Official Neil Young Thread

PJ_Soul

I just had one of the hardest vinyl buying decision-making process ever over the volume 2 boxset, lol. And I bought it. Pretty fucking stoked about having these albums, but jesus, $190 USD after shipping.... what did I just do?!

brianlux

PJ_Soul said:

I just had one of the hardest vinyl buying decision-making process ever over the volume 2 boxset, lol. And I bought it. Pretty fucking stoked about having these albums, but jesus, $190 USD after shipping.... what did I just do?!

Ramen and crackers for the next several weeks? Don't worry, Neil will keep your head well fed!

PJ_Soul

brianlux said:

PJ_Soul said:

I just had one of the hardest vinyl buying decision-making process ever over the volume 2 boxset, lol. And I bought it. Pretty fucking stoked about having these albums, but jesus, $190 USD after shipping.... what did I just do?!

Ramen and crackers for the next several weeks? Don't worry, Neil will keep your head well fed!

Lol! Yeah, noodles, spaghetti, no-name everything, hahaha. :P But you're right. Neil's music just has something about it that is sooooooo calming and brings internal peace.

goldrush

PJ_Soul said:

brianlux said:

PJ_Soul said:

I just had one of the hardest vinyl buying decision-making process ever over the volume 2 boxset, lol. And I bought it. Pretty fucking stoked about having these albums, but jesus, $190 USD after shipping.... what did I just do?!

Ramen and crackers for the next several weeks? Don't worry, Neil will keep your head well fed!

Lol! Yeah, noodles, spaghetti, no-name everything, hahaha. :P But you're right. Neil's music just has something about it that is sooooooo calming and brings internal peace.

And you will now be able to say that you own some of the very best albums from the 70s on vinyl. There's something about that that really warms the heart! I can't wait for my set to arrive

goldrush

I got these in the mail today, ordered from Neil's website about a week or so before I ordered the Volume 2 box:



Hopefully that should mean the box set will be here soon...

brianlux

I have all the regular vinyl albums from the Volume 2 era and they're all great. It's bizarre to think that most of those records cost me just a few bucks brand new. Not sure I can justify coughing up the big bucks for the box. What am I missing my not having that box set?

PJ_Soul

brianlux said:

I have all the regular vinyl albums from the Volume 2 era and they're all great. It's bizarre to think that most of those records cost me just a few bucks brand new. Not sure I can justify coughing up the big bucks for the box. What am I missing my not having that box set?

You are missing nothing at all! No point in the box set if you have the originals. I don't have any of them. I then thought it would be cheaper to just find them used one at a time. 5 minutes on discogs ruined that notion. The ones in VG+ condition or better generally cost more than the new ones in the boxset. And if i found them online, it would likely be shipping x 4 on top of that. And if i just hunted for them in local stores I'd be hunting for a very long time, maybe forever. I haven't seen any of these albums in a record store in the past couple of years. People snatch NY albums up in the blink of an eye.

brianlux

PJ_Soul said:

brianlux said:

I have all the regular vinyl albums from the Volume 2 era and they're all great. It's bizarre to think that most of those records cost me just a few bucks brand new. Not sure I can justify coughing up the big bucks for the box. What am I missing my not having that box set?

You are missing nothing at all! No point in the box set if you have the originals. I don't have any of them. I then thought it would be cheaper to just find them used one at a time. 5 minutes on discogs ruined that notion. The ones in VG+ condition or better generally cost more than the new ones in the boxset. And if i found them online, it would likely be shipping x 4 on top of that. And if i just hunted for them in local stores I'd be hunting for a very long time, maybe forever. I haven't seen any of these albums in a record store in the past couple of years. People snatch NY albums up in the blink of an eye.

Woo Hoo! I thought the box set had a bunch of unreleased stuff with it. Whoa, I just saved 190 bucks!! Thank you PJ_Soul! :-*

Newch91

The box set arrived in the mail last week! So excited! I haven't had a chance to listen yet but very excited to!

These are the first Neil albums I own on vinyl.

brianlux

Newch91 said:

The box set arrived in the mail last week! So excited! I haven't had a chance to listen yet but very excited to!

These are the first Neil albums I own on vinyl.

Awesome! Congratulations. Newch!

Newch91

brianlux said:

Newch91 said:

The box set arrived in the mail last week! So excited! I haven't had a chance to listen yet but very excited to!

These are the first Neil albums I own on vinyl.

Awesome! Congratulations. Newch!

