Speaker 1: Rivals is a production of I Heart Radio. Hello Everyone,
Speaker 1: and Welcome to Rivals, the show about music beefs and
Speaker 1: feuds and long simmering resentments between musicians. I'm Steve and
Speaker 1: I'm Jordan's and welcome Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young. I've
Speaker 1: so much cried in saying that, I'm so excited. This
Speaker 1: is like the Rival's equivalent of like The Godfather the Trilogy.
Speaker 1: It's long, it's complex, the villains keep changing. It's it's great.
Speaker 1: Buckle up, and we kept it at three because Graham
Speaker 1: Nash has generally been kind of like the passive player
Speaker 1: throughout the saga. You know, he's more like reactive rather
Speaker 1: than the aggressor. He just seems like, you know, the
Speaker 1: most decent guy. But the others have done more than
Speaker 1: their fair share of mud slinging. Today, we're gonna look
Speaker 1: at how David Crosby has screwed over and been screwed
Speaker 1: over by the other members of this beloved musical collective. Yeah,
Speaker 1: Crosby to me seems like a good starting point because
Speaker 1: he's the one who is currently on the outs with
Speaker 1: everybody in C S N Y. I saw this quote recently.
Speaker 1: Neil Young said that David Crosby should write a book
Speaker 1: called Why Don't My Friends Want to Talk to Me Anymore?
Speaker 1: Which is pretty brutal. But as we'll see as this
Speaker 1: series unfold, Stephen Stills and Neil Young have also been
Speaker 1: very big agitators in this world, So, like Jordan, I'm
Speaker 1: extremely excited to dig into those conflicts as well. Can
Speaker 1: I just say, though, at the start, how much I
Speaker 1: love C S N Y. I mean, both as a
Speaker 1: band and as a soap opera. They're all like such
Speaker 1: great songwriters and musicians. I mean, just think of like
Speaker 1: all the incredible like tunes these guys have given us.
Speaker 1: There's just like such a long list. But they're also
Speaker 1: just like incredible divas. I mean, you won't find a
Speaker 1: more fascinating hive of bitchy characters than this one. Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: Cross is by far and away my favorite member of
Speaker 1: cs M Y. He's just he's one of the greatest
Speaker 1: characters in rock and roll history, right. I mean, he's hilarious,
Speaker 1: he's articulate, he's excessive, and he's probably second maybe to
Speaker 1: Keith Richards as like rock and Roll's most unlikely survivor.
Speaker 1: I mean the fact that he's above ground at all
Speaker 1: is miraculous. But also he's like more prolific than ever.
Speaker 1: His last couple albums have been amazing, and now he's
Speaker 1: this like Twitter, dear Abbey Figure. I mean it's great.
Speaker 1: It warms my heart, you know, even though the rest
Speaker 1: of CSMLI apparently hates him. Yeah. You know, what's that
Speaker 1: line from The Dark Night? You either die of hero
Speaker 1: or you live long enough to become a villain, Like
Speaker 1: I feel like that's true of of David Crosby. I mean,
Speaker 1: I had forgotten just how down it out he was
Speaker 1: at his lowest in the nineteen eighties. Yeah, he did prison,
Speaker 1: He was in prison, I mean yeah. I mean this
Speaker 1: is a guy who literally had a room set up
Speaker 1: just off stage at every concert just so he could
Speaker 1: have a space to free base cocaine between songs. Like,
Speaker 1: I mean, it's amazing and frankly a miracle that he
Speaker 1: lived this long to piss off his one time friends
Speaker 1: well into their seventies. I can't wait to get into this.
Speaker 1: So without further ado, let's get into this mess. Oh man,
Speaker 1: I mean just so much again too. But the perfect
Speaker 1: starting place is really back at the Birds. David's time
Speaker 1: in the legendary folk rock group. That's a whole episode.
