{"id":1356,"date":"2009-05-27T10:02:27","date_gmt":"2009-05-27T14:02:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thetrickismusic.com\/?p=1356"},"modified":"2021-02-05T12:33:01","modified_gmt":"2021-02-05T16:33:01","slug":"taking-a-look-into-neil-youngs-archive","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thetrickismusic.com\/?p=1356","title":{"rendered":"Taking a look into Neil Young&#8217;s Archive"},"content":{"rendered":"<div style=\"float:right;margin: 12px;\"><script type=\"text\/javascript\"><!--\r\ngoogle_ad_client = \"pub-1213643583738263\";\r\ngoogle_ad_slot = \"8050392339\";\r\ngoogle_ad_width = 234;\r\ngoogle_ad_height = 60;\r\n\/\/-->\r\n<\/script>\r\ngoogle.com, pub-3680554235834172, DIRECT, f08c47fec0942fa0\r\n<script type=\"text\/javascript\"\r\nsrc=\"http:\/\/pagead2.googlesyndication.com\/pagead\/show_ads.js\">\r\n<\/script><\/div><div style=\"float:right;margin: 12px;\"><script type=\"text\/javascript\"><!--\ngoogle_ad_client = \"pub-1213643583738263\";\ngoogle_ad_slot = \"5294177075\";\ngoogle_ad_width = 234;\ngoogle_ad_height = 60;\n\/\/-->\n<\/script>\n<script type=\"text\/javascript\"\nsrc=\"http:\/\/pagead2.googlesyndication.com\/pagead\/show_ads.js\">\n<\/script><\/div><p><!-- Global site tag (gtag.js) - Google Analytics --><br \/>\n<script async=\"\" src=\"https:\/\/www.googletagmanager.com\/gtag\/js?id=UA-6115888-3\"><\/script><br \/>\n<script><br \/>\n  window.dataLayer = window.dataLayer || [];<br \/>\n  function gtag(){dataLayer.push(arguments);}<br \/>\n  gtag('js', new Date());<\/p>\n<p>  gtag('config', 'UA-6115888-3');<br \/>\n<\/script>OK, I admit it. I caved. On pre-ordering the first installment of the Neil Young Archive Box Set, that is. I wrestled with this one for a while. And it wasn&#8217;t Neil&#8217;s testimonial to the Blu-Ray format on his web site that made&nbsp;me more amenable to the lofty prices for this set, which is available in three formats, Blu-Ray, DVD and CD.<\/p>\n<p><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-1365\" title=\"neil-young-preview-small1\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.thetrickismusic.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/05\/neil-young-preview-small1.jpg?resize=250%2C241\" alt=\"neil-young-preview-small1\" width=\"250\" height=\"241\">But I figured I would wind up buying it at some point anyways because it covers what I find the most interesting aspect of Young&#8217;s career, 1963-1972,&nbsp;and it seems that recently the best prices you can find on new releases are available before they are released. Although I have noticed the prices going down a little on the CD and Blu-Ray sets since I ordered.<\/p>\n<p>Also, if you pre-order it in either Blu-Ray or DVD, you receive a preview disc in Blu-Ray of&nbsp;the first disc in the set, labeled Disc 00 (how high tech!?!),&nbsp; just the kind of offer for which I&#8217;m a sucker.<\/p>\n<p>This set has been in the pipeline for something like 15 years. Ridiculous, isn&#8217;t it? In the meantime, Young has refused to re-master any of his early albums, the ones I believe are his best, because he hates the CD format for sound quality almost as much as he hates digital downloads.<!--more--><\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;m with him on the latter, but he&#8217;s overstating it on CD. Many of the recently mastered CDs sound fine. Given the reassessment of some re-mastering jobs, though, it&#8217;s now sobering to find out some of the original CD transfers from the late &#8217;80s, which are quite rare and pricey,&nbsp;are the preferable versions because many came from better sources, i.e. original master tapes.<\/p>\n<p>For the record, I ordered the DVD version. I don&#8217;t own a Blu-Ray player for my TV and I would never listen to music through my TV sound system. I listen only through my stereo, which is a much better quality system as well as being somewhat classic.&nbsp;I&#8217;ll play it on an SACD player connected to my system, which is capable of playing DVD. I do, however, have a Blu-Ray drive in one of my computers, so I listened\/viewed&nbsp;the preview disc through that.