Oddball Cinema

Neil Young and Crazy Horse, Greendale (DVD: Sanctuary Record Group, book: Sanctuary Publishing Ltd., CD: Reprise) After listening to this album the first few times, I threw up my hands at how crude and just plain endless it sounded. And this was Crazy Horse without Frank Sampedro, so it didn't even rock that hard. But Sundance Channel was kind enough to show this film a couple of times during September and I'm sure all 164 people who saw Journey Through the Past and certainly the 22 who loved it will love Greendale, as well. The trick with the music is that, like the music for Journey Through the Past, it's a soundtrack, meant to be heard along with a visual track. Viewed that way (with the cast members lip-syncing and, in one case, band-syncing the songs) the album makes perfect sense--repetitions fit the repeated shots, solos delineate actions on the sceen. And though I don't think Steve Soderbergh is fearing for his job yet, I did remember that Neil strips the Horse down to two pieces (plus him) when he wants to make a "significant" statement (cf: Time Fades Away, Tonight's The Night, On The Beach, Eldorado). And that these long, winding, topical songs remind me a lot of the long, winding, topical songs Bob Dylan was writing forty years ago.