Speaker 1: One of the best bands ever, incredible American. I mean,
Speaker 1: that's its own episode later on, but we'll go quickly
Speaker 1: through that. The Birds, of course folk rockers, fused the
Speaker 1: rich lyrical poetry of Bob Dylan and Pete Seeger with
Speaker 1: the melodic sophistication and amplification of rock bands like the Beatles.
Speaker 1: In the mid sixties, they had number ones with Mr
Speaker 1: Tambourine Man, Turn Turn Turned, And I would say that
Speaker 1: the Birds were probably the most transformative of all of
Speaker 1: the proto CSNY bands. I think that they had a
Speaker 1: huge hand in turning l A into a major musical
Speaker 1: hub in the early sixties. I mean, the Beach Boys
Speaker 1: did that a little earlier, but I think the Birds
Speaker 1: made l A cool, like on par with New York
Speaker 1: and San Francisco. And you know, in the Birds, no
Speaker 1: one was cooler than Cross, you know, Like I said,
Speaker 1: he was one of the great characters in rock and roll.
Speaker 1: He's he were the kve. He was. All the newspaper
Speaker 1: like profiles of him around the time have him like
Speaker 1: on his huge motorcycle with this they called him Batman.
Speaker 1: He had this like big leather cape that he would
Speaker 1: wear regardless of the season. Dennis Hopper famously modeled his
Speaker 1: character an easy rider after after Cross. I mean, he
Speaker 1: just you knew him. You saw him around and you
Speaker 1: knew that this this was somebody and he you know,
Speaker 1: he's hanging out with the Beatles. He had the best weed,
Speaker 1: dated the prettiest girls, knew the best people. What else
Speaker 1: did you need? I mean, he's like the prototypical rock
Speaker 1: star hedonist, and I think Steven Stills later described him
Speaker 1: as like Brando, he had no boundaries, but also like
Speaker 1: brand though, he was kind of kind of mercurial. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's a nice way of saying it. I think a
Speaker 1: less nice way of saying it is that he was
Speaker 1: a huge egomaniac. And it seemed like from the beginning
Speaker 1: he was alienating his collaborators and and the birds. He
Speaker 1: was the coolest guy, but he acted like he was
Speaker 1: the coolest guy, and it's not cool. That's never cool.
Speaker 1: It's not cool. And the problem was that he was
Speaker 1: not the leader of the band either. Roger mcgwinn was
Speaker 1: the person who was in charge of that band. And
Speaker 1: I would also say that in terms of just talent,
Speaker 1: I think Gene Clark was the best songwriter in that
Speaker 1: So even when you look at David Crosby all that
Speaker 1: he's accomplished, I feel like he was maybe like the
Speaker 1: third ranked guy and the Birds, even though in a
Speaker 1: lot of ways, as you say, he was like this
Speaker 1: cool guy. He had a really high media profile. You know,
Speaker 1: this is this hilarious quote from Terry Melcher where he
Speaker 1: was asked once. Of course, Terry Melcher is this record
Speaker 1: producer from the sixties. He produced The Birds. He also
Speaker 1: worked with Paul Revere in The Raiders and a bunch
Speaker 1: of other sixties rock bands. Someone once asked Terry Melcher
Speaker 1: who was the most difficult person that he ever worked with,
Speaker 1: and without blinking an eye, he said David Crosby. His
Speaker 1: number two choice was Charles Manson, And keeping mind, Charles
Speaker 1: Manson tried to kill Terry Melcher, or he wanted to
Speaker 1: kill Terry Melcher. That's you know, he lived in the
Speaker 1: house on Ciallo Drive originally that the Manson family went
Speaker 1: and they committed all those terrible murders. So even compared
Speaker 1: to Manson, Terry Melcher thought David Crosby was more difficult. Eventually,
Speaker 1: of course, David Crosby ended up getting bounced from the birds,
Speaker 1: and there's completing stories about whether he was fired or whether.
