NPR is streaming Neil Young’s about-to-be released Sugar Mountain: Live at Canterbury House.  I’m thoroughly impressed at how great it sounds. Not only is the performance by a 22-year-old Young incredibly assured, the sound quality of the recording is surprisingly solid. I’m not Neil Young expert, and I don’t have any technical details on the recording, but this seems like a nice document of Young’s transition into his solo career.  Apparently Young had a case of stage fright right before he went on:

Neil Young was horribly nervous before the performance and had to be coaxed from his hotel room by his manager Elliot Roberts and the minister of Canterbury House, Dan Burke. Burke tells NPR Music he remembers Neil Young huddled in Young’s hotel room bed, too scared to perform. He told Burke no one would want to hear the Buffalo Springfield tunes or his new tunes. Young was afraid he didn’t have enough material. But he was eventually persuaded to take the small stage.

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For some reason, Rick Astley shows up to personally RickRoll the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. Here’s hoping this dagger, thrust home by the sad wizard himself, has finally killed off this internet meme.

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Radiohead – Weird Fishes – by Tobias Stretch

Really dig this Radiohead video. It won a contest. You gotta love Radiohead. Using the strength of their brand to crowdsource their videos. For a band that has repeatedly expressed their ambivalence about consumers and commerce, Radiohead are awfully good at marketing. I’m not kidding. I have no choice. I love this band.

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Try this simple, web-based drum machine. There are fancier online tools, including the already-linked Audiotool and another 909 emulator, but this is a quick, pleasant diversion.

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As I’ve settled into my role as the Saturday NAPper, I’ve started to read more about music, including local blogs. Naturally I read Ramon’s updates at the Free Press, Jeremy at Space City Rock, David at Houston Calling,  and ADR’s excellent The Skyline Network. But I’ve also added a few others to my Google Reader.

The Houston Press Music blog, Rocks Off is actually pretty good now. I blame new music editor, Chris Gray, who linked to this great footage of Led Zeppelin at the Sam Houston Coliseum in 1971.

Thanks to my friend Delaney I came across Houston’s Most Hated. I don’t know much about the blog, but I totally agreed with their take on No Age’s second record, which I now think is one of the year’s best releases.

Finally, Bring Back the Guns frontman and personal pal Matt Brownlie has started his own music blog, and it’s definitely worth paying attention to. He’s not written much yet, but he’s got much more eclectic tastes than I do, and he’s repeatedly turned me on to stuff I wouldn’t have ordinarily checked out. Like Steinski.