Worst Concert Experience

Kesha is my favorite dance-pop artist. The New York Times once called her "the Bob Dylan of Party Nihilists," and while that's clearly hyperbolic, I've always felt there's great truth and honesty in the simplicity of her method, and the unambiguity in her approach. Her music is about, well, getting wasted, loving life, and trying to touch that transcendent little thing that makes life magic -- the same spark of the divine that I chase. She's superior to her contemporaries e.g. Lady Gaga or Rihanna in that the single-mindedness of her music gives it a greater purity, like Walter White's blue meth. She's the best at what makes dance-pop music good, she embodies its party spirit far better than any other act.

Kesha's one of the artists on my concert bucketlist and I had failed to see her last time around so I knew I had to go this time. I also have an iPhone now so I was able to use Uber and get to the show.

Unfortunately, I ended up leaving after the first song. I never thought I'd be the type of person to leave a concert early, let alone for an act I'm so fond of. And she even opened with one of my favorite pop songs of all-time, the song that made me fall in love with Kesha in the first place, We R Who We R. But there was just no point in my staying at the show, the acoustics were unbearable. I'm sure what Kesha herself was bringing to the concet was fantastic, I'm sure it was a good show. But the music was so soft and quiet, compared to what would be necessary for an open city block. I wasn't even that far back from the stage, and it was still just a jarbled mess. After the song she was talking, but I couldn't make out a word of it for a million bucks. What's the point in being at a show you can't even hear?

If Kesha had come on earlier I would probably have stuck it out just to "be there," but by that time I was miserable and bored to the nth degree. I had terrible diarrhea, that was a nice way to start. But honestly, it was kind of a good thing, it gave me something to do, whereas otherwise I would have been bored out of my skull for the four & a half hours before Kesha took the stage. The concert was scheduled to start at 6, I got there shortly after 6 and Kesha didn't come on the stage until almost quarter to 11. There were a couple of opening acts, but both had extremely short sets and the inhibiting acoustics made them mediocre at best.

Standing room only concerts are terrible. Unless it's a top 5 act, I don't think I'll ever go to one again. All it is, is ignorant assholes pushing, shoving, and stomping their way to the front, with no regard to common decency. I'm not talking about dancing or moshing, those things would be completely expected. And there's nothing remotely wrong with people moving up in the cue wherever there's an open space, that's perfectly reasonable. But there's an alarming number of people who are just straight up scumbags and they feel entitled to elbow, ram, and bodyslam their way into spaces that were previously occupied by other humans. As if that's okay. You wanna be in front? Get there earlier, buddy.

One of the things I've learned in my time trying to become a more social person, is that I absolutely despise dance party/raves. Give me an old school frat party and sure, I'd probably have an alright time these days. But despite my resonance with Kesha's MESSAGE, the actual dance party culture is not my scene. So I was fearing the worst, but to their credit it wasn't even that kind of event. Rather than dancing, people were focused completely on the stage, listening, like they would be if it was a rock, rap, metal, or folk act. So the problem really came down to the unacceptable volume and the inconsiderate assholes.

A lot of my discomfort might come from the fact that I'm on these bipolar pills. I don't find myself enjoying pop music the way I used to, and that may just be the ebb & flow my music taste always goes through, or it could be the fact that my mania which gave me my intermittent lust for life, is also what seemed to fuel most of my pop-love.

So that was a total bust of a night. Lots of money wasted, wow. On a positive note though, the Ani Difranco concert I attended a couple months ago was one of the best concerts I've ever been to. It was a gorgeous little college town, my hotel room was right next to the venue, and Ani filled her set with a bunch of classics I didn't expect to hear.

But, you have a great life. (& The Interpersonal Politics of Suicide)

Imagine that you've won a ticket to a One Direction concert. And you absolutely hate One Direction, you think they suck. Now, answer me this: the fact that millions of people would love to go to that show, is that a valid and logical reason why YOU should go to that show, or why you should enjoy it? Just because life is precious to others doesn't mean it is precious to me, and just because others might want what I have, doesn't mean it's logical for me to want those same things.

I've never had any illusions about the fact that my life is pretty decent. There are some areas, very important areas, where I do have every genuine reason to be heartbroken about the course of my life. But for the majority of factors, I've lived a charmed life. In terms of food, shelter, and most capabilities, my life is superior to the majority of those on Earth, most of whom live in poverty. I've always understood that, but that doesn't make me feel better about my life. It makes me feel worse, to know that 1) even the best that life has to offer leaves me completely cold, and 2) people have put so much effort into giving me a decent life, and I lack the ability to properly experience it. As every depressed person in the history of time knows well, telling yourself "your life's great, stop being sad!" is as effective as yelling at a broken computer in the hopes that it will fix itself.

You really can't expect somebody to love life because "it could be worse." It's a logical fallacy predicated on the idea that everyone alive has to continue living, which is a fallacy us suicidal people have circumvented. It only matters that everyone else forces themselves to trudge through the pain if there's no other option, but there's a great option available to us all: just opt out. "Everyone's life is hard," that's very true. And that's the thing people tell me when they're trying to convince me to live. But it sounds a whole heck of a lot more like they're advocating suicide, rather than life. If life and and pain are inherently intertwined, how is that a better argument for life than against it? Why not end the pain instead of needlessly enduring it? Yes, everyone experiences pain, and yes, most people choose to keep living. And just because they make that choice, I should as well? Is that a reasonable declaration to make?

