‘News / Article’ Articles

Neil on the Oil Sands, Fort McMurray, Alberta, Canada

Neil Young on oil sands: ‘Fort McMurray looks like Hiroshima’

Michael Babad, The Globe and Mail
Published Tuesday, Sep. 10 2013, 7:48 AM EDT

Young on oil sands

Canadian rocker Neil Young is wading into the heated debate over the oil sands and the proposed Keystone XL pipeline, warning of the health effects on First Nations peoples and the “wasteland” that is Fort McMurray.

Mr. Young, one of Canada’s best-known singer-songwriters since the 1960s, told a conference in Washington yesterday that he recently travelled to Alberta, where “much of the oil comes from, much of the oil that we’re using here, which they call ethical oil because it’s not from Saudi Arabia or some country that may be at war with us.”

He was at a National Farmers Union conference on Capitol Hill meant to support alternative fuels, such as ethanol, which he did at length, slamming Big Oil and talk about his own LincVolt, an old Continental that runs on ethanol and electricity.

Here’s what he said about the oil sands:

“The fact is, Fort McMurray looks like Hiroshima. Fort McMurray is a wasteland. The Indians up there and the native peoples are dying. The fuels all over – the fumes everywhere – you can smell it when you get to town. The closest place to Fort McMurray that is doing the tar sands work is 25 or 30 miles out of town and you can taste it when you get to Fort McMurray. People are sick. People are dying of cancer because of this. All the First Nations people up there are threatened by this.”

Videos and more:
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/top-business-stories/neil-young-on-oil-sands-fort-mcmurray-looks-like-hiroshima/article14213233/?cmpid=rss1

the video:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/video/neil-young-says-fort-mcmurray-looks-like-hiroshima/article14213715/

Tags: Alberta oil sands, Canada, environment, oil
Posted in Activism, LincVolt, News / Article | 2 Comments »

Neil hawks Farm Bill. Will it happen?

Neil Young looked  like an album cover during his appearance at a recent Farm Bill press conference – black fedora, sunglasses, muttonchop sideburns, green “Go Family Farms” tee, according to a Washington Post blog.

Musician Neil Young talks with Sen. Debbie Stabenow at the National Farmers Union rally on Capitol Hill Monday. (Tom Williams / CQ Roll Call via Getty Images)

Congress has tried and failed for more than a year to complete a new five-year farm bill. Now, with Congress embroiled in a fierce debate over whether to intervene in Syria, some are worried the chance to act this year on time may have already passed, U.S. News Weekly reported:

The Post said Neil “Sounded passionate, if a little windy. Spoke without notes for 10 minutes touching on family farmers, the plight of Native Americans near Canadian oilsand developments, and fuel-efficient speeds (“It’s better to drive 55 than 75”). Back story: Young arrived at the rally via a meandering cross-continent trip in his converted bio-electric ’59 Lincoln. “When the electrity runs out, the American farmers and the Canadian farmers and the crops that you grow make this car go. . . Some people are saying cars don’t run right [on ethanol]. . . That’s disinformation.”

Soundbite: “I love what [ethanol] smells like and how it makes my car go. . . It’s a beautiful fuel.”

The current farm bill expires on Sept. 30, giving Congress just nine working days to pass a comprehensive bill.

Politics forced the  House to drag its feet on the farm bill this summer. Internal GOP squabbles over how much money should be spent on the country’s food assistance programs, forced the House to separate the agricultural portion of the bill from the nutrition title. As it stands now, the House has passed an agriculture bill, but has not voted on a bill to reform food stamps.

Read more at:

http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2013/09/09/will-congress-pass-a-farm-bill-this-year?s_cid=rss:will-congress-pass-a-farm-bill-this-year

Also The Washington Post, more Neil slanted:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/reliable-source/wp/2013/09/09/celebvocate-neil-young-for-ethanol-and-the-farm-bill/

Tags: farm aid, farm bill, farmaid, Neil Young
Posted in Activism, Farm Aid, News / Article | 1 Comment »

Bridge School Benefit Lineup Announced

Check here: www.bridgeschool.org/concert/

CSNY, Killers, Queens of the Stone Age to Play Bridge School Benefit

Andy Greene 2 hours ago

This year’s Bridge School Benefit will feature performances by Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, Queens of the Stone Age, My Morning Jacket, the Killers, Elvis Costello, Diana Krall, Fun., Heart and Jenny Lewis.

Per tradition, every artist will play a completely acoustic set. The show will be held October 26th and October 27th at the Shoreline Ampitheater in Mountain View, CA. Tickets go on sale September 13th at 10:00 AM. 

Bridge School Benefit 2013 will mark Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young’s first performance since their Freedom of Speech tour wrapped in September of 2006. CSNY, Elvis Costello and My Morning Jacket have played the Bridge School Benefit in the past, but this year will mark the first performances for the rest of the artists.  (The Killers will only play on October 26th. All the others will be at both shows.)

The Bridge School Benefit was first held in 1986 and has been staged (with the exception of 1987) every year since. It’s always 100% acoustic, leading to completely unique sets from A-list artists like Paul McCartney, David Bowie, Bruce Springsteen, the Who, Metallica, Arcade Fire, Pearl Jam, R.E.M., Tom Petty, Simon and Garfunkel and countless others.

