Holy cow!

[dintymoore]

This is the most incredible thing I've heard in a long, long time.

Either you hate Neil Young or love him, I love him, and his new album Le Noise, albeit with NO DRUMS (and I typically hate all music without drums) is, to me, sheer genius.

The interview with the producer is here https://www.youtube.com/user/neilyoungchannel#p/a/u/2/D0PZbDn0Ptk

One think I just love, and I've been saying this for the last few years, is that they used no headphones. I hate headphones and I hate the way they make musicians play. Using headphones, to me, is so fuckin' old. I absolutely can't stand those fuckin' things. It was so refreshing to hear someone else say that.

Anybody that says there's no good music being made and that "it's all been done" is nuts.

 

[Dogbreath]

This is the most incredible thing I've heard in a long, long time.

Either you hate Neil Young or love him, I love him, and his new album Le Noise, albeit with NO DRUMS (and I typically hate all music without drums) is, to me, sheer genius.

The interview with the producer is here https://www.youtube.com/user/neilyoungchannel#p/a/u/2/D0PZbDn0Ptk

One think I just love, and I've been saying this for the last few years, is that they used no headphones. I hate headphones and I hate the way they make musicians play. Using headphones, to me, is so fuckin' old. I absolutely can't stand those fuckin' things. It was so refreshing to hear someone else say that.

Anybody that says there's no good music being made and that "it's all been done" is nuts.

wanna buy some headphones?

 

[dintymoore]

wanna buy some headphones?

No thanks, but I have some for sale. I still use em, how else you gonna lay down drums to a click? I suppose I could try a cowbell through a pa and let it bleed.

But you know when you talk to someone who's wearing headphones and they scream back at you and don't realize they're talking loud? That's the problem. You're fucking with your hearing - how fucked up is that? Also, you tend to lose the bottom db range where all the pretty stuff is.

I love this song in particular:

[video=youtube;zQxld6lZW4I&feature]video[/video]

 

[noisewreck]

He always irritated me, and that tune is no different. Couldn't stand more than 1 minute of it. Yuck!

 

[Farview]

Most of the guitar, bass and key work in my studio is done without headphones. Everyone stands in the control room and listens through the mains.

Drums and vocals still with headphones though.

 

[WhiteStrat]

I wear headphones all the time--even when there's no music playing in 'em. Cuz I like being that annoying guy that's always yelling at everyone.

 

[kcearl]

for my stuff at least 70% is through headphones, very little is through the monitors for detail

I love Neil Young though, this isnt better or worse than any other former great making music as an old man...which he is

sorry

 

[WhiteStrat]

for my stuff at least 70% is through headphones, very little is through the monitors for detail

I love Neil Young though, this isnt better or worse than any other former great making music as an old man...which he is

sorry

So am I. That's why it seems so appropos that I'd be the annoying guy yelling at everyone. The headphones are just an excuse.

 

[mshilarious]

He always irritated me, and that tune is no different. Couldn't stand more than 1 minute of it. Yuck!

Well it ain't no After the Gold Rush, that's fer sure

 

[miroslav]

Yeah...Neil Young is great...always loved most of his stuff.

I would like to hear a couple of more cuts from the new album though before deciding if I really like it. I don't know how it will sound with the whole thing without drums, especially if it's rocked out like that one tune...I keep waiting for the drums to break in.
If there is more of an acoustic style on the album...then not having drums works fine.

I also dig Danial Lanois...his stuff is always about bold/raw tones mixed in with a lot of ambient vibe. He's a good fit for Neil Young.

 

[Simman]

Well it ain't no After the Gold Rush, that's fer sure

Exactly! You are spot on.

Actually, if you want to hear Neil and just a guitar, listen to Live at Massery Hall. Sorry to say this new stuff falls far short of that.

 

[dintymoore]

..I keep waiting for the drums to break in...

I wish Keith Moon had played drums on it. Just going nuts through the whole thing, playing the way "you're not supposed to".

