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Neil Young: Experimental years
Like many rock stars of the '60s and '70s, the 1980s were a lean time for Young both critically and commercially as he struggled to remain relevant. After providing the incidental music to the film "Where The Buffalo Roam", a biopic of Hunter S. Thompson, he recorded
Hawks and Doves (1980), an uncharacteristically reactionary folk/country record, in step with his public -- and surprising -- support for Ronald Reagan.
Re-ac-tor (1981) was another set with Crazy Horse, with a mask of distortion and feedback obscuring a relatively weak selection of songs, but his strangest record of the decade came with 1982's Trans. Recorded almost entirely electronically with the instruments and vocals modified by effects such as vocoder and a reliance on synthesizers, it is often considered Young's attempt to experiment with technology that might give his son Ben, who has severe cerebral palsy and cannot speak, a way to communicate. (In 1986 Young and wife Pegi would help found The Bridge School
http://www.bridgeschool.org/, and they continue to support it with an annual benefit concert). Fans, however, were baffled and the album, along with 1983's rockabilly-styled Everybody's Rockin' would lead record company head David Geffen to sue Young for making "unrepresentative" music.
Old Ways (1985) saw a return to country music, recorded with a group of friends and session musicians, but the songs were largely tepid, whereas Landing on Water (1986) was an equally unsatisfying amalgam of his older styles, '80s synthesiser pop and Trans-era experimentation. Young would later claim that he had grown so angry with Geffen that he was now producing music purely to watch it anger the bosses at Geffen Records. Even the resumption of his partnership with Crazy Horse on 1987's
Life failed to raise him from the artistic doldrums. It was, however, enough to fulfill his contract with Geffen and enable him to switch labels.
Signing for Warner Brothers and returning to Reprise Records, he produced
This Note's for You (1988) with a new band, The Bluenotes (unrelated to Harold Melvin's old group). The addition of a brass section provided a new jazzier sound and the title track became his first hit single of the decade. Accompanied by a witty video which parodied corporate rock, the pretensions of advertising and
Michael Jackson in particular, the song was initially banned by MTV (although the Canadian music channel, MuchMusic ran it immediately) before being put into heavy rotation and finally given the MTV Video Music Award for Best Video of the Year for 1989. Incidentally, Harold Melvin himself sued Young for use of the Bluenotes name (since Melvin held the rights to it). As a result, Young renamed his back-up group "Ten Men Workin'" for the balance of the accompanying concert tour that followed. Now in something of a renaissance, Young also provided the few highlights on that year's limp CSN&Y reunion
American Dream.
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DARK times, they say, bring out the poets. And looking back, the Bush admin-istration certainly begat a bumper crop of protest albums from the likes of Neil Young, REM and Bri
Published: Fri, 14 Nov 2008 13:52:56 GMT - Source: News.Scotsman.Com - Read the articleBy SubjectNeil Young, Java Creator James Gosling Hatch Java-Enabled Hybrid Car
Well-known rocker Neil Young and Sun Microsystems' James Gosling, the creator of Java, are working on a Java-enabled, hybrid-electric Lincoln convertible to compete for the Automotive X Prize, a competition for 100 MPG vehicles. The Linc Volt, Young's entry in the X Automotive Prize competition, is a 1959 Lincoln Continental Mk IV that has been repowered with a new series-hybrid system and runs on electricity produced by a generator powered by natural gas. - A couple of Canadian-born superstars in their
own diverse fields, rocker Neil Young and the quot;Father of Java, quot; Dr.
James Gosling of Sun Microsystems, found some common ground Nov. 11 at Sun's
Menlo Park, Calif., campus.
For about 14 months, Young, a longtime resident
of nearby La Hond...
Published: Thu, 13 Nov 2008 22:09:06 GMT - Source: Eweek.Com - Read the articleBy SubjectRocker Neil Young, James Gosling Connect over Java-Enabled Car at Sun
The Linc Volt, Neil Young and Java creator James Gosling's entry into the X Automotive Prize competition, is a classic 1959 Lincoln Continental Mk IV that has been repowered with a new series-hybrid system and now runs on electricity produced by a natural-gas generator. Java technology powers sensors that monitor performance elements of the Linc Volt and display the results on a touch-screen panel as the hybrid car travels down the road. - ...
Published: Thu, 13 Nov 2008 21:06:44 GMT - Source: Eweek.Com - Read the article
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