You might have scoffed at the One Direction concert comparison when you first saw it, because, hey, life is more important than a concert. Even if you hate One Direction, if not going to that concert is going to break the hearts of all your friends and family, then of course you'll go and suck it up for a night, for their sake.

I've always been not only mindful of the impact my suicide would have, but I've been vividly open to the idea that I can make things better, that time will improve the situation, and that there may be things about life I don't yet understand. In terms of our allegory, I understand that maybe there's a reason millions of people love One Direction, and maybe if I go to the concert, I'll find out why.

But imagine that you've been going to that concert every night for 28 years. And imagine that your opinion of the show hasn't gotten better, it's gotten worse. Of course I don't want to break my family's heart. That's the only reason I've been going to this stupid One Direction concert for 28 years. People say suicide is selfish, but the people on both sides of the equation are serving themselves. I don't want to experience the pain of life, and they don't want to experience the pain of losing me.

You might think "oh, it's so sweet, they don't want to lose you. How could you ever harm them, for the crime of wanting you to live?" Well, why do you think I've been going to this concert for 28 years? There exists a threshold somewhere, by every reasonable logic possible. I'm not going to pass that threshold today. I'm not going to pass that threshold tomorrow. I could be 55 like Brad Delp, or 63 like Robin Williams, when the line is crossed. But there exists a threshold where the decades of time I've put into this One Direction concert, the decades of displeasure I've endured for the sake of my loved ones will outweigh, by every reasonable scale of logic and consideration, the duty I have to not inconvenience the people who know me with my death.

It's something that, sadly, most people will never be able to understand. I do love you, I do care what you would have to go through if I was gone. I consider it on a daily basis, even diagram it and try to think of ways to lessen the impact. And I want you to understand, that my life isn't constant agony. Whatever it is that you imagine a suicidal person's life to be, that's probably not what my life is like. That knee-jerk reaction of pure horror the people get, when I say I'm suicidal... I dread that reaction. I don't understand that reaction. Yes, I want to die. No, I don't think dying is bad.

I've learned to live with this the best that I can. I may not like One Direction, but I can get wasted at the gig and recite Ani Difranco lyrics in my head. Every day I'm fighting to see the bright side, and often times I can see it. The good and the bad days are both rare. Most days I merely exist, with a little good, a little bad, and a whole lot of MEH. But the meh grows sharp, as proverbial winds wear down its edges. The longer it goes on, the more it starts to hurt. Do you really expect me to endure this infernal concert for 80 years?

I have my ways to make the time pass as amicably as I can, but these are mere stopgap measures. They are temporary. For whatever reason, I just don't understand this appeal that life has to everyone else. There's something on the uttermost fundamental level that most people understand, which I simply can't grasp. Maybe I was born without a will to live. I have no purpose in life, no goals I wish to achieve. I have very few desires, and the desires I do have are ones I'd gladly give up in exchange for death. Like, I'd sort of like to go see Neil Young in concert. But if the offer is "hey, we'll give you a million dollars to go see Neil front row in Europe, or I'll shoot you in the head right now instead," I would take the second option without a moment of hesitation. People say you need to make your own meaning in life, but I'm already doing that, and it's already not working. The things I like are things I like as a distraction against life, none of them even begin to compete against my desire to die. Even the intangible things... "Hey, we can give you the perfect girlfriend, but you'll then have to live to be 120 years old before you die." I'd definitely prefer to just die right now. So I'm starting from a position of already not wanting to live, and then you add to that the failures of my life, and the fact that I'm becoming increasingly unable to accept the person I've become.

It's something I know most people will never understand. And I'll never be able to understand your perspective either. So the most we can do is try our best to relate to each other. And await the inevitable. Because I'm going to put up with this for as long as I can, but I can't put up with it forever.

Top 5 Songs to Kill Yourself To

Well, my old mistress is in town again. I thought I shook her long ago but she tracked me down, found my new address. I've been thinking about killing myself now more often than I have since I was probably 18, and that's unfortunate.

This article may sound glib, even comedic. I assure you, that is not the intention, nor the spirit with which this is delivered. It may sound like I take the subject too lightly, but it's a haunt that's been following me for decades and I've long since lost the squeamishness that might afflict the lesser acquainted. And music, music is one of the greatest tools in this fight. It makes us feel intimately understood at a stage when we could hardly feel any less connected to people.

It goes without saying that the song you choose to kill yourself to is one of the most personal choices you'll ever make, and it's going to be wildly subjective. These aren't my picks for everyone, these are simply my picks.


#5 Nobody Home
by Pink Floyd



Most of us who don't want to live probably know what it's like to be living in this kind of apathetic squalor. The plodding pace and malaised, petering delivery of the tune makes it sound as though the singer of this song has already taken the sleeping pills and may drift into the final sleep at any moment, so you'll feel right at home making this your final track.

And if you're a truly disturbed person, there's an extra dark irony in the fact that once you're dead, you'll be reversing the song and people will be calling you, but getting no answer.

