Friday night, after a day of fury and frustration, I slipped one of the Blu-ray discs that came with Neil Young’s massive Archives Vol. III into our bedroom player. The concert in question dates from May 1978, when Neil played 10 acoustic shows over five nights at the intimate Boarding House in San Francisco. The bulk of the songs he sang each night had yet to be released, though faithful fans may well have been familiar with a few.
Among the gems: “Pocahontas,” “Human Highway,” “Already One,” “Comes a Time,” “My My, Hey Hey (Out of the Blue),” “Thrasher,” “Ride My Llama” and “Sail Away,” which would become highlights on his next two albums, Comes a Time (1978) and Rust Never Sleeps (1979). Another song, “Shots,” wouldn’t surface until 1981 and re*ac*tor, while “The Ways of Love” would pop up on Freedom in 1989.
By that point in his career, of course, Young could easily have leaned on his many crowd-pleasers, which were (and remain) radio staples. I’m talking “Cinnamon Girl,” “Heart of Gold,” “Helpless,” “Long May You Run” and “Tonight’s the Night,” among others. Instead he served up new songs that challenged the audience to actually listen. It’s a tact he used before these specific shows, of course, as well as long after.
I should back up for a moment here: Friday morning, while putting the finishing touches on my post about Sara Bug’s “No Man, No Kids,” our Internet stopped. Such things happen from time to time, of course. It’s usually a sign that it’s either storming outside or that our (overworked) router needs a reboot. But it wasn’t stormy. And successive reboots achieved nothing. A chat with tech support later and we had a service call booked for Saturday.
Complicating matters: Without access to the Internet, in addition to losing streaming media on our computers, the TV in our living room is useless. So, after utilizing my phone as a hot spot to upload my piece, and diverting ourselves with such offline things as entertaining friends and reading, we retired to the bedroom to watch a succession of DVDs, including Hoosiers, a few episodes of My So-Called Life, and the Boarding House film.
The concert led me to think about this blog, given that my much-trafficked Neil Young Files are a big draw. In every respect, 2024 has been a great year for this second iteration of The Old Grey Cat—more views (+35K) and visitors (+22K) than in 2023. What’s remarkable is that I’ve spotlighted more new releases from lesser-known artists than ever before and that many of those reviews have accrued a slew of hits, too. My take on Muireanne Bradley’s I Kept These Old Blues, released at the tail end of ’23, exploded after she appeared on UK TV on New Year’s Eve, for instance, while my thoughts on Tori Holub, Sunday (1994), Grace Bowers, and Hayley Reardon did far better than I hoped.
We unfortunately live in an age when it’s become customary for the streaming services to fill today’s radio, aka premade playlists, with known quantities, most of which are attached to the major labels, while the wealth of new releases intimidates many fans. It’s the main reason why up-and-coming artists struggle to get heard, I think. In 2025, much as Neil at the Boarding House, I plan to continue doing what I do here, which is devoting the bulk of my set to new and lesser-known singer-songwriters.
The Old Grey Cat 