Speaker 1: I mean, I think it's clear that he was fired,
Speaker 1: but it wasn't also a story that maybe he quit
Speaker 1: maybe at some point. I think there was like some
Speaker 1: sort of weird thing like I think Crosby kind of
Speaker 1: pushed the idea that he was treated unfairly by those guys. Yes,
Speaker 1: Stills would later try to rat out Cross and say like, yeah,
Speaker 1: he likes to say that he was fired, but it
Speaker 1: was really more mutual agreement. I think it definitely helped
Speaker 1: Crosby's cred later on to be like, oh, yeah, the
Speaker 1: birds couldn't handle me, because by the sort of like
Speaker 1: sixty six sixty seven, the birds were sort of not
Speaker 1: seeing as this cutting edge that they've been sort of
Speaker 1: in sixty five early sixty six. And I think he
Speaker 1: liked the idea of be like, oh yeah, no, I
Speaker 1: had moved beyond them. They were rejecting my songs. He
Speaker 1: famously put for the song Triad, which is basically his
Speaker 1: ode the Threesomes, and he loved to say that like,
Speaker 1: oh yeah, mcgwin was way too square to handle a
Speaker 1: song like that, and mcgwyn would later saying, no, I
Speaker 1: rejected it because the song sucked. It was just the
Speaker 1: bad song. So yeah, there's Crosby likes to make himself
Speaker 1: out to be this outlaw who was kicked out of
Speaker 1: this like Squeaky Clean l a plastic pop band. But yeah,
Speaker 1: it seems more like they were just diverging. One story
Speaker 1: I love from that time is about the cover of
Speaker 1: the Birds album that the Notorious Bird Brothers, which is
Speaker 1: a great record record. It was the first record that
Speaker 1: the Birds put out after Crosby was bounced out of
Speaker 1: the band, and on the cover it's mcgwyn, it's Chris Hillman,
Speaker 1: Michael Clark, the drummer, and there's a horse. When David
Speaker 1: Crosby saw that cover, he thought that the horse was
Speaker 1: supposed to represent him and so he was very insulted
Speaker 1: by that. Mcgwinn denied it and he said, yeah, if
Speaker 1: we meant it to be cross, we would have had
Speaker 1: the horse turnaround, so you just saw its backside. It's
Speaker 1: just incredible comeback. You know. My theory about David Crosby
Speaker 1: and and I feel like this will I think be
Speaker 1: born out as we get into this episode and we
Speaker 1: talked about all of his experiences over the years, is
Speaker 1: that he's at heart, you know, this kid that craves attention. You,
Speaker 1: he's like the little boy maybe who was. I know
Speaker 1: that he had a difficult relationship with his father. I
Speaker 1: don't think he ever got the attention he really needed
Speaker 1: from that paternal figure. And it seems like he will
Speaker 1: do anything to get the attention that he craves, even
Speaker 1: if it involves throwing his bandmates under the bus. Like
Speaker 1: I was reading David Brown's book about Crosbie, Stills, Dash
Speaker 1: and Young, which is an incredible book, by the way,
Speaker 1: you should definitely go check that out, And there's a
Speaker 1: story in there where he's talking about it's like one
Speaker 1: of the many times that Crosby tried to go through
Speaker 1: rehab in the seventies, and there was a psychologist that
Speaker 1: did an analysis of him and the conclusion was is
Speaker 1: that David Crosby as a person who is perpetually dissatisfied
Speaker 1: and can't derive any contentment from his relationships. And that
Speaker 1: line really struck me as being profoundly sad. But it
Speaker 1: seems like that explains him in a lot of ways,
Speaker 1: Like he's a self destructive person in his own life
Speaker 1: and and I think in a lot of ways in
Speaker 1: his relationships, there's something in him that just has to
Speaker 1: kind of throw a monkey wrench into even a good situation.
