For the last couple of months I have had the great pleasure of reading this book and re-examining the catalog of Neil Young.  I have been a fan of Neil’s music ever since a friend turned me on to Decade (1977 career retrospective) in high school.  This book allowed me to literally dissect Neil Young’s immense body of work piece by piece, learning the background of what I was hearing.

The material is extremely interesting, or as Young would say "innaresting".  The format in which the information and story is delivered is genius.  The book surpasses what your garden variety biography would deliver with a mish mash of chronological story telling, excerpts from interviews with Young himself, short biographies and quotes from the large cast of characters that have occupied Young’s life, all mixed in with commentary from the Author.

The book covers Neil’s life up to around 1998 including a quick but detailed history of his Grandparents and Parents lives.  Once you get to his High School days you will learn all about his influences and his early musical ventures.  Moving further on though his musical career the bulk of the book is about the music he created as a solo artist, with Buffalo Springfield, Crosby Stills Nash & Young, Crazy Horse, and the many other incarnations of his backing groups.  Among the characters that are covered include his manager Elliot Roberts, the producer for many of his albums David Briggs, early collaborator Jack Nitzsche, and most of the members of the bands he was involved with.

My only qualm with the book is that I think Jimmy McDonough is a little heavy handed with his opinions about some of Young’s work and decisions.  Most of the time he is right and he tells Young to his face, but I do think he has some pretty high expectations.

I have always found Young to be a fascinating character, and I was surprised by some new facts.  For example before he moved to America, Young was in a group called the The Mynah Birds with Rick James (Beotch!) of all people.  They even recorded an album for Motown which sadly has never seen release.  Another strange connection was his involvement with Devo which I covered in a recent post which you can see here.   The last little tidbit I’ll offer is his involvement in the toy train industry.  In the early 1990′s Young purchased part of the Lionel toy company and eventually bought them out.  Also check out the ever eccentric Young’s newest projects on this recent post.

Usually I include a playlist with each of my music book reviews and I fully intend to do so for this one as well.  Actually it will be more like 3-4 playlists, each covering a different era of his recording career.

Neil Young & Crazy Horse – Rust Never Sleeps (DVD)

The live concert video featuring a performance from the 1978 Rust Never Sleeps Tour.  Originally released in 1979 and reissued by Sanctuary on DVD in 2002.  I’ve never really enjoyed live concert films very much, but I regard this one as a gem with its classic set list, bizarre interludes, and odd stage props.  Neil really went all out on the concept for these shows in 78′ as his usual humorous between song banter is replaced by weird rock music and pop culture references.  One of the most striking things about the film/tour is the inclusion of the "Road Eyes", which were glowing eyed jawa looking creatures who took over the stage hand/roadie duties during the performance.  Another interesting inclusion is the PA announcements that take place during the intermission, which after awhile you may or may not realize are from the overblown festival Woodstock (an event that Young played at as part of CSNY).  Even after all the osbscure references, costuming, and odd set design… at the films core is a rock solid performance from Young and the Horse.

A little known fact about the title for the film and album of the same name is that its a direct quote from the lead singer of Devo, Mark Mothersbaugh (aka Booji Boy).  Neil first heard Mark say this during filming of the feature Human Highway; a film project that Neil worked on in the late 70s and early 80s that featured the actors Dennis Hoffman & Dean Stockwell and also the members of Devo.

Enjoy the performance of one of my favorite Neil Young songs from the show below.  Beware if you are short on patience… its a long jam.

I was a late adopter to Lily’s debut record Alright, Still… but no matter your stance on popular music it has got some charm.  Here is my review of her newest.  See the explanation of my reviews here.

(You may have trouble viewing this embedded PDF, if so you can trying updating Adobe Shockwave Player, or download the PDF here.)

Not a great outcome, but I’m not one expect you to take my word for it.  Listen below and make your own mind up.

Paul Stanley, lead singer/guitarist of the costumed rock band Kiss is a serious painter.  I guess its not such a huge surprise when you consider all the face painting over the years.  What is the most surprising to me is that I didn’t hate all of his paintings.  I’m no art critic, but I know what I like.  Some are a bit simple, featuring repetitive images of hearts and stars, but a bunch were fairly impressive with great use of textures and bright colors.  Here are a few of my favorites found just browsing for just a few minutes on his site, www.paulstanley.com.

Just for the hell of it I’m embedding my favorite Kiss album (when they still wore makeup of course) Destoyer from 1976.  Enjoy!