Director Jonathan Demme, Shakey Pictures head L.A. Johnson and Neil Young business partner Elliot Roberts, spent Saturday afternoon at the movies. The occasion was for the first-ever big screen viewing of the Demme directed ‘Neil Young Trunk Show’.
This is the movie I didn’t even know existed until I arrived in Austin.
Demme, the man behind Philadelphia and Silence of the Lambs, had been working on this movie as an electric companion to his last Young flick, ‘Heart Of Gold’.
‘Neil Young Trunk Show’ captures a moment from the recent Chrome Dreams tour. Demme told the audience that it wasn’t a planned film, it was spur of the moment. “This was the easiest film in the world to make,” he said.
The central piece of ‘Truck Show’ is the epic live version of the stunning Chrome Dreams track ‘No Hidden Path’.
The movie also features some Young rarities. As a bookend, the opening song in ‘Sad Movies’ and the closer is ‘The Sultan’. ‘Kansas’, another unreleased Young song is also played midway through the movie.
As I mentioned, this movie seemed to come from nowhere but it cements the most prolific period ever for Shakey Pictures, Young’s movie company.
Last year, Shakey Pictures released the biting ‘D??jà vu’ documenting the damage done from the Bush regime from the Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young ‘Freedom of Speech’ tour. Just before that it was the back to basics ‘Heart of Gold’.
Soon, we will also be seeing Neil’s “Auto” biography Lincvolt about the conversion of a 1959 Lincoln from gas-guzzling environmental terror into an environmentally safe machine.
As for the music roll-out from Young this year.
The timeline goes:
April - Fork In The Road
June - Archives
September - Toast
The songs from Neil Young Trunk Show are:
Sad Movies (previously unreleased)
Harvest
Cinnamon Girl
Oh Lonesome Me
Kansas
Spirit Road
No Hidden Path
Ambulance Blues
Mellow My Mind
The Believer
Like A Hurricane
Cowgirl In The Sand
The Sultan
