You And Me: Harvest Moon Lingers Long

We watched the moment of defeat/played back on the video screen
Somewhere deep inside of my soul
-- “Natural Beauty,” Neil Young

On a random weeknight nearly a decade ago some friends and I drank scotch and looked out at the view from the thirty-ninth floor of a boardwalk hotel in Atlantic City. The static lights on the ground stretched far west into the dark New Jersey night, and our view faced that direction, out towards where the ghosts of our adolescent dreams rose and hovered, without shadow and without being seen, above the rooftops and porchlights and maddening crowd that shared our streets in those, our suburbs. Many new days dawned since those talkative nights, and each morning has seen the rise of the hotel's shadows as they draw across each other, and the ocean. Uncounted, unaccountable and long rough nights have passed, built of loss and sadness, some others built of hope and love. These nights and days, and the elements that filled them, and made life more complete at the time; it adds up maybe to the action of growing up, of living long enough to see young dreams rise and hover above, like city smog or birthday balloons. Whose defeat, and which video screen to watch it from, became the best question for some of us to answer, as a new century split open before us.

Neil Young's Harvest Moon is the only record in the world I am unwilling to hear: won't put it on. I own it—a nicked disc with a tattered sleeve in a broken case, all the wounds of a well-loved CD—but reel today in trying to describe how sadly true it all became, how Neil's mellow return to country ended up writing stories we would live out. I was thirteen years old in 1992, and had a copy within months of its release (I am eternally grateful to the now-defunct music-by-mail company BMG). Copying compact discs wasn’t something our computers could do yet; I bought my best friend Adam a copy at The Wall, a defunct music chain at the Granite Run Mall in Media, Pennsylvania. We consumed it separately and discussed it together, at fourteen, fifteen, across each formative year of high school. “The broom,” Adam told me once, “the broom in the song ‘Harvest Moon’—it’s a key part of the percussion. I mean, it’s there and is as important as all the rest of the instruments—some guy on a broom.” We reeled at the wild woman who, as if out of the pages of a Kerouac novel, was “somewhere on a desert highway/she rides a Harley Davidson/her long blond hair flying in the wind/she’s been running half her life…” (“Unknown Legend”). We dreamed of days in which we had friends ("scattered/like leaves from an old maple") to pen letters to. By the time we graduated high school together in 1997, Harvest Moon had gone double-platinum.

1992 was the year before grunge, the final year before pop became allowed to get grittier, if not self-destructive: we were still months away from chasing down any self-loathing pop Nirvana, and the hardest of rock was still only built of the metallic residue of Metallica, and those extensive big-hair volumes that instructed us almost-high-school boppers on how to Use Our Illusion. Neil Young ran himself death-metal-ragged being innovative through the last of the 1980s, producing works of stock guitar thrash that ranged from bemusing and quaint to the absurd. People like Eddie Vedder, Dave Grohl and Soundgarden were listening to these, Neil’s inharmonic uses of the hardest of rock idioms, and would pick up and carry that torch to new heights through the 1990s and beyond. It took years, not months, to stop the ringing in Neil’s ears; his next project was to gather musician alums from 1973’s mellow epic, Harvest, to produce its thematic sequel, Harvest Moon.

There aren’t many rock albums one might consider deserving of a sequel. Neil’s strained ballads in 1973—“A Man Needs a Maid” and “Out On the Weekend” especially—spoke of romantic relationships with profound wide-eyed wonder, making his aged perspective an important return in his career (props on the bravery; geezers of rock don't always seek such introspection). The original Harvest featured Neil’s choosy top-of-the-range vocals supporting lyrics that set new bars for those residing in and defining the lucrative James-Taylor power pop ballad genre. Harvest was released just as designations of “easy listening” and ‘soft rock” were being born, but none of the songs on the 1973 original would be likely found on any such playlist: Neil’s acoustic guitar on “Old Man” is unspeakably legendary and influential, a defining moment for rock and roll on an acoustic guitar. You’ve heard it, and Neil’s wail “old man take a look at my life” at least one hundred times, in grocery stores alone.

So many of us weren’t around for the release of Harvest. And, many of us weren’t likely prepared, or had real time to devote to such a down-home country product, from a man who hauled around a battery of Marshall stacks through the last years of the 1980s, posing as the gritty front man for a band that made great, tighter, faster and more chaotic forms of Neil Young chords. Harvest Moon sang out beneath the waves of grunge and subsequent pop iterations, presenting complete and distinctly moving ballads—nearly hymns, with choruses of declaration and simple celebration. The band, built of alums from the 1973 Harvest sessions as well as background singers James Taylor and Linda Rhondstat, ends up sounding much more like the modern down-home stomps of the Avett Brothers or the Old Crow Medicine Show than anything else. Was it his return to acoustic strumming following a long bout with metal that drove Neil deeper toward his creative source?

