New Media from a Journalism Veteran
Blog entries | Thanks for the Memories
They may be heavier and grayer but Crosby, Stills & Nash haven’t lost their edge and a trip to Salem Civic Center Tuesday night with Fred and Ann First brought back memories of the 60s, war protests and caring about causes.
Mixing old songs with new, accoustic with hard, driving rock and nostalgia with currency, CSN often brought the crowd to their feet and kept all of us tapping and clapping along with their songs for more than two-and-a-half hours of solid entertainment.
Their two encores brought back even more memories, first with Stills’ haunting For What Its Worth protest song from his Buffalo Springfield days and, finally, with Teach Your Children.
I met Graham Nash last year while studying digital printing with Mac Holbert, his partner in the Nash Editions print operations in Los Angeles. Holbert, the road manager for CSN back in their heyday, is considered one of the best digital printers in the world and I jumped at the chance to study his techniques. Nash, an expert photographer, turned out to be a master printer as well.
And I talked with Stills on the phone in 2003 while negotiating with he and his manager for permission to use For What It’s Worth as the background music for a short film on the World Trade Center attacks on September 11, 2001. That film won two awards for editing and the song helped both the flow and impact.
While Stills’ voice, hoarse from age, lacks some of its old drive, his driving guitar playing made up for any vocal shortcomings and both Nash and Crosby’s voices hold up well with age. I miss the fourth harmony of Neil Young but he’s off playing bluegrass now (among other things).
A fun evening, one that brought back memories of a magical time as well as encounters with two fascinating men. And, given the situation in the world today, their songs hold as much meaning now as then.
Doug Thompson
August 17, 2005 at 10:12 pm
Thanks for the letter but what the heck does this have to do with the Crosby, Stills & Nash concert?
cindy lee
August 18, 2005 at 4:05 am
By including your video you may have inadvertently turned the topic away from CSN and to the Iraqi conflict. I know I wanted to pick up an M-16 and some law-rockets and inflict some useless revenge after seeing the video and I in know way support the war or the politicians that started it!!
Gregor Riesser
August 17, 2005 at 3:28 pm
A copy of a letter I sent to my reprentative
Gregor H. Riesser, PhD
2309A Nantucket
Houston 77057
July 8, 2005
Dear Mr. Culberson
I am in receipt of your letter of June 27 on the Iraq War.Let me make some comments:
1) The UN Weapons Inspector had to be withdrawn, because the US attacked Iraq w/o UN sanction.
2) President Bush Senior stopped at the borders of Iraq, because he wrote, that going to Baghdad would bring and endless civil war, which is exactly what happened
3) Donald Rumsfeld was special ambassador Ronald Reagen, to reestablish Diplomatic Relations with Saddam, and to permit him to import certain chemicals which could be used to gas his opponents (hypocrisy in politics is not vice!)
4) Iraq is free now but at a terrible cost, 1700 American troops were killed so far, at according to the New England Journal of Medicine, 50,000 to 100,000 civilians have been killed so far
5) Our intelligence has been a disaster, and in a recent interview with the German Magazine, “Der Spiegel, Colin Powell sadly announced how he was mislead by US intelligence, when he made his presentation at the United Nations
6) The Madrid train bombing and the the recent bombing of the subways in London, probably both by Al Queda, were the result of this war!
7) The war continues and might continue for close to five years, according to Rumsfeld, the cost is a staggering 80 billion dollars a year
You voted to make the Bush tax cuts permanent. Do you know of a single case in history of a tax cut in rimes of war?
As a representative of my district, it is imperative that you stay well informed. According to your letter you are not!
Sincerely