Blog of Sal

I recently said on a facebook post that I never ever used to play cover songs, but that recently I've been working on my version of Orbison's  Mystery Girl (I dig how it was released post-humously) and After the Gold Rush by Neil Young ( listen ). But I've been thinking, and I realize that MANY MANY years ago I used to play some Bob Dylan songs, I used to play the theme from Cheers, plus I a few Nirvana songs. Remembering back to those days I think the fact that I CAN'T play Wish You Were Here is the greatest testament to the idea that I hate playing covers. Being 15 felt like the whole world was conspiring to make sure that everybody played that song everyday, but I resisted successfully. Pink Floyd is really cool, but it's unoriginal to play their shit. Just like it's unoriginal to play music by The Doors... BUT the following tune has lyrics lifted from 18th century poet William Blake's  Auguries Of Innocence , so it's a double ripoff, and I th...

I just had the chance to hear the only two Neil Young interviews in the CBC archive. In one he speaks with Daniel Lanois about one of his latest records " Le Noise ". The other one is from 31 years prior. It's fun to listen to a young Neil rail against the music industry :) You also get to hear Scott Young (Neil's Dad) speak a bit about Neil. I highly recommend these interviews:  http://goo.gl/TslVm . He also speaks at length about the breakup of Buffalo Springfield. It appears that when Neil found those guys in '66 he really loved their sound. But by the end, creative rifts formed, and the energies were out of whack. Neil was producing some of the songs by himself, and he became increasingly indifferent to the work of the other members. Remember Buffalo Springfield? Neil also implies that at the age of 21 when he first showed up in LA, he already knew he really wanted to be a solo singer/songwriter. I often wonder how creative geniuses co...