Snaggletooth

I’d be interested in those recordings too.
Good idea, anyways.

New Neil Young Album: “Chrome Dreams II” Set for Release October 16th

BURBANK, CA — 08/23/07 — The new album by Neil Young, “Chrome Dreams II,” will be released by Reprise Records on October 16th. Speaking from a vacation retreat with his family, Young says it’s “an album with a form based on some of my original recordings, with a large variety of songs, rather than one specific type of song.” It comes at a creative peak for the artist, following the “Greendale,” “Prairie Wind,” and “Living With War” albums, and a summer 2006 tour by Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young that concert audiences are still talking about. In many ways, “Chrome Dreams II” is the ultimate example of what Young does best: most of the songs were written recently and came quickly, and the “live” recording sessions in northern California were over before they were announced. The album includes all kinds of music, and taken together, offers a complete picture of where Neil Young is today.
“Where ‘Living With War’ and ‘Everybody’s Rockin” were albums focused on one subject or style,” Young says, “‘Chrome Dreams II’ is more like ‘After The Goldrush’ or ‘Freedom,’ with different types of songs working together to form a feeling. Now that radio formats are not as influential as they once were, it’s easier to release an album that crosses all formats with a message that runs through the whole thing, regardless of the type of song or sound.”

On the sessions for the album, Neil Young was joined by Crazy Horse drummer Ralph Molina, pedal steel guitarist and dobro player Ben Keith (“Harvest,” “Comes A Time,” “Harvest Moon”) and bassist Rick Rosas (“Freedom,” “Living With War,” “This Note’s For You”). Most of the recording was done at Feelgood’s Garage studio near Redwood City, California, with two vintage gas pumps out front and vintage studio gear inside.

On the music itself, Young says, “Some early listeners have said that this album is positive and spiritual. I like to think it focuses on the human condition. Like many of my recordings, this one draws on earlier material here and there. I used to do that a lot back in the day. Some songs, like ‘Ordinary People,’ need to wait for the right time. I think now is the right time for that song and it lives well with the new songs I have written in the past few months. I had a blast making this music.”

The new album’s title refers to an earlier planned release that never came out. In fall of 1976, the album “Chrome Dreams” was announced for a November release. However, that date came and went and no album ever appeared.

For more information, contact:

Bill Bentley
Lookout Management
310-319-1331
bill.bentley@yahoo.com

Rick Gershon
Warner Bros. Records
818-953-3473
rick.gershon@wbr.com

Source: http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/show/news_press_release,164690.shtml

Yeah, cheers to all Admins and Mods who not only do not get paid but also permanently get bashed for doing anything wrong in the opinion of some board members… I mean it. And I know what I am talking about…

New Neil Young Chrome Dreams II Album + Tour for October?

Fred Mills
August 19, 2007

With Neil Young having delayed the delivery of his multi-disc Archives box once again—yes indeed, the apocryphal “July” of Neil lore has come and gone again—fans are left pondering the eventual fate of the reported 8 CDs, 3 DVDs and 160 page book that was to be part of the archival box. That Young’s already issued a handful of live recordings in his Archives series, however, is reason to cheer; the man just operates on his own schedule, not that of a record company, and if anyone has earned that right as an artist, it’s Young. Now, however, tantalizing rumors, put forth by Young himself, are swirling about a part-new, part-old album due from him in the near future.

Young recently posted some interesting “news” to his NeilYoung.com website, which currently features, for the home page, a mocked-up “newspaper” page called, appropriately enough the NY Times. An article whose headline reads “Young Plays New Record For Reprise” and dated August 16 was posted, and it outlines, in typically cryptic Young fashion (not to mention a suitably Youngian deadpan style), the pending release of a new Young album entitled Chrome Dreams II:

Continuing a tradition that goes back to 1969, Neil Young played his latest recording for Reprise yesterday. The recording was played for about 100 people in Burbank. Produced by “The Volume Dealers,” NY and Niko Bolas, the recording runs 60+ minutes and includes two giant songs that time in at 18:30 and 13:00, respectively.

Drawing from three songs written previously, and 7 new songs, the latest Neil Young is a very diverse recording. A release date is unknown at this time. The title is Chrome Dreams II

Chrome Dreams is a legendary NY album from 1977 that had originally been scheduled for release but was shelved. The original cover for Chrome Dreams was created by Neil’s long-time producer and friend, the late David Briggs. Unfortunately, all original documentation and art for this album was lost in a fire that destroyed Neil’s Malibu home in early 1978.

While the news item fails to specify an exact release date, some Young insiders, citing an official WEA schedule release sheet in circulation, are predicting it will be issued on October 16—and that Young will additionally embark upon a 7-week tour starting October 13, preceded by a Sept. 9 appearance at Farm Aid. The mainstream media doesn’t appear to have picked up on the story yet, at least not as of this writing, possibly owing to the fact than no official press release has been issued from the Young camp or from Reprise yet. (This isn’t all that surprising, given the way we media outlets are more or less spoonfed our information by the labels and their p.r. reps; see HARP’s story, “Meta-Fogerty: Evolution of a Press Release,” that ran August 6, for more on how the dissemination of entertainment news works.) Pitchfork ran a short item on it that cannibalized the key info-bytes, while Stereoboard reprinted the Pitchfork item (without, we should note, any attribution); Glide Magazine simply copied verbatim bits of the Young site news item.

