This site provides details of the performances of Neil Young and Crazy Horse at the
Old Princeton Landing bar near Half Moon Bay in Northern California during March–June 1996,
and a brief history of the collaboration between Neil Young and Jim Jarmusch that grew from
these shows. This may be found under the Neil at OPL link.
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Buffalo Springfield, Bridge School Benefit, Mountain View, California, 23 October 2010
These pages detail the performances of Neil Young and Crazy Horse at the Old Princeton Landing bar near Half Moon Bay in Northern California during March–June 1996.
During the Spring of 1996, Neil Young and Crazy Horse (Frank 'Poncho' Sampedro, Billy Talbot and Ralph Molina) were recording a new album up at Neil's Broken Arrow Ranch in the Santa Cruz mountains near San Francisco. A tour of Europe and the USA was planned to begin in mid-June.
For whatever reasons — whether to gain inspiration for the new album or to warm up for the forthcoming tour — Neil and Crazy Horse embarked on what has become known as 'The Northern California Bar Tour of 1996': a string of sixteen performances conducted over three months. Although it is not uncommon for Neil and The Horse to play a few local warm-up shows before hitting the road, the number of these particular shows led some to speculate that they were a nostalgic celebration of a similar series of shows performed some twenty years earlier in 1976. However, although many old favourites from that period were played, the intensity of the performances and the eventual introduction of all of the songs from the new album showed that this was far from a stroll down memory lane.
While two of these shows occurred at The Catalyst in Santa Cruz, the remaining fourteen were performed at the Old Princeton Landing (OPL) bar in Princeton-By-The-Sea — a small harbour town about four miles north of Half Moon Bay on the California Coast south of San Francisco.
Formerly known as The Harbor Bar and Scotts, Old Princeton Landing has an occupancy limit of 150 people. The band that performed there in the Spring of 1996, though almost completely unpublicised, had an unusually high drawing power.
In order to avoid drawing undue attention to themselves, Neil and Crazy Horse played under the pseudonym of The Echos, and even printed up a small advertisement for their performances:
"I heard a perfect Echo die
Into an anonymous wall of digital sound
Somewhere deep inside
Of my soul"
— from 'Natural Beauty' by Neil Young
This advert appeared outside Old Princeton Landing for the first set of shows (18–21 March 1996). The first Echos show occurred on 18 March and the last on 9 June. Two further shows planned for 10 and 11 June were cancelled, most likely due to sound system problems that needed urgent attention before the European Tour.
Show Dates
18 March 1996OPL19 March 1996OPL20 March 1996OPL21 March 1996OPL9 April 1996OPL10 April 1996OPL13 April 1996OPL14 April 1996OPL8 May 1996The Catalyst, Santa Cruz9 May 1996The Catalyst, Santa Cruz22 May 1996OPL23 May 1996OPL4 June 1996OPL5 June 1996OPL6 June 1996OPL9 June 1996OPL
Eric Rice described the scene after the first few shows in the Half Moon Bay Review.
With a capacity of only 150, tickets were extremely difficult to obtain — initially 50 for band guests, 50 for OPL guests, and 50 sold to the public at $20 each. To prevent resale, tickets took the form of wristbands customised to each individual wrist. A different coloured wristband was issued for each show.
A local promoter named Bob Lacey was in charge of distributing tickets to the public. Bob passed away in 2004.
During the performances, most windows were covered with black drapes, but one small window on the band's right was left uncovered at the band's request — allowing ten or more people without tickets to peer in while standing atop a bench or empty 20-gallon drums commandeered for the shows.
The Catalyst in Santa Cruz holds around 800; it is believed about 500 wristbands were sold for each of the two Echos shows there. Shows at OPL usually began around 9:30 pm; those without tickets were free to come and go until around 8 pm, after which only wristband holders were permitted to remain.
Neil Young and Crazy Horse at Old Princeton Landing — Part II
Those fortunate enough to have a wristband started to take their places in front of the stage around 8 pm. The stage was a wooden panel with an elevation of about six inches — some say it concealed the reverb unit for Neil's guitar — and replaced two pool tables normally at that end of the room. With the exception of about fifteen stools that lined the bar, all tables and chairs were removed: standing room only.