Speaker 1: He definitely thrives on chaos, and for the reason you mentioned,
Speaker 1: probably just attention seeking behavior. And it shows up again
Speaker 1: and again, and then you add tragedy later on, as
Speaker 1: we'll see when we talk about the depth of one
Speaker 1: of his girlfriends, that's just catastrophic and that sends him
Speaker 1: off down this this horrific trail of drug abuse and
Speaker 1: uh and personality clashes. But but that's why he's so
Speaker 1: good on Twitter, you know, because he's a he loves
Speaker 1: attention like that is like a godsend for somebody like him.
Speaker 1: If only Twitter had existed in nineteen sixty nine, maybe
Speaker 1: a lot of this could have been avoided. Can you
Speaker 1: imagine I mean mcgwinn and cross now on Twitter pretty hilarious,
Speaker 1: But can you imagine them in like sixty sixty seven
Speaker 1: going at it talking about like, you know, tryad or something.
Speaker 1: Well Crosby blocked mcgwyne did on Twitter. Yeah, because I
Speaker 1: think Well mcgwinn is a born again Christian he was
Speaker 1: trying to preach to Crosby. So you know, maybe you
Speaker 1: could say Crosby was justified in that respect. But yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean that's another rival where we could talk about
Speaker 1: Crosby and mcgwinn, but you know, we digress, which to
Speaker 1: get back to the csn Wine story. Absolutely, okay, So
Speaker 1: across It's sixties six he meets Graham Nash. Of course,
Speaker 1: the person who introduces them, the the sort of the
Speaker 1: leading light, the patron saint of Crosby, Stills, Nash and
Speaker 1: Young is Mama Cass, Mama Cass Elliott of the Moms
Speaker 1: and the Papas she introduces Graham, she she was a
Speaker 1: real anglophile in the sixties and when the Hollies came
Speaker 1: to town, Graham Nash's band. Uh, she said, I really
Speaker 1: want you to meet my my friend Crosby, David Crosby.
Speaker 1: So she drives him up to his little bungalow and
Speaker 1: Laurel Canyon and uh and Crosby has this real, like
Speaker 1: very very visceral first impression of Crosby just sort of
Speaker 1: laying on the couch rolling joints without even looking. He
Speaker 1: can just do it just by touch and Karen on
Speaker 1: full conversations with people, and I thought, I remember in
Speaker 1: Graham's book that was the first time he ever got high,
Speaker 1: which sounds kind of crazy, but I don't know. I like,
Speaker 1: I'd like to believe that Cross was the guy who
Speaker 1: got him high for the first time. Maybe I'm wrong.
Speaker 1: They became pretty close. They hit it off, and they
Speaker 1: would visit each other when they were in their respective cities,
Speaker 1: and they both kind of occupied similar roles in their band.
Speaker 1: Graham was really fed up with his lot in the Hollies,
Speaker 1: who were hugely successful and incredible harmony band, probably one
Speaker 1: of the most lightweight British invasion groups that I can
Speaker 1: think of. Great great pop. I mean songs like carry
Speaker 1: Anne with that kick ass steel drum solo like bus Stop,
Speaker 1: incredible songs, but they weren't really They didn't have a
Speaker 1: lot of lyrical and emotional half and Graham just all
Speaker 1: about harmony right right. And Graham was trying to sort
Speaker 1: of push them forward. He wrote a song called King
Speaker 1: Midas in Reverse in sixty seven, which was a little
Speaker 1: bit deeper. It was kind of like, you know, everything
Speaker 1: he touched turns to stone, everything he touched. That's how
Speaker 1: he sort of felt about the pop world at that time.
Speaker 1: He was at a very unhappy part in his point
Speaker 1: in his life, and you know, pop songs are generally
Speaker 1: happy if they're not about like a breakup or something,
Speaker 1: and there's the song sort of about existential angst and uh,
Speaker 1: with this really complex production arrangement. It almost sounds like
Speaker 1: Strawberry Fields or something. It's big, elaborate orchestral thing, and
Speaker 1: the song tanked, sort of confused their listeners, and Crosby
Speaker 1: had sort of gone through that himself and the Birds.
