#27: Dream, Comfort, Memory To Spare
Neil Young's Bullshit, East Coast Cosmic & Portland Psychedelic Country
Felt great to be back on the air and streams this week with The Trailhead #138.
We revisited the magnificent new PJS album Alchemy as well as the monumental summit that is Ackerley/Prymek/Turner’s All Hope With Sleeping Minds on Full Spectrum. We also heard fresh jams from last week’s featured artists Skyminds and Fogwood. The week’s drums/space segment was so good I almost wanted to let it ride, so go check out 6/23/93 when you have a chance.
The second set continued the trend of highlighting psychedelia/progressive sounds from a particular country in the 70s, so we did France this week. I opted to exclude well-known greats like Heldon and Magma, and went for jams from more obscure groups and projects like the highly experimental Besombes-Rizet, the Yes-worshiping Atoll, the Floydian loveliness of Pulsar and Pentacle and a pastoral outing from Daniel Haas & Yves Hasselmann.
It was a nice show with a good flow that you can hear here.
The Trailhead #138 Playlist:
1. PJS - Spice - Alchemy (VILL4IN, 2024) 00:00
2. Elijah McLaughlin & Caleb Willitz - A Clock For No Time - Morning Improvisations / Evening Abstractions (Centripetal Force, 2024) 20:06
3. Ackerley/Prymek/Turner - Premonition - All Hope With Sleeping Minds (Full Spectrum, 2024) 27:54
4. Skyminds - Floating Horizon - Echoes on the Shore (Inner Islands, 2024) 36:04
5. Fogwood - Lost & Near - Inner Chambers (Aural Canyon, 2024) 42:04
6. Atoll - Je Suis D'Ailleurs - Musiciens - Magiciens (Eurodisc, 1974) 1:03:52
7. Besombes-Rizet - Evelyse - Pôle (Pôle Records, 1975) 1:11:45
8. Lard Free - Livarot Respiration - Gilbert Artman's Lard Free (Vamp, 1973) 1:19:09
9. Pulsar - Pollen - Pollen (Kingdom, 1975) 1:26:32
10. Daniel Haas & Yves Hasselmann - Élodie - Couleurs du Temps (Crypto, 1978) 1:39:11
11. Pentacle - Le Raconteur - La Clef Des Songes (Arcane, 1975) 1:46:43
**If you listen to the show regularly and aren’t a paid sub here, please consider buying me a coffee. Preparing and hosting a 2-hour show every week is wonderful work but it is work. Thanks!**
I’ve really been checked out on the steady flow of music, new and old, coming from Neil Young. No doubt a foundational figure in my personal music history, my interest in folky rock has been very low the last couple of years. This is likely due to just plain tiredness after decades spent exploring every backroad and alley classic rock (and, more interestingly, it’s underbelly and those who never quite made it) has to offer. Presently I’m a little more thrilled by synth pop and 80s productions than longhairs and denim. And, yes, Trans is a favorite.
But, again, this stuff is baked in my soul and I can never turn fully away from 60s/70s Young with or without Crazy Horse. Maybe it’s a personal wish of not being so nostalgic, getting older, or maybe it’s all the loss of musicians from this era that is picking up speed every day. Sometimes this music is too close to people and places of the past and it can be sweetly sublime or deeply sorrowful.
Anyway.
The thing with Neil is—his music since 2014’s Psychedelic Pill has been miss after miss after miss…for me. That sprawling record of meandering jams will likely remain the last great Young outing but luckily his archives continue to deliver music from his many great eras. I’ve not really spent much time with any of the releases since Homegrown but I noticed that Early Daze was just released. Recorded in 1969 with Crazy Horse and the gone-too-soon Danny Whitten, Early Daze definitely piqued my interest.
So I put it on this morning and was really pleasantly surprised by how much I was able to connect to it. It’s full of songs we all know deeply (in slightly different forms) but it’s as warm, comfortable and reassuring as a favorite flannel shirt. The performances are full of energy and life and without any dated productions that keep the music in the garage and out of time. This Early Daze version of Helpless is absolutely breathtaking and I can’t say why. And I’m so in love with the non-ironic, no pastel or rockabilly cosplay shuffle of Wonderin’ (I DO ACTUALLY LOVE the version on 1983’s ‘Everybody’s Rockin’ and it does have the best video he ever made). The aura of Cinnamon Girl isn’t radically different here nor is the punchiness of Come On Baby Let’s Go Downtown but the latter does feel a little more full bodied than the known version from 1973’s Tonight’s The Night (actually recorded in 1970). Props to whoever sequenced Early Daze, opening with the irresistible crunchy stomp of Dance, Dance, Dance is genius. Winterlong offers a buoyant reprieve after going downtown and Everybody’s Alone is a nice little throwback to the still undersung Buffalo Springfield in tone.
I didn’t find any of it revelatory but Early Daze may be my go-to for a rare solo head-nodding breezy ride or to entice the kids to dance, dance, dance.
I was really stoked to receive a promo CD of the new Seawind of Battery album this week. Out August 2 via Virginia label WarHen, East Coast Cosmic Dreamscaper finds guitarist Mike Horn joined by lap steel player (and Aquarium Drunkard contributor) Jarrod Annis for a truly astral trip. The record’s first emission is the crisp ‘New Moon’.
The jam comes in easy; glittering and gathering atop a skeletal rhythm and ringing riff. There’s melody and atmosphere that thickens and starts to sway before the beat drops and you are UP and MOVING. Like the danciest Durutti Column outings, New Moon delivers the goodness of guitar noodles and groove and booty acknowledgment. As a matter of fact, New Moon also reminds me a lot of perennial favorite Collection 983: Spectral Voyages (Catero, 1984) by Paul Speer that we featured back in #25. It’s a killer jam from a killer album and everyone needs to jam it loud as fuck immediately.
Been digging this new Jeffrey Silverstein EP Roseway. The Portland musician and DJ has been honing his style of laidback psychedelic country shuffle for some time now but you’d never call him prolific. With only two full-lengths and another EP under his belt (with a nice buckle, no doubt) since 2020, Silverstein seems to like to take his time and make sure the acoustic/electric gumbo he serves up is seasoned and simmered just right. There’s a real nice, lively feel to Roseway’s six tracks that conjure mellow fields and shady rambles. The pedal steel sweeps and acoustic shades are as sweet as always but the rhythms and space here make some really nice deep tracks to follow.