Nik's Unheralded Albums #9: Neil Young, 'Arc'

Even for the notoriously restless Neil Young, "Arc" is a weird sideline in his lengthy career. An offshoot from the fantastic "Weld" live album recorded during Young's 1991 tour with Crazy Horse, it's basically a sound collage by Young, piecing together feedback freakouts and jams from shows throughout the tour, an extended outro or intro that doesn't ever quite burst into full-on song.

Neil Young has done everything from soothing country folk to electronica to rampaging hard rock, but "Arc" is rather unique in his catalogue. It's a free-form piece of sound experimentation, way more Lou Reed's "Metal Machine Music" than "Rockin' In The Free World." Young was reportedly inspired by then-tourmates Sonic Youth and Thurston Moore in his approach to a lot of the sound of the Arc/Weld era, and it shows.

"Arc" is a kind of abandoned stepchild in the Young archives and is definitely an acquired taste, but yet I quite like to put it on and be blasted by white noise for 30 minutes or so, to kind of enjoy the scouring power of raw sensation. In some ways, it's as pure as electric Neil Young gets. I kind of imagine it's like being inside Neil's brain for a spin, all echoing feedback and crashing chords.

You can hear a lot of "Arc"'s influence in a band like slow-metal act Sunn O))), whose doomy weight is like "Arc" with added foreboding. "Arc" sweeps and washes over you, and while it's rather abrasive, I don't find it as overbearingly harsh as something like the infamous "Metal Machine Music" or Throbbing Gristle.

"Arc" does have a structure, like a flexing, tense ocean of noise -- the "song" fades and builds, over and over, snatches of a few recognisable numbers including "Like A Hurricane" and "Love And Only Love" pushing out of the chaos. There's a lot of the fierce electric crackle of raw feedback jostling with the swell of guitars, sounding like bombs going off, and it's hard not to be reminded that the first Gulf War was under way at this point in history. If anything, this is Neil's "war" record, and it aims to put you at the front lines.

Does the "concept" get old? I wouldn't put on "Arc" at a dinner party, but at just over half an hour it's no longer than some of the equally apocalyptic jams of Can or Sunn O))). I wouldn't recommend this to someone whose favorite Neil Young song is "Heart of Gold," really, but "Arc" isn't just a novelty disc. It's the logical extension of some of his most extreme Crazy Horse-led guitar freakouts, and an interesting curio in Neil Young's discography.

Here's a taste of "Arc" - the "single" excerpt released from the whole work. Put on headphones, maaaaan...

Old gods nowhere near dead: The latest from Bob and Neil

Somehow, it seems like culture is moving away a bit from the notion that old men can't rock. A decade or two ago, the Rolling Stones were the butt of many a joke about Mick dancing about with a cane and Keith's arthritis. But it seems to me that in the past few years, we've come to grips with the notion that older rock stars still have a lot to offer.

I'm not saying Rod Stewart in hot pants at age 70 is something I want to see -- but take the surprisingly good Rolling Stones concert film "Shine A Light," which manages to give the Stones a sense of grace and dignity kind of lacking in the '90s. Hell, we've come this far, it seems to say, we've gone beyond being just old and on to being legends. Jagger's sheer showmanship puts stars a third his age to shame. The vitality of "Shine A Light" is a nice kick in the head to the idea that all rock stars should hang it up by 40.

It says something that two of the more interesting albums I've heard lately are the latest by Bob Dylan, nearly 68, and Neil Young, age 63. Both stars were big in their twenties, icons in their thirties, then kind of has-beens in their forties for a spell. Now they've wizened enough and have such a soaring body of work behind 'em that every release, even if it's lesser work, is usually worth a listen. There is a precedence for age being a fierce invigorator - think of Muddy Waters or John Lee Hooker. In the blues, age ain't no problem. It shouldn't be for rock 'n' roll either, really. Hell, seeing Neil Young and Bob Dylan both live in the last couple of years, their skills remain strong as ever to be, tempered by their vast experience.

