Release the Neil Young Archives Part 2:Importance

How many artists have enough material to even consider a project of this magnitude? Try and think of a couple that exist in the Pop category, sorry no Miles Davis or John Coltrane sets, I'm talking about top 40 stuff here. In my limited amount of time I came up with a couple. Bob Dylan, Guided By Voices, Johnny Cash, and maybe some sort of all encompassing Lou Barlow project. Bob Dylan gets a vote because he has been releasing the "bootleg" series for a while and because you know he probably has a bunch of half assed demos from the early days when half of the album would be covers. Guided By Voices because as Robert Pollard once said, and I'm paraphrasing at best, "I can write 3 songs while sitting in the john, and 1 of them is good". Johnny Cash got a vote because well he was around forever and he recorded 100's of songs with Rick Rubin that never got released, and very few artists live material translate as well as his. Lou well, he has been involved in Dinosaur Jr., Sebadoh, Folk Implosion, and the numerous Sentridoh releases which were Lou solo. If you could complie all of his material as well as a shit load more of his unreleased stuff and demos which I'm sure there are plenty then maybe you could come together with a 40 disc set, but probably not.

I think Neil is the only artist who could actually take on a project of such enormity and sustain intrigue. He has on numerous occasions scrapped entire finished albums. The archives will include according to Neil both the unreleased "Homebrew" and "Chrome Dreams" albums, plus others are rumored to be included as well. One of which is the record that Geffen refused to release in the 80's, which I got to hear, that helped down the road land Neil and Geffen in the court room together, for making music that was wholly uncharacteristic of Neil Young music. Now obviously with any 40 disc project you're going to have a bunch of live material, lucky for us Neil's live albums rival his best studio work. The albums "Rust Never Sleeps" and "Tonight's The Night" are considered that, albums, while being comprised mostly of live performances, with both featuring frequent studio overdubs. The fact that Neil was able to put out live records with original never before released material and be the definitive versions of the song says alot of his and Crazy Horse's ability to bang that shit out live.

The other factor making this an important project, is that I hope other artists take a cue from Neil and take control of their own archives. Neil has been employing someone to take care and organize everything about Neil Young's career whether it be storage of tape reels, master tapes, file reels of his own movies like Human Highway, featuring Devo in acting and performing roles, concert posters, photographs, original handwritten lyrics, and of course all this stuff needs to be taken care off or we'd lose it forever. My only hope is that it's located in a bunker underground and guarded by a fucking pack of rabid Tigers because if this place gets robbed, or struck by lightning Neil's legacy is fucked. But that's beside the point, my point is that he is going to set a new standard for how the music buying public will expect their heroes to be honoured. No more will a 4 cd box set even seem relevant. Gone are the days when a group who received the tremendous honour of the hard to come by 5 disc treatment feel privelaged, they'll feel feel jealeous that the NYA's cock is 35 discs longer.

And for the occasionally obsessive geek like me who wants to hear every note played by his favorite musicians that is what I really hope happens. CD's are dead technology I guess but what I do hope happens is that the NYA with the loaded Blu Ray discs give the fans who are intested in buying a physical product a chance for a new way of doing things. Interactive menus with music files located in an interesting manner can enhance the overall experience of the music and provide artists with a new way of impacting it's audience or relaying their vision. Neil is the first person I've heard that is using the full capabilities of the technology at his disposal. Once the world gets to see what he's been up to we may see the whole industry change their buisness model away from MP3's which they hate, and go into Blu Ray. For all of you who think I am making too big a deal of this, just remember, the man's only been working on this for the last ohh 20 years or so.

Release the Neil Young Archives Part 1:Anticipation

I don't know about you guys but I've been hearing about the Neil Young Archives forthcoming box set since I was too young to remember. But it wasn't until the label started releasing online trailers, and Young himself started doing interviews on the content that I started to believe it wouldn't be too long until I could buy it. Well a few years have passed, release dates come and gone, tears have been shed, and he's released 3 cd's of content that are going to be included in said box. Now in case you weren't aware Neil has been releasing what has deemed "important" live albums from the early period of his career and on the spines of these albums is a NYA and corresponding number, to indicate which # it is in the box set. Now the original idea was that these cd's would have an empty place in the box, you could buy these live shows on their own if you didn't want to spring for a 10 cd box set.

10 CD BOX SET? sounds crazy right? but the insane fan boy in me thought I could handle that no problem, I have every solo album he's released and there isn't a dud in the catalogue if you ask me. I think the man puts enough of himself in every song or tells a good story on enough of the songs on every album that even if his music starts to sound the same the lyrics get me off in a different way. Or I can listen to an album like "Landing On Water" and the production is so unique that it draws me in, And of course the album that was pronounced dead on release, that was given such horrible reviews upon it's initial birth that you just knew that the all the art kids would teach themselves to love it. When I was 19 I remember going to Vancouver to order it from the then gloriousness that was A&B Sound on Seymour. It was an import, which I thought was weird, the only distributor was from Germany, somehow it all seemed to makes sense. I was infatuated with the man then and my passion for the guy hasn't faded a bit since then. So 10 CD's wasn't a problem for me.

Then something I could only dream of happened, it was revealed that the 10 disc box set would only cover up to the early 70's worth of material. and that the Archives box would be released in 4 volumes, each with 10 discs! and according to the newest interviews it won't even be released on CD but on DVD audio and Blu-Ray disc. The remastering of the music has been so extensive that Neil only wants it to be released in the highest audio formats available. There will be "Easter eggs" hidden throughout the dvd's. There will be whole albums that were scrapped, including the infamous "Homebrew" album, plus rumours that "Tine Fades Away" would see it's first digital release in second volume of the Archives set. Now I ain't the biggest Neil Young fan in the world I am not one of those guys, I listen to a couple other artists as well.

As the next instalment of why the Archives need to be released will explain, after these are made available to me there may be nobody else I need to listen to.

And You will Know us By The Trail Of Revolving Band Members

Caught the Trail of Dead show last night and I have to say even though the performance was exactly what I've come to expect from them, this was the sixth time I've seen them, It no longer feels like it's the same band.

When they came out with those first 3 albums, and even he underated Secret of... EP, They were were one of my 5 favorite bands. They had 4 guys in the band 3 of which sangand wrote there own songs, and the other just stood there acting super fucking unfazed by the chaos around him. When Mark left the band I was really disappointed, I really liked the dynamic they had all sharing vocals. At the show last night I think they played 2 Jason songs which as always were highlights as that guy has some serious power in his throat and likes to sing surrounded by people.

Going to see a band that at tiems had 10 people on stage is great but it isn't what the real Trail of Dead were for me. It was 4 friends playing these super technical songs with reckless abandon on stage and being in close contact with the band. The original line up jst felt a lot more personal I guess.

Conrad's vocals last night were by far the best I've ever heard live. The 2 drummer thing has lost the novelty to me now after seeing them 3 times this way. The fact is the drums in Trail of Dead tracks are usually abnormally heavy on snare rolls and cymbal bashing and with 2 drummers it washes out the impact I think. Although the 2 drummers facing each other and playing does make for really cool visuals I admit.

I like the fact that they shoot for stars with there band, I just wish they would concentrate on hitting taking their records to tha level again as the last few have been far inferior to original line ups. Conrad you're awesome, but let Jason sing some fucking songs man!