Young does Q & A at SXSW
Wearing what has become his uniform of the day, Neil Young made a surprise appearance on Friday, March 19 at SXSW in Austin, Texas.
Wearing what has become his uniform of the day, Neil Young made a surprise appearance on Friday, March 19 at SXSW in Austin, Texas.
Neil Young will be in Austin, Texas on Thursday, March 19 to attend a screening of his 1982 movie “Human Highway.”
According to Noise 11, “Human Highway” will screen at the Paramount on Congress at 5 p.m. in Austin and it will be followed by a Q & A session with Young himself.
Young starred in and co-directed with his friend Dean Stockwell the alternative-comedy, bizarre, eclectic movie that featured appearances by Young, Stockwell, Devo and Randy Hopper. In the movie Young sings “Hey, Hey, My, My” with Devo.
60s fold singer David Blue also made an appearance in the movie. He died shortly after in 1982.
The movie received poor reviews and was once released on VHS video but has not resurfaced yet on DVD or Blue-Ray.
(Maybe it will be on PONO)
Young plays Lionel Switch, a nerdy gas station attendant who dreams of being a rock star.
Source: http://www.noise11.com/news/neil-young-to-attend-human-highway-screening-at-sxsw-20150318
South by Southwest (SXSW) is a set of film, interactive, and music festivals and conferences that take place early each year in mid-March in Austin, Texas, United States. It began in 1987, and has continued to grow in both scope and size every year.
Hear Neil Young explains his Pono Music Player at SXSW on National Public Radio’s “All Songs Considered.”
Neil Young wants to start a revolution against the MP3, against the CD, poorly made vinyl and poor audio quality in general. He wants people to hear the music the way it was made, writes NPR’s Bob Boilen.
“I’m a fan of listening loud. I love to listen loud. That’s what it’s all about, really, for me. I love to hear rock and roll really loud, and I love to hear even acoustic music really loud. Loud for whatever it is it’s being played on. I like to take whatever it is to the limit, and then listen to it right there.
“When I started doing that with these machines, it started to hurt, and I couldn’t do it for very long, so the part of the record-making experience that I used to enjoy became painful. That was a sign to me that something was wrong. I complained a little, and I might have bitched and moaned a little about that too. Then time went by, and I got some better machines, but they weren’t really that much better — it didn’t change it.
“But I noticed when I listened to CDs in my car, the same thing happened — it hurt my ears a little bit. And then the MP3 came along, and that’s when the recording industry really went into duress.”
Read more of Neil’s speech at: http://www.npr.org/blogs/allsongs/2014/03/12/289435279/hear-neil-young-explain-his-pono-music-player-at-sxsw
Neil Young wants to bring music back to where fans can listen to every cymbal strike, every guitar strum, every echo thought up by a musician, according to USA Today.
His kickstarter campaign for his high fidelity music player and online store Pono surpassed his goal of raising $800,000. As of 8 a.m. today 3,852 backers have pledged $1,267,213.
“Everything you know, cameras got easier to use, everything went up, everything went up but music went down,” he said during his 30 minute speech at South by Southwest on Tuesday.
He said his new system is not a format, has no rules, respects the art and respected what the artist was trying to do, and gives the listener what “the artist gave.”
The future of sound one day soon could be contained in a candy bar-size receiver that sits on a breakfast counter — a new music initiative he’s launching named PonoMusic, the legendary rocker told an audience of several thousand attendees at SXSW on Tuesday.
Read more at: http://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/2014/03/11/neil-young-ponos-sxsw/6301331/
“This is rescuing music,” Young said. “It’s an artist-driven movement to take it back.”
Young appeared in signature black leather jacket and black hat, and paced back and forth across the stage as he described the new technology. He had been working on the high-resolution music project for more than three years and has decried the state of digital music in the past, particularly in his book, Waging Heavy Peace.
Can Pono beat the convenience of streaming? Do people want quality over quantity or convenience?
Time will tell.
What we do know is Neil is always lending his creative genius to world and that is good for all of us.
Neil Young to sell $399 PonoPlayer music device through Kickstarter
“Hearing Pono for the first time is like that first blast of daylight when you leave a movie theatre on a sun-filled day.” N.Y.
Music veteran to unveil ‘highest resolution’ digital music service to take on Apple’s iTunes in SXSW keynote.
The Guardian writes that Neil Young will launch a Kickstarter crowdfunding campaign for his new PonoPlayer device on 15 March, with early buyers getting a discount on its planned $399 price.
The device will be supported by an online music downloads store called PonoMusic, which will sell files at a higher resolution than rivals like Apple’s iTunes.
“It’s about the music, real music. We want to move digital music into the 21st century and PonoMusic does that. We couldn’t be more excited about bringing PonoMusic to the market,” said Young in a statement accompanying the announcement.
PonoMusic is working with US hardware firm Ayre Acoustics to produce the device, which will ship with 128GB of memory to store music, as well as accepting memory cards to boost its capacity. The company will also sell earphones and headphones from its website.
Read more at: http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/mar/09/neil-young-ponoplayer-music-kickstarter-apple-itunes
There are critics: Twitter is abuzz with jabs at the system and it’s design (Like a Toblerone candy car).
Writes http://www.makeuseof.com/service/web-based/: “The design and pricing have been heavily criticized on social media, but the bigger problem may be timing. The PonoPlayer is surely a little too late to market, with the days of dedicated personal media players having been succeeded by the all-encompassing smartphone.”
“In fact, it could be said that the PonoPlayer is about as relevant today as Neil Young.”
Ouch!!