(Pro-Tip: If you care about your family, you'll box up all of your worldly possessions before you end your life, so that they don't have to spend months going through your old things and, in doing so, facing their loss a hundred extra times. Boxing up your things will also give you time to think over your decision and decide whether you truly want to die, or if you just needed time to heal. Also, schedule some sort of social media post to appear after you're dead so that your body doesn't decompose before it's found, that's an important issue of courtesy.)


#4 The Outside
by Taylor Swift



Seeing Taylor Swift in this discussion may surprise you, and this isn't even in the top 10 saddest Taylor songs -- if all you listen to is the instrumentation. The Outside sounds like a cheery, resiliant song. But like Led Zeppelin's Celebration Day (a song that's actually about the holocaust) the tone betrays a set of lyrics that are genuinely sinister. The Outside is full of the lamentations of someone who is not merely discouraged, but who appears to have decided to kill herself. And on a personal level, it happens to coincide with my greatest failings in life, namely my inability to form meaningful relationships.

First Taylor disavows her struggle against the tide of an uncaring and conformist society and acknowledges the fact that her ambitions in life have conclusively failed. "I didn't know what I would find when I went looking for a reason." "I tried to take the road less traveled by, but nothing seems to work ..."

And then she laments on the fact that she never really even had a chance, because her attempts to reach out were met with indifference. "How can I ever try to be better if nobody ever lets me in?" "You saw me there, but you never knew I would give it all up to be a part of this, a part of you."

Finally, she confirms her intentions to kill herslf, with the unequivocable decleration that "it's all too late so you see, you could've helped if you had wanted to but no one notices until it's too late to do anything." She's basically saying "Don't cry for me, I'm already dead."


#3 Campaigner
by Neil Young



There's nothing inherently suicidal about this song. But it does describe the sort of quivering failure that has marked my life, the complete inability to progress even to the most basic level of human functionality in a world where even a hateful curmudgeon like Richard Nixon rose to the level of President. You might think "Hey, if Nixon can do it, that gives hope to all us curmudgeons, right?" But, no, the rise of Nixon proves that there's a game being played, one that is so woefully and universally indecipherable to me that by the time I've made the first step, everyone else has crossed the finish line. Campaigner has that kind of bittersweet mentality where I could spend my last moments wistfully thinking "There may have been something, somewhere for me in this world, but if it had ever been within my ability to unearth it, I had already missed that chance before I even knew it was there."


#2 When I Die
by GG Allin



Whether he's a tortured genius, the lowest possible version of gimmicky shock rock, or just a midlevel, unremarkable punk rocker, that's for you to decide. But no matter your assessment, it's hard to deny the truth in this bare bones acoustic ballad as GG recounts his life of debauchery without any illusions of self-worth or decency. In a way, the song is proof that even the hardest among us yearn for warmth. And it's a sentiment that rings true for so many of us who think of suicide, the wish that we could convince people not to mourn our deaths, just by saying so.


#1 Serpentine
by Ani Difranco



Ani is the undisputed Queen of writing eloquent songs about depression. But this isn't her most depressed song. It's worse: it's her most hopeless one. As a political progressive and a perennial shadowboxer, even in her darkest moments Ani grasps for the dawn, and doubles down on her will to fight. In one of her most depressed tunes (Bodily), she fights back against the gloom by appreciating even the most simple things -- like "the deep mahogany sheen of a roach!" That is some serious dedication to looking on the bright side. But in Serpentine, in the aftermath of 9/11 and the new age of American interventionism, Ani throws her hands up and gives in. She walls herself in her room alone and refuses to answer the phone. The serpentine thread of broken systems and uncaring voids that this 10 minute song doles out is second to none. Everything has become corrupted, and there doesn't seem to be a way out. If Ani, the strongest among us, can't push ahead, what hope is there left for me? 

The wall of fatigue seeps even into the recording of the song itself, where the characteristically meticulous Ani leaves this complex epic less polished than her usual soundscape perfection. I'd be honored to have this biting, glorious dirge as the last thing I hear.

"And the difference between you and me, baby, is I get fucked up when I'm alone."

Top 20 Neil Young Songs of the 1990s

Neil Young had risen to the status of Rock God in the 70s, after riding a rising wave built with the Buffalo Springfield, Crosby Stills & Nash, and solo classics. But the 80s had seen him falter some, with idiosyncratic projects that had lost him a lot of fans. In the 90s he was poised to retake his throne, and he struck hard right at the cutting edge of modern music. Before grunge had even made its way into the mainstream, before Nevermind had even been recorded, Neil was already releasing furious, feedback-drenched, counter culture records that could have come out of Sub Pop or Steve Albini's studio. He rocked so hard in the early 90s that he temporarily lost his hearing, and astonishingly switched gears with soft, soulful acoustic music reminiscent of his classic 70s hits.

For Neil, the 90s was an era of extraordinary, transluscent guitar jams, hearth-warming cherished ballads, and dark, somber contemplations. It was his most culturally relevant decade since the 1970s and it's some of the most fantastic music ever put to needle.

This is part two in my six-part series compiling the 100 Greatest Neil Young Songs of All-Time. Be aware this includes material released in the 90s only, but due to Neil's live performances being so part and parcel of his triumphs in this era, and due to the sheer quality of that material, live versions of old songs are included on this list. I mean, what is 90s Neil without Weld?

Click any song's name to hear it on youtube!