Adam and I went on separately to live lives full of fun and adventure, relative to the excitement of our youth: I fled for the hills of Vermont, while Adam pursued community college and a host of unfulfilling jobs. We both fell in love with women beneath harvest moons; both reeled and sung high like Neil in recounting our affairs of the heart; both pushed brooms for pay, working ways through higher education. “Such a Woman,” from Harvest Moon, takes four minutes and only four piano chords to state “you are such a woman/to me” and “no one else can kill me like you do/and no one else can feel our peace,” and it still resonates as one of the most tender and passionate statements I’ve ever heard made in music: and has made sense more consistently than most music that's persisted this long in my life. Like Neil Young, and so many other artists, Adam and I both commiserated and relished in the ability to fall wildly, madly and deeply in love. It seemed almost a super power, love to be something so large as to sway one’s heart and devotion, something to dismiss the rational and force any individual into true impassioned action, something worth being swept away by. If our high school interpretations of Harvest Moon had focused on Neil’s glowing ability to sum and lyrically shine light upon his own career, carefully mentioning successes as well as failures (“From Hank to Hendrix”), we were able to make much less sense of Harvest Moon in our early twenties (Sublime's self-titled debut diverted our attentions, too). Adult life gets complicated, a lawyer once told me: few things are as complicating as the sense of passion presented by the songs on Harvest Moon. Affairs of the heart and complications and bad and destructive decisions: “can we get it together/can we still stand side by side/can we make it last/like a musical ride?” (“From Hank to Hendrix”). Adam’s decision to take his own life in August 2005 stands as the letter unwritten, but the letter Neil wrote a song about: “one of these days/I’m gonna sit down and write a long letter/to all the good friends I’ve known…” (“One of These Days”). And now, with a trail of virtual email from the first half of the past decade being the best and worst representation of this gone guy, my memories of Adam persist now with more solidarity than all of the twinkling of the lights in Atlantic City. He was never any less fickle, but like us all, subject to the sudden bursts of greed, ignorance, and whimsical egoism that might drive us down here or elsewhere: a police cruiser's blue light flashes as it rolls south, shining briefly on all it passes, and the night is nearly over and the scotch is almost gone. Adult life, complicated though it may become, still remains a luminescent and boldly bright force, as we all continue to move about and interact with each other as best we can at the moment.

I’m a dreamin’ man/yes that’s my problem
I can’t tell when I’m not being real
in the meadowdust I park my Aerostar…
-- “Dreamin’ Man”

Harvest Moon was so good, so timed, so complete, so inviting to tears and joy and memory: these may have been reasons why Neil chose to release a compilation of a few nights’ performances from 1992, performances made around the time of the release of Harvest Moon (officially, this is disc 12 in Neil’s concert archive releases). I am not alone in my shying away from Harvest Moon as dinner music, or even concentrated listening sessions. This 2009 album, “Dreamin’ Man,” is a rearrangement of all the Harvest Moon tracks, performed by Neil alone, and I am becoming ever grateful for these tonight. One of these days, God willing, I will write Neil the letter he still clearly asked for—what if the whole of us, humans, sat to write out our thanks to those we’ve known, cherished, loved? “My friends are scattered/like leaves from an old maple/some are weak/some are strong” (“One of These Days”). The wide stretch of twinkling from the lights above the beachfront streets rings out and into my middle-age, through the cold late March early dawn wind, coming from the direction of the ocean, that gray blur beyond even the night’s shadows. I have been drinking Glenmorangie, and, with a bumper sticker in the window frame foreground that reads “Be Spontaneous But Think About It First,” I have been hearing new versions of songs I previously feared to confront. And, there is a different, revisited form of peace that comes in hearing that sage and songwriter perform his work by lonesome: from humble thumps on the guitar body to his harmonica wails, the “Dreamin’ Man” live album is even more calming and grounding than Harvest Moon itself. The words, like the twinkling sum of Atlantic City, still carries the same, if not a heavier weight: with each shadow and reflection, the outline of those dreams still hovering and pensive above our hometown comes more clear with each day, week, month, year further away from those visions. We find ourselves in places far different, unanticipated, from those in which we floated in high school, where the outlines of our dreams loomed, and we grew up as we faced our own throbs of the heart. Thanks, Neil.

