When you've been on the music trail long enough, it's tempting to look back and see a few landmarks that really lit the way forward, and hold them as tight as you can. Some stand in stark relief, casting such a mighty glow they can't be missed. Certain concerts (for me James Brown in 1963; The Everly Brothers in ''64; The Rolling Stones in '65; Bobby "Blue" Bland in '65; Otis Redding in '66; 13th Floor Elevators in '66; Jimi Hendrix in '68; Grateful Dead in '68; Muddy Waters in '68, Janis Joplin in '69; CSNY in '69, Van Morrison in '72 and all the way to today) remain vivid right in front of my eyes, counting into the hundreds so life now seems like one long concert, replayed over and over bringing waves of joy and the realization that the world is a joyous surprise as long as your heart and soul stay open. I started writing about music, feebly at first, for my college newspaper in Georgetown, Texas in 1970. I never had a clue what I was doing--and still don't. Rather I find what I love and do my best to share some of the feelings and insights the music brings.
I've had a circuitous career in this half-century pursuit. From a mediocre drummer to newspaper journalist, record store clerk, disc jockey, newspaper editor, record label publicist, concert promoter, record producer, A&R director and book author: the trick I discovered is to never look back or try to plot a course forward. Just keep moving. Along the way I also worked as a hospital orderly, short-order cook, newspaper typesetter and Deputy Constable. I never had a resume or even applied for a job. The phone rang, I answered and off I went. What kept me going through it all was a profound love of music, and the realization that without it I was a goner. The sounds that took over my life no doubt also saved it. I do know I can never repay all that music has given me. Because it has been everything.
Along the way I became a publicist at Warner Bros./Reprise Records, and one of the artists I represented was Neil Young. All bets were off in that endeavor. It was a daily surprise what came next, some projects being super successful and some flying below the radar. The lesson I learned was that sales figures weren't the Holy Grail. What really counted was how excited Young--and hopefully those of us working with him--were. With his ever-dedicated manager, the late Elliot Roberts directing visions and traffic, every day was a surprise. Life became a land where the rules were erased and the only error to be made was to think normally. That would not do. The artist and the music he made set the pace, and our job was to keep up. What a thrill.
In the early 2000s word got back to the record label Young "had an idea." And that, dear listeners, is when the bells start ringing, the lights start flashing and the thrillometer heats up all the way to the top of the tube. Young had written an album's worth of songs telling a story in some ways like Mark Twain told his. There were recurring characters in the songs, acting out the always changing vagaries of life in a small town with an eye towards how America was becoming more confusing by the minute. The country's values were breaking down and what was replacing society's ruble was anyone's guess. Big Media was fast becoming a new religion and heaven help those who got in its way. Naturally, Neil Young wanted to present the ten songs on the new album GREENDALE in a 360-degree concert along the lines of a live drama as he and Crazy Horse performed the songs.
Manager Roberts suggested I might want to come to an early rehearsal, so off I went to Mountain View, California where rehearsals were happening at Shoreline Amphitheatre, known as the North California home of the Grateful Dead and the Bridge School Concerts, among so many other shows. Walking into the venue one afternoon I noticed it was totally empty. Except for stage crew and musicians, there wasn't a single soul in the audience. I walked around backstage for awhile until I ran into the project's resident artist, the extremely talented James Mazzeo, who was in his trailer drawing, painting and smoking some incredibly potent pot. Sharing some with me, though I hadn't smoked in 20 years, sent me off on the Alice in Wonderland Express.
I quickly realized I was in way over my head when I forgot my name, why I had come to Shoreline and where I had left my car. But I'd been to that psychic place before and knew time was my hero and I would eventually remember those details if I stayed close to the ground. So I did what any impaired person would do: I started wandering around looking for signposts. In one backstage area I saw Pegi Young and their dog Carl come out of a trailer, and happily walked up to her, who I had never met. I put my hand out and loudly announced, "Hi, I'm Pegi Young." She immediately gave me a quizzical look and kindly said, "No, I'm Pegi Young and I'm glad to meet you. What's your name?" Busted. But game on and she saw I needed some direction so led me over to the absolutely empty 8,000 Shoreline seats and suggested I find one and sit down.
