Title: Shakey: Neil
Young's Biography
Author: Jimmy
McDonough
Publisher: Random House
Year: 2002
A couple months ago, I
was thinking about reading Graham Nash's new book,
Wild Tales,
but I was sufficiently warded off by advice that it would make me
dislike the primary figures portrayed in the book. However, my
interest in Nash and his scene had been piqued by the release of
CSNY 1974, and I'd also just discovered that
Neil Young's
Archives Vol. 1 is on Spotify. (This seems
utterly bizarre considering his well-known hatred of low-quality
digital audio formats). Thus, when I found a copy of
Shakey on
my parents' bookshelves, I decided to give that a try instead, and so
I asked to borrow it.
Shakey had a
tumultuous history, and remains somewhat contentious in the
hagiography of Neil Young. I don't want to retread water that's been
well documented elsewhere, and that includes most of the actual
history of the artist in question, but there is still the matter of
the quality of the book itself. What I am most concerned about here
is the ability of the author of the biography, Jimmy McDonough, to
transmit the many-faceted life and music of his subject to the
reader.
Two things smack you in
the face within the first few pages of the book: the massive ego of
the author and the incredible amount of time and energy that went
into the project. The lowest points of the book are when McDonough's
language gets so ridiculous that you can't take him seriously and you
start to question his motives. His opinions are strong and they are
scattered all over the book. Avoiding them is impossible. A
less-informed reader would come away thinking that
Crosby, Stills and Nash are three of the
absolute worst humans to have tread this planet (okay, maybe not
Crosby), Pearl Jam isn't much better, Crazy Horse is God, Bob Dylan
is Jesus, every band from the late 70s through the present is
absolute garbage, and Neil Young must be the Second Coming or the
Holy Spirit or whatever makes sense out of these awful clichés.
Many people get away
with hating contemporary music or new wave or whatever their favorite
scapegoat is, but McDonough's virulence is irresponsible. He's
allowed to have his opinions, and it wouldn't even bother me if they
were presented in a measured fashion, but because he paints in such
broad, black-and-white strokes, it's hard not to get distracted.
Crazy Horse very well might be his best creative partner, but to
pretend that Neil's other collaborators are meritless is
unreasonable. For example, CSNY in the early 70s were on fire, even
if they never again truly recaptured it; and Neil's album with Pearl
Jam (Mirror Ball, 1995) is one of his best and most
consistent.
[Mirror Ball.]
Similarly, he tries to
portray Young as apolitical, or merely subject to the whims of his
time. He successfully makes a point that Neil has appeared out of
touch at times, and that he has made his fair share of stupid or
ridiculous comments, but he also ignores Neil's long history of
political themes. Neil may have become more overt with his subject
matter in recent times, but even if you write off the obvious "Ohio",
"Southern Man", and "Rockin' in the Free World",
what else can one make of songs like "After the Gold Rush",
"War Song", "Campaigner", "Homegrown",
"Pocahontas", "Powderfinger", "Shots",
"Mideast Vacation", "Long Walk Home", "Mother
Earth (Natural Anthem)", "Song X", "Act of Love",
and so on?
In keeping with his
love of Crazy Horse and producer David Brigg's anti-overdub policy,
McDonough overlooks that Neil has a perfectionist side that has
produced an equal portion of his best work, starting with his Buffalo
Springfield masterpieces "Expecting to Fly" and "Broken
Arrow", and continuing throughout his career, including some of
his best albums, such as Harvest (1972), Comes a Time
(1978), Trans (1982), and Freedom (1989). The author
tries to portray any carefully crafted album as lacking spirit or
soul, but almost all of his albums are a balance of first-take gut
instinct and mechanical perfectionism. Young's catalog defies simple
categorization. Some of the lopsidedly overproduced albums, like
Harvest Moon (1992) are dull and predictable, while some of
the more underproduced albums, like Broken Arrow (1996), are
lumbering and slipshod.
[Trans.]
Worst of all is his
portrayal of CSN, and in particular Graham Nash. While largely
excusing Crosby for his regularly awful behavior, and merely writing
off Stills as a drugged-out failure, he spares nothing from Nash. The
author paints Nash as overly sentimental and unartistically populist,
yet fails to appreciate that he brings an element of balance and
precision to their collaborations. McDonough cleverly overlooks that
Nash and Young have a lot in common, including political interests
and personal assistants (i.e. archivist/photographer Joel Bernstein).