#20. Guitar Solo #1
[Dead Man, 1996]

The album may be confounding for those not interested in the genre, but as a fan of noise music, I couldn't be happier to learn this existed. Superior in craft to Arc and with more complex instrumentation than Le Noise, Dead Man is easily his most fully-realized and by far his best foray into noise music. All six "guitar solo" tracks are exquisite, but this first slab is the best piece, with a split between subtle soundscape and cacophony, and just a little tease of this soundtrack's recurrent melody. It's no surprise that an artist as adept at crafting sonic soundscapes in guitar jams like Cowgirl or Hurricane would be good at making noise music, but it's a big surprise that he'd bother to, for such a little-loved genre.


#19. Welfare Mothers
[WELD, 1991]

This slab of punkish glee first came out on Neil's 1979 Rust Never Sleeps, but the rowdy, thundering Weld version nearly doubles the song's original runtime with screaming guitar solos, overdrenched feedback (bring your raincoat!) and a billowing shouting match between Neil and Poncho. It's emblematic of everything great about Weld, and irrevocable proof Neil could go toe to toe with any of the loudest, grungiest, screamy-iest rock bands from the early 90s.


#18. Mansion on the Hill
[Ragged Glory, 1990]

Ragged Glory was the dawning of a new stride for Neil and it was a welcome punch in the face to fans who might have been befuddled over Neil's experimentation in the 80s. Neil opened the 90s with his hardest rocking studio album ever, and a strong new ferver that instantly ingratiated him to the alternative rock scene on the cusp of exploding. Mansion on the Hill carries a hippie message with a joyous chorus, but it rocks a knife-sharpening riff and some licks that might cut glass.


#17. Scenery
[Mirror Ball, 1995]

After meeting up at charity concerts such as Neil's Bridge School and the 22nd anniversary of Roe V. Wade (also featuring L7!), Neil and Pearl Jam "got to talkin'" and they recorded Mirror Ball together, the godfather enlisting the new wave as often happens. As you would expect, the result is looser than Pearl Jam, but tighter than Crazy Horse. The pinnacle of the record is this just-under-9-minute expanse. Like much of Neil's 90s work it is a slow, contemplative jam, this time with a strong tinge of warm world-weariness (if you can't imagine how those two can combine -- just listen to the song!)


#16. Harvest Moon
[Harvest Moon, 1992]

You might not have noticed, but Neil Young is obsessed with dancing. We have titles like When You Dance, Last Dance, We Never Danced, She's Always Dancing, and Dance Dance Dance, plus two dozen other songs about dancing like Cinnamon Girl ("your baby loves to dance"), Hanging on a Limb ("she taught him how to dance"), You and Me ("dancing in the evening light"), and you could truly go on and on. But in Harvest Moon, Neil wrote likely his best dance song ever, a cheery waltz with an infectious, irresistible rhythm and the promise of love. A mere whiff of the track imbues the listener with vivid images of paper lanterns and a wooden deck somewhere on a warm autumn's eve, fireflies all around.


#15. Love to Burn
[Ragged Glory, 1990]

A slippery-wet lick slides on down to the beach for some surf and forms the backbone of this song. Before long, Neil's crooning about romantic ghosts and grim quarrels between broken lovers, then it turns into a ten minute guitar workout. This is one of Neil's grooviest tunes, with clever lyrics and irresistible solos, an instant classic for the Crazy Horse set. One of Neil's all-time most memorable riffs.


#14. Human Highway
[Year of the Horse, 1997]

The differences between this and the many other versions (the '76 studio original, the Bridge School version with Peggy) may be subtle, but they are significant. This slow plodding, world-weary version performed by Crazy Horse is more morosely beautiful and it's the best rendition of this mournful classic. On this one you really feel their fatigue over the broken shape of the world, as they stretch out with at least one hand, grasping for understanding.


#13. Big Time
[Broken Arrow, 1996]

The 90s were a peak era for Neil to commune with his musical cousins in the modern underground, but he was also a millionaire who had been releasing records for thirty years. The trials of youth were long over and he had achieved every measure of artistic success, plus he was back on top as one of the most respected musicians of the modern day. These attitudes show through in a lot of his 90s work. Big Time is by far one of Neil's most contented songs ever, shimmering with the low heat of no worries and nowhere to go, powered by gorgeous guitar jams that go on forever.


#12. Driveby
[Sleeps With Angels, 1994]

The intention of Sleeps With Angels was to recapture the dark and experimental concepts from Tonight's the Night. But where Tonight's the Night was an "Irish wake," full of cathartic laughter in the face of death, Sleeps With Angels was just a wake, ruminating on death. Driveby is a hauntingly simplistic song built on a funeral beat and an even more mournful vocal. "I can't believe a machine gun sings," Neil croons with palpable hurt in his voice. "Driveby... driveby... driveby..." The chorus is a chant, nearly a seance.


#11. Unknown Legend
[Harvest Moon, 1992]

With a wistful, echoing electric riff trailing off into the annals of time as the song strums along with archetypal folkiness, Unknown Legend is an ode to an unsung hero working her way through life as a waitress. As someone who works at a diner, and has seen this story pan out in realtime on a dozen occasions, it does hold extra special weight with me. But it's also one of the catchiest songs on Harvest Moon, and it articulately captures the way that life runs away with us all over time.


