Danny and the Memories - Neil Young Looks Back

Do you recognize these guys? Most of you probably don't. I wouldn't have, until started to read Neil Young's new autobiography, Waging Heavy Peace. He talks about being obsessed with this video, for a lot of reasons. Chief amongst them, this is most of Crazy Horse - Ralph Molina and Billy Talbot - the band he had played with for the past several decades and on the two albums he released this year.

Up front is Danny Whitten, since this is Danny and the Memories. Unfortunate name. For Young. And for Whitten. Whitten is the guy, or one of the guys, for whom Young wrote "Needle and the Damage Done." He wrote that while Whitten was still alive. Young looked at this video and came to the conclusion that Whitten was more talented than he was when they first came together. He regrets stealing the high part away from Whitten on "Cinnamon Girl." Believes he should have given Whitten a bigger role in those early collaborations, and that he could have gone somewhere big.

Whitten didn't get far. Forty years ago today, Danny Whitten died. Young fired Whitten from the band because he couldn't remember the songs. He told him he didn't have it together enough to play, and sent him back to LA. Young got the call from the coroner the night Whitten flew back to LA, November 18. Whitten had ODed. He was 29 years old.

Google his image and see if you can reconcile what comes up with the guy in the suit in this video singing a song thousands of oldies covers bands have plied in cheesy bars for decades. If you want to add an extra layer of madness to Young's guilt, Google photos of Kurt Cobain and compare the two. And think about how Cobain quoted Young in his suicide note, "It's better to burn out than to fade away," and how much trouble that gave Young (he poured his troubles into Tonight's the Night after Whitten, and Sleeps With Angels after Cobain).

I think I can see some of what has been obsessing Young about this. Yes, there is some truly horrible dancing going on around these guys, especially the woman in the blue pants, whose name I can only hope is lost to history. It's a hokey set-up. But there are a couple of elements that stick out for me. There is the arrangement of the song, and that demonic foghorn blast of "oh yeah" from the band. It doesn't sound like a celebration, it sounds like a warning. Combine that with the black stage and the red twilight in the background, and this could be a poorly choreographed deleted dance scene from Clockwork Orange, if it had originally been conceived as a vehicle for Frankie Avalon and Annette Funicello.

But the most compelling thing is Whitten's face. There are times when it seems like he's having fun or goofing off, but he's the tightest one of the bunch. And there are also times when he looks desperate, mostly at 1:27 and after. He looks like he's dancing on strings. It's easy to look back and read that in, knowing how the story ends. But watch it and tell me if you don't see it, too.

To write the book, Young was thinking a lot about his past. He talks a lot in it about not being inspired to write music and knowing he was going to reunite with Crazy Horse. The first album was Americana, an album of folk standards, with "Get A Job" tossed in. Some of these were arrangements that Young had played before in his past. And then there was the jump to the new(est) album, Psychedelic Pill, the first track of which is "Drifting Back," which finds Young wondering if you'll get his music, having to listen to it in meager, compressed modern formats, if he's getting through to you.

That process may have been jumpstarted by this video. The albums and the book make more sense once you've seen it. Tomorrow, Neil Young and Crazy Horse play in Toronto, his old stomping grounds, after having played Winnipeg yesterday. Today, the band has off. It's a safe bet this video will play on the tour bus before the day is through.

Music: A New Song, "Live Through You"

A new song, shot somewhere in the vicinity of the computer what posted it, and edited shoddily by the musician:

Allison Moorer Interview - Moorer Stretches Out with Crows

Allison Moorer's 2010 album, Crows.

Last Year, I reviewed Allison Moorer’s CD Crows for The Boston Globe. It was one of my early favorites for best album of the year when it was released in February, and remained so throughout the year. There was something different about Crows, Moorer's follow-up to her covers album, Mockingbird. Even though she was working with frequent producer R.S. Field again, the songs sounded different, and the lyrics were different as well, in some subtle way, from Moorer’s previous work. There is a story here, or at the very least a progression, with the narrator starting on her knees in “Abalone Sky” and ending up looking back at how she survived in “Crows,” the closing song.

After the review, Moorer was kind enough to agree to an e-mail interview. Because of a personal illness, I was not able to tend to the Curmudgeon for a while, and the interview was never published, until now. As I publish this, Moorer is planning her first album together with her sister, Shelby Lynne, and getting ready to go on tour with husband Steve Earle when he releases his next album, I’ll Never Get Out of This World Alive.

