A message from Neil Young
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‘Pono’ Articles
Beam me up! Young writing sci-fi?
“Sometimes what I love is not what other people love, but that’s okay. It doesn’t matter. That’s why I’m still here.” ~N.Y.
In an interview with Spin Neil Young says he is penning a Sci-fi story.
After listening to Neil’s keynote address at SXSW on March 11, 2014, SPIN sat down with Young in a suite at an out-of-the-way hotel in Austin to talk music, sound, saturation, retro-tech, new albums, and writing.
And then I’m writing another book right now, which is a science fiction book. I’m well into it, maybe 100 pages.
When do you like to write? I write on airplanes and in hotels. It keeps me off the street.
What’s the science-fiction book about?
Hmmm.
Do we have to wait? It’s great. I think it’s better to wait. It’s crazy to talk about. Too fucking weird. But it’s great, I love it. I love writing sci-fi. I’m enjoying the hell out of it.
Wow!
Read the entire interview at: http://www.spin.com/#articles/neil-young-pono-music-new-album-a-letter-home-sxsw-2014-interview/
Shar out!
How Neil Young raised $2 million in two days
Pono Team
As of Today Neil Young has been pledged almost $3 million for Pono! (with 8,980 backers!)
Forbes talks to Neil Young about he raised $2 million in two days on Kickstarter for his Pono project.
The Pono players will cost $399 and a projected $15-$25 per album price tag when the entire system goes live in October.
Staff writer Zack O’Malley Greenburg writes about the fact that, “at this very moment, he’s raising money for Pono–his long-awaited music player and service for high-quality audio files–at a rate of about $700 per minute via Kickstarter. Along with previous support from some outside investors, that will be more than enough to bring Pono to market this fall.”
“Thank goodness that we have the investors that we have, because we were able to get as far as we could” before launching the Kickstarter campaign, says Young. “Far enough to be able to show the product. … But we couldn’t get [corporate] investors to get interested in saving an art form.”
For Young, though, Pono is about much more than a Kickstarter campaign. He wants to create an entire iTunes-like ecosystem for high-quality digital files, complete with an answer to the iPod (the PonoPlayer) and the iTunes Store (the PonoMusic.com Store).
Pono’s business model is similar, too: revenues will be divided in a manner similar to the 70/30 split between content creators and Apple. Says Pono chief executive John Hamm: ”That’s the same deal we have. That’s the same deal everyone has.”
Read more at: http://www.forbes.com/sites/zackomalleygreenburg/2014/03/13/how-neil-youngs-pono-music-raised-2-million-in-two-days/
Neil interview at SXSW
Hear Neil Young explains his Pono Music Player at SXSW on National Public Radio’s “All Songs Considered.”
Neil Young wants to start a revolution against the MP3, against the CD, poorly made vinyl and poor audio quality in general. He wants people to hear the music the way it was made, writes NPR’s Bob Boilen.
“I’m a fan of listening loud. I love to listen loud. That’s what it’s all about, really, for me. I love to hear rock and roll really loud, and I love to hear even acoustic music really loud. Loud for whatever it is it’s being played on. I like to take whatever it is to the limit, and then listen to it right there.
“When I started doing that with these machines, it started to hurt, and I couldn’t do it for very long, so the part of the record-making experience that I used to enjoy became painful. That was a sign to me that something was wrong. I complained a little, and I might have bitched and moaned a little about that too. Then time went by, and I got some better machines, but they weren’t really that much better — it didn’t change it.
“But I noticed when I listened to CDs in my car, the same thing happened — it hurt my ears a little bit. And then the MP3 came along, and that’s when the recording industry really went into duress.”
Read more of Neil’s speech at: http://www.npr.org/blogs/allsongs/2014/03/12/289435279/hear-neil-young-explain-his-pono-music-player-at-sxsw
Neil talks future of sound, raises over $1 million
Neil Young wants to bring music back to where fans can listen to every cymbal strike, every guitar strum, every echo thought up by a musician, according to USA Today.
His kickstarter campaign for his high fidelity music player and online store Pono surpassed his goal of raising $800,000. As of 8 a.m. today 3,852 backers have pledged $1,267,213.
“Everything you know, cameras got easier to use, everything went up, everything went up but music went down,” he said during his 30 minute speech at South by Southwest on Tuesday.
He said his new system is not a format, has no rules, respects the art and respected what the artist was trying to do, and gives the listener what “the artist gave.”
The future of sound one day soon could be contained in a candy bar-size receiver that sits on a breakfast counter — a new music initiative he’s launching named PonoMusic, the legendary rocker told an audience of several thousand attendees at SXSW on Tuesday.
Read more at: http://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/2014/03/11/neil-young-ponos-sxsw/6301331/
“This is rescuing music,” Young said. “It’s an artist-driven movement to take it back.”
Young appeared in signature black leather jacket and black hat, and paced back and forth across the stage as he described the new technology. He had been working on the high-resolution music project for more than three years and has decried the state of digital music in the past, particularly in his book, Waging Heavy Peace.
Can Pono beat the convenience of streaming? Do people want quality over quantity or convenience?
Time will tell.
What we do know is Neil is always lending his creative genius to world and that is good for all of us.
memphish on 
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