By Robert Broadfoot
I don’t know about you, but I certainly get the impression that the Neil fan community is incredibly well served. I ought to admit up front that I am not too familiar with what happens with other artists out there. But I somehow doubt there is a site anywhere dedicated to a major artist which is as wide-ranging and replete with information, actual playable hi-res music, films, live shows and ‘ephemera’, as the Neil Young Archives at neilyoungarchives.com. You can even write to the object of your adulation and he will very often answer back – personally!
The cool thing, however, is that, in addition to NYA, there is another free access site dedicated to Neil’s lifetime work which perfectly complements what the Neil Young Archives offers. And yet very many fans don’t even know of its existence. Or if they do, they are probably not aware of all it has to offer. That site is Sugar Mountain at sugarmtn.org, run as a one-man show for the benefit all of us by the great Tom Hambleton.
Those who go to other sites for details of Neil’s live performances don’t realise what they are missing. Sugar Mountain has ALL Neil’s setlist information more reliably and comprehensively than anywhere else by far. His live performances over the years are selectable by date, tour and even band. Many visitors don’t realise that by clicking on the well-hidden tiny capital letters “D” or “R” at the top of the individual page for each show you can find even more interesting details of the performances.
However, many who use Sugar Mountain may not be aware of the many other treasures to be found there. It is a permanent work in progress, constantly being refined and extended. If you are not fully up to date on all it has to offer, or would like a bit of help to look deeper, here is my own selection of a few of my favourite Sugar Mountain resources.
MORE
Many of the most interesting features of Sugar Mountain are discretely ‘hidden’ under the section MORE at the far right of the top menu. This area is always
worth keeping a close eye on for Tom’s latest new features. Recently added is the very effective Advanced Search at https://www.sugarmtn.org/sm_asearch.php. This allows you to find songs or even specific sequences of songs according to such characteristics as their place on the setlist, the instrument used, the type of performance – solo or band, etc. Check it out. Under MORE you will also find…
Neil Discographies
Sugar Mountain probably has the best and most complete discography of Neil’s work anywhere. And it is even more comprehensive than NYA itself! Sugar Mountain’s original Discography is to be found here, but you will also find a newer work-in-progress called Discography Alt at https://www.sugarmtn.org/discog/. The Alt-version is even better and contains more than 500 separate entries for Neil’s albums, singles, films, Timeline Concerts, webcasts, guest appearance releases and more, all with an incredible amount of detail. Entries can be selected, sorted and displayed by category if you prefer – for example live performances and webcasts or Neil’s singles, or just Archive releases.
Rare and Unusual Performances
One of my own favourite features is the searchable list of Unusual Song Performances at https://www.sugarmtn.org/sm_rare.php. Here for example you can find songs which have been performed less than a handful of times; or performances played on a rarely used instrument – such as Mansion On The Hill on the piano!; or a band version of a song usually performed solo, or vice versa – the electric band version of Natural Beauty for example. Just try entering “12 string” as another example in the search field and see what surprises come up!
More “More”
In the MORE section there is also an up-to-date list of all the published NYA Timeline Concerts https://www.sugarmtn.org/sm_nya_perf.php. Interesting too is Sugar Mountain’s list of Neil’s unreleased songs. There is even a separate page with information and pictures for all of Neil’s guitars. Click here on Instrument in the pull-down menu https://www.sugarmtn.org/sm_instruments.php.
“Testing”
And then there is the section marked TESTING, always worth keeping a close eye on. Tom is constantly coming up with new ideas and features. The listings and functions here are still being worked on, and since they are in some cases still incomplete, I won’t go into too much detail. Sessions is a very detailed list of Neil’s recording sessions sorted by year starting at https://www.sugarmtn.org/sm_year2.php?year=1962 Recordings lists all of Neil’s known recordings, released or unreleased, and can be sorted by date and title for example. It can also searched by studio, producer, band member etc. etc.
Song Quotes
Neil does not talk too much about specific songs these days during live performances. Just think of all those raps we used to hear! Nowadays he prefers to let his songs speak for themselves. But a lot of what he has said in the past can be found here on Sugar Mountain at https://www.sugarmtn.org/sm_quotes_all.php listed by song title. There are quotations covering more than 280 of Neil’s 600+ songs. And here is a useful tip: it is a pretty long alphabetical list, but if you use STRG+F in the open browser window you can quickly find the song you want.
Statistics
Statistics can be a little dull, but this section of Sugar Mountain really does have some fascinating insights into Neil’s work. They include: – songs Neil has released on record but never played live https://www.sugarmtn.org/sm_stat.php?stat=14 – the longest time between performances https://www.sugarmtn.org/sm_stat.php?stat=17 Did you know that Thrasher didn’t get played once for 36 years between 1978 and 2014? Amazing. There are many other statistics here, including some pretty unusual stuff – the longest shows which Neil has ever played; all the shows played on a full moon; even a complete list of all the songs Neil has ever written (at least as far as we know!) Check it all out for yourself at https://www.sugarmtn.org/sm_stat.php
Timeline Concerts
If you ever get into a state of panic that you might just have missed one of the NYA Timeline Concerts, or have forgotten which ones are available on NYA, just keep an eye on this page https://www.sugarmtn.org/sm_nya_perf.php Knowing the exact date, you can then track them down to their very well-hidden location on the NYA Timeline inside the tour “barcode” lists. And a click on the date on the Sugar Mountain list will lead you to the setlist, band line-up, and all the other details of the show which are not provided on NYA itself.
Broken Arrow Magazine Archive
Another fascinating feature is the section marked “BA” in Sugar Mountain’s top menu https://www.sugarmtn.org/ba/. This leads to an archive containing PDFs of every issue of the excellent NYAS fan publication Broken Arrow. It starts with issue #1 in August 1981 and runs right through to the final issue #134 three decades later. Broken Arrow was and is an amazing fundus of information and insights into Neil over the years, especially if you missed out on parts of the journey yourself. It is well worth an extensive visit. The special search function trawls the table of contents and article headlines of each issue and will usually help you to find what you are looking for. Unfortunately, there is no complete text search of the earlier content, only of the later issues. Be sure to check out issue #100 for a history of Broken Arrow magazine and the original Neil Young Appreciation Society fan community, and also read the series of articles posted here on Member Central which tell the story of NYAS as narrated by those early pioneers of the fan community.
My Sugar Mountain
And this is my final tip: If you would like to keep a record of the shows you have attended yourself, and see, for example, how many different songs and song debuts you have had the pleasure of listening to, simply set up your own personal profile at https://www.sugarmtn.org/sm_mysugarmtn.php and let Sugar Mountain organise your personal Neil history for you.
Have fun on Sugar Mountain.