Dylan's "Together Through Life" (his 46th album!) isn't the big artistic statement that recent works like "Time Out of Mind" were. It's a bit of a jaunty reverie, laced through with accordion by Los Lobos' David Hidalgo, that gives it a kind of Tex-Mex feel. The bluesier tempo of Dylan's "Modern Times" is tamed a bit here, for lyrics full of a vaguely sinister, beaten-down love. Dylan's songwriting hasn't quite been as full of allusion and illusion as it once was in his last few discs, but he's made up for it with a deeper, fuller band sound that really carries his broken prophet's croak of a voice along. Mystery and mirth intertwine, and in his sixties, he's turned into the modern heir to the dead bluesmen of the past. "Beyond Here Lies Nothin'" sets the scene with a terrific accordion-powered stomp, while "My Wife's Home Town" has the venom of "Ballad of a Thin Man" filtered through a lifetime's worth of disappointments. Dylan snarls and wheezes through lines like "I just want to say that hell's my wife's hometown." The growl that opens "Forgetful Heart" is a snarl from the abyss that could've been sung by Howlin' Wolf ("the door has closed forever more / if indeed there ever was a door"). A few of the songs meander ("If You Ever Go To Houston" sounds too much like Los Lobos and not enough like Dylan), but the album ends with the wonderfully cranky "It's All Good," which takes an annoying hipster cliche and turns it back on itself. "Together Through Life" doesn't reinvent the wheel Dylan's been rolling (like a stone, you know) for his last few albums, but it is a mighty pleasurable new chapter in the bard's book. And as always, with Dylan there are layers a-plenty to explore in subsequent listens.

Young's "Fork In the Road" is less polished than Dylan's latest; it's mangy garage rock in its bones, another willfully rickety collection by an artist who loves throwing curveballs. His last few albums have run from wistful reverie ("Prairie Wind") to angry protest singer reborn ("Living With War"). Now, he's an aging hippie singing about his car. "Fork In the Road" is a concept album about energy-efficient auto technology of all things, but Neil brings his ode to proud highways a kind of ranting sincerity even when the lyrics veer into cliches. If Neil had a blog, it would be like this album (or "Keep on blogging / till the power goes out," as he puts it.) The songwriting is extremely basic -- consecutive songs are rather banally titled "Get Behind The Wheel," "Off The Road" and "Hit The Road," for instance -- but Neil still has an eye for a hook and a killer riff. It may be a bit tossed off even by Neil's standards, but "Fork In The Road" has an open-hearted charm to most of the tunes. My favorites include the power-chord crunch and heavenly choirs of "Just Singing A Song" (which I got to hear Neil sing back in Auckland in January) or the curmudgeonly grit of the title tune, with old man Neil ranting about "got a pot belly / it's not too big / gets in my way / when I'm driving my rig." I'll take Neil singing about his belly and his cars over a dozen bland young bands any day.

Auckland Big Day Out 2009 review: In which we realize Neil Young is God

I bow before the altar of Neil Young. Yes indeedy, he is the hope, the way and the light. He took last night's Big Day Out 2009 in Auckland to a whole new level of awesomeness, and showed why he's a legend.

Big Day Out might not have been quite the same for me as last year -- it was more of a novelty then, I saw a few less acts this year, and faithful wife wasn't able to go with me. But I finally ticked off an item on my bucket list and saw Neil Young live, and also several other great bands including TV On The Radio, My Morning Jacket and Arctic Monkeys. (I also learned my new cellphone's camera really really sucks, so the photo at right is from the Stuff website. )

But in the end, though, it was all about Neil, who rocked my face off so hard that I was picking my eyebrows off the field afterwards. Neil's easily in my top five musicians of all time list and frankly, he may not make it down to New Zealand again for a long time if ever. Seeing Neil Young thrash through 90 minutes of his biggest hits had me thinking "rock god" without an ounce of irony. Simply astounding, and hard to believe this guy is nearly my dad's age! If you closed your eye you'd think he was 30, not 60-something -- the freshness of his sound and voice is something even Dylan can't lay claim to these days. He had a cool professionalism (very little bantering) but a genial sense of love for what he does, still thrashing away like a kid in his garage after nearly 50 years of doing this rock stuff.