The stage lighting for all performances was provided mostly by about fifteen candles placed at various points about the stage — including some atop the equipment. This intimate arrangement was adopted for the subsequent Broken Arrow Tour of Europe and North America. It is believed the candles symbolized a spiritual element reflecting the recent death of Neil's long-time record producer David Briggs.
Neil's set-up included his '53 Gibson Les Paul Gold Top. His primary guitar, Old Black (also actually a '53 Gold Top), only appears on stage just before its owner.
During the show at OPL on 22 May, the song 'Big Time' was played in public for the first time. This song would become the first, and only, single from the forthcoming Broken Arrow album and the hallmark tune for the subsequent Broken Arrow European/US Tour.
On the morning of 4 June, as the early birds waited in line for wristbands, Jim Jarmusch was observed prowling the surrounds of OPL. Neil had recently collaborated with Jim by providing the music score to Jarmusch's Dead Man film. Jim was on hand to shoot footage that would later be incorporated into the Big Time music video. Some scenes of the band playing in OPL were shot that afternoon; that evening Neil and Crazy Horse opened the show in an unprecedented manner by playing the entire Broken Arrow album — as yet unreleased — straight through in correct song order.
Neil Young and Crazy Horse at Old Princeton Landing — Part III
Shortly following the Echoes performances, Reprise Records released the Neil Young and Crazy Horse album Broken Arrow in the summer of 1996.
Broken Arrow
Vinyl — Reprise 9 46291-1
Side 1: Big Time · Loose Change
Side 2: Slip Away · Changing Highways · Scattered [Let's Think About Livin']
Side 3: This Town · Music Arcade · Baby What You Want Me To Do
Side 4: Interstate
CD — Reprise 9 46291-2
Big Time · Loose Change · Slip Away · Changing Highways · Scattered · This Town · Music Arcade · Baby What You Want Me To Do
In addition to the new songs introduced at Old Princeton Landing, the album featured a cover of the Jimmy Reed R&B classic 'Baby What You Want Me To Do', recorded live at OPL. The double vinyl release also included the previously unreleased 'Interstate' (recorded Spring 1990).
Following the Big Time shoot at OPL, Jim Jarmusch accompanied Neil and Crazy Horse on the European leg of the Broken Arrow tour. The footage was incorporated into the movie Year of the Horse, which premiered at the Castro Theatre in San Francisco on 8 May 1997.
A double live album, also titled Year of the Horse, was released in the summer of 1997. Two tracks — 'When Your Lonely Heart Breaks' and 'Barstool Blues' — were recorded during the 9 May show at The Catalyst in Santa Cruz.
In late 2002, Neil returned to the Half Moon Bay area to shoot footage for his movie Greendale. The Half Moon Bay Review was there to comment on the activities — read the article here.
Half Moon Bay Review, 20 March 1996 — by Eric Rice
The Traveling Echoes, alias Neil Young and Crazy Horse, came to the Coastside Monday night for a surprise two-hour jam session at Old Princeton Landing.
Additional shows by the Rock 'n' Roll Hall of Famer were held Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. The $20 tickets were sold the morning of each show. The bar's capacity is 150 and only 50 tickets were sold to the public for Monday's show. More than 100 people were lined up outside Tuesday morning.
Young and his longtime backup band of Frank "Poncho" Sampedro, Billy Talbot and Ralph Molina romped through more than a dozen songs weighted heavily toward Young's mid-1970s catalogue.
The night's song list included "Like a Hurricane," "Roll Another Number," "The Losing End," "Danger Bird," "Country Home," "Homegrown," "When Your Lonely Heart Breaks," "Bite the Bullet," "Wonderin'," "Stupid Girl," "Drive Back," "Barstool Blues," and "Prisoners of Rock and Roll." He ended the evening with a blistering, 20-minute version of "Down By The River."
The 51-year-old Young showed no signs of fading quietly. Bobbing and weaving around the small stage in his familiar herky-jerky bounce, Young played alternately fast and slow, often journeying into extended instrumental excursions.