So if you haven’t listened to Crows in a while, or you never caught up with it, now is the time to fire it up, and to read what Moorer has to say about it.

Did you write and arrange this album specifically to be a departure from your previous work?

I’ve never consciously decided to “depart” from any album, or an style of music I’ve explored. I’ve just followed my path and have done what felt right at the time. It has not been calculated. However, I knew that I was exploring some new territory on this album, from the poetics in the songs to the musicality of them, to the way I sang them. I think that’s okay to do, and if you’re not growing and changing, are you really doing your work as an artist?



Did you work with R.S. Field any differently this time out?

One of the great things about working with R.S. on this record was that we already have a “language” – we know how to communicate with one another, so there was no guesswork as far as that part of making the record was concerned. I didn’t want to have to get over that communication hurdle, so that was one reason why I asked him to produce it. Plus, he’s really great. The only thing that was different from the other records we’ve made together is maybe that we had the most fun doing this one than any of the others.

Did any of the artists you covered on Mockingbird influence your writing or performing on Crows?

Absolutely! Though I can’t and won’t analyze how, if you don’t mind.



Are your influences as a singer different from your influences as a songwriter?

That’s a very good question – I’ve never really thought about it that way. I guess I like all kinds of singers – from the traditionally “great” voices to the singer/songwriter voices that may not be thought of as classically beautiful. At the end of the day, I like artists that move me, and there is something good and informative to find in all the music that moves me.

Someone may be surprised to learn that I consider Astrud Gilberto and Chet Baker influences on my singing because they both sing/sang so softly, but it’s about the economy they used. Dinah Washington was also a really economical singer though she had a much bigger voice and more sheer vocal presence than the previous two I mentioned. But just because a singer influences your own singing doesn’t mean you try to sound like them. The same goes for songwriting, I believe –you can have an influence, but the listener may never pick up on it.

I got the sense of an arc on Crows, or at least certain stages – a reticence at the beginning, questioning in the middle, reminiscence, resolution, and then a postscript in Crows, looking back from a healthier place. Was that purposeful, or am I reading too much into it?

There is definitely a beginning, middle, and end to the record. For me, it’s a song cycle – not one as literal as I did on The Hardest Part, but it’s there if you’re listening, which you obviously were!

Were you conscious of how fans might react to a less twangy sound?

I didn’t really know I wasn’t being twangy. But I guess I never considered myself to be twangy in the first place. I sound country from time to time, but I can’t help that, and don’t guess I would if I could. That wouldn’t be honest, now would it?



“Should I Be Concerned” stands out to me, vocally. Was there a particular source of inspiration for it?

I wanted to write a big time, pull out all of the stops dramatic ballad. The inspiration was, believe it or no, poking fun at being down in the dumps. Sometimes you have to laugh at your own funk to pull yourself out of it.

Are you in a groove with this new sound? Is it something you think you’ll stick with for another album or two?

Oh my goodness. I never know what I’m going to do next. It frustrates the hell out of my audience! God bless them for sticking with me.

OC-Ed: When the Black Eyed Peas Were Good

The Black Eyed Peas

I know a lot of people who will be turning the channel when the Black Eyed Peas take the stage for the Super Bowl halftime show Sunday. My ears burn now whenever I hear “I’ve Got A Feeling” and it’s not by the Beatles. The Peas are ubiquitous now, and the songs get dumber as the grooves get bigger and the sales get higher. “Let’s Get It Started” was originally “Let’s Get Retarded,” one of the few instances of censorship making a song better.

But it wasn’t always like that. Years ago, when the Peas first came out, they were a great band, in the vein of Arrested Development or De La Soul. They used to brag about being a band that didn’t wear Tommy Hilfiger or baseball caps. “We don’t use dollars to represent” they rapped on “Falling Up.”

They found fame and enormous success after Fergie joined the band in 2003 and they started cranking out more product-placement friendly tunes. Hard to begrudge them their living, but the music changed considerably, and for the worse.

So for those who don’t remember the old Peas and want to dismiss them outright, here’s a reminder of better, leaner times.

"What Now?" Live at the Walnut Street Cafe 11/19/2010

This song was less than a week old when I performed it at the Walnut Street Cafe live for the first time, 11/19/10. It is called, as the above would suggest, "What Now?"

Enjoy!
-Nick

Giant Ant in the Sky

This is one of the first things I shot with my video camera, part of what will be known as the "Live from My Desk" series, just me sitting in my office either playing music I wrote or vlogging in general.