All One Song - "Music Arcade" w/ Ethan Miller
More All One Song! I’ve been spending the summer doing one of my favorite things: talking about Neil Young! Helping me out are some of my favorite writers and musicians … so far, we’ve had Steve Gunn, Chris Forsyth, Jeff Parker, Meg Baird, Charlie Saufley, Steve Shelley, Ilyas Ahmed, Rosali and Jesse Jarnow … and we’re not done yet!
This week, our All One Song guest is Ethan Miller. Ethan has been a longtime fixture in the underground, first coming to my attention back in the early aughts as the co-founder of the psych noise pioneers Comets on Fire. But Ethan is nothing if not prolific — he’s played with an array of awesome bands over the years, from Howlin Rain to Feral Ohms to Odyssey Cult. Ethan was also one-fourth of Heron Oblivion with our previous guests Meg Baird and Charlie Saufley … and he’s one-third of the Orcutt Shelley Miller trio, with another previous guest Steve Shelley. It’s all a rich tapestry, right? At least when it comes to Neil Young.
The upcoming — and totally amazing — Orcutt Shelley Miller record is being released on Ethan’s own label Silver Current, which is one the most reliable purveyors of sweet sounds both new and old. In recent years, Silver Current has brought us excellent, bootleg-styled archival hauls from Sonic Youth, Galaxie 500 and Earthless, alongside fresh tunes from Magic Fig, Julie Beth Napolin, Growing and many more. Suffice it to say, the Silver Current insignia is a true trademark of quality.
For his All One Song appearance, Ethan selected a mid-90s deep cut — “Music Arcade.” This ghostly solo acoustic number showed up on the otherwise Crazy Horse-fueled Broken Arrow in 1996. It’s an enigmatic meditation on loneliness that doesn’t offer the listener any easy answers, like a comet in the sky. I loved having this conversation with Ethan and he really articulated some things that I’ve thought about Neil for a while but have never quite put into words. I hope you enjoy it too! Tune in wherever you get those podcasts.
Bonus Track: Neil played "Music Arcade" most nights as he was touring behind Broken Arrow throughout 1996 and '97 (and he hasn't played it since!). But it stayed more or less the same, arrangement-wise, an acoustic breather in between Crazy Horse onslaughts. So, here's a cool cover of the song from none other than Scott McCaughey (Young Fresh Fellows, Minus 5, R.E.M.), wherein Scott magically transforms "Music Arcade" into a Lennon-esque ballad — a terrific reinterpretation!