Speaker 1: He had a song, his first Bird's A side was
Speaker 1: called Lady Friend, and it was very different than the
Speaker 1: Bird's material. It was sort of louder and faster and
Speaker 1: rocky or it sounded like sort of like a totally
Speaker 1: different band, and that also tanked. So they both were
Speaker 1: kind of like trying to pull their bands forward in
Speaker 1: just in a musical sense, and helped them progress, and
Speaker 1: the fans and the rest of the band weren't really
Speaker 1: going for it. And in the same way that the
Speaker 1: Birds passed on David's triad, the Hollies were passing on
Speaker 1: some of Graham's newer songs like Mary Cash Express. They
Speaker 1: tried to do with the Hollies, and they just weren't
Speaker 1: feeling it and they abandoned it, so they had a
Speaker 1: lot to talk about. It's funny to me that like
Speaker 1: Mary Cash Express was considered like two for the Hollies,
Speaker 1: because that's like a pretty lightweight song, just like whoa,
Speaker 1: this this is two edgy Man, This is like two revolutionary.
Speaker 1: This song about like, you know, going to Markesh and
Speaker 1: having like this fun adventure. So yeah, when you look
Speaker 1: at the early days of CSN, Crosby is certainly I
Speaker 1: think the pivot point between Nash and Skills, Like he's
Speaker 1: bringing these guys together because while he's hanging out with
Speaker 1: Graham Nash, he's also getting to know Steven Stills, and
Speaker 1: at that time, Steven Stills of course was one of
Speaker 1: the main artistic forces in Buffalo Springfield. Who I think
Speaker 1: in many ways you could say we're a rival band
Speaker 1: or maybe even like a successor band to the Birds.
Speaker 1: They came around a little bit later. They were starting
Speaker 1: to become this hip local band at a time when,
Speaker 1: as we said before, the Birds were starting to fade
Speaker 1: a little bit, and Crosby being this attention seeking glory
Speaker 1: hound essentially, you know, he knew what time it was,
Speaker 1: and he started cozying up to Buffalo Springfield and he
Speaker 1: actually ended up playing with that band at the Monterey
Speaker 1: Pop Festival because Neil Young, the other main creative force
Speaker 1: in that band, he started flaking out around this time.
Speaker 1: He he didn't want to play Monterey Pop. He famously
Speaker 1: bailed before a high profile appearance on The Johnny Carson
Speaker 1: Show when Buffalo Springfield would have been the first rock
Speaker 1: band to ever play on Carson. Neil Young basically bailed
Speaker 1: before they were supposed to tape that, which would of
Speaker 1: course be very precient for how Neil Young would would
Speaker 1: behave in the future. So he's starting to cozy up
Speaker 1: the Stills and and they're starting to talk about also
Speaker 1: having some sort of musical union. And can I just
Speaker 1: say that, like, Steven Stills is like my favorite member.
Speaker 1: You said at the start that David Crosby is is
Speaker 1: your guy in this group. I'm a huge Stills fan.
Speaker 1: And uh, we'll talk more about that in our next
Speaker 1: episode because Steven Stills is going to be the focal
Speaker 1: point that time. But yeah, I mean it is it
Speaker 1: fair to say that Crosby is most responsible for these
Speaker 1: guys coming together, I would say, so, yeah, I mean
Speaker 1: he he Instills, we're trying to make a duo after
Speaker 1: after Crosby got fired from the Birds and Stills uh,
Speaker 1: and after Buffalo Springfield was done, they were a duo
Speaker 1: called the Frozen Noses, which is a a cocaine reference,
Speaker 1: which is some nice foreshadowing there. Um, it's like pretty
Speaker 1: early to to be making a cocaine fan like sixty eight,
Speaker 1: like they were ahead of the curve. They were doing
Speaker 1: blow before a lot of people, and they would do
Speaker 1: more blow than a lot of people as the seventies
Speaker 1: unfold through using pioneers. That's absolutely true. Yeah, I would
Speaker 1: say that. I mean because I Stills didn't really know
Speaker 1: Graham very well. But there's a famous story and before
Speaker 1: Graham left the Hollies, this would have been I think
Speaker 1: in February of sixty eight, the Hollies came to l
Speaker 1: A and play at the Whiskey and Go Go, and
Speaker 1: Stephen and Cross showed up as kind of like cheerleaders.