This was a set of pretty much nothing but hits -- "Powderfinger," "My My, Hey Hey," "Cortez The Killer," "Love To Burn," "Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere," "Heart of Gold." Now, I've always leaned more to grunge godfather crunchy Crazy Horse electric guitar Neil over sensitive acoustic Neil, but I dig 'em both. Still, I was happy as a clam this night was mostly Neil blasting away, stomping his way through his guitar solos like an old god made flesh. The mid-show acoustic interlude was great too -- the burst of cheers from the crowd when Neil strapped on the harmonica and acoustic was deafening. However, folks were so into it that during "Heart of Gold" and "Old Man" I mostly heard the guy behind me bellowing off-key over Neil! Neil plunged through his epic catalogue with many fine stops, but a true highlight for me was the rambling romp through "Cowgirl In The Sand," where I felt the guitar scribblings echo right along my nervous system. Fantastic.

Then came "Rockin' In The Free World," and I burst into a pillar of flames. "Free World" is one of the first Neil songs I ever heard, from 1990's "Freedom" album, and one of my all-time favorite anthems -- and it seems highly appropriate, to hear a song about the first age of Bush as the second Bush era comes to a rusty halt in just a few days. Young took "World" to a full-on blast furnace assault, with the audience yelling along to the chorus, stop-and-start feedback chords. It was quite possibly one of the best songs I've ever heard live, and when it was followed up a few minutes later by Young doing a surprise encore, guitar-string snapping cover of The Beatles' "A Day In the Life" -- well, between those two songs you get what the NZ Herald critic called "the most wonderful ending to a Big Day Out. Ever." I can't argue with that. Sheer bliss.

So what else did I see besides Neil? A rundown:

TV On The Radio: Sadly, a bit of a disappointment, but only a bit of one. I truly love their records, but their epic dense sound simply didn't quite translate to a hot field as well as it might, feeling sort of sludgy and taking time to warm up. But once they got going, the band delivered on some of their promise, particularly turning tracks "Wolf Like Me" and "Staring At The Sun" into bellowing freak-outs. Unfortunately by the time they really got going it was the end of their set! I'd really like to see them stretch out sometime in a more intimate club venue, as this felt more like a teaser.
Grade: B
Best song: "Wolf Like Me"

My Morning Jacket: I have never been a huge fan of "jam bands" like the Dead and Phish, so it's taken me a while to get into these guys, who're often called stuff like "psychedelic space rock." I've heard a couple of albums but now consider me a full convert -- I'm loving their eclectic, guitar-drenched sound, which moves from country-rock to Prince-like jams. Singer Jim James has got a golden voice (if you saw the movie "I'm Not There," that's them on stage during the Richard Gere sequence). This hour-long set was just a taste of what the band can do (they did a four-hour epic not long ago) but I'm definitely tracking down more of their work.
Grade: A-
Best song: I'm not familiar with every track they sang (yet), but I really loved the take on "Golden" from "It Still Moves" and a really funky Devo-meets-Parliament number from their latest disc.

Arctic Monkeys: These spunky Sheffield pop-punksters have put out two really nifty albums, with singer Alex Turner sounding a bit like a fusion between Blur and the Ramones. Their set was most excellent, although it suffered some from being stuck before Neil Young on the main stage -- the band thrashed through a bunch of their hits and premiered some new material from their next album. Some of their songs run the risk of sounding a bit too alike, but they're definitely one of the most impressive young British bands going these days -- considering they look all of 15, I'm eager to see where they go next. I loved an unexpected cover of Nick Cave's "Red Right Hand" with Turner putting a bratty spin on the gothic gloom.
Grade: B+
Best song: "I Bet You Look Good On The Dance Floor," their first big hit, is a terrific crowd pleaser. I did my best to pogo-dance in the mob.

I also caught bits and pieces of a few other acts I hadn't seen -- the electro-diva disco of Sneaky Sound System was quite fun, while the raucously cheesy metal-rock of Australia's The Living End was really a blast (reminded me a bit of Bad Religion). I would've liked to catch a bit of the Prodigy but they clashed with Neil's set and frankly, after that, I was spent as they say and anything else would've been an anticlimax. Neil!