Neil and Pegi Young founded the Bridge School when they were unable to find adequate schooling for their physically challenged son Ben. “He was in a program for special ed students at a school and had some good friends,” Pegi told Rolling Stone in 2010. “But they decided to move the special ed program off campus. This isn’t unusual and I was really sad about it. I was talking to [Neil Young’s manager] Elliot [Roberts] and he said, ‘Why don’t you just start your own school, Peg?’ And I was like, ‘Okay, there’s an idea.’ It just kind of blossomed from there.”

They held the first show in 1986 to raise funds for the new school. “Neil came up with the acoustic format idea,” said Pegi. “It was genius. Nobody was doing that at the time. This is before MTV Unplugged or any of that. It keeps costs down, and it took artists outside their comfort zone. Looking back, that first concert was an exercise in simplicity compared to what it is these days.”

Tags: Bridge school
Posted in Bridge School Benefit, News / Article | Comments Off on Bridge School Benefit Lineup Announced

PONO to Launch Early 2014

finally there is a fickle date for the PONO release.  It is still subject to reality. And also what one understands what PONO would really give to the ears for, e.g. the “girls with the white earphones.”

Technical discussion here on BNB:

https://www.bad-news-beat.org/2013more-on-pono-technical-dissection

No one still answers the question why these high sampling rates, that the end-user cannot hear, is good for the end-user. For mastering ok.  For the girls and boys in white earphones it is still difficult why they should change their habit for songs which take 6 more times to download and to store and have no other quality than they have been remastered. Which is independent of the end sampling rate.

Why isn’t it explained to people that Neil Young is beyond physical limits when it goes about marketing, although he should know better as a musician.

It’s about mastering, not just high sampling rates. Yep, you get the studio sound, the re-mastered one. And that is new. And good. No need for Pono-stuff, though  🙂

Baron

Published: 2013/09/05

Neil Young’s PONO Digital Music Service to Launch Early Next Year

Neil Young’s highly anticipated digital music service PONO will finally be available in early 2014. According to Young, PONO will improve the quality and compression of MP3s. The legendary singer-songwriter posted a statement on the service’s Facebook page on Tuesday that reads:

To everyone who loves music

I’m very happy to bring you some good news. All of us at Team PONO have been focused on getting everything right for our early 2014 launch of Pono.

The simplest way to describe what we’ve accomplished is that we’ve liberated the music of the artist from the digital file and restored it to its original artistic quality – as it was in the studio. So it has
primal power.

Hearing PONO for the first time is like that first blast of daylight when you leave a movie theater on a sun-filled day. It takes you a second to adjust. Then you enter a bright reality, of wonderfully
rendered detail.

This music moves you. So you can feel. That’s why so many musicians are behind PonoMusic – this is important work that honors their art. This is the way they wanted you to hear their music.

PONO starts at the source: artist-approved studio masters we’ve been given special access to. Then we work with our brilliant partners at Meridian to unlock the richness of the artist’s music to you. There is nothing like hearing this music – and we are working hard to make that experience available to all music lovers, soon.

Our mission is also to make PONO just as accessible as any music you buy and listen to today. So we’ll be launching both the PONO portable player – an updated version of the one I showed on David Letterman’s program – and an online library, with all your favorite music available in PonoMusic quality. Everything you need to feel music anew.

Stay tuned for more updates. And be sure to follow us on Facebook and Twitterand NSA for the latest information. We hope you’ll try PONO when it comes your way, and that it brings you the soul of music.

Yours, for PonoMusic
Neil Young

jambands.com/news/2013/09/05/neil-young-s-pono-digital-music-service-to-launch-early-next-year

_________________________________
Thanks to Randy G. and BNB team and ny.info

Tags: 192 kHz, digital audio, pono
Posted in Album Info, News / Article | Comments Off on PONO to Launch Early 2014

Uncut reviews Year of the Horse

The October 2013 issue of Uncut features a DVD review of  Jim Jarmusch concert documentary “Year of the Horse”  shot in 1996.

They write: “This isn’t older musicians trying to sustain some delusion of youthful potency;  this is a bunch of middle-aged men, led by a surly, stomping guitarist in baggy  knee-length shorts and a nondescript T-shirt.

” But the very lack of  self-conscious stagecraft carries with it the implication that what you’re being  given is something purely musical, unmediated by modern digital strategies that  demand everything be a multi-platform, multi-media, interactive experience. It’s  pure rock’n’roll, as the introductory tagline explain:

“Made loud to be played  loud. CRANK IT UP!”.
It’s far from the ideal Neil and Crazy Horse setlist, Uncut opines,  with only a handful of  classics – including a version of “Tonight’s The Night” following a segment  about the deaths of Danny Whitten and Bruce Berry – sprinkled  parsimoniously through the show.

But it barely matters: as Young maintains,  “It’s all one song,” an ongoing flow of music hewn into eight-to ten-minute  chunks. And any technical effects are kept to a minimum, and used subtly, as  when stage footage of the band playing “Slips Away” is blended with a tour bus  shot of passing sky and landscape.

Read more at http://www.uncut.co.uk/neil-young-crazy-horse-year-of-the-horse-review#oOLywI4sU8cO2VW0.99

Tags: crazy horse, Jim Jarmusch, movie, review, Year of the Horse
Posted in Movie Info, News / Article, Videos | Comments Off on Uncut reviews Year of the Horse