Music Arcades: Neil Young and Crazy Horse: Year of the Horse

… First to note in passing that this is the third instalment in my 1997 'pleurisy trilogy', after David Byrne's Feelings and Ladies and Gentlemen We Are Floating in Space.

Next to observe that I count this as the least essential of the three Neil & Crazy Horse live double albums, after Live Rust and Arc Weld. Conversely, the film of which the album is ostensibly a soundtrack is possibly my favourite visual document of Essence of Horse. That may be just because I've seen it at least three times on the big screen. They showed it at The Showroom in Sheffield in '98 and '99 — the Chief Exec there is a fan — I'd get a seat in the second row and get so involved that I had to catch myself from clapping at the end of each song. I also dragged Lucy to see it at the NFT in 2004; surprisingly she didn't experience a Damascene conversion.

Anyway, see the film, Jim Jarmusch's record of the 1996 European Tour. I found it more fun than my experience of the tour itself. Richard was living in Paris at the time, and M and I went for a short holiday over there, taking in Crazy Horse with him at the cavernous Bercy arena on 4 July 1996. I can't say it was a terrible performance, but the venue and the atmosphere pretty much killed it. Not a patch on 2001 tour.

I say the album is 'ostensibly' a soundtrack of the film, but the sketchy sleeve details show it's not that. The tracks aren't even listed in order, but each one has a one- or two-word note of the venue where it was recorded, and, with the exception of one song recorded in Berlin, it's clear that these venues are in the US. One of them is Catalyst — the source of one of the highlights, a nine-minute version of Barstool Blues — which I guessed was our old friend, the small club in Santa Cruz where Neil plays warm-up gigs (see 1, 2).

However, I couldn't check this directly as I only have the first edition of the Ghosts on the Road gigography, which finishes in 1995. I knew Guy would know, so I emailed him on Monday evening, and sure enough this comprehensive reply came within 40 minutes.

Here's the full tracklisting for the album:
When You Dance I Can Really Love (1996-11-08, Hartford)
Barstool Blues (1996-05-09, Catalyst, Santa Cruz)
When Your Lonely Heart Breaks (1996-05-09, Catalyst, Santa Cruz)
Mr. Soul (1996-10-19, Mountain View)

Big Time (1996-08-26, Wantagh)
Pocahontas (1996-10-26, Regina)

Human Highway (1996-10-20, Mountain View)
Slip Away (1996-09-11, Inglewood)
Scattered (1996-11-08, Hartford)
Dangerbird (1996-09-16, Sacramento)
Prisoners Of Rock 'n' Roll (1996-07-09, Berlin)
Sedan Delivery (1996-08-31, Barrie)
So yes, Mr Soul was from the Bridge School Saturday show, while Human Highway was from the Sunday show.

As you can see, all the rest of the tracks (with the exception of Prisoners Of Rock 'n' Roll from Berlin and the two Catalyst tracks from the extensive warm-up shows wih the 'Echos' at OPL and the Catalyst) come from after the European tour, but are all from '96.

FWIW I prefer the album versions in most cases — the songs and jams have 'matured' on the road with the Horse, much as the Greendale live electric shows were so much better then the earlier studio album. The same thing happened more recently with the Chrome Dreams II songs that he subsequently toured with… but enough of my bitchin'

Well, there you go. Take my advice, don't listen to me; listen to Guy. He's no lightweight like me who's only seen the film three times. Hell, he's had t-shirts run up bearing the apocryphal heckle that opens the album (Heckler: They all sound the same — Neil: It's all one song!). Rather nice it was, too — I was envious. To the best of my knowledge, he has yet to design a t-shirt with Neil's proclamation at the other end of the album, "Smell the Horse on this one!" That would be eye-catching, wouldn't it? I may be inventing this, but I believe "Smell the Horse" may have been a working title for the tour, as a nod to Spinal Tap's Smell the Glove.

Anyway, the mix on the album is kind of sludgy — possibly the aural equivalent to Jarmusch's grainy (faux?) analogue images — which helps the songs to blur into each other, or lays bare their 'oneness', if you will. That's all very well if you like your Horse raw and heavy, but it's not particularly accessible. Possibly not the best place to start if you want to convert your girlfriend into a fan.