McCain mutiny, Magazine and band-aids

Random Friday notes!

• How you know that your once-toddler is growing into a truly rambunctious and rowdy 4 1/2-year-old boy -- he managed to have band-aids on BOTH legs and his elbow earlier this week. It's a busy life being a moderately clumsy boy who falls down a lot. Sometimes his legs look like he was run over by a truck and I'm vaguely worried Child Services might think we're beating on him. Ah, to be a boy again, where you don't creak for weeks when you fall flat on your face...

• OK, after five debates this past month (four in the U.S. and one New Zealand), I'm officially debated-out. Still, yesterday's American finale was interesting to watch as the slow implosion of John McCain's campaign continues. Yes, he could still win, and I'm certainly not going to rule it out, but boy, overall his performance in these debates has been dismal. Interestingly, it's not so much what he said as how he performed. Obama has proven to be pretty masterful at projecting a cool, collected vibe, even if it sometimes is a bit stiff. But McCain has been all over the bloody show at all three debates, by turns hyperactive, frazzled, arrogant and insecure. I watched much of yesterday's debate on the big-screen at work, with the sound lower so I was focusing more on the visuals than the words, and McCain was just jittery, vibrating on that chair like a volcano in the rough. These debates have shown the sound bites are sometimes less important than the image ones, I think.

• Very cool retro discovery of October for me is the post-punk band Magazine. I've been re-reading my "Rough Guide To Punk" and they sounded interesting, so I plunked out on the collection "Where The Power Is". After grooving out to it all week, I'm definitely going back for more of their albums. Frontman Howard DeVoto was originally in The Buzzcocks and after splitting with them set off to make his own band. Wow, what a cool sound they had -- kind of straddling the line between punk anger and synth-pop, they're like the missing link between the Sex Pistols and Depeche Mode. "Where The Power Is" covers the band's 1978-1981 heyday, and goes from the raging explosion of "Shot On Both Sides" to the doom-pop "This Poison." Special props to the epic "The Light Pours Out of Me" and guitars 'n' keyboards workout of "Definitive Gaze", although my favorite tune might be the snide and twisted "A Song From Under The Floorboards." Devoto sneers in his Johhny Rotten meets Peter Garrett voice, "I know the meaning of life / it doesn't help me a bit." Too cool.

• Well, after mulling it over I plunked down my $150NZ (urk!) and am going to see Neil Young in January, along with Prodigy, TV On The Radio and all the rest at the Big Day Out 2009. I wavered a bit but looked over at all my Neil Young CDs (I don't have everything from this prolific singer, but I've got nearly 20 of 'em) and said, My My, Hey Hey, OK. Besides, living in New Zealand, you really have to take into account the likelihood of a performer ever coming through here again. Sadly, faithful wife isn't going, so heck, if anyone in Auckland is going and wants to hang, let me know...

It's never too early to think about summer music

Ahh, summer (er, in New Zealand) is near and that means summer concerts! Why, it's been months since I've gone to a gig, since my three-show-run in March of Cat Power, Iron & Wine and Wilco. But tunes lurk ahead -- the Mountain Goats have FINALLY rescheduled the show they were supposed to do down here earlier this year, for right before Christmas, and yep, the wife and I are going. Their latest, "Heretic Pride," is one of my favorites of the year and the club they're playing in is supposed to be nicely intimate.

Also today we got a look at the lineup for NZ's biggest music event of the year, the Big Day Out 2009. It's hard to top last year's stellar lineup -- Spoon, Arcade Fire, Billy Bragg, Bjork, LCD Soundsystem all in one go? With ticket prices in the three-digit range you've got to get a decent amount of value for your money, to put up with the crowds and heat and so forth.

This year's lineup for the January festival gets a big plus with me with headliner Neil Young, one of my top 5 artists and one I've never seen live. He's coming with Crazy Horse so expect the loudness, and, at 62, I'm thinking I may not get too many more chances to see Neil live. So big incentive for tickets there.