#10. Barstool Blues
[Year of the Horse, 1997]

Year of the Horse can be a contentious live album for Neil fans, but to me it pinpoints the pinnacle of what Crazy Horse can accomplish: rock 'n rol l bar band jams so softly lucid they start seriously rubbing up against the noise genre. Contrary to the in your face attitude of Weld, Year of the Horse is a laidback, less sober affair. It's similar to the distinction between Time Fades Away and On The Beach: one's a defiant stand against the world, while the other is content to board up the windows, forget the world and wallow in a solitary haze. Nowhere is this tapped more coherently than in Barstool Blues, already a hallucinatory drinking song from the Zuma days, now it's been run through a strainer and mixed with a quart of absinthe to become a nine minute slow-pulsing journey.


#9. Transformer Man
[Unplugged, 1993]

Neil Young's stint on MTV's reputable Unplugged series was fairly haphazard, and a lot of the tracks didn't turn out flawless. But Neil always has some clever ideas up his sleeve. Going between rancorous electric guitar rock band versions, to soft-n-sweet solo-acoustic versions, and even into piano and banjo versions for any particular song is no new phenomenon for Neil. But taking songs from the electronic and vocoder-feuled Trans album for his Unplugged performance was an inspired and daring choice that most audiences hadn't been aware of. This homey, Harvest Moon-styled rendition of Transformer Man is one of Neil's most beautiful and brilliant tracks, eccentuating the utterly gorgeous melody underneath what many had soundly written-off due to its initial genre.


#8. Pocahontas
[Year of the Horse, 1997]

Pocahontas started out as a twelve-string campfire song, something a cowboy might sing on the range. On Year of the Horse it's transmuted into an acerbic electric needle, or maybe some kind of big generator with a beautiful mural painted on it: a little harsh and a lot endearing. Its dark wit becomes stronger than ever and the new electric version smartly serves as a metaphor in and of itself, of the lost paradise and increased industrialization that killed off the early American glory, as described in the song's lyrics.


#7. Slip Away
[Broken Arrow, 1996]

The typical Crazy Horse record is maybe 70% rockin' out, 30% interplanetary travel. Broken Arrow is 90-100% interplanetary travel. Heavy riffs are exchanged for cosmic, billowing ones. Slip Away takes this trend even further with a spidery, spindling instrumentation and lyrics about a lady disappearing into the music of a smoke-filled barroom. It's one of the most perfect examples of lyrics that fit the tune, and even the album. The music from Slip Away will send you flying through the clouds, and that's exactly what the lyrics say. It's on a level of pure weightlessness equaled only by a couple of Crazy Horse jams, namely Hurricane and Cortez.


#6. You and Me
[Harvest Moon, 1992]

As someone who (clearly) prefers Neil's electric work, it took me a long time to 'get' Harvest Moon. The lyrics "I was thinking 'bout you and me, making love beneath the trees. And now I wonder, could it be?" sung in an eerie-soft whispered harmony, over a sparse, fire-lit riff? This, on a fateful relisten, stopped me dead in my tracks and made me realize there's truly something to this record after all. Aside from Will to Love, which features a literal fire crackling in the background of the recording, You and Me is the all-time quintessential Neil song for laying by the fireplace or dancing in the woods beside a campfire. It is overflowing with warmth and idyllic sentimentality, but there's nothing maudlin about it, it feels genuine. It feels less like a fantasy and more like a memory, a memory of one of the best nights you ever had.


#5. Fuckin' Up
[WELD, 1991]

The 1990s were an era of disillusionment and anger, captured notably by the decade's wave of grunge rock musicians. But before anyone outside of the underground even knew that such music existed, Neil was already playing it, and even *epitomizing it*, with this cynical, self-deprecating, roaring hard rock anthem. A pounding riff informs the track while the lyrics explore feelings of being lost and helpless. This WELD live version adds that extra fuzz and fury to make an already A+ great song into a ferocious classic.


#4. Prime of Life
[Sleeps With Angels, 1994]

In Sleeps With Angels, Neil created the ultimate, indispensable 'deep night' album, emanating with the shadowy tones of a thinly-peopled after-hours jazz club. You know the place, the kind of place where the mood lighting is turned down so low, you couldn't see five feet in front of your face even if you were sober. Prime of Life is the record's moodiest cut: incomprehensible lyrics like "footsteps run down the castle hall to the rooms of the paper doll" inform you of Neil's spaced-out intentions with a soft spoken voice, while lightly touched jazz chords pace briskly by and some kind of pan flute doles out a sorrowful whine, quite possibly being performed by a satyr from another dimension. I mean, you never know what you'll find at an after-hours club.


#3. Love and Only Love
[WELD, 1991]

With a groove-tastic bassline and choppy, tasty licks dotting the length of the tune, this is one of Neil's all-time greatest jams as well as one of his best rock songs, with a killer riff and a great melody. The emphatic, epic chorus demonstrates one of my favorite of Neil's modes and it's brimming with the power of love. It's catchy and glorious. Powerhouse may be an overused phrase, but this is a true powerhouse.