Speaker 1: They would later say they were in the front row
Speaker 1: cheering and getting everybody all pumped for the Hollies, who were,
Speaker 1: you know, not that cool of a band. And after
Speaker 1: the Hollies did their show. They all crammed into Still's car.
Speaker 1: Still's Crosby and Graham, and they're they're driving around talking
Speaker 1: and I guess Graham went to the bathroom or something
Speaker 1: and and Crosby goes to Stills and says, okay, which
Speaker 1: one of us is going to get him? They both
Speaker 1: wanted to work with Graham early on, but yeah, I
Speaker 1: think that Cross was definitely the lynch pin between the two. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and there's that famous story where I feel like it's
Speaker 1: changed depending on who's telling it about like the first
Speaker 1: time that they sang together. I've heard that it was
Speaker 1: like Mama Cass's house. I've heard it was at Joni
Speaker 1: Mitchell's house. I don't know if there's like a definitive
Speaker 1: version of that story. All I knows that they started
Speaker 1: playing the song you Don't Have to Cry, which was
Speaker 1: a Stephen Stills song and ended up on the first
Speaker 1: Crosby Stills in Nash record, And it seems like they
Speaker 1: hit upon that like iconic harmony sound pretty quickly. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I always love the fact that for a band that
Speaker 1: fought so much, they can't even agree on the first
Speaker 1: time they sang together, which you would would think. They
Speaker 1: all have very very like like photographic style memories of
Speaker 1: how they believed it went down, and they're all different,
Speaker 1: all three or different. The one that's most commonly said
Speaker 1: it was a Joni Mitchell's house. Graham had just come
Speaker 1: from London, right from the airport and he arrived there
Speaker 1: and and Stephen and David were there and they wanted
Speaker 1: to play some of their their Frozen Noses material for
Speaker 1: their friend Graham, and he asks them to sing the
Speaker 1: song you Don't Have to Cry again, and he's listening
Speaker 1: to it, and then Graham asks him to sing the
Speaker 1: song a third time, and Cross and Stephen are like,
Speaker 1: what the hell is he want? You know, what's he doing? Like,
Speaker 1: I know the song is good, but three times on
Speaker 1: the row? Jesus. So they start singing in a third
Speaker 1: time and Graham has capped the lyrics by this point,
Speaker 1: and he sings and he adds his top level harmony,
Speaker 1: and yeah, they would always say that Crosby stills in Nash,
Speaker 1: which is born in that moment at this at this
Speaker 1: little dinner party at Joni or Mama Cass's house, depending
Speaker 1: on who's telling the story. And yeah, that was really
Speaker 1: where it started. Yeah, And you know, speaking of Joni Mitchell,
Speaker 1: she was involved with David Crosby early on. He ended
Speaker 1: up like producing her first record. They were sort of
Speaker 1: a thing. I don't know how serious that was, but
Speaker 1: it was at least a fling of some sort. And
Speaker 1: then Graham Nash comes along. And Graham Nash, you know,
Speaker 1: I've read a lot of CSNY books. He has this
Speaker 1: reputation for being a ladies man, essentially, like he's got
Speaker 1: the British accent. He's a pretty good looking guy. He
Speaker 1: is not a raging egomaniac, at least not to the
Speaker 1: degree that the other guys in the band are. So
Speaker 1: he's like pretty charming and sensitive and he swoops in
Speaker 1: and he ends up just sweeping Joni Mitchell off her feet.
Speaker 1: So it seems like Crosby was fairly cool with that.