Also on the bill is TV On The Radio, the art-rock Brooklyn combo whose new album "Dear Science" is way cool and I'll be writing more about soon. Another plus. But after that my interest level drops a bit -- My Morning Jacket and Prodigy would be quite interesting to see, but not enough to draw me out on their own. And I've quite enjoyed the newbie punk-pop Arctic Monkeys, although I'm not really a fan of being shoved around by people 20 years younger than me in mosh pits anymore. The rest of the bands either I'm not familiar with or don't much care about -- the Ting Tings, Black Seeds, The Datsuns and many more.

So I've got two "must-sees" and a handful of "like to see's." Does that merit a ticket? Not sure yet. But it's Neil, man. Neil. They usually announce a few more bands (I'd really dig it if the rumoured Beck would come), so I can hold off on the spending for now at least.

Music: Takin' a ride with Shakey: Neil Young's Biography

If you ask me, Neil Young is perpetually cool. I went through a big Neil phase circa 1990-1994 or so, turned on by the epic, cranky "Rockin' In The Free World" single and the accompanying stellar album Freedom. Somewhere along the way I lost interest in picking up every new album of his as they came out and drifted on to other things — not that I stopped liking Neil Young, you understand. Now, thanks to a fine book, I'm back on the Neil Young kick again.

The 2002 book Shakey: Neil Young's Biography by Jimmy McDonough is an attempt to untangle the truth about Young – and it featured the cooperation of the very private star. Star cooperation often means a book that's been whitewashed into generic, applauding prose.

But McDonough has crafted a book that belongs in the higher echelons of rock biographies – it's loose, sprawling, candid, overlong and over-opinionated, and it fits its subject perfectly. More than 10 years of work and a lot of heartbreak went into Shakey, and it shows. Through more than 800 pages, I was riveted. Those expecting a more conventional biography will be annoyed, but I think McDonough knew that Neil would confound any attempts to pin him down and adapted accordingly. Shakey acknowledges that no biography can capture every facet of a life, that there's always some myth and mystery in trying to retell someone's story. The result is a book that's as much about Neil Young as it is about trying to write a book about Neil Young.

McDonough casts himself prominently in the book as he trolls through Young's 40-year career, hunting down old friends, relatives and enemies. The book is also interspersed with lengthy, remarkably honest interviews with Young, who comes off as a cantankerous but often brilliant artist constantly trying to break the mold: "Rock and roll … that's where God and the devil shake hands – right there, heh heh heh."

McDonough captures the grit and contrary talents of Young, who's swerved from Sonic Youth roar to folksy campfire ballads to techno-drone rock in his lifetime. He paints Young as firmly following his muse no matter the consequences – including lost friends or a damaged career. Shakey offers a defining portrait of how albums like Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere, Tonight's The Night, Zuma, Ragged Glory and more came to be.

Young's battles with polio, epilepsy and drugs, his having two children born with cerebral palsy, the failed relationships, battles with a record label that actually sued him over the content of his "uncommercial records" – it's all here. "It's a big wake. A lotta destruction behind me," says Young, who fully admits to being an "asshole" sometimes. Shakey is packed with great stories capturing the debauchery of '70s rock, and the casualties it left behind. In particular, his take on Crosby, Stills & Nash is devastating, like a coked-out version of Spinal Tap.

McDonough has a huge bias towards Young's sloppy, raw Crazy Horse material and is less invested in his other country, folk or more bizarre 1980s side roads. He's constantly boosting Young's work and making snide asides about other artists, particularly Young's rival/partner Stephen Stills. Of course, that slant of the author's can and does become tiresome. He's the kind of guy who will diss an acclaimed album like Freedom in favor of some obscure live bootleg recorded in the back of a pickup truck.

I'll admit, by the last 50 pages or so McDonough wears out his welcome, becoming more and more prominent in the narrative (he'd have us believe he helped steer Neil's career, even) and generally coming off as just another loudmouth know-it-all fan. Yet that same fanboy passion is what keeps Shakey hurtling along as a narrative that evokes the spirit of the artist's music more than many other rock biographies. It shakes all right, but it also rattles and rolls.