To The Beach

Neil Young On The Beach
Neil Young On The Beach

Our cat has taken to sprawling out on the linoleum tile. Ninety degrees are too many for furry little things. But man does Neil Young’s “On THe Beach” sound good in this weather. I never had this lp but Neil called it one of his favorite in his autobiography so I picked up a used copy at the Bop Shop. It has John Lundquist’s name on it so I have to thank him for trading it in.

On The Beach has knockout cover art, (the inside of the lp jacket is printed to match the upholstery on the front cover) and the sound is so languid it completely swept me away, that is until I had to get up, blow the dust ball off the needle and flip the record over. To the beach.

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Don’t Bug Me While I’m Working

Paul with milk
Paul with milk

I’m just realizing yesterday was the first Friday in Lent. No wonder Captain Jim’s on East Main was so crowded. We had suggested bringing fish frys over to my parents. They weren’t real fish frys, our four orders were baked and came with a baked potato and cold slaw. Mom mom microwaved some broccoli and we each had milk to drink. My parents get their milk from the Pittsford Dairy and it comes in glass bottles just like the one in the picture above.

Popwars was moved to a new server, one with the most recent version of php. The move knocked out my nav bar because I was using full urls in the includes but I was able to update my blog software. Took me a few days to recover. Wouldn’t want to get hacked.

Man, I can’t put “Waging Heavy Peace” down. It is so much fun to read.

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Like A Hurricane

Neil Young "Trunk Show" at the Dryden Theater in Rochester, NY
Neil Young “Trunk Show” at the Dryden Theater in Rochester, NY

I’m sure there will plenty of seats left at the Dryden Theater tonight where they are screening Shakey Productions newest release, the Jonathan Demme concert film, “Trunk Show” with Neil Young and Crazy Horse. Last night was the official Rochester premier and we got there about an hour early. Heather and Gretchen were just ahead of us at the ticket booth and we watched the projectionist lug the film canister up the stairs to the booth. The theater never never did fill up but it hardly mattered. It felt like we in Philadelphia where the show was being filmed.

Neil Young "Trunk Show" at the Dryden Theater in Rochester, NY

The Dryden has a state of the art sound system and they aren’t afraid to crank it. Neil’s guitar sounded amazing. What is in that giant red stomp box? He pushed Crazy Horse to the limit and made Ben Keith (Grandpa in “Greendale”) look lost most of the time. He was so distracting I kept closing my eyes. He redeemed himself with his beautiful keyboard playing on “Like A Hurricane”. The title of this song alone pretty much sums up the energy Neil brings to a performance.

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Neil Young Is Much Better Than His Fans

In fact, Neil Young is much better than his band. He reaches for the sky. His band is the gauge by which you judge whether or not he made it. Shea’s in Buffalo is a beautiful concert hall. Relatively small, ornate, great sound and not a bad seat in the house. Neil’s wife Pegi opened the show with Ben Keith on pedal steel and Neil’s bass player, Rick Rosas. She was better than Social Distortion, who opened for Neil in the eighties.

Neil Young Buffalo 2007
Neil Young Buffalo 2007

Neil’s acoustic set opened with a beautiful version of “Hank to Hendrix” and a brave version of “A Man Needs A Maid.” Almost as good as the 1971 show. The crowd cheered every time he played harmonica like it was a miracle. And a bunch of idiots started clapping not in time to one song. There was guy sitting in front of us who told us he was thirty and he loved Neil. He said he was going to get his first tattoo when Neil dies even though his mother would hate it. He said he was wearing a four dollar brown leather jacket and Hunter Thompson shades for the event. This guy had the loudest whistle in the world.

We were happy to see Neil Young’s road manager dressed like the devil he played in Greendale. He was doing big paintings on canvas while the band played and he would bring one of them to the front of the stage and put it up on an easel before each song. They usually had the name of the song on them. I saw MX80 do something like this a long time ago.

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R&R Weekend

Not rest and relaxation, rock and roll. We are driving down to John Gilmore’s house in Geneseo and then taking his car to see Neil Young in Buffalo. Neil is playing acoustically and then with Crazy Horse and his wife Pegi is opening the show. I really like the recently released cd with a DVD of his acoustic tour from 1971 at Toronto’s Massey Hall. I saw that tour a few days before that show in Chicago. I hitchhiked up there with my late friend Dave Mahoney. I have seen Neil many times since and he always pushes it. We saw the country tour at the War Memorial and we saw the Rust Never Sleeps tour. And then we saw him at the ice rink in Buffalo just before we started the war with Iraq. I remember a bunch of people down front unfurling a big banner that read, “Fuck Iraq”. The crowd roared. Neil had a peace sign on stage and I don’t remember anyone cheering for that. I especially love his movie, Greendale.

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