#2. Like a Hurricane
[WELD, 1991]

Inarguably one of Neil's chief classics, Hurricane's been done a lot of great ways over the years. In fact, it's one of only two songs you're going to see multiple times in this top 100 project. This 90s version is utterly essential for numerous reasons. It takes the sharper tone adopted from the 70s live versions and pushes it up to 11, then adds the feedback and intensity natural to this period. The result is the most ravenous version of all-time, pitilessly pummeling you with powerful guitar licks. The song is called Like a Hurricane, and this is without a doubt the most Hurricane-like version of the track, as Neil is yet again able to speak a song's theme both with its words and its instruments. This is also the longest released version of the song, at a delicious 14 minutes!


#1. Change Your Mind
[Complex Sessions, 1994]

Change Your Mind captures the supreme best of both Neil's great achievements in the 90s, his shadowy, subtle side, and his screaming guitar side. Hailing originally from Sleeps With Angels, it wholly encapsulates the murky-cool atmosphere of that record, plus the most serene and gorgeous guitar solos you'll find this side of Cowgirl in the Sand. At the eight-minute mark, the song slows down to a quiet crawl and enters pure transcendence, letting the band have real space to breathe and coax reluctant spirits from the ether. It's a revelation of a song, one of a kind. Helmed by award-winning film director Jonathan Demme (Silence of the Lambs) who would go on to film 3 feature-length concerts films for Neil, The Complex Sessions captured an even purer, even smokier, even darker version with superior slick jams.

There you have it! Check back for my entries regarding the 21st Century, 60s/70s, and Performance Series, together forming Neil's 100 best songs!

Krampus (2015) Review

**NO SPOILERS**

The richly grim ancient Germanic myth of Krampus, the creature that tortures naughty children at Christmas time, has been increasing in popularity among Westerners over the last few years. A major release picture about him was inevitable (several more are currently in various stages of production), but luckily it was Trick 'r Treat director Michael Dougherty who was able to put together his film and make it the first (among the wide release audience).

People have a lot of highly divergent expectations coming into this film, so what'll be most helpful is if right off the bat I explain what exactly this film is, and what it isn't.

For those who don't know, Krampus is the spiritual sequel to director Mike Dougherty's previous film, Trick 'r Treat: a cult classic widely regarded as the ultimate Halloween-themed film. So for those of you wondering how Krampus compares to its predecessor, it doesn't capture the Christmas spirit quite as insanely iconically as Trick 'r Treat captured Halloween. But you should have been expecting that, because it'd be superhuman for anyone to be able to repeat something so utterly flawless. That's like asking Nirvana to do another song not just creatively or subjectively better than Smells Like Teen Spirit, but one with an equal impact on pop culture and music trends, of which Teen Spirit was in the all-time elite group to begin with.

But Krampus does deliver the Holiday Spirit, and it never needed to be THE ultimate Christmas Spirit film because we already have that, a dozen times over. Part of what makes Trick 'r Treat so iconic is the mystifyingly scarce number of films that tap into the Halloween atmosphere to begin with, so Trick 'r Treat is like an oasis in the desert. Krampus is competing in a very different arena, one flush with classic Christmas films.

The other thing that a lot of people were wondering about was the film's rating, and whether it could be adequately frightening as a PG-13. Well, make no mistake, this is a Christmas movie and a family movie, with the appropriate sentimentality for that genre. If you're looking for a purely sadistic, gruesome Christmas horror like one of those many slasher-Santa flicks, this is not the right place to look.

But is that really what we wanted out of Krampus, anyway? I'd certainly love to see a more violent version, but that's what we have been and will be getting from the many other Krampus films. Dougherty is so adept at crafting perfect holiday films, it would have been an atrocious waste of his talents to make merely a Christmas-themed horror film like your usual slasher. Instead, he made a movie that is both a great Christmas film and a great horror film, two individual genres each with their own merits. It's both a disturbing monster flick, and a great entry into the tradition of Christmas cautionary fables like A Christmas Carol and It's a Wonderful Life.

But if you're wondering about the horror, oh yes, there's great horror. This kind of just twisted, weird horror is much more affecting to me than your basic ghost, zombie, or murderer who I've been subjected to ten billion times. This movie is classic, creepy,  fun. If you like old school horror movies like Child's Play and Puppet Master then you will appreciate Krampus on an even higher level. The practical creature effects... mm-mm, so sublime! The designs are disturbing and the action is spot-on. It's also a fantastic siege movie, fondly reminiscent of recent cult-hits like Feast and Dog Soldiers. Plus the atmosphere of being stuck in a raging blizzard is both unnerving, and it adds well to the Christmas atmosphere.

Notably, the Krampus myth is handled excellently. They don't pervert or twist the general concept of the myth, which was a very valid concern. A surprisingly huge number of Krampus interpretations in the US have been quick to recast him as Santa's arch nemesis, and place them in an unending duel for the soul of Christmas, like Batman and The Joker over the soul of Gotham.

That's a fun interpretation and all, but I find the real Krampus myth more appealing because it is more primal and elemental. Like the amazing character of Sam in Trick 'r Treat, Krampus is portrayed here as a force of nature that predates Christianity and the holiday he has come to represent. Krampus works in tandem with Saint Nicholas, like a yin and yang. When you make Krampus into an anti-Christmas creature, you're losing the best part of what he does. Krampus exists to make sure you're good for Christmas, he's an altruistic force of violence. He's the symbol for those of us who love Christmas cheer AND horror, be merry or deal with his wrath! Isn't it more frightening to think that Santa is working WITH this monstrous demon, the Krampus?