Speaker 1: He's like not really protested about that too much over
Speaker 1: the years. But again, you see like this is another
Speaker 1: sort of premonition of what's going to happen in this band,
Speaker 1: because there's going to be other conflicts over women that
Speaker 1: occur in this group. But you know, it's fascinating about
Speaker 1: the name of the band is that you know they
Speaker 1: weren't the Birds, they weren't Buffalo Springfield, they didn't adopt
Speaker 1: like a band moniker. They put their names in the
Speaker 1: name of the group. And that was a very deliberate
Speaker 1: decision because they were all used to being in bands
Speaker 1: and all of the ups and downs that you experience
Speaker 1: and things like that, and also knowing that when you
Speaker 1: are in a band, if someone leaves, it's very easy
Speaker 1: to replace them. And the idea was that we're going
Speaker 1: to put all of our names in the title of
Speaker 1: the band, because no one is replaceable, and it also
Speaker 1: shows that we're all individuals at the same time. I
Speaker 1: have to say too that you know, again looking ahead
Speaker 1: that I feel like that band name benefit of David
Speaker 1: Crosby the most, especially as we look ahead to the
Speaker 1: nineteen eighties, because during that time he became a real
Speaker 1: liability in the group where on their records they were
Speaker 1: subbing in other singers for him essentially, but like they
Speaker 1: had to put his name on the title card or
Speaker 1: they couldn't get record deals essentially. So you know, it's
Speaker 1: like if they hadn't have been called that, you know,
Speaker 1: if they had just been the Frozen Noses or something,
Speaker 1: ye know, I wonder if Crosby would have been the
Speaker 1: first one replaced. Wow. Yeah, that's a good point too,
Speaker 1: because I always view their name as sort of almost
Speaker 1: like you say that it was a way to sort
Speaker 1: of protect them and make sure that they were all none,
Speaker 1: no one was expendable. I almost thought it was the opposite,
Speaker 1: where it made the band a lot more amorphous and
Speaker 1: people could sort of come and go as they please
Speaker 1: and like, Okay, oh, maybe this next album is gonna
Speaker 1: be Stills in Nash, or maybe the next one is
Speaker 1: gonna be Crosby and Nash, or maybe the next one
Speaker 1: is gonna be Stills and Crosby. And I almost thought
Speaker 1: of it as being sort of like an open relationship
Speaker 1: because they both they all had had such horrible experiences
Speaker 1: in their prior bands, and that this was sort of
Speaker 1: like a way of not labeling the band. It was
Speaker 1: just themselves and the next, you know, the next time around.
Speaker 1: Then I guess this would happen in the seventies too,
Speaker 1: with the Steels Young Band and all the La Crosby
Speaker 1: Nash albums and stuff, So I guess it worked both
Speaker 1: ways to it protected them as a as an entity
Speaker 1: that they weren't replaceable, but it also made the band
Speaker 1: a lot more fluid. All right hand, We'll be right
Speaker 1: back with more rivals. So as we head into that
Speaker 1: first record, that icon of Crosby Stills a Nash record
Speaker 1: where they're all sitting on the couch in front of
Speaker 1: that house uh in Los Angeles, I feel like we
Speaker 1: maybe should dig deeper into that in our Stills episode
Speaker 1: because Stills really was the driving force of that record,
Speaker 1: and obviously Crosby and Nash made vital contributions in terms
Speaker 1: of their songs, you know, with Crosby specifically the songs
Speaker 1: Guenevere he co wrote Wooden Ships, He was a writer
Speaker 1: on Long Time Gone, obviously a big part of that record.
