'Toast' 4/5
'Noise & Flowers' 4/5
Youngstown.
Spotify be damned. Neil Young is still releasing music this year at a RZA and Jack White clip. Just like a Crazy Horse. Popping up every morning like 'Toast' and galloping through all the 'Noise & Flowers' of live set after live set, in concert bloom. I don't know if you know this Joe Rogan, but this rock legend is smokin'. No mask, or whatever bull#### you tried to sell your subscribers not to wear. NOT keeping them safe and definitely not having their best interests, or the ones of the world around us at heart. I'm just saying. And Neil Young's just leaving the world's most famous streaming service like Joni Mitchell, music's version of Netflix, because of your spreading of harmful misinformation in these critical times. Now all that remains of Young on a Spotify search is a few choice cuts and an assisted track off the soundtrack of Netflix's 'Bright' starring Will Smith. How fitting in another crazy post-2020 year. And the old guard of Young is going to be more than OK. From vinyl to CD his records line the walls of family homes across America, his native Canada and the rest of the Earth he brandishes across the t-shirt on his chest to promote its peace and the very dying need we have to save the planet as well as our selves and souls too. And there's always YouTube. Or Pono he used his own autobiography (the wonderful 'Waging Heavy Peace') to peddle. His own digital service people laughed at as he tried to quality control his music and much more. What's cry later led to a Tidal wave of streaming services like Jay-Z's very own in high definition. The Dylan and Springsteen like big-three legend was there first, making moves like horsing around with supergroups, going crazy like Crosby, Stills and Nash.
Pet Sounds Records is the name of a beautiful vinyl store in Tokyo, Japan between the station and my new school in Musashi-Koyama. Well worth a visit. Named after THE Beach Boys classic I tried to go in and tell them about, the new She and Him, Zooey Deschanel and M. Ward album 'Melt Away'. A tribute to the one and only Brian Wilson in classic cover like an Everly Brothers honouring Norah Jones and Billie Joe Armstrong of Green Day, 'Foreverly'. But my Japanese is still beginner and best. And you know how long it takes me to get to a point. Whilst this bumbling Brit like Hugh Grant was trying to muster up the courage with no Dutch, I heard the unmistakable sounds of Neil Young's iconic pitch over the speakers. On a song I'd never heard before, but one that still sounded instant classic familiar. All whilst giving me that fear of missing out that I'd forgot to put pen to paper for this one. It was the beautiful 'Goin' Home' off the apartment covered Crazy Horse album 'Toast'. Spreading over the speakers and my workload heading home like butter. Smooth like BTS for a man that will always hold more legend, no matter if a pop act outsells him like The Beatles. So yes, yet again like all the shows I refuse to binge in this culture, my apologies for the lateness. But then again, this previously shelved seven seal of tracks album was originally recorded in 2001. So I guess I never stood a chance. I can always sandwich the 2021 'Barn' burning follow-up (which I also forgot, my bad. But it's hard to keep up with a songbook that could even give Bobby a run for his lyrical lunch money) in with this week's latest release (in the same week the Wu-Tang Clan and White Stripe member release their own second albums of the year ('Bobby Digital and the Pit Of Snakes' and 'Entering Heaven Alive' following 'Saturday Afternoon Kung Fu Theatre' and 'Fear Of The Dawn'). As le noise of the epic live show of Young encores with 'Noise and Flowers' to make your garden and the Eden of his newly, even more so sacred discography grow.
Raise your glass for this crazy album 'Toast' on both sides of your vinyl. All in a time were we digitally and purist physically value all the works of our idols and legends. From lost tracks on the cutting room floor, to B-sides. Whether it be the Boss outtakes of working overtime, or those raiding The Vault searching for purple reign now Prince has passed. 'Toast' is a set they should never have 'Quit' like the outstanding opening track. And now they haven't, giving it new life of the scrap heap of old tape reels and unshared files. "Hey, baby, I'm your man/I know I treated you bad, but I'm doin' the best I can" the husband of Daryl Hannah sings, making a splash. 'Standing In The Light Of Love' like Adam and Eve, he takes us above like the call to 'Throw Your Hatred Down' that cuts the garden in closing on his 'Flowers' live set. Whilst 'Going Home'' he's, "weaving through the buildings/Cutting through the streets/Slicing through the culture/Piling on the weeks." 'Timberline' and the closing classic rock refrain of 'Boom Boom Boom' give this album and its adopters classic Young/Horse guitar. And on the beautiful love song 'How You Doin'?' he even gets his Joey Tribbiani on, friends. Singing and yearning, "I miss the feeling/I miss the light/But I got faith in something/I'll never give up the fight". And he never has. Brooding and showing us a 'Gateway Of Love' in an album recorded in the same year the towers fell and now released in an even crazier world just over two unbelievable decades later. But we're still 'Rockin' In The Free World' of his beautiful 'Noise' in black and white. Scrawled over iconic artwork like thorns. 'I've Been Waiting For You' he opens his shoe with for those in attendance who were waiting all night or perhaps their whole lives for this man's live harvest. Gigging to the moon as couples sway beautifully without a sound around them like the fantastic John Krasinski and Emily Blunt in 'A Quiet Place' too. 'Helpless' in 'Winterlong' to this 'Mr. Soul' and Al that he holds in the 'Field Of Opportunity'. 'Are You Ready For The Country' and all the classics from a master musician who rolled through all of rocks sub-genres with beautifully blended ease? 'From Hank To Hendrix' all the way to 'Alabama' as 'On The Beach' like a Cadillac sticking out the sand he sings, "the world is turnin'/I hope it don't turn away/All my pictures are fallin'/From the wall where I placed them yesterday." "I need a crowd of people" he pleads as the audience in attendance that night roar their approval in stirring solidarity. Part of the leg of his Summer 2019 European tour with Promise Of The Real in band backing. This set is a sobering tribute in dedication to a fallen friend. Giving his late comrade and manager of 50 years, Elliot Roberts his flowers after he passed away two weeks before the tour. A real and raw reminder through all this white noise of just how precious life and love is. And how we have to hold on to it, just like our art and expression. For all it's worth. No matter the cost or what else is lost. Oh, to be Young again. TIM DAVID HARVEY.
Playlist Picks: 'Toast' - 'Quit', 'Goin' Home', 'How Ya Doin'?'. 'Noise & Flowers' - 'I've Been Waiting For You', 'Rockin' In The Free World', 'Throw Your Hatred Down'.
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