Ultimately, Krampus isn't a perfect 10 out of 10 like the immaculate Trick 'r Treat, but it has already earned a rightful place in my Christmas pantheon and I'll be watching it at least every couple of years just like Bad Santa and Miracle on 34th St. Comedy isn't my main preference for horror, but the jokes here hold up and it doesn't detract from the terror. And the terror is scary good fun dripping with atmosphere and obscurity, just the way I like it. For horror fans, this will run as a great triple feature with Rare Exports and Gremlins.

In fact, I feel obliged to mention that Krampus is a decisively superior film to Rare Exports, which is exactly what I was hoping. Where Rare Exports was very cool and atmospheric, Krampus is equally so, but with a vastly superior follow through for the story, and a stronger mythos. They're both fun, dark, cool Christmas horror movies, but Krampus doesn't render the villain impotent by... well, I won't spoil Rare Exports, if you haven't seen it. It's a Finnish film about a boy who discovers the "real" Santa, a monster that punishes naughty children. You should check it out if you haven't, it's quite good. But check out Krampus first, as it's quite better. And the film seems to be doing good business, so hopefully it will help Michael Dougherty do many more projects including Trick 'r Treat 2 and possibly Krampus 2 as well.

Top 15 Neil Young Songs of the 1980s

Neil Young is one of rock music's foremost legends, as well as one of its perennial outcasts. For every beautiful lovesong he has a searing guitar jam, and for every crowd-pleasing classic record, he has a head-scratching experiment in conceptual songwriting. Today I begin my five-part series compiling the 100 Greatest Neil Young Songs of All-Time.

If anyone can claim a title like this, Neil is the musician who has been all things, tried all things. And he did most of those things in the 1980s alone. Easily his most contentious period in a career full of them, the 80s was marked by erratic 180 degree turns in style, and eccentric genre experiments. A new album meant a new style, from old time rockabilly, hardcore country & western, and big band jazz, to oddball electronica.

But those who would write-off the decade as a failed experiment will be denying themselves some of Neil's most sardonic, electrifyingly inspired, and most craftily-written material. Hidden in this strange hodgepodge is a lot of material that transcends into Neil's pantheon, with twang and wit.

So here are the 15 best Neil Young songs of the 1980s. And just to be clear, this comprises only songs that Neil Young released in the 1980s, not material recorded in the 80s that has since been released, such as the Lucky Thirteen rarities and the Performance Series live albums. That material will be included in a different list.

Click any song title to hear it on youtube!

15. T-Bone 
[Re-Ac-Tor, 1981]

Recalling the monotonous tone of the daily grind from Last Dance on 1973's Time Fades Away, T-Bone is a no-holds-barred guitar fest, displaying over 9 minutes of soloing and only one line of lyrics: Got mashed potatoes, ain't got no T-Bone. This slab of steak may be an acquired taste for many, but to us Neilheads who can't get enough of his guitar, it's an ironic classic. Hey, we can't all afford that T-Bone, Shakey's just laying some reality on us with this dinner plate metaphor.


14. Someday
[Freedom, 1989]

This calmly sentimental piano ballad is as shining & softy as Neil ever gets, but it also takes shots at disingenuous televangelists and pollution. It's smart, cool, and bound to cause a flutter in your heartstrings.


13. Mideast Vacation
[Life, 1987]

-- Over a spacey beat (reminiscent of Ment at Work's hit song Down Under) Neil paints a picture of himself as a marauder, then as a family man who goes up against middle eastern protesters who burn him in effigy. It's dark, cool, and strange, like the best of Neil's 80s material.


12. Too Lonely
[Life, 1987]

-- This is probably the most punk rock song you'll hear from Neil. He has his stable of punkish songs like Piece of Crap and Sedan Delivery, but they sound as much like classic Crazy Horse as something you might hear from a different punk band. Too Lonely sounds like it could be a Ramones acetate, it doesn't even sounds like Crazy Horse until you get to the chorus riff.


11. Sample and Hold
[Trans, 1982]

-- With the droning industrial pace and Fordian factory lyrics, this song best exemplifies the concept of Neil's synth-born Trans experiment. It's one of Neil's most unique pieces, not just an electronic track but a pounding industrial dance song, and a darn fine one.


10. Shots
[Re-Ac-Tor, 1981]

-- This nearly-8-minute chugging jam has a markedly apocalyptic sound, with screeching guitars accompanied by machine gun fire. It adds a hard rock 80s flare to The Horse's well-worn approach.


9. Prisoners of Rock 'N' Roll
[Life, 1987]

-- Defiant, simplistic, party-time garage rock; certainly no rarity from Crazy Horse. It sounds like an outtake from Rust Never Sleeps. But after spending the rest of the decade shying away from this iconic style, Prisoners of Rock 'N' Roll seems like a breathe of fresh air and a new lease on life for Crazy Horse, foreshadowing Neil's return to a more traditional form in the 90s.


8. We Never Danced
[Life, 1987]

-- This celestial slow dance is both buddingly romantic and sadly final. You get the feeling that although Neil's hopeful to reconnect with his would-be-bae, that connection is likely never to come around again. Originally written to be performed by lite pop artist Martha Davis of the Motels for a film named Made in Heaven, it's one of Neil's purest and most competent pop compositions.