<\/p>\n<p>Granted the software for the program is probably not as compatible as having a dedicated Blu-Ray player, but I had quite a few problems getting this disc to run initially and some functions never worked. Also, if you receive it, watch out! The disc has a nasty habit of falling out of the cardboard sleeve it came in. That&#8217;s happened to me&nbsp;twice already. These little cardboard sleeves are cool looking and remind you of album covers&nbsp;but when they aren&#8217;t manufactured correctly, just as with the sleeves for the Beatles Capitol&nbsp;remasters that are&nbsp;a disaster, the discs fly in every direction. Take note Neil, the quality control on this one isn&#8217;t up to snuff.<\/p>\n<p>On to the disc. Disc 00 is called Early Years, covers 1963-65 and&nbsp;contains 15 tracks, everything you will receive in the 10-disc set with the exception&nbsp;of two hidden tracks (I couldn&#8217;t find them). The first 15 include songs by one of Neil&#8217;s first bands in Canada, The Squires, and demos and sessions of Young solo and with Comrie Smith.<\/p>\n<div style=\"float:left;margin: 12px;\"><script type=\"text\/javascript\"><!--\ngoogle_ad_client = \"pub-1213643583738263\";\ngoogle_ad_slot = \"5294177075\";\ngoogle_ad_width = 234;\ngoogle_ad_height = 60;\n\/\/-->\n<\/script>\n<script type=\"text\/javascript\"\nsrc=\"http:\/\/pagead2.googlesyndication.com\/pagead\/show_ads.js\">\n<\/script><\/div><div style=\"float:left;margin: 12px;\"><script type=\"text\/javascript\"><!--\r\ngoogle.com, pub-3680554235834172, DIRECT, f08c47fec0942fa0\r\ngoogle_ad_client = \"pub-1213643583738263\";\r\ngoogle_ad_slot = \"8050392339\";\r\ngoogle_ad_width = 234;\r\ngoogle_ad_height = 60;\r\n\/\/-->\r\n<\/script>\r\n<script type=\"text\/javascript\"\r\nsrc=\"http:\/\/pagead2.googlesyndication.com\/pagead\/show_ads.js\">\r\n<\/script><\/div><p>The sound quality on some of these early tracks, particularly the ones by The Squires, is quite good. Some of the demos though from a later period are not, but it would appear the original recordings have a lot to do with the final mastering results. The Squires play several instrumentals and sound like a Canadian version of the Ventures. They pull it off nicely with Aurora and&nbsp;The Sultan,&nbsp;which were released as a single,&nbsp;another instrumental, Mustang, and I Wonder, I&#8217;ll Love You Forever and (I&#8217;m A Man And) I Can&#8217;t Cry, all sung by Young and previously unreleased.<\/p>\n<p>The material with high school buddy Comrie Smith, recorded in an attic,&nbsp;includes Hello Lonely Woman, Casting Me Away From You and There Goes My Babe. It&#8217;s&nbsp;rough but you have to take into consideration the recording limitations. Young had yet to find his feet as a songwriter here but it&#8217;s interesting to hear the early offerings.<\/p>\n<p>Further demos are in&nbsp;better sound quality and show Young developing as a songwriter but still looking for his voice as a singer. Even the familiar Nowadays Clancy Can&#8217;t Even Sing is quite different from Neil&#8217;s distinctive high-pitched delivery. Of course he never sang Clancy in Buffalo Springfield, having been deemed not up to it.<\/p>\n<p>The version of Sugar Mountain is one of the worst I&#8217;ve heard. And as much as I love this song, I think I&#8217;ve heard enough versions of it. The classic live cut on Decade and the one on Live At Canterbury House 1968 will suffice.<\/p>\n<p>The disc also includes a Timeline of Young&#8217;s career that is interactive, graphically pleasing and very informative. Also, while you&#8217;re listening to the disc various reel-to-reel tape deck animations are displayed on the screen. They are kind of neat but it&#8217;s not really something that&#8217;s essential. Young seems fascinated with this type of thing though since a lot of his Live At Massey Hall DVD was simply shots of a tape recorder rolling. I don&#8217;t really need to look at something like this while I&#8217;m listening to music.