CSNY 1974 Tour Box Set Coming - 1974-08-23, Stadium, Tampa, Florida

Yeah, the last I heard was that they hadn't yet recorded a note but were playing several proposed cover songs at their shows ...

Kinda feels like the plug's been pulled on that project.

Still waiting for Nash's Stephen Stills boxed set, which probably will happen ... but will there be the proposed accompanying DVD-Audio disc for Stills' eponymously titled first solo album?

 

Rick Rubin is a funny guy. He goes to Stills, Nash and the Croz with this big idea: hey guys, let's do an acoustic cover album. Everyone thinks he's a genius. Then he goes to ZZtop and he's got another vision: maybe you three should cut an album like your third one. Smart guy. Definetely a man with imagination. They made him co-boss at Columbia for this. He should ask Bob Dylan for a new project: Dylan sings Donovan.

 

Rick was apparently unhappy with what they were able to come up with. He hasn't been shy about holding them to the standard of the "hot dogs" album (one of Rick's favorites, apparently), and he thought they weren't hitting that bar...

As for live stuff. Every live CSN(Y) show I've ever heard "in the rough" was kinda sketchy...No, actually, quite sketchy. At least with respect to the harmonies. Are there examples of "field recordings" where their harmonies are truly, objectively, good overall?

 

They could release it in a Who Live at Leeds way. They could take Neil Young performance from the actual show in '74, Stills' voice and guitar from a couple of gigs in 1970 before his complete descent into colombian territory and Crosby & Nash should overdub some harmonies.

 

What is this, April Fools' Day?

 

Nope...Rick mentioned the "hot dogs" album as severely underrated when he was talking up the new sessions and said something about hoping they could meet that mark...

 

I told you: this bearded guy is a genius.

 

I've got a clip of this song on "The Music Scene". 1969 I believe.
Great live in the studio version. Graham Nash is playing a Hammond, upstage on a riser, with the other 3 on guitars downstage.
I never realized that this song was intended to be released by CSN&Y.

Is this the one you are refering to?

 

I don't think it was ever intended as a CSNY recording. The Crazy Horse version was released in May 69 and Neil didn't join CSNY till July/August, the CSNY performance on Music Scene was from Sept.

 

Interesting read: Rob Stringer, Rick Rubin and the Real Story at Columbia Records

 

well, it definitely looks like the CSN covers album will never see the light of day so hoping in 2011 for:

CSNY live '74

CSNY live 2000 + 2004??????? (long rumored to be about ready to go)

stills box set

stills first solo done ala crosby's and nash's.

something, anything, from CSN?????

 

What the hell is this ?

 

Rubin is such a bloody dope. He made The Cult into AC/DC and wanted CSN to Live It Up when that album should have been called Live It Down instead! wow he stripped down icons to their mere acoustic basics..what a genius...not! I like the way Angus dressed him down, served him right.....

I also understand that he is extremely non technical, he never touches a knob. Good to know if you want a good producer,right? :thumbsdn:

Say what you want about CSN BUT they got this one right,mates. I hope they get someone good for this project....

 

The Live It Up album, it is derisively called so because of the cover:

 

A good producer doesn't need to touch a knob. That's the engineer's job. However a good producer has to bring something to the table. A good producer offers one or more of the following:

1) Good "ears" and authority. Ability to objectively evaluate material for artistic/commercial potential and to get the artist to listen to his/her opinions.

2) Arrangement / conceptualization skills. Take the raw material and fashion it into something commercial. Usually done in collaboration with the engineer.

3) Good babysitter. Keep sessions under control, impose a work ethic, keep studio costs down, force a group to be productive.

4) A good ringleader, who brings in a good engineer, good arrangers, studio musicians as needed (and assuages the egos of the displaced band members).

By all accounts Rick Rubin has no skills at (3). His strengths are conceptualization and, presumably, a good set of ears.

 

I don't want to be an enfant terrible here BUT NO ,NO ,NO to everyone of your points! Judging from the debacle that was with AC/DC among other things he's more of a charlatan than anything else! Thank God CSN dumped him.

In fairness let me address what you said:

1 Good ears? I don't hear it in his productions per se. And he leaves that up to the engineers anyway no? So he seems to be a cheerleader,motivator ringleader as you intimate.

2 arrangement skills? He deconstructed The Cult's Peace album and made them into AC/DC with Electric. Not a bad album but he took the right concept and married it with wrong band. Does Rick play a musical instrument at all? I'm curious because that would help him look at the whole picture instead of just being a spectator? I just found this BTW:At school, Rubin was unpopular among the other musicians due to his complete lack of musical ability beyond a few rudimentary guitar chords I was definitely unto something there.....

3 Babysitter? Were Glyn Johns,John Wood, George Martin good babysitters? I'm just wondering. Did Johnny Cash and Neil Diamond need to be fed a pacifier or even AC/DC for that matter?

4 Rubin is a ringleader but usually I don't like the end result of what he does anyway.

What great producers aren't engineers? It would be interesting to see a list of famous producers who never engineered or have no knowledge of that art and science.....

 

Music inside isn't much better, per the samples I just heard.

 

The fact that Rubin thought it was underrated tells me all I need to know about his supposed discerning taste. It was a mish mash of an album really. Live It Up(the tune) had been recorded years early(before the release of the album). It sounded so unCSN like really and I think most fans were put off by that fact. The rest of it didn't really work. It seemed like their version of ELP's Love Beach! A very undistinguished album if there ever was one wrapped up by an absolutely awful cover...a coup de flop if there ever was one.

 

I didn't say he was all those things, or even most of them. I said those are the potential things that a producer can bring to the table.

As far as I can tell, he mostly brings big concept and ears. You may not like his big concept and you may not agree with his ears. But those are the talents he brings.

 

John Hammond, perhaps

 

Hey, I like the Hot Dog album.

 

Kwad, a producer not knowing even the rudimentary knowledge of the studio is like the director of a film not knowing how a camera works! It's almost a prerequisite for a producer to have a grasp of how drums are miked, when the bass part should go direct etc so on. In essence, Rubin seems not only to not have those simple skills he also is a bad musician to boot. That being said there was an album that I liked that he was involved in..... I did like The Red Hot Chili Peppers album, Blood Sugar Sex Magic though. Did he get them to do yoga at that time or what was it?

I don't agree with his big picture usually and his ears really as being strong suits. And it's interesting that CSN must have noticed that too!

Here's Graham Nash on when they were working with him:

He seems at first to be, what's the word, a little distracted. He's working on three or four albums at the same time, he's talking to people constantly on his Blackberry, but the moment that you do something where he goes, "Can we try that a little slower," just out of the corner of the room. He's engaged. But he's multi-tasking for sure. He certainly knows what he wants.

 

One...... can they be counted on the finger of your hand?

 

HB, what did you like about it mate? How do you rank it in the CSN/CSNY catalog?

 

As long as no one mistakes the gesture for my raising a finger to defend Rick Rubin.