7. This Old House
[American Dream, 1988]

-- Crosby Stills Nash & Young reunited in the late 80s for one of their few studio albums. Neil brought them one of his best country songs, a harmonized acoustic groove about an idyllic life and the fact that it's all about to end when the bank repossesses the house. It's the dark flipside to Graham Nash's iconic Our House, which also can serve as a grim metaphor for CSNY themselves (and that may well have been Neil's intention, considering he had recently released Hippie Dream, an angry tune about how "the Wooden Ships were just a hippie dream.")


6. Around The World
[Life, 1987]

-- After the full-on industrial style of Trans, Neil continued to flirt with electronic music for most of the 80s, but with incorporating more of his original rock style. This gem hails from his last album to incorporate electronica and it is one hell of a rip-roaring good track, his hardest rocking of that form.


5. Too Far Gone
[Freedom, 1989]

-- Another one of Neil's premier country laments; This terse, tasty ditty details the aftermath of a night of drunken debauchery and the broken nature of a relationship it illuminates. It's sad, it's sweet, it's one of Neil's smartest love/breakup songs.


4. Touch the Night
[Landing On Water, 1986]

-- Keeping the electronic pulse, dropping the robot vocoder voice, and amping up the guitars even more, Landing On Water is a pretty solid and much underrated Neil album. Touch the Night's fidgeting riff, utterly epic tone, and plasmatic lyrics fill me with emotion every time I listen. It's always been one of my dream encore songs from Neil, it just feels like a magic song.


3. Crime in the City (Sixty to Zero)
[Freedom, 1989]

-- Over a smooth as warm cream, lightly picked guitar and brushed drums, Neil spends almost 9 minutes painting an elaborate picture of cops and robbers, producers and musicians, and ultimately himself -- brooding on the pains of divorce, the complications of adulthood, and the rebellions of youth. It's touching and strong, and one of Neil's greatest acoustic epics.


2. Misfits
[Old Ways, 1985]

-- One of the most idiosyncratic and unquestionably COOLEST songs Neil's ever recorded, Misfits is an entity unto itself. A down home western prairie song about astronauts on a space station, the emphatic, rolling chorus is guaranteed to lift you halfway to space. This is a true rebel at work.


1. Rockin' in the Free World
[Freedom, 1989]

-- There's no avoiding this one. Easily one of Neil's 5 biggest hits of all-time, RITFW is a hot coookin' rocker with a catchy chorus and his ubiquitous killer guitar. A lot of the hits lose their luster after the 200,000th listen, but Rockin' in the Free World is one of the rare few that still kicks a heap of ass. And an old hit that can still stand up to the eccentric ultra-hardcore catalog of a Neil connoisseur, those are the songs you know are truly great.

Neil Young Live at the Cellar Door

Over the last few years Neil Young has released several excellent live albums from the late 1960s and early 1970s, and a couple from later, as well. Cellar Door captures Neil in 1970 performing solo-acoustic shortly after the release of After the Gold Rush, performing at the fan-famous Cellar Door, known as the double entendre from The Needle and the Damage Done ("Caught you knockin' at my cellar door..."). But this was one of the last of Neil's live archive releases to come out (at the time), and I wrote it off as soon as it was announced.

Why? In this stark 13 song tracklist most of these songs have been released not only in *several* live versions already but even from the same time period. After Canterbury House '68, Riverboat '69, Massey Hall '71, and Four Way Street '70, I just didn't feel the need to hear Neil do the same songs, the same way. Out of 13 tracks there's literally not one song on here that hadn't already been released in an acoustic live version.

But I don't mind putting new releases on the backburner. When it comes to my favorite artists, I intentionally let material fall through the cracks so that there'll be new material to explore later. When I got around to Cellar Door it was quite a revelation... holy mother of pearl, this is one of the best live albums I have ever heard!


The sound quality on this recording is out of this world. Does the Cellar Door have preternaturally spectacular acoustics? It sounds more like a live-in-studio recording than a concert venue. It's rich and it's warm and it's so clean. This is truly what it would sound like if Neil was playing for you in your living room; you can even hear him lightly tap his guitar to keep rhythm on Only Love Can Break Your Heart.

It's a more tender, gentler, more intimate record than Neil has perhaps ever recorded. It's an album to listen to while watching the sunset or drinking your morning tea. An unassuming setlist is somewhat empowered by rare interpretations such as Cinnamon Girl and Flying on the Ground is Wrong now reborn as piano ballads instead of being done on the guitar. It's amazing how he can play these same songs so many times and somehow keep doing unique versions of them. Songs like Old Man and Down by The River which have been done so ad nauseum (4 official versions of Old Man, 6 of Down by The River), somehow become genuinely meaningful again in this new setting with Neil's naked delivery.


I'm not sure if this is necessarily Neil Young's best acoustic live album. Canterbury House has long been my favorite with its stark style and adventurous setlist. Cellar Door may do absolute wonders with its material but it still could have had a better stock of material to draw from.

Cellar Door still may be the best, though. Ultimately I don't think any Neil collection would be complete without both Canterbury House and Live at the Cellar Door. But what I can definitely say for Cellar Door is that it's a marvel of intimacy, and it's the best 'album' out of all Neil's acoustic live albums. It's a record that could have come out as a "live studio album" like Rust Never Sleeps, it really works and flows in a perfect way.