"It's like a warning to me...... Stay still, Shakey, and you'll turn to rust and dust....... So I keep on moving" -Neil Young
Monday, October 19, 2009
Wednesday, October 14, 2009
Caravan/IRF/BSB/Idaho!!!!
Friday morning I will be flying to the West Coast....Seattle/Tacoma.....to meet up with a group of Rusties for a Very Big Adventure. Folks from literally all around the globe will gather Friday and drive down the coast together to the International Rust Fest (IRF), which is the Friday before the Bridge School Benefit. At that event, even more Rusties, also from around the world, gather to visit and play music and celebrate Neil Young. The IRF is held in 'Neil Country' and it is cool to play his music under the redwoods with other fanatical folk.....
The trip down will be filled with good times and laughs and music. Guitars and singers will be in abundance and we all like Neil Young music!!!!! Hopefully we can put together some songs for the IRF, or work on stuff for OPL....Old Princeton Landing, where we go to play acoustic music in a venue Neil himself has played in.
The end of my trip will be spent with old friends in Idaho....sort of a place to settle back down in. I hope.
Tonight I feel a little pensive, a little anxious, and a whole lot excited!!!!
The trip down will be filled with good times and laughs and music. Guitars and singers will be in abundance and we all like Neil Young music!!!!! Hopefully we can put together some songs for the IRF, or work on stuff for OPL....Old Princeton Landing, where we go to play acoustic music in a venue Neil himself has played in.
The end of my trip will be spent with old friends in Idaho....sort of a place to settle back down in. I hope.
Tonight I feel a little pensive, a little anxious, and a whole lot excited!!!!
Tuesday, October 13, 2009
The Immortals - The Greatest Artists of All Time: 34) Neil Young
By Flea-
There's a rare contradiction in Neil Young's work. He works so hard as a songwriter, and he's written a phenomenal number of perfect songs. And, at the same time, he doesn't give a fuck. That comes from caring about essence. There can be things out of tune and all wild-sounding and not recorded meticulously. And he doesn't care. He's made whole albums that aren't great, and instead of going back to a formula that he knows works, he would rather represent where he is at the time. That's what's so awesome: watching his career wax and wane according to the truth of his character at the moment. It's never phony. It's always real. The truth is not always perfect.
I can't say enough about how much I love Crazy Horse. The sound is so deep, the groove is so deep -- even when they're off, it still sounds great, because they feel it so much. I don't usually go for that approach. I like Sly and the Family Stone, Miles Davis and Mingus. I like consummate steady musicianship. I grew up on jazz. I didn't listen to rock music until I played in my first rock band when I was in high school. I went from progressive to Hendrix to funk to full-on L.A. punk. That's when I had the realization that emotion and content, no matter how simple, were valuable. A great one-chord punk song became as important to me as a Coltrane solo, and I've had the same feeling about Neil Young. He changed the way I thought about rock music. As a bass player, I used to be into very boisterous, syncopated and rhythmically complex songs. After hearing Neil, I appreciated simplicity, the poignancy of "less is more."
My favorite Neil album is Zuma, with "Pardon My Heart" and "Lookin' for a Love": "But I hope I treat her kind/And don't mess with her mind/When she starts to see the darker side of me." And "Tell Me Why," on After the Gold Rush -- when he says, "Is it hard to make arrangements with yourself/When you're old enough to repay but young enough to sell?" it feels like me. I know I'm not alone. Tonight's the Night is probably the greatest raw rock record ever made, on a level with the Stooges' Fun House or any Hendrix album. It's such a mess, with stuff recorded so loud that it distorts. The background vocals are completely out of tune. And I wouldn't change a note. It's the spirit of what rock music is, and it's the reason to play rock music.