Letter to the Herald of Randolph, 3/20/11

Dear Editor,

I am writing to thank all supporters of the concert held on March 20, 2011 at Bethany Church. Together we raised over $3,800 to support American Red Cross relief efforts in Japan! The concert included musicians from Randolph, Rochester, St. Albans, and Braintree, and the silent auction contained a wide variety of items, from handmade crafts and quilts, to snowboards and products and services from local businesses. I am especially grateful to Japanese exchange student Tina Goto for her participation, and beautiful playing on the piano, as well as for the beautiful voices of so many community members. Regrettably, a few items donated to the silent auction were not included in the auction held on Sunday. These items are available for silent bidding in the downstairs of Bethany Church, Main St., Randolph; bidding will close at 1 PM on Sunday, March 27^th, and all proceeds will continue to support the relief efforts of the American Red Cross in Japan. I am grateful for Vermont/New Hampshire Valley Red Cross Executive Director for being in attendance, and receiving the proceeds of this past Sunday's event. Personally through this experience, I have grown ever more grateful to live in a place that both embraces both music and charitable giving to such an extent; it is what helps make us a unique, strong, and beautiful community. Again, thank you.

Sincerely,

Christopher Smith

Braintree, Vermont

A Concert for Japan 3/20/11

A concert and silent auction will take place this Sunday, March 20 at 3 PM, at Bethany Church in Randolph, Vermont, to benefit American Red Cross relief efforts in northern Japan. The event will include sets of rock and pop music as played by a host of central Vermont musicians, including Chris Smith, Ed Delhagen, Barry Vermont and Hillary and Andy Leicher. Chinatsu “Tina” Goto, an American Field Service exchange student attending Randolph High School, will perform on the piano and has donated some of her original artwork to the silent auction; her hometown is near Tokyo. The auction will take place in the vestry (downstairs) of the church from 3 PM until around 4:30 PM, and includes gift certificates, products and services from local merchants, as well as artwork and crafts. Admission to the event is by donation. To contribute to the silent auction, contact Chris at cjs02190@vtc.edu or email Joy Mortelliti at jmivt@yahoo.com.

At present, the silent auction includes:

Three Stallion Inn, Randolph: certificate for one night's stay
Greg Mortelliti, Bristol: new Burton snowboard
Tom Watros, Bristol: new Burton snowboard
Village Tire, Randolph: free state inspection
The Herald of Randolph: $100 in advertising
Common Grounds, Bethel: 1lb. Vermont Coffee Company beans
Kyoko Davis, Middlebury College: sushi platter, or sushi-making lesson
Curves For Women, Randolph: free one-month membership
Real Country 1320AM, Randolph: $100 in advertising
Blue Mountain Guitar, West Lebanon: guitar strings for a year
Marla Berger, Essex NY: gift basket of local produce, jams and jellies
Busy Bee Bookeeping, Stockbridge: tax preparation certificate
Kristin Watros, Bristol: new Analog winter jacket
Jessica Leal, Bristol: new women's 686 winter jacket
M&M Beverage, Randolph: case of soda (winner's choice)
Jennie Harriman, Tunbridge: photography session ($100 value)
Chef's Market, Randolph: springtime gift basket
The Animal Hospital, Hinesburg: gift basket of healthy pet treats

Gift certificates from:

Beacon Printing, Randolph
Three Bean Cafe, Randolph
College Formals, West Lebanon
Towne Studios, West Lebanon
Seven Barrel Brew Pub, West Lebanon
Al's Pizza, Randolph
Royalton Village Pizza, Royalton
Dandelion Acres, Bethel
Cockadoodle Pizza, Bethel
Mills Hardware, Bethel
Fenix Fine Foods, Randolph
Mid State Sports, Randolph
Village Pizza, Randolph
Randolph Depot, Randolph

Artwork by:

Cynthia Sandusky, Brookfield (earrings)
Barb Baumann, Randolph (jewelry)
Tina Goto, Japanese exchange student (visual art)
Joy Mortelliti and Jessica Leal, Blackbird Designs, Bristol (fiber arts)

Performers:

Tom Schersten, vocals
Steve and Naomi Pratt, vocals
Chris Smith, piano, vocals
Ed Delhagen, bass
Dawn Forcier, vocals
Geoffrey Parr Doering, clarinet
Dar Lynn Tredwell, didgeridoo
Andy Leicher, guitar
Hillary Leicher, vocals
Barry Vermont, sax
Jo Ellen Messier, vocals

