Neil Young

I've been listening to my Neil Young CD's for the past few days. For years I couldn't listen to the guy, because I couldn't get past the sound of his voice. But over the past two years or so I've developed an appreciation of what he's trying to do with his music. While I'm not a raving fan, I've slowly developed an understanding of his stuff.

I've been listening to his albums in chronological order too... that's been an interesting exercise as well. Helps me to develop a clearer overview of where he's coming from, both musically, lyrically and sonically.

Some people rave about his guitar work. My personal opinion is that sure, he's an under-rated guitarist. But he's not a master. He has a unique, simple style. I think that's what people like about him. Not flashy, not at all. Just basic "K.I.S.S"-rule [keep-it-simple, stoopid] player, but with great feeling. Certainly proto-grunge guitar sounds!

Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere [1969]
After the Gold Rush [1970]
Live at Massey Hall 1971 [2007]
Harvest [1972]
On the Beach [1974]
and the masterly bleakness of 1975's "Tonight's The Night."

He's not the sort of guy you'd put on to listen to if you're feeling a bit melancholic! His subjects, moods, and even sounds, mirror a certain hopeless lostness that kinda captures a vibe of the times. In a way they're set-pieces from their own era, just totally listenable to... once ya get past his funny voice! heh heh

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I don't know why I didn't do this a year ago! Managing the Sailing Clubs' webpage is pretty easy, not it's all set up and going along nicely. It's always been stuffing around with the photos that's been a hassle. The other day I opened a Flickr a/c, but as it's a free one I discovered you can only have three 'Galleries/Sets' to use, although you can post as many photos as you like. The whole point of the 'Galleries/Sets' were that I could add captions right where the photos where, and keep sets of photos in groups etc etc. But seems I can't do that the way I wanted to. Oh poo!

So I had a [minor] brainwave... I can still host the pics thru Flickr, but use Blogger to actually display the photos in galleries instead. Means I can add labels and captions and fiddle with them as much as I like.

I know it's still a round-about way of doing it. And there's no way I'm gonna go back to the beginning and re-load all the old photos and galleries from the Sailing Club! That'd take forever! Anyway, they're actually alright... it was just very time consuming the way I was doing it. This way won't take as long, but it's still a bit fiddly. Oh well. It's all just an experiment. Trail-and-error sorta thing. Here's the first trial. Looks good so far.

Peas be with ewe

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