From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Neil Percival Young^[1] OM (born November 12, 1945, Toronto, Ontario) is a Canadian singer-songwriter, guitarist, and film director from Winnipeg, Manitoba.

 Although he accompanies himself on several different instruments—including piano and harmonica—his style of hammer-on acoustic guitar and often idiosyncratic soloing on electric guitar are the lynchpins of a sometimes ragged, sometimes polished, yet consistently evocative sound. Although Young has experimented widely with differing music styles, including swing, jazz, rockabilly, blues, and electronica throughout a varied career, his best known work usually falls into either of two distinct styles: folk-esque acoustic rock (as heard in songs such as "Heart of Gold" (sample (help·info)), "Harvest Moon" and "Old Man") and electric-charged hard rock (in songs like "Cinnamon Girl", "Rockin' in the Free World" and "Hey Hey, My My (Into the Black)"). In more recent years, Young has started to adopt elements from newer styles of music, such as industrial, alternative country and grunge, the latter of which was profoundly influenced by his own style of playing, often bringing him the title of "the godfather of grunge".

Young has directed (or co-directed) a number of films using the pseudonym Bernard Shakey, including Journey Through the Past (1973), Rust Never Sleeps (1979), Human Highway (1982), and Greendale (2003).^[2]

He is also an outspoken advocate for environmental issues and small farmers, having co-founded the benefit concert Farm Aid, and in 1986 helped found The Bridge School,^[3] and its annual supporting Bridge School Benefit concerts, together with his wife Pegi.

About Greendale by Jules Brenner from VARIAGATE

Does recording images on film make it a film? This is one question posed by singer Neil Young's album staging he calls "Greendale." As a story, it doesn't any more follow a dramatic linear structure than most songs do. Song subjects meander, evoke thoughts and feelings and have little restraint on the topics they embrace. Ballads, being songs that tell a story, are somewhat more disciplined in outlining a scenario, but much liberty is taken and allowed.

Neil Young, balladeer, is no different. His new album of the same name as this piece of film creates characters to express his sentiments about a thing or two, like getting involved in the environment issue, and he gets behind the camera to shoot an enactment of his song imagery. The result, make no mistake about it, is an album on film. Nothing more; nothing less. Which makes it marvelous for Young fans, morbidly curious and rejectable for those who definitely aren't.

While you may not get it all from the visual rendering, it tells about a family that voices much opinion about the vagaries of political realities and injustices, railing in particular about environmental issues. It goes into the murder of a cop and the laments of a harmonica-toting perp as he's put behind bars. It brings in a dance crazed, crazy garbed devil, the supposed evolution into a sexy thing who goes by the name of Sun Green and becomes a heavyweight envionmental guerilla chick. It's presented in dislocated fragments building in its last track to a cohesive, chorus staged cry for reform. "Save the planet for another day... Be the river as it moves along... Be the Rain", cries Young through his enacting personnel.

The device is a cast of enactors who mouth Young's lyrics. The effect is curious but not boring so long as you're into the energy on the exceedingly good soundtrack by Young and his exceptional band, Crazy Horse. This style and technique devised by the songwriter cum super-8 camera operator, may not be a new amalgamation of art forms but it makes for a potentially enjoyable entertainment for the right folks.

Within that context, even the high grain, low res, the dislocating cuts and moves, the erratic continuity, incohesion and intelligibility are all besides the point. The synthesis of the whole has everything to do with the distinctive voice quality and signature phrasing of the songmaker and the opportunity to see what images lay behind his musical creation. It's probably the first time a singer-songwriter employed this medium to make visible his internal ideas behind an album of 10 tracks.

If he's nothing else, Young is an innovator -- a creatively restless one whose voice is one-of-a-kind and whose dominant motifs include love, kindness and endurability for the planet. What was that? Be the rain.

Neil Young - Greendale (DVD The movie) (click to download)[external tracker]

neilyoung&crazyhorse.torrent (click to download)[external tracker]

06/13/03 Neil Young & Crazy Horse
What Stage, Bonnaroo Music Festival,
Manchestor, TN

Source: Neumann SKM-140 > Lunatec V-3 > D7
Location: FOB
Converted: PCM-R500 > UA-1D/Inspiron 6000/CEP 2.0 (48k)
CEP 2.0 (48k->44.1k) > CDWave > FLAC Frontend
Patched & Seeded by JMC


Love To Burn
Sedan Delivery
Powderfinger
Hey Hey, My My
Cortez The Killer
Fuckin' Up
Like A Hurricane

Encore 1:

Be The Rain
Cinnamon Girl
Rockin' In The Free World
Roll Another Number

Encore 2:

Down By The River