Thanks! My dad owns EKTIN and After the Gold Rush on vinyl, so I've listened to those countless times, but I would love to see if I can find 1-4. It would probably cost me an arm and a leg, though. Maybe just look for them in record shops.

goldrush

Newch91 said:

The box set arrived in the mail last week! So excited! I haven't had a chance to listen yet but very excited to!

These are the first Neil albums I own on vinyl.

Congrats! What a way to start!
You can still find the individual records from the first box in stores. The remastered Harvest and ATG are two of the best sounding records I've ever heard. Good luck tracking them down, they're well worth it.
The first box was limited to 3000 copies in 2009 so it may be hard to find at an affordable price now.

brianlux

OK Neil fans, I've got an interesting question for you.

First, a little background. Over the last few (or more) years I've been mixing in reading books about American Indians (AKA Native Americans) with all the other stuff I try to cram into my brain. I started with Black Elk Speaks and Dee Brown's Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee. As good as these books (and others I'd read) were, something seemed to be missing (the answer should have been obvious). So when a semi-regular customer from a local tribe came in the store one day I asked him for some recommendations- what books did he think were some of the better ones on the subject? He looked at the several shelves of books in our "Native American" section, though about it for a moment and said, "Well, not most of these. If you want to know about Indians, read books written by Indians." So I did. I read books by (among others) Sherman Alexie, Adrain C. Louis, Vine Deloria, Linda Hogan, Dennis Banks, James Welch, Joy Harjo and most recent (and one of the best so far) Paul Chaat Smith's Everything You know About Indians is Wrong.

One of the topics that comes up from time to time in all this reading is the subject of what Indians refer to as "Wannbe [I wonder if that's where the term originated?] Indians". There's a fine line between being interested in Native American culture and being a wannabe, between appreciating the culture and appropriating it. I had to look at my own motives when being confronted by this idea (and I like that kind of challenging).

So then I got to thinking about Neil Young and all of his many Native American images and references and searched out what I could about how Indians view this about Young. I couldn't find much, but here's a good article I found in "Indian Country".

http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/2012/09/20/neil-young-puts-native-horseman-front-and-center-cover-upcoming-album-135009

My own feeling is that Neil Young has walked that thin line but that his appreciation is genuine. But I'm just a huge Neil fan (and perhaps that's why I would give him "a pass"), not an Indian, so what do I know? I'm curious as to what some of you think of all this, especially any Native Americans here.

vant0037

Appreciate / appropriate....it's all about intent. Does Neil intent to exploit a culture's aesthetics for some personal gain? (e.g. to sell an album). I don't think so, but I'm a white kid from minnesota. Race and exploitation, analyzed from a person who hasn't experienced the latter is a seriously anemic discussion.

Short answer: Ask an Indian.

PJ_Soul

So i ordered that awesome discs 5 - 9 volume 2 boxset, and it was pricey, and while the albums are amazing - they sound absolutely fantastic - the packaging is fucking falling apart. 3 out of 4 of the individual album covers have split right open down the seams just from more - careful - than - normal handling, like the glue they used doesn't work at all, and just the other day I gently picked up the lid to the box itself and it just split open on one corner - I've had to tape it together. For $150 plus shipping I expect more of the packaging. Anyone else having this set basically fall apart in their hands?

Tim Simmons

It was a common problem with the set. A glue stick or school glue should be enough to fix the sleeves. While disappointing given the cost, its a pretty easy fix.


The records themselves are flawless and a please to listen to. WHile I don't detect a difference between them and my originals, its nice to have a nice clean new copy of them.

goldrush

brianlux said:

OK Neil fans, I've got an interesting question for you.

First, a little background. Over the last few (or more) years I've been mixing in reading books about American Indians (AKA Native Americans) with all the other stuff I try to cram into my brain. I started with Black Elk Speaks and Dee Brown's Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee. As good as these books (and others I'd read) were, something seemed to be missing (the answer should have been obvious). So when a semi-regular customer from a local tribe came in the store one day I asked him for some recommendations- what books did he think were some of the better ones on the subject? He looked at the several shelves of books in our "Native American" section, though about it for a moment and said, "Well, not most of these. If you want to know about Indians, read books written by Indians." So I did. I read books by (among others) Sherman Alexie, Adrain C. Louis, Vine Deloria, Linda Hogan, Dennis Banks, James Welch, Joy Harjo and most recent (and one of the best so far) Paul Chaat Smith's Everything You know About Indians is Wrong.

One of the topics that comes up from time to time in all this reading is the subject of what Indians refer to as "Wannbe [I wonder if that's where the term originated?] Indians". There's a fine line between being interested in Native American culture and being a wannabe, between appreciating the culture and appropriating it. I had to look at my own motives when being confronted by this idea (and I like that kind of challenging).