The Age of Adz Is Upon Us

Well I have known you/for just a little while
But I feel I've known you/I feel I've seen you...
In all reflections/I see your method/I see it all
And what about you? And What about me? Are we the lost of lost?
-- "The Age of Adz"

No education could prepare anyone for the political revolutions of 2011, and maybe only music-- maybe only Sufjan Stevens' "The Age of Adz"-- can really help anyone take it all in. After his last full-length recording, "Illinois" in 2005, Sufjan produced a collection of outtakes, a Christmas album, a film and original score, an an "EP" of complex and hopeful anthems. All of these endeavors might have only been creative practice towards "The Age of Adz," Stevens' finest, and most complete work, to date. Its presentation of hope, loss and love comes among a unified and difficult, if not apocalyptic vision of the exterior world.

While even Stevens' most recent previous release, the "All Delighted People EP" fancied Paul Simon's words as most appropriate (citing "hello darkness my old friend" and other phrases from "The Sounds of Silence"), "The Age of Adz" addresses humans more often than darkness or highways, talking to people and groups more often than anything else-- including the wild looking monster on the cover. This image, replete with its penned scripture and pop culture phrases ("the day the earth stood still"), was created by Royal Robertson (1930-1997), whose influence on this work might not be underestimated. From a blurb on Sufjan's own site:

The Age of Adz refers to the Apocalyptic art of Royal Robertson (1930 –1997), a black Louisiana-based sign-maker (and self-proclaimed prophet) who suffered from schizophrenia, and whose work depicts the artist’s vivid dreams and visions of space aliens, futuristic automobiles, eccentric monsters, and signs of the Last Judgment, all cloaked in a confusing psychobabble of biblical prophecy, numerology, Nordic mythology and comic book jargon. Portions of the album use Robertson’s work as a springboard into a cosmic consciousness in which basic instincts are transposed on a tableau of extraordinary scenes of divine wrath, environmental catastrophe, and personal loss.

While Robertson's carefully drawn art complements and may have inspired the music's lyrical themes, this connection isn't necessary to make sense of "The Age of Adz." In an interview a few years ago, Stevens-- himself a person with a spiritual upbringing--claimed to see music as a medium that was not useful for outright theological discussion. Thus his choices in how to answer the cover's idiom "The Day The Earth Stood Still," and other end-of-civilization themes come framed not in religious zealotry, but through building some sembelence of human connection and shared understanding-- even if that semblence is built of the moments of our lives when exterior elements have shattered us, destroying our ability to perceive our own decay. The day the earth stood still-- the Age of Adz, as it were-- will be known for its motionless rapture, its "Bad Communication" and fleeting clarity ("Now That I'm Older," "I Walked," "I Want to Be Well"-- all song titles). The last track, "Impossible Soul," tries to define something of how a relationship might work within a frantic (and 25-minute) sonic environment.

To what extent is this an electronic album? More importantly, to what extent does one notice? The more one knows of Stevens' earlier work, the more one might miss technical banjo licks and expressive acoustic guitar strumming, but-- as orchestral as Stevens' work has become-- the presence of synthesizers and beats not only trump any "natural" sounding instrumentation, but create a music that is meant to be heard during the Age of Adz: a tumultuous time of discovery and renewal, of learning and holding dear what is essential between all of us. If Stevens were less proficient in harnassing the power of his keyboard arsenal, these soundscapes may be fast cluttered. Each track is distinctly not overburdened by elements, but carefully and strategically-- and more interestingly than most Phish jams, notably-- arranged to include some movement, from one musical place to another. As Charles Bukowski's sparse and crude lines made up his Last Night of the Earth Poems (1992), "The Age of Adz" allows a listener to expect the interplay of raw synth tones, electronic beats of varying complexity, live drums, and the rise and fall of melodic themes. Stevens' tireless work in the studio is reflected in each track; sonic environments are created and destroyed, as civilization, and its individuals, rise and fall.

A vegetable vendor has his scale taken from him in Tunisia; Egyptians protest and oust their leader; people in many countries, connected by new virtual networks of knowledge and power, try to replicate Egypt's example. Relationships themselves, between individuals and groups, fall and rise, against a background of wildest fantasy, and in these-- each of these-- we try and share what Best we can.

Now I have known you for just a little while
I feel I must be wearing my welcome
I must be moving on

For my intentions were good intentions
I could have loved you/I could have changed you

I wouldn't be so/I wouldn't feel so
Consumed by selfish thoughts

I'm sorry if I seem self-effacing
Consumed by selfish thoughts

It's only that I still love you deeply
It's all the love I got -- "The Age of Adz"