Greendale

ShanghaiOrange · August 31, 2003, 12:13:06 PM

Neil Young's new album. I haven't even listen to it yet, but it gets my vote for best liner notes of the year.

moonshiner · September 04, 2003, 12:37:13 PM

have you listened...? it's really a great album

ShanghaiOrange · September 04, 2003, 07:19:52 PM

Yes and yes.

meatwad · September 05, 2003, 08:10:08 AM

what is in the liner notes?

Sigur Rós · September 06, 2003, 02:24:32 PM

This album is the best!!!!!!!!!!!!

NEON MERCURY · September 07, 2003, 10:02:50 PM

..yeah i got this yesterday....brilliant work..

MacGuffin · March 15, 2004, 12:20:35 PM

Neil Young Tour Powered by Vegetable Oil

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Neil Young wants to talk about vegetable oil.

It would be reasonable to expect that the rock 'n' roll veteran has more pressing matters on his mind -- he's just launched a month-long concert tour to complement the theatrical release of "Greendale," his first film in 22 years.

But for anyone familiar with the project's storyline, which tackles such weighty subjects as religious warfare, corporate duplicity, the erosion of privacy and the destruction of natural resources, it will come as no surprise that its creator is eager to discuss not merely the tour itself but the tour's means of transportation.

"I have 17 diesel vehicles, and they're all running on vegetable oil farmed by American farmers," Young, one of the founders of the annual Farm Aid charity concerts, said in a recent interview with Reuters.

Traveling cross-country in that biodiesel caravan with Young are his longtime backing band Crazy Horse and a troupe of friends and family, most of whom are reprising roles they created in the film. In Young's visionary slant on contemporary Americana, they play the residents of an invented California town.

With its rural setting and "down-home" people, Young said, "Greendale" is "almost like Disney at first. It's pretty mellow." But there's a decidedly non-Disney resonance to the fictional story's events -- murder, civil disobedience, FBI surveillance and media voyeurism.

OLD MAN TAKE A LOOK AT MY LIFE

"You can read about it in any paper; it's happening right now," Young said. "They're real people. And they're being affected by what's going on."

Emblematic of that is the character of Grandpa, the outspoken patriarch of the Green family. Cutting to the heart of the matter with folksy and incisive observations, he's struck a chord with American concert audiences.

"He's having a rough time," Young said. "The whole thing that he believed in is breaking down." Young senses that, like Grandpa, his U.S. audiences "don't like America to not be free. They don't like all of this behind-the-scenes stuff," he added, referring to the Patriot Act, a controversial tool in the U.S. government's war on terror.

Young said he supported the act until he saw how it was being implemented. "It gives people who are shown to be untrustworthy -- and unworthy of having power -- way too much power."

But for all the bleak issues that "Greendale" confronts, it's not hopelessness that prevails but a powerful sense of renewal, with 18-year-old protagonist Sun Green (Sarah White) finding her voice as an artist and protester.

"I believe in youth," Young said. "It's eternally going to wash away all of the sins and start over again. It is the great thing that happens."

Young, whose four-decade career has been characterized by faithfulness to his muse rather than slavishness to audience expectations, didn't set out to create a self-described "musical novel."

MULTIMEDIA APPROACH

He followed his instincts to new ground, and "Greendale" has evolved into a multimedia composition that includes the film and concert/stage show, plus two editions of a CD/DVD set, a book to be published in the spring and an intricately detailed Web component (http://www.neilyoung.com), complete with the Green family tree and character profiles.

Performing "Greendale's" 10-song cycle last summer in a solo acoustic tour of Europe, before the album was released, Young prefaced the numbers with explanations of the events linking them, adding and refining details with each telling. The introductions sometimes ran longer than the songs themselves and possessed a vivid visual sense.

"When the story of Greendale came out in the music and I finished the record, that's when it struck me that we could make a film," Young said.

He experimented with dialogue for a long-form video, and found the juxtaposition of dramatic scenes and band performances "no good." But director Bernard Shakey (Young's nom de film) saw "an otherworldly quality" in the acted sequences. He continued working with his cast -- among them Young's wife, Pegi -- who lip-synced to the album's tracks.

Self-distributed by Young's own Shakey Pictures, the film is set to be shown in at least 40 cities so far.

rustinglass · March 15, 2004, 02:04:42 PM

it's fantastic, I love the dvd that comes with it

Sigur Rós · March 15, 2004, 03:21:56 PM

Quote from: rustinglassit's fantastic, I love the dvd that comes with it

Yeah, I too bad his concerts were so exspensive. The one that comes with the album is from a concert in Ireland, right?

Anyway, the people I know who went to see him last time he played in Denmark said that it was a fantastic concert. He was alone with his guitar and before the concert people were told to be quiet and be excactly on time.

I saw him in 2001 with Crazy Horse, but I believe that's a different experience as oppose to him alone with his acustic guitar.

Just Withnail · March 15, 2004, 05:23:18 PM

I adore it...love the fact that it's one big story. Though, I got the DVD-less version

I read a review of the movie adaptation at aintitcool...It sounded interesting. As it says in the Reuters article, they'd basically just filmed the entire album, visualizing the lyrics, with the music as the score.

rustinglass · March 28, 2004, 02:43:14 PM

greendale trailer
http://www.shakeypictures.com/trailer_wmhigh.html

why do they have to load trailers with reviews quotes?

Just Withnail · March 28, 2004, 04:13:49 PM

Looks beautiful. Gotta love: "A town coming to you soon".

Ghostboy · March 31, 2004, 02:27:32 AM

I saw it this afternoon (the movie). As a collection of music videos, which it essentiall is, it works, and I really liked how thecharacters spoke the lyrics. The problem with it is that the movie depicts exactly what he's singing about in the songs, while the song is playing, so that it becomes rather overbearing -- the songs are narrative enough all by themsleves. It's very admirable, but it gets way too preachy at times. For Neil Young fans only (and I'm a fan, but I think a lot of these songs are sorta mediocre -- but maybe it's because I didn't hear them before I saw the movie.

rustinglass · August 03, 2004, 03:05:48 PM

dvd
http://www.neilyoung.com/trailer.html

Jeremy Blackman · October 15, 2004, 10:56:16 PM

I loved this movie. And I didn't really expect to.

There's an absolutely unique sense of absurd humor and unironic and genuinely heartfelt character building. It really was great.

It's a little messy and grungy, but that's what Neil Young is... and it's perfect. Overall, it was actually very well put together... nicely edited. And I think the Super-8 is beautiful.

I agree about the music sounding subpar, but it's probably non-melodic because of the all the psuedo-dialogue. There are some really really wonderful lines.

The second to last chapter is very powerful...