Yet to longtime Young watchers, even the mention of the words Chrome Dreams, with or without the “II,” is hugely significant. Way back in the fall of 1976, word emerged that Young was planning to release a new studio album bearing that title. Around that same time word was also that Young had been readying a triple-LP archival set to be called Decade. Neither materialized, however. Instead, in June of ’77 Young issued American Stars ‘N Bars, followed in November by the Decade collection, but Chrome Dreams was never heard from again.

Well, not officially at least. But in the early ‘90s news arrived that an acetate pressing of Chrome Dreams had surfaced, the info bolstered by specific tracklistings and photos of the acetate’s record labels. The record featured 12 songs cut at sessions in November 1974, September 1975, November 1975, May 1976, September 1976 and November 1976 and included Young performing solo and with Crazy Horse and, on one track (“Star of Bethlehem”), Emmylou Harris, Ben Keith and Tim Drummond. Listed as producers were Young, David Briggs and Tim Mulligan. A number of the tunes had been recycled or re-recorded for the American Stars ‘N Bars project, while others, some in alternate form, wound up on Decade, Hawks & Doves, Comes A Time and Rust Never Sleeps. And within that context one can draw the conclusion that while Young was apparently dissatisfied with Chrome Dreams as originally conceived, he intuitively realized that the songs themselves were artistically significant and, indeed, injected with staying power.

That tracklisting: Pocohontas, Will to Love, Star of Bethlehem, Like a Hurricane, Too Far Gone, Hold Back the Tears, Homegrown, Captain Kennedy, Stringman, Sedan Delivery, Powderfinger, Look Out for My Love.

Within a few years an actual CD bootleg of the album was in circulation, and with that dam finally burst, subsequent bootlegs of the bootleg, with all the attendant artwork variations and bonus tracks that are typical of bootlegs, would appear over the ensuing years. Yours truly has purchased three different versions of Chrome Dreams, one which contains a reproduction of the original Reprise label copy listing the songs and recording information (oddly, the front sleeve is a takeoff on Comes A Time), and the other bearing the infamous original sleeve art as mentioned above—in silver, grey and black tones, it depicts a grinning Young standing next to a 25-cents-per-use vending (or pinball?) machine called “Blow Job.” Chrome dreams, indeed.

The NY Times “newspaper” on the Young website, in addition to the news about the upcoming CDII release, also posted a story about the tangled history of the original CD; it was originally written by archivist Jef Michael Piehler for the February 1993 issue of the now-defunct British Neil Young fanzine Broken Arrow. You can also view the Piehler article, along with reproductions of the CD bootleg sleeves, the acetate labels and the original label copy sheet, at Sidestreet Records, a Neil Young collectors/rarities site; included are some additional footnotes penned by Young biographer Johnny Rogan that help flesh out the tale a bit more. It’s all a fascinating read, and an invaluable behind-the-scenes glimpse of Young’s oftentimes inscrutable work methodology as an artist.

“Had it been released,” wrote Piehler of the album, “it might have stood today as one of Neil Young’s best records ever. The bar-room characters amidst historical references and passionate love songs creates a magical atmosphere. But like most first drafts, the perception of what’s important and what isn’t must be left to the artist, and not to the record company bean counters or the whims of fans.”

Meanwhile, back in the present, we’re left with the ultimate question of, what is this “new” Chrome Dreams II going to look/sound like—in particular, what are those three previously penned tunes, and will it have any thematic connections to or correlation with its ‘70s predecessor?

Maybe we’ll find out on October 16. If not… drumroll please… there’s always next July.

Source: harpmagazine.com

8/20/07, 11:25 am EST

Neil Young To Release Sequel To Unreleased 1977 Album

Thirty years after shelving Chrome Dreams, Neil Young has taken to his official Web site to announce plans to release a new album entitled Chrome Dreams II. The forthcoming album — which was previewed for Reprise Records last week and is due October 16th — contains ten songs, three of which were previously written. Two of the tracks are epics, clocking in at 18:30 and 13:00. Young’s current backing band on the record includes Crazy Horse drummer Ralph Molina, bassist Rick Rosas and pedal steel guitarist Ben Keith. The Blue Note Horns are on one track and a children’s choir is on another. Young will launch a North American tour to support the album that kicks off around October 13th. After the original Chrome Dreams was put aside, many of the songs appeared on subsequent Young albums, such as “Like a Hurricane,” “Powderfinger,” “Sedan Delivery” and “Pocahontas.” What does this mean for the twenty-years-in-the-making Archives: Volume 1 box set, due out February 14th, 2008? “This doesn’t push the box set back, according to [Neil Young’s manager] Elliott Roberts,” a spokesperson for Young says. “But don’t make me sign a blood oath on that one.”

— Andy Greene

Source: Rolling Stone