Young, who first hit it big in 1966 with Buffalo Springfield, had just released his latest project at the time: a soundtrack for the forthcoming film Dead Man by Jim Jarmusch, featuring Young playing solo guitar with occasional overdubs of poetry read by Johnny Depp.
When Bob Lacey was having a good day, his humor was buoyant, mischievous and irreverent. If he was having a bad one, his humor would get acerbic — and more irreverent. Either way, his wit remained razor-sharp, his turnaround of a ready quip just as quick, and his eyes twinkled above his snowy beard when he shouted out greetings to old friends.
His résumé reads like a who's-who of comedy shows and competitions, comedians, publications, and programs which he booked or wrote material for. Comedy-club habitués across the greater Bay Area hail Bob Lacey as a fount of topical one-liners and a devoted comedy producer. "He was always brimming with full life. Always looking for the next punch line," said Foster City comedian Dan St. Paul.
Coastside friends and associates salute Mr. Lacey as a man who lived life sometimes hard but fully — a comic genius with endless reservoirs of warmth. Bob passed away in 2004.
Jim Jarmusch: "Dead Man is the story of a young man's journey, both physically and spiritually, into very unfamiliar terrain. William Blake travels to the extreme western frontiers of America sometime in the second half of the 19th century. Lost and badly wounded, he encounters a very odd, outcast Native American named Nobody, who believes Blake is actually the dead English poet of the same name."
Dead Man stars Johnny Depp, Gary Farmer, and Lance Henriksen, with cameo appearances by Robert Mitchum, Gabriel Byrne and John Hurt. During the final work on the film, Jim Jarmusch asked Neil Young to provide a soundtrack — which he did, playing pump organ, detuned piano, and acoustic guitar, with the largest percentage of the music from his electric guitar.
"What he brought to the film lifts it to another level, intertwining the soul of the story with Neil's musically emotional reaction to it — the guy reached down to some deep place inside him to create such strong music for our film." — Jim Jarmusch
Jim Jarmusch's films include Permanent Vacation (1980), Stranger Than Paradise (1984), Down By Law (1986), Mystery Train (1989), Night On Earth (1991), Dead Man (1996) and Year Of The Horse (1997).
Director Jim Jarmusch had just finished shooting Super 8 footage for the Neil Young and Crazy Horse music video "Big Time" when Young suggested Jarmusch produce a feature documentary on the band in the same format. Jarmusch recalls: "Neil liked the look of Super 8 and enjoyed seeing us scurrying around with these little cameras. He said, 'I'll pay for it; we'll just start shooting some stuff and if we don't like it we'll throw it away. Just bring those little cameras you used for the video and see what you get.' I thought, 'What a great idea.'"
The film Year of the Horse is a document of the 1996 world tour staged by Crazy Horse. Jarmusch used Super 8 negative film loaded with Kodak 500 ASA 5298 stock. The footage was combined with 16mm concert coverage, 16mm scenes from 1976 and 1986 tours, and Hi-8 video interview sequences. Theatrical prints were made directly from a video master combining all formats.
Jarmusch: "Super 8 seems to go really well with the raw sound of Neil and Crazy Horse, the world's greatest garage band. The footage becomes almost abstract because of the graininess and rawness of the tiny image."
Half Moon Bay Review, 1 January 2003 — by David Gorn
Marina Fraser couldn't believe she was sitting there — in the old jail building on Johnston Street, a block away from downtown Half Moon Bay, a couple of feet away from rocker Neil Young. Only on that Friday, he was filmmaker Neil Young, braving cold drizzle on the Coastside to film video footage for his new release Greendale.
"I was just there to make sure they didn't destroy my jail," said Fraser, president of the Spanishtown Historical Society. "They were very good, very careful." She was careful too. "I've been a fan for so long — I buy all his albums, I go to the Bridge School benefits all the time — but I didn't bug him."
Few people hung out to watch the filming. They worked at Princeton, at various places around Half Moon Bay including the high school, and spent two days at the historic Johnston Street jail, built in 1911 and probably not intended for rock videos. "That was a definite benefit of being president of the historical society," Fraser said. "Getting to hang with Neil for a couple of days. Gee. That's not bad."