In fact, he never mentions the joint Nash-Young single "War
Song" from 1973 at all, nor Nash's Wurlitzer contribution to "On
the Beach". His role in the Time Fades Away tour and
album and his many vocal contributions to Neil's songs performed with
CSNY are also downplayed. Despite the author's negativity, the very
photo on the cover of the book was taken by Nash!
Another strange
element, perhaps fitting into the author's overwhelming prejudices,
is that he refused to interview several important people, including
erstwhile record company owner David Geffen and latter-day
collaborators Pearl Jam and Booker T & the MGs. Considering the
number of subjects interviewed, these exclusions are obviously
deliberate, and the author even calls them out specifically in the
endnotes. The reasoning is apparently left as an exercise for the
reader. Several subjects are also mentioned as ignoring or refusing
interviews, including Bob Dylan and Stephen Stills. (Also, bizarrely,
Beck.)
While perhaps disappointing, their voices are hardly missed, and this
is presumably no fault of the author's.
Instead, several
sections of the book focus on otherwise unknown, hyper-obsessive fans
that the reader is given no reason to care about. Two of these
figures, Ken Viola and Dave McFarlin, are repeatedly quoted and
interviewed. Neither seems to offer a particularly sophisticated or
unique perspective, yet both are treated as sage voices of the truth.
Why their opinions are relevant is left unclear.
A more complex subject
is the author's treatment of Neil Young's family. First wife Susan
Acevedo apparently declined to be interviewed, but she is still
discussed. Young's next long-term partner, Carrie Snodgrass, and
their child together, Zeke, are both interviewed and discussed, but
when the narrative reaches the point of Neil's marriage to Pegi, the
author states that he decided not to enter that space. Hence, Pegi is
hardly mentioned at all, and it is unclear if she was even
interviewed. Their two children together are also minimally
discussed, except for son Ben's struggles with cerebral palsy.
I don't think
McDonough's decision is necessarily a bad one, but since Neil's
personal life from that point largely becomes a transparent void, the
narrative loses a lot of its force and weight. Up to that point, his
life is analyzed and processed just as much as his musical endeavors,
but after the mid-70s, Neil is presented as a purely musical entity.
I understand the desire to respect the privacy of his children, but
we lose a lot of perspective on what drives and defines Neil. Halfway
through the book, the narrative has just reached February 1971, only
a few years into Young's career. Much of his music-making career,
throughout the 80s up until the manuscript was completed in 1998, is
given a rushed, at best precursory treatment.
To make it worse, as
the narrative carries on, the author begins to insert himself into
the narrative. His ego is large enough that he describes telling Neil
that some of his material was terrible and shouldn't be released.
Apparently, he didn't know what else to say about Neil's career in
the 90s, so he just writes about hanging out in Neil's tour bus and
model train barn. These might be interesting or unusual parts of
Neil's life, but no one cares about how the author fits into them.
[Homegrown
(unreleased, but recorded in 1974).]
McDonough's text makes
for a frustrating read. He gets so much right – he digs deep into
Neil's circle, he doesn't shy away from Neil's eccentricity, he
researches all the obscure unreleased material, he describes all the
best concerts and tours that you'd never know happened in Santa Cruz
or New Zealand or wherever, and he doesn't always paint Neil in the
best light. Shakey convinced
me to immediately start seeking out a bunch of bootlegs I didn't
heretofore know existed and to give some of his weirder, less popular
albums another listen. That right there is indicative of a successful
rock biography.
But
on the other hand, the author's arbitrarily harsh opinions too often
get in the way of the story. His over-the-top style of trying to come
off as some sort of streetwise hustler only makes
him seem immature and less credible. His blatant preference for the
seedy, grainy side of everything tarnishes his perspective on
anything fashioned in any other manner. And while the thoroughness of
the book is hardly a fault, the length is a little excessive
when you consider how much of the material relating to himself or to
irrelevant fans could be trimmed. I
wanted to read a book about Neil Young, not a book about Jimmy
McDonough and his fanboy preoccupations.
Score: B
References and Further
Reading:
