NEIL YOUNG Times Square - the unreleased acetate

In late 1988, Neil Young and two ex-Bluenotes
(drummer Chad Cromwell & bassist Rick Rosas)
recorded seven songs at the Hit Factory in New
York City. Six of them would eventually turn up
on the next two Neil Young LPs, while (arguably)
the best of the lot remains unreleased.

An album was assembled in January after some
minor tinkering (horn overdubs by The Bluenotes
and final mixing) at Redwood Digital. A month
later, the album was mastered and "ready for WB"
when Neil suddenly changed his mind, deciding that
"Times Square" "didn't have a song that they could
play on the radio", and the project was scrapped.

As it stood, he probably was right; the LP was
raw, biting and, more than anything else, LOUD.
Interesting, to be sure; but not a hit single in the lot.

Side one starts off with "Eldorado", a 6:00 song
with deceptive lyrics and shadowy atmosphere that
had darkened since Neil first performed the song
in September of 1986. A perfect opening track here,
the song was buried near the end of side one of
"Freedom", and as the last cut on the "Eldorado" EP.

The next two songs ("Someday" and "Sixty To
Zero"), were recorded with The Bluenotes during
the Redwood Digital sessions in January. Both cuts
would eventully appear on "Freedom".

The only unreleased song on the acetate closes
side one. First performed live September 3, 1988,
"Boxcar" stood out in too few Bluenotes shows with
it's sparse (vocal/Old Black-only) arrangement. The
haunting, tremeloed guitar behind the travel-weary
lyrics of a roads scholar is downright stunning.

All five recordings from side two of the acetate can be found scattered
throughout "Freedom", although the LP includes a 4:15 edit of "Don't Cry",
rather than the complete 5:00 version on the acetate & the "Eldorado" EP.

It's interesting to note that the "Eldorado" "mini-LP" included four of the
five songs from side two of "Times Square", replacing "Wrecking Ball" with
the title song. Neil has been quoted as saying that he choose "the best five"
tracks "that created the feeling of the album" for the EP. Released only in
Japan (CD) and Australia (12" vinyl & cassette tape) to coincide with his
April-May 1989 tour of The Far East and "down under".

The fading echos of "On Broadway" that brings this program to an end
offers welcomed relief from this breakless-freight-train-roaring-downhill of
an album. Nothing that Young had done before this --and nothing he's done
since has ever been this . . . un-nerving ---or so LOUD . . . so frantic
. . . structured chaos is what it is, man. Absolutely Brilliant.

Say what you will about "Freedom", it's little more than a 'user-friendly'
version of the challenging record that he should've released in it's place.
The "Eldorado" EP was great, but it really was just an appetizer for the 9-
course feast that was "Times Square".

Neil Young has compiled albums containing more great songs, and he
has certainly given us better-produced albums. But he's never played Old
Black this LOUD before. You really have to hear this thing to believe it.

Get it on tape or buy the bootleg CD, I don't care. Just get it. NOW.
--this one is an ESSENTIAL amongst essentials.

1989 Reprise Records
©1999 revised May 2000 & August 2004 jef michael piehler ©1999, 2000, 2004 sidestreet publishing
All rights reserved. No partof this article may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic means,
including information storage,database &/or retrieval systems without permission in writing from the
, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review of this or related materials.