Neil is the guy I look at when I think about getting older in a rock band and still having dignity and relevance and honesty. He's never, ever sold out, and he's never pretended to be anything other than what he is. The Chili Peppers get offers all the time to sell songs for commercials and tour sponsorships, and our manager says it's not considered selling out anymore. It's the smart move, he says. Maybe we could whore ourselves out for the right price someday. I don't know. But I always think, "Would Neil Young do this?" And the answer is no. Neil Young wouldn't fuckin' do it.
[From Issue 946 — April 15, 2004]
There's a rare contradiction in Neil Young's work. He works so hard as a songwriter, and he's written a phenomenal number of perfect songs. And, at the same time, he doesn't give a fuck. That comes from caring about essence. There can be things out of tune and all wild-sounding and not recorded meticulously. And he doesn't care. He's made whole albums that aren't great, and instead of going back to a formula that he knows works, he would rather represent where he is at the time. That's what's so awesome: watching his career wax and wane according to the truth of his character at the moment. It's never phony. It's always real. The truth is not always perfect.
I can't say enough about how much I love Crazy Horse. The sound is so deep, the groove is so deep -- even when they're off, it still sounds great, because they feel it so much. I don't usually go for that approach. I like Sly and the Family Stone, Miles Davis and Mingus. I like consummate steady musicianship. I grew up on jazz. I didn't listen to rock music until I played in my first rock band when I was in high school. I went from progressive to Hendrix to funk to full-on L.A. punk. That's when I had the realization that emotion and content, no matter how simple, were valuable. A great one-chord punk song became as important to me as a Coltrane solo, and I've had the same feeling about Neil Young. He changed the way I thought about rock music. As a bass player, I used to be into very boisterous, syncopated and rhythmically complex songs. After hearing Neil, I appreciated simplicity, the poignancy of "less is more."
My favorite Neil album is Zuma, with "Pardon My Heart" and "Lookin' for a Love": "But I hope I treat her kind/And don't mess with her mind/When she starts to see the darker side of me." And "Tell Me Why," on After the Gold Rush -- when he says, "Is it hard to make arrangements with yourself/When you're old enough to repay but young enough to sell?" it feels like me. I know I'm not alone. Tonight's the Night is probably the greatest raw rock record ever made, on a level with the Stooges' Fun House or any Hendrix album. It's such a mess, with stuff recorded so loud that it distorts. The background vocals are completely out of tune. And I wouldn't change a note. It's the spirit of what rock music is, and it's the reason to play rock music.
Neil is the guy I look at when I think about getting older in a rock band and still having dignity and relevance and honesty. He's never, ever sold out, and he's never pretended to be anything other than what he is. The Chili Peppers get offers all the time to sell songs for commercials and tour sponsorships, and our manager says it's not considered selling out anymore. It's the smart move, he says. Maybe we could whore ourselves out for the right price someday. I don't know. But I always think, "Would Neil Young do this?" And the answer is no. Neil Young wouldn't fuckin' do it.
[From Issue 946 — April 15, 2004]
Wednesday, September 30, 2009
Monday, September 28, 2009
Laurel Lake
Music is a Healer. It communicates without words. It touches people in real, wonderful ways. I know this in my heart, and I see it when I play.
When I was growing up, I had a best friend, Karen. We listened to music together, we giggled over boys, we dreamed about what life would be for us. Just like girls do. We were in each others weddings. We raised our kids together. We should be coping with our empty nests together.
But my friend Karen has Huntington's Disease, a progressive disease of the neurological system that runs in families. In her family, four out of six kids has Huntington's. One is already gone and the other three all live at a home in Lee, Mass which specializes in the care of people with Huntington's disease, Laurel Lake.
Karen and her brothers Paul and John are visited a couple times a month by their sister, Suzanne and Karen's daughter, Jen. Up until pretty recently, I have had the guilt of not going to visit them, but felt that it would be too hard....you know, all the ways that we convince ourselves not to do something we should do....she won't know me, I can't talk to her, what do I tell her??? When I visited for the first time in several years after the Garbage Trail walk this year, all those things were bothersome, but I could not deny that she very much knew who I was and appreciated my time with her!!! But I still can't TALK and UNDERSTAND and that drives me batty...