As I walked into the area Young, onstage roarin' with Crazy Horse, gave me a nod and, I seem to recall, and chuckled as he saw my diminished ability to find a seat though every one of them was empty. I appreciated his understanding and, in my semi-paranoid state, thought he'd probably been in that mindset before. As the songs came alive that day, I was convinced I had seen the future of rock & roll and its name was GREENDALE. When the band and actors were finished, I also was convinced I had to sit in my seat for a few hours and come down from my highly altered state before I could find my car and drive back to the San Jose airport to fly back to Burbank. That was a close one, but I eventually made it home. No more pot for me.
That rehearsal at Shoreline, though, was when the bus came by and I got on for the trip to never never land. For the next four hours as the band and some of the crew/actors ran through the ropes of GREENDALE, I was speechless. I watched and beamed as what would come to be one of the musical highlights of my life in music came alive. Soon, when the album was out and the concert tour had started, I went to New York to see GREENDALE in all its glory. It was playing a sold-out multi-night run at Radio City Music Hall. Not a bad place to park the imagination. GREENDALE really was unlike any so-called rock & roll show I'd ever seen, because it was so much beyond what there'd ever been. It was a fantasmical creation of real life told from the inside out.
With dramatic twists and turns and a series of songs that took the listener on a mad-hatter's run on reality, all the while staying grounded in the down home center of the earth, there really wasn't any way to explain it. As a publicist I would fumble with words talking to writers about the music and concert, and in the end the best I could do was implore those in the media to go see it live. As these things and so much else goes, some got it and some didn't. Which is okay. One of the best lessons I learned in the music business is that no one agrees on everything and to respect others' opinions, whether I thought they were right or wrong. It's best to play the long game and know that what goes around comes around and there's always another day to thrive. But it's true that those who got GREENDALE really got it. That I know.
Which brings us to 2020, 17 years since GREENDALE's original appearance, and that new day is here again. This time there is a brand new film, which includes a complete filmed GREENDALE performance from 2003 in Toronto, woven into some of the original footage released when the first GREENDALE film came out. And it just so happens that that Toronto show is an over-the-top celebration of everything that music can be. It opens the windows on so much of the darkness of the past few years, pointing a time-tested way out of the troubling present: action. Neil Young screened the new GREENDALE film recently at the ultra high fidelity Cary Grant Theatre on the Sony movie lot, and there was such a breathtaking aura in the room that it was like everything we'd always hoped for from music had come alive once more.
When Young and Crazy Horse got to the lyrics in the first song "Falling From Above," that go, "Sing a song for freedom sing a song for love / sing a song for depressed angels falling from above," such strong emotions went through the movie audience it was like a silent cheer moved through the room. Soon after that Young sang, "A little love and affection in everything you do / will make the world a better place with or without you," and the deal was sealed. We were all taking a trip once again to Greendale, and no matter all the years from when we'd first been there, everything felt brand new. I leaned over to Neil Young, who just happened to be sitting next to me, and said, "This music makes me want to be a better person." It was like my mind had swollen with a commitment to the future where the human race turns a corner towards the good, and all these years of music supplying the soundtrack for that quest came to a shining point. I had to tell someone, and it was Neil Young. Why not?
As the songs and the plot continued to unfold, the electricity of that Toronto live performance we were watching drew the whole movie audience into the mythical land of GREENDALE, and it felt absolutely real. It's the magic of creativity backed by belief that took us there--again--and made us care. In the song "Bandit," Young offers a steel rod of hope: "Someday you'll find everything you're looking for." There is no doubt after hearing the song that hope is the greatest gift any of us can share. That's what these songs are: bridges of hope through it all. We surely need it more today than ever.
The last song in GREENDALE is "Be the Rain," and on that stage in Toronto years ago at least 50 people joined Neil Young and Crazy Horse in a tribal stomp of courage, a prophesy to where we are now in the ticking clock to save the planet. It's a gathering of the young and the old, the past and the future, and when their hallelujah chorus rises at the end of the song to "Save the planet for another day / be the rain be the rain," there is no other choice. That time is here, and there can be no turning back. Neil Young has taken us there because he cares. And he's not going away.
Bill Bentley