So then I got to thinking about Neil Young and all of his many Native American images and references and searched out what I could about how Indians view this about Young. I couldn't find much, but here's a good article I found in "Indian Country".

http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/2012/09/20/neil-young-puts-native-horseman-front-and-center-cover-upcoming-album-135009

My own feeling is that Neil Young has walked that thin line but that his appreciation is genuine. But I'm just a huge Neil fan (and perhaps that's why I would give him "a pass"), not an Indian, so what do I know? I'm curious as to what some of you think of all this, especially any Native Americans here.

That was an interesting read Brian, thanks for posting it. Personally I always thought Neil's interest in Native American imagery and history as genuine, it never seemed exploitative to me (but then I'm not American, let alone Native American so I'm not particularly well placed to comment either). He always comes across as very supportive of Native American rights and their history.

brianlux

goldrush said:

brianlux said:

OK Neil fans, I've got an interesting question for you.

First, a little background. Over the last few (or more) years I've been mixing in reading books about American Indians (AKA Native Americans) with all the other stuff I try to cram into my brain. I started with Black Elk Speaks and Dee Brown's Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee. As good as these books (and others I'd read) were, something seemed to be missing (the answer should have been obvious). So when a semi-regular customer from a local tribe came in the store one day I asked him for some recommendations- what books did he think were some of the better ones on the subject? He looked at the several shelves of books in our "Native American" section, though about it for a moment and said, "Well, not most of these. If you want to know about Indians, read books written by Indians." So I did. I read books by (among others) Sherman Alexie, Adrain C. Louis, Vine Deloria, Linda Hogan, Dennis Banks, James Welch, Joy Harjo and most recent (and one of the best so far) Paul Chaat Smith's Everything You know About Indians is Wrong.

One of the topics that comes up from time to time in all this reading is the subject of what Indians refer to as "Wannbe [I wonder if that's where the term originated?] Indians". There's a fine line between being interested in Native American culture and being a wannabe, between appreciating the culture and appropriating it. I had to look at my own motives when being confronted by this idea (and I like that kind of challenging).

So then I got to thinking about Neil Young and all of his many Native American images and references and searched out what I could about how Indians view this about Young. I couldn't find much, but here's a good article I found in "Indian Country".

http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/2012/09/20/neil-young-puts-native-horseman-front-and-center-cover-upcoming-album-135009

My own feeling is that Neil Young has walked that thin line but that his appreciation is genuine. But I'm just a huge Neil fan (and perhaps that's why I would give him "a pass"), not an Indian, so what do I know? I'm curious as to what some of you think of all this, especially any Native Americans here.

That was an interesting read Brian, thanks for posting it. Personally I always thought Neil's interest in Native American imagery and history as genuine, it never seemed exploitative to me (but then I'm not American, let alone Native American so I'm not particularly well placed to comment either). He always comes across as very supportive of Native American rights and their history.

I very much agree, goldrush. I thought the perspective of one of the few who posted a comment on the article was very cool. He said, " I'm a Neil Young fan, so the name of this article caught my attention. And then I tripped out when I read the reference to Bill Miller, he's my dad, [Musician Bill Miller, Mohican from the Stockbridge-Munsee Community in Wisconsin, who, included two Neil Young tunes in his list of 10 Essential Songs for Native Musicians] hence my love of Neil Young. I'll let him know about this article! I think Neil gets a pass because he's bad ass. Totally didn't mean to rhyme. "

Haha! Very cool!

goldrush

Yeah I liked that comment as well.

I just remembered something that I thought I'd posted before. Whenever our 10 month old son is struggling to settle at bedtime there are 2 songs that my wife and I sing that really calm him down and help him sleep. One is 'Twinkle Twinkle Little Star', and the other is 'Sugar Mountain' by Neil. I'm not even sure how it started, I think I ran out of lullabies one particularly tough night and started on random songs. For some reason the melody just seems to soothe him (it's definitely not my singing!)

brianlux

goldrush said:

Yeah I liked that comment as well.

I just remembered something that I thought I'd posted before. Whenever our 10 month old son is struggling to settle at bedtime there are 2 songs that my wife and I sing that really calm him down and help him sleep. One is 'Twinkle Twinkle Little Star', and the other is 'Sugar Mountain' by Neil. I'm not even sure how it started, I think I ran out of lullabies one particularly tough night and started on random songs. For some reason the melody just seems to soothe him (it's definitely not my singing!)

Ah! That's so cool! We used to have my nephews over for the weekend when they were young and we often played music to get them sleepy and often times a Neil song was one of them. And they loved it!