But I do carry a guitar. I can sing. And all the songs I do are old songs that Karen and I loved as kids....
I mentioned to Jen, who mentioned to Suzanne that perhaps I should go with them some Sunday with my guitar, because then I would be able to DO something Karen might appreciate....and they emailed me with 'how about this weekend' and 'we will drive' and 'don't worry, we will just take over a room and no one will mind' and other ways of calming my nerves right down....
In other words, they took away ALL of my 'yes but'....and I found myself, yesterday, driving to Laurel Lake with them and Suzanne's MIL....a great group of women, laughing and joking all the way...
Suzanne was in control, I told her....whenever she thought I should play, just tell me....so we collected Karen, and Paul and John and headed to a room where she said, this fine? and i started playing....
Wow, music does it. People heard and came and thanked us for singing and playing. Paul looked me in the face and gave me his version of smiling. John fell asleep (I was told that was a GOOD sign, he sleeps when he is feeling good and comfortable). And Karen....she recognized and tried to sing along with many of the songs and kept looking at me with amazement...I have gotten a bit better than the last time she heard me!!!! When we went for a break, she was upset until I told her we would come back and do some more....It was clear that the music was moving in that place and giving people joy-I was honored that it was moving through me to them, making those folks feel a little brighter....
This is what is good about music, it touches and heals and makes people feel good. It is SO COOL to have a little piece of that, to share the music out like that. Music is meant to be shared. Give it out....
When I was growing up, I had a best friend, Karen. We listened to music together, we giggled over boys, we dreamed about what life would be for us. Just like girls do. We were in each others weddings. We raised our kids together. We should be coping with our empty nests together.
But my friend Karen has Huntington's Disease, a progressive disease of the neurological system that runs in families. In her family, four out of six kids has Huntington's. One is already gone and the other three all live at a home in Lee, Mass which specializes in the care of people with Huntington's disease, Laurel Lake.
Karen and her brothers Paul and John are visited a couple times a month by their sister, Suzanne and Karen's daughter, Jen. Up until pretty recently, I have had the guilt of not going to visit them, but felt that it would be too hard....you know, all the ways that we convince ourselves not to do something we should do....she won't know me, I can't talk to her, what do I tell her??? When I visited for the first time in several years after the Garbage Trail walk this year, all those things were bothersome, but I could not deny that she very much knew who I was and appreciated my time with her!!! But I still can't TALK and UNDERSTAND and that drives me batty...
But I do carry a guitar. I can sing. And all the songs I do are old songs that Karen and I loved as kids....
I mentioned to Jen, who mentioned to Suzanne that perhaps I should go with them some Sunday with my guitar, because then I would be able to DO something Karen might appreciate....and they emailed me with 'how about this weekend' and 'we will drive' and 'don't worry, we will just take over a room and no one will mind' and other ways of calming my nerves right down....
In other words, they took away ALL of my 'yes but'....and I found myself, yesterday, driving to Laurel Lake with them and Suzanne's MIL....a great group of women, laughing and joking all the way...
Suzanne was in control, I told her....whenever she thought I should play, just tell me....so we collected Karen, and Paul and John and headed to a room where she said, this fine? and i started playing....
Wow, music does it. People heard and came and thanked us for singing and playing. Paul looked me in the face and gave me his version of smiling. John fell asleep (I was told that was a GOOD sign, he sleeps when he is feeling good and comfortable). And Karen....she recognized and tried to sing along with many of the songs and kept looking at me with amazement...I have gotten a bit better than the last time she heard me!!!! When we went for a break, she was upset until I told her we would come back and do some more....It was clear that the music was moving in that place and giving people joy-I was honored that it was moving through me to them, making those folks feel a little brighter....
This is what is good about music, it touches and heals and makes people feel good. It is SO COOL to have a little piece of that, to share the music out like that. Music is meant to be shared. Give it out....
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