Folks, I’m sure this goes without saying, but: ol’ Neil Young fucking rules. But I’ll tell you something else: the man’s “extravagant-batshit-curmudgeon-upstart-artist” lifestyle is no easy or cheap thing to maintain. So I’m sure you’ll agree that we’ll have to forgive the guy for continuing to package up and sell-off his old live shows like some jacked-up senior citizen on Antiques Roadshow, right? Good, cuz here’s a bunch of information about a new one.
Live at the Cellar Door, the latest in his Archives Performance Series, will see the light of day on December 10 (via some label called Reprise Records). I know, I know; you’re already SOLD, but let me at least tell you a little bit about this one. According to its press release, it “collects recordings made during Young’s intimate six-show solo stand at The Cellar Door in Washington D.C. between November 30th and December 2nd, 1970, a few months after Reprise released his classic third solo album After The Gold Rush in August.” In other words, dude was IN THE ZONE when this shit got cut. So don’t sleep on it.
The album primarily features Young on acoustic guitar and piano (oh yeah, there’s totally a “rare solo version of ‘Cinnamon Girl’, performed on piano rather than guitar” from 1969’s Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere, which seems awesome!) and includes, well, all the good stuff: tunes from After the Gold Rush (“Tell Me Why,” “Only Love Can Break Your Heart,” “Birds,” “Don’t Let It Bring You Down,” the title track), Buffalo Springfield jams from all over the catalog (“Expecting to Fly,” “I Am a Child,” “Flying on the Ground Is Wrong”), and even some “early, raw performances of songs that wouldn’t appear until subsequent Young albums,” such as “Bad Fog of Loneliness” (which appears on the 2007-issued Live at Massey Hall ‘71 that we all already love, and “Old Man” (two years before it’d show up on 1972’s Harvest)! Hell-to-the-yeah. You’re gonna folk out to this shit so hard during those mellow, dying-down-hours of some idiotic wintertime loft party, I just know it!
The performance was recorded by Henry Lewy and produced by Young. As per the other stuff in the Archives series, Live at the Cellar Door will be released on horrible-sounding digital, okay-sounding CD, and cock-suckingly-transcendent 180 gram vinyl (mastered by Chris Bellman at Bernie Grundman Mastering and pressed at Pallas in Germany). So yeah; let’s all keep Neil Young in the black! What the hell are you waiting for?! Oh, that’s right; December 10. Yeah, right on… me too.
Live at the Cellar Door tracklisting:
01. Tell Me Why
02. Only Love Can Break Your Heart
03. After the Gold Rush
04. Expecting to Fly
05. Bad Fog of Loneliness
06. Old Man
07. Birds
08. Don’t Let It Bring You Down
09. See the Sky About to Rain
10. Cinnamon Girl
11. I Am a Child
12. Down by the River
13. Flying on the Ground Is Wrong
• Neil Young: http://www.neilyoung.com
• Reprise: http://www.warnerbrosrecords.com
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