<\/p>\n<p>My overall impressions of Disc 00 are favorable on content and sound quality, even though this will probably be the least listened to disc in the set for me. I&#8217;m much more interested in Buffalo Springfield, the first solo album, The Loner, vastly underrated, After The Gold Rush, Young&#8217;s gold standard, and Harvest. Although 48 of the 128 cuts are previously unreleased, there are several cuts from the Buffalo Springfield Box Set and other sources, which I already have. That surprised me a little. But this will the first time these early albums and tracks from Buffalo Springfield Again will have been remastered, plus there&nbsp;is a plethora of unreleased mixes, takes, demos, first pressings and so forth from the early work, albeit some coming at the cost of the original album cuts.<\/p>\n<p>There is also a&nbsp;previously unreleased live concert, Live At The Riverboat (Toronto 1969). Two of the discs have actually already been released (that&#8217;s kind of weird), Massey Hall and Live At The Fillmore 1970 with Crazy Horse. I have the Massey Hall.<\/p>\n<p>The CD set, which can be had for about $80,&nbsp;comes minus a DVD of Journey Through The Past, which was a limited released movie Young shot in the early 1970s as well as other footage from various sources, another reason why I opted for the DVD, which will set you back $200, that&#8217;s 20 bucks a disc. The Blu-Ray, however, lists for $350. Give me a break. With the track record of the Preview Disc I received, which has stopped working since I started writing this, I&#8217;m glad I passed on it.<code><\/code><\/p>\n<p><code><\/code><\/p>\n<div style=\"float:right;margin: 12px;\"><script type=\"text\/javascript\"><!--\ngoogle_ad_client = \"pub-1213643583738263\";\ngoogle_ad_slot = \"5294177075\";\ngoogle_ad_width = 234;\ngoogle_ad_height = 60;\n\/\/-->\n<\/script>\n<script type=\"text\/javascript\"\nsrc=\"http:\/\/pagead2.googlesyndication.com\/pagead\/show_ads.js\">\n<\/script><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>google.com, pub-3680554235834172, DIRECT, f08c47fec0942fa0 OK, I admit it. I caved. On pre-ordering the first installment of the Neil Young Archive Box Set, that is. I wrestled with this one for a while. And it wasn&#8217;t Neil&#8217;s testimonial to the Blu-Ray format on his web site that made&nbsp;me more amenable to the lofty prices for this &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.thetrickismusic.com\/?p=1356\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Taking a look into Neil Young&#8217;s Archive<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[8],"tags":[446,28,443,58,450,78,453,452,454,448,112,447,175,185,451,449,243,445],"class_list":["post-1356","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-music","tag-after-the-gold-rush","tag-americana","tag-archive-box-set","tag-buffalo-springfield","tag-canada","tag-country-rock","tag-crazy-horse","tag-crosby-stills-nash-young","tag-disc-00","tag-everybody-knows-this-is-nowhere","tag-fillmore-east","tag-harvest","tag-massey-hall","tag-neil-young","tag-riverboat","tag-sugar-mountain","tag-the-loner","tag-the-squires"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/puDy0-lS","jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetrickismusic.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1356","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetrickismusic.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetrickismusic.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetrickismusic.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetrickismusic.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1356"}],"version-history":[{"count":29,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetrickismusic.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1356\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5537,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetrickismusic.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1356\/revisions\/5537"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetrickismusic.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1356"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetrickismusic.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1356"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetrickismusic.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1356"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}