One thing I like is that there were no overdubs. Just Neil doing the song and the other parts were made from that performance. It has a collage feel to it.

noisewreck - I totally understand... it's a funny thing a friend of mine had a theory about. He thinks that we all have a harmonic, and when we meet someone else that harmonic either works or doesn't. I can relate because as much as I totally respect country music there's something about the twang that I can't stand. But I don't hear that in Neil or in John Fogherty, I love both of them. It's my harmonic interacting with theirs. I don't think it's something we have much control over.

I've watched these schools of hundreds of tiny fish swim in real shallow water, and all of them can make a 90˚ angle together and they are going ridiculously fast. How do they do that? Is it based on a harmonic? What breakthroughs in science are staring us in the face in everyday things that we don't notice?

 

[miroslav]

...and all of them can make a 90˚ angle together and they are going ridiculously fast. How do they do that? Is it based on a harmonic?

I think it's based on using the most outrageous moves to elude the big-ass fish trying to catch them!

I think the thing that makes me like Neil Young is the sincerity in his message and the overall rawness of the music...it always sounds like it's on the edge of total catastrophe. It’s not about perfection.

 

[mshilarious]

I did a cover of Neil Young covering Misfits. That was the best Neil Young song ever

 

[dintymoore]

..it always sounds like it's on the edge of total catastrophe. It’s not about perfection.

One thing I've noticed with what I consider the cream of crop musicians is that they are very obviously flawed, in very human ways. I absolutely love that.

Yehudi Menuhin, Vladamir Horowitz and Jimmy Page strike me that way too. They are very, very childlike, and when they play it's like kids playing in a sandbox, it's playing in that sense, in the moment with all kinds of mistakes.

Paul McCartney always sounds, to me, like he's not going to make it. It's like a cat that lands on it's feet.

 

[miroslav]

Yes...Page is one of my favorite guitar players because of his imperfect but emotional playing...same as Neil Young.

 

[noisewreck]

it always sounds like it's on the edge of total catastrophe.

That's probably what drives me nuts!

 

[SouthSIDE Glen]

I've watched these schools of hundreds of tiny fish swim in real shallow water, and all of them can make a 90˚ angle together and they are going ridiculously fast. How do they do that? Is it based on a harmonic? What breakthroughs in science are staring us in the face in everyday things that we don't notice?

Sorry to make your world a little more boring, but there's no mystery or "harmonic" involved there. It's a reaction to external conditions such as temperature and current changes, changes in microbiotic content, etc. Because each fish is following the same neural "program" and experincing the same local external stimuli, they are all reacting in kind. It's pretty simple mathematical behavior that has been modeled very effectively in "artificial life" simulations in computer labs for many years now (and has nothing to do with the math of harmonics.). Fish do it, birds do it, insects do it, even educated fleas do it (I feel a song coming on...) Similar behavior models are used in economics also.

G.

 

[dintymoore]

Sorry to make your world a little more boring, but there's no mystery or "harmonic" involved there. It's a reaction to external conditions such as temperature and current changes, changes in microbiotic content, etc. Because each fish is following the same neural "program"...

No that doesn't make it any less intriguing, because the neural program probably has a lot to do with harmonics. There's probably not much that doesn't.

My Dad played harmonica. (sorry, had to put that in, it was an extrapolation of Steve Martin's "I had a pet rabbit" joke).

 

[SouthSIDE Glen]

No that doesn't make it any less intriguing, because the neural program probably has a lot to do with harmonics. There's probably not much that doesn't.

Wow, you're really stuck on that whole harmonics thing, aren't you? The behavior is already fairly well-documented in many books, journals and papers. I suggest that you might want to start out with the book "Artificial Life" by Steven Levy. It dates back to 1992 so it's not a new book (though I have not read any later editions which probably have updates), but that just goes to show you how matured the knowledge is by now.

G.