NEIL YOUNG w/The Restless
Waging Heavy Love: Eldorado Live
"Doing “Don’t Cry” and “Heavy Love,” every night in Australia and Japan, I blew myself out. Those songs are incredibly intense. I felt the effects. I damaged my throat doing those songs. See, people don’t realize how fuckin’ physical my music is. Every fuckin’ note is my last as far as I’m concerned, so it better be fuckin’ good. It better be there. So that takes a lot out of ya. And there’s no way to breathe deep and sing “Heavy Love.” You can’t do that. Have “good technique”—get the fuckin’ technique out. Get rid of it.
Those shows were very loud. That’s when I was using Marshalls. I would cut in with the octave divider, the whole thing would just go to shit … There’s a breakdown in the middle of “Heavy Love” where everything just starts distorting and getting more mangled-sounding… When I wanted the big loud explosion, we had to go there—turn everything up. It was incredible. I had a thing where I could change from one amp to another—where I could play along real quiet and then just hit one button and it was the loudest fuckin’ thing you ever heard. On “Don’t Cry,” that just kicked in, like, two more amps at full volume, all on one note. It was just big and bad."
Neil Young (Shakey by Jimmy McDonough, 2002)
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ELDORADO
Side 1
1. Cocaine Eyes (4:24)
2. Don't Cry (5:11)
3. Heavy Love (5:09)
Side 2
1. On Broadway (4:56)
2. Eldorado (6:05)
Credits
Neil Young - guitar, vocal
Chad Cromwell - drums
Rick "The Bass Player" Rosas - bass
Recorded at: The Hit Factory, Times Square, NYC
Produced by: "The Volume Dealers": Neil Young & Niko Bol
Mixed at: Fantasy Records, San Francisco & Redwood Digital
Mastered by: Doug Sax at The Mastering Lab
Direction: Elliot Roberts
Digital engineering: Tim Mulligan
Guitar production: Larry Cragg
Cover assemblage: George Herms
Cover photography: Glenn Viguers
Creative consultant: Jim Mazzeo
Design: Diane Painter
Art direction: Neil Young
Reprise 20P2-2651 (CD-EP, Japan only)
Reprise 25919-1 (12" EP, Australia only)
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Side 1: The EP-Live
d1t01, Cocaine Eyes, 1989-04-30, Tokyo, JPN
d1t02, Don't Cry, 1989-01-13, Tulsa, OK
d1t03, Heavy Love, 1989-01-16, New Orleans, LA
d1t04, On Broadway, 1989-02-18, Eureka, CA
d1t05, Eldorado, 1989-04-29, Tokyo, JPN
Side 2: Alternate Takes
d1t06, Cocaine Eyes, 1989-12-13, Rotterdam, NTH
d1t07, Road of Plenty, 1986-10-29, Miami, FL
d1t08, Sixty To Zero, 1988-08-13, Indianapolis, IN
d1t09, Eldorado, 1989-12-10, Amsterdam, NTH
d1t10, No More, 1989-08-18, Costa Mesa, CA
The Players:
Neil Young - guitars, vocal
Joel Bernstein - keyboards
Tom Bray - trumpet
Claude Cailliet - trombone
Larry Cragg - keyboards
Chad Cromwell - drums
John Fumo - trumpet
Ben Keith - dobro, keyboards, vocals
Steve Lawrence - tenor saxophone
Ralph Molina - drums, vocals
Rick "The Bass Player" Rosas - bass
Frank Sampedro - guitar. mandolin, vocals
Billy Talbot - bass, vocals
Even though Eldorado clocks in at just over 25 minutes, it (and the songs' live performances) are absolutely incendiary. Making up for the lack of quantity with songs so unique and powerful, I can't think of anything else Neil's done that's comparable to Eldorado. In 1989, Neil was everywhere, releasing Eldorado, Freedom, and turning in a career defining performance on Saturday Night Live. I still remember buying this EP as soon as my local record store received its limited number of the Japanese import.
The EP's live performances all come from 1989, as well, and are performed with The Restless, Neil's power trio, Chad Cromwell (drums) and Rick "The Bass Player" Rosas (with Ben Keith and Frank "Poncho" Sampedro adding sonic heft).
The alternate tracks begin with an acoustic solo "Cocaine Eyes" that, of course, loses none of the power of the original electric version. "Road of Plenty" is the precursor to "Eldorado" and features completely differebt lyrics, this performance from 1986 with Crazy Horse. "Sixty to Zero," (the full version of "Crime in the City") performed during the 1988 Bluenotes tour. It's a twenty minute extravaganza, featuring some of Neil's most insightful and cutting lyrics: "One day there was this minstrel who came to court on a charge, that he blew someone's head off because his amp was too large." Solo acoustic takes on "Eldorado" and "No More" follow to close ot this collection.
Tapers: various
Lineage: N/A
All Audience Recordings except as noted
Notes on Sound Quality: SQ is Good to Very Good throughout
All tracks are from the original filesets as previously torrented. New checksums created with TLH.
Please share only LOSSLESS recordings-convert to lossy for personal use only
All tracks adhere to DIME's NAV and NAB requirements and have been verified as non-official releases through http://sugarmtn.org/
NOT FOR SALE-PLEASE SHARE FREELY
Please support this artist-purchase official recordings, attend live performances regularly, and visit the websites:
http://www.neilyoungarchives.com
http://www.thrasherswheat.org
http://www.sugarmtn.org
A word about compilations: I compiled these performances for my personal enjoyment, and share them for the same reason. There are many Neil Young compilations available out there: “Archives be Damned 2000” (and 2006), “Acoustic Masterpieces,” “A Perfect Echo.” Of course, the one must have compilation are the officially released “Archives” (Vols. I and II). Nothing beats the original tracks themselves. This compilation is not meant to replace any of the aforementioned. It, simply, is part of the same song.
I urge you to seek out the original performances (they’re all available somewhere). Thank you so much to the original tapers, uploaders and all who share this great music. And, of course, thanks, Neil.
Enjoy,
1chucho
"Live Music is Better"
December 2022