Tuesday, October 30, 2012

Neil Young Book Review


I recently finished reading the Neil Young autobiography Waging Heavy Peace that came out last month. This was a great book and a quick read.
Best part is that I actually learned a few things about Neil that I didn't already know.
The book is written by Neil, no ghost writer or anything. The book doesn't follow a timeline at all, it's actually all over the place, which to me, kept things interesting. Neil definitely has a love for cars, he talks a lot about cars he has owned or previously owned.As well as the electic car he has been working on for years now. I could do without all the car talk, but nonetheless, it's a love of his and who is to argue. he also mentions his other loves, like model railroading, music, making music and of course the love of his kids and his wife Peggy.
I learned that the Crosby,Stills,Nash & Young track "Sea Of Madness" on the original Woodstock soundtrack wasn't actually a recording from the Woodstock Festival, it was recorded a few months after the festival at the Fillmore East. And the 2010 Neil Young album "Le Noise" was named after the man who produced the album Daniel Lanois.
I also learned that Neil Young as probably scrapped more complete albums then a lot of artists have recorded. Neil once was sued by his own record label for putting out albums that didn't sound like Neil Young music. Still didn't stop him from doing whatever the hell he wanted. Would love to hear some of these albums. Which will surely become available through Neil Young's Archives box sets that he has been working on.
Neil also brings up the new digital to analog conversion technology he calls "Pono" he has been pushing. It is a technology that is supposed to make digital recording sound like they first did when they recorded in the studio. Unlike mp3's nowadays that takes away from the actual original recording. Sounds interesting and I am looking forward to hearing this new Pono thing, to see if I notice a difference.
All and all a book well worth picking up.

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