.

In the exclusive interview, Neil tells writer Nigel Williamson about blazing the electric guitar interplay between Young and Crazy Horse's Danny Whitten (who died of a heroin overdose in 1972) on "Cowgirl In the Sand":

"Nobody played guitar with me like that. That rhythm, when you listen to "Cowgirl In the Sand" he [Danny] keeps changing. Billy and Ralph will get into a groove and everything will be going along and all of a sudden Danny'll start doing something else. He just led those guys from one groove to another, all within the same groove.

So when I played those long guitar solos, it seemed like they weren't all that long, that I was making all these changes, when in reality what was changing was not one thing but the whole band. Danny was the key. A really great second guitar player, the perfect counterpoint to everything else that was happening."

More on "Cowgirl In the Sand".

Photo Of The Moment

photo by Vote For Change

The latest Neil Photo Of The Moment is from the Vote For Change Tour in Toledo, OH on October 2, when Young teamed up with Pearl Jam and Peter Frampton on "Rockin' In The Free World".

More on the tour and the Vote For Change finale concert in Washington, DC on October 11, 2004.

The Only Polls That Really Matter

UPDATE 11/16/04: See review of Neil Young's "Greatest Hits".

It's the day after and everybody has an opinion. So what about those Neil fans?

In the interest of trying to stay non-political, here are some poll results regarding Neil's upcoming Greatest Hits album.

So what do you think about the Greatest Hits package?

Not too surprisingly, it appears that many really don't have very strong feelings about the package.

- 47%: "Not sure. Still waiting for the Archives Box Set."
- 33%: "So what. I've already got "Decade" and all the other albums."
- 20%: "Great! I really need those hits."

So our prediction here at Thrasher's Wheat Election Headquarters is that the Greatest Hits Package won't be a big seller... among hard core fans. But Thrasher bets this album will wind up being a big seller setting the stage for the relase of the Archives Box Set in 2008.

Can't get enough of those polls? Well, here are a few more non-political polls for folks on the right, middle and left.

To vote, go to Neil Young Polls page. So make a difference... about something that doesn't really matter.

Shocking Election Results on the Lynyrd Skynyrd vs. Neil Young Vote

And in other very important election news, most folks can't seem to make up their mind about whether Lynyrd Skynyrd and Neil Young were friends or foes. Talk about some shocking results that the exit polls never anticipated.



Here's the voting break down on the question: "Were Lynyrd Skynyrd and Neil Young Friends or Foes?"

46% - Who knows? Probably a little bit of both.
41% - Friends - "Sweet Home Alabama" has been mis-interpreted
12% - Foes - Lynyrd Skynyrd's "Sweet Home Alabama" really was meant to put Neil down.

Here's the debate between Lynyrd Skynyrd and Neil Young. Once you've read the platforms, vote and make a difference in the election of our lifetime.

Lynyrd, John, George & Neil

Is it really possible to connect the dots between Neil Young, Lynyrd Skynyrd, John Kerry and George Bush? Of late, naturally, there has been a lot of interest in Neil Young's politics ranging from whether he is a closet Reagan Republican or a Canadian for Kerry.

Regarding the 2004 election, Greg Lewis writes in The Washington Dispatch an article that really is incredible in it's lyrical mis-interpretation:

"Lynard Skynard, you might recall, wrote and recorded "Sweet Home Alabama," possibly the best rock song ever, in 1974 for their "Second Helping" album. Among the political/cultural stands they took with that song came in the form of their criticism of Neil Young's portrayal of their fellow citizens in his song, "Southern Man," which painted southerners as categorically racist, illiberal, and (by extension) closed-minded.

I think it's clear, however, that "Sweet Home Alabama" expresses what a majority of Americans feel in their hearts with regard to the upcoming election. Which is to say, when lead singer Ronnie Van Zandt belts out the lines, "Well, I hope Neil Young will remember / Southern man don't need him around, anyhow," he's expressing something fundamental about the American character.

I don't mean to put a quarter-century old rock song on the spot as the exemplar of what it means to be an American in the year 2004, but I do think it can be instructive to examine "Sweet Home Alabama" for what light it might shed on the current collective political consciousness of our nation. All of which translates, I'm willing to bet, into our citizenry's voting overwhelmingly to re-elect George W. Bush.

"Sweet Home Alabama" is concerned with how Americans react when people who have commandeered, as Neil Young did and as John Kerry is doing, platforms from which they can broadcast leftist points of view. Artists, commentators, pundits, politicians, and the like bleat at the American people a liberal message "from above," as if it's received truth. And when the people who listen to them and who accept their message as a significant component of the "cultural truth" in which they place a great deal of faith . . . well, when those people discover that the aforementioned messages are bogus, disingenuous, dangerous, and untruthful in the extreme, there's going to be hell to pay. One only hopes the debt is collected on election day 2004.

The American people have a heart, a collective heart, and that heart lets them know, intuitively, when they are hearing a message that makes sense, that rings true, that comes from the heart of the sender. John Kerry's message rings false, just as did Neil Young's in "Southern Man." It took Lynard Skynard to stand up and tell the world that Young's song harbored a bogus message. But stand up they did, and to the tune of a groundbreaking anthem which represented a political position that went against the grain of the "received wisdom" (i.e., the liberal ideology) that permeated the popular culture of the time, as it does to a great extent today."

There's quite a bit of irony in Greg Lewis's essay about using Neil Young's "Southern Man" and Lynyrd Skynyrd's "Sweet Home Alabama" as a metaphor for the 2004 election between John Kerry and George Bush. Really, the essay is quite remarkable. Aside from the fact that Lewis can't even spell the band's or Ronnie Van Zant's name correctly, his misunderstanding of both Young's and Skynyrd's songs is way off the mark.

Much as the right fundamentally misunderstood Bruce Springsteen's "Born in the USA" and Neil Young's "Rockin' in the Free World", again there is a wholesale mis-appropriation of both Skynyrd's and Young's message.

Neil's music and politics have veered all over the map from "Ohio", "On The Beach"/"Ambulance Blues" (anti-Nixon), "Campaigner" (pro-Nixon), "Hawks & Doves" and "REACTOR" (pro-Reagan), "Rockin'" (anti-Bush #41), "Let's Roll" (pro-Bush #43), to Greendale (anti-Bush #43).

Thrasher could go into it all again. But it's already all been said before in this analysis of Lynyrd Skynyrd's "Sweet Home Alabama".



More on the 2004 election from the perspective of Bruce Springsteen and music and politics.

One last thing... VOTE on November 2.


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