Speaker 1: But it seems like the making of that record was
Speaker 1: relatively smooth because Stills was the one in charge and
Speaker 1: Crosby and Nash were willing to go along with what
Speaker 1: he was doing. And then things started getting a little
Speaker 1: weird when they had to come around to touring because
Speaker 1: Steals played all the instruments on the record essentially, and
Speaker 1: then they had to bring in another musician to you know,
Speaker 1: sort of round out their life sound. And that's how
Speaker 1: Neil Young ended up in the band. And that's a
Speaker 1: huge drama. I feel like that's more of a still
Speaker 1: centered drama, though, I mean, do we want to get
Speaker 1: into that in this episode too? Yeah, that's definitely more
Speaker 1: about Stills. Like I love how Skills would later refer
Speaker 1: to Neil as the snake, as the snake that they
Speaker 1: led into their like Laurel Canyon, Garden of Eden. It's
Speaker 1: pretty unfair. I don't know, it's like, you know, you
Speaker 1: invited him first of all, well, you know, And I
Speaker 1: don't want to get ahead of ourselves, but I feel
Speaker 1: so bad for Stills on some level because I feel
Speaker 1: like Neil Young has traumatized him many many times, like
Speaker 1: in their relationship, even though now they seem like pretty cool,
Speaker 1: you know. Again, like it seems like the other guys
Speaker 1: in this band at this point all like each other,
Speaker 1: and the thing that unites them is hating Crosby, Like
Speaker 1: they all hate Crosby, or at least like they're distracted
Speaker 1: by their other. Like if Skills does have feuds with
Speaker 1: Young or vice versa, it's not taking precedence over like
Speaker 1: the anti Crosby sentiment at this time. But again, that's
Speaker 1: we're getting ahead of ourselves. There's so much to discuss
Speaker 1: in this story. I think next in this timeline with Crosby,
Speaker 1: we have to talk about the Christine Hinton story. Is
Speaker 1: his girlfriend who died? Was that in sixty nine, Yeah,
Speaker 1: that was right before they started recording Deja Vu. And
Speaker 1: I mean, just this absolutely heartbreaking story. I mean, she
Speaker 1: was Crosby's this is gonna sound terrible, his main girlfriend.
Speaker 1: He obviously he was very into the free love thing
Speaker 1: at this time, but very very very close to her
Speaker 1: and loved her a great deal. And she was I
Speaker 1: guess driving a VW bus with some kittens that they
Speaker 1: had either rescued or just got to the vet. And
Speaker 1: one of the kittens scratched her, and she instinctively swerved
Speaker 1: the wheel and swerved across the center lane and drove
Speaker 1: into uh, into oncoming traffic. And what a weird way
Speaker 1: to to die. I'm sorry. It's like, that's why I'm
Speaker 1: a dog person. It's the most flower child way to die.
Speaker 1: It's his heartbreaking. It's like a it's like if Stephen
Speaker 1: King wrote like a child story or something. It's like
Speaker 1: a very Stephen King type thing. It's awful. And she
Speaker 1: was twenty one years old. Oh, she was just a kid. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and Crosby. Really that I think is the thing that
Speaker 1: sent him off into this this path that would lead
Speaker 1: to free basic cocaine on the side of the stage.
Speaker 1: And he would say in his in the documentary from
Speaker 1: two thousand nineteen, Remember My Name, he would say, there
Speaker 1: was just this emptiness after she died. It was like
Speaker 1: a rip in the fabric in an empty place, and
Speaker 1: it leaves a big hole where you just want to
Speaker 1: fill it. And he would spend much of the next
Speaker 1: two decades just kind of filling it with with heroin
Speaker 1: and cocaine. He said it was it was a pain killer.
Speaker 1: It really just numbed him and helped him pretend that
Speaker 1: nothing had happened that really, I mean, he was in
Speaker 1: really rough shape. I guess Graham and Mama Cass took
Speaker 1: him to London for a while trying to get his
Speaker 1: mind off things, and they wouldn't even let him go
Speaker 1: to the bathroom on his own. He was basically on
Speaker 1: like suicide watch at that that period, and this spilled
Speaker 1: over into sessions for Deja Vu, and he was just
Speaker 1: really barely functional, like in tears on the mic. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and you know, and keep in mind, you know, the
Speaker 1: first Crosby, Stills and Nash record comes out and it's
Speaker 1: a huge hit, and you know, there's there's stories about
Speaker 1: how that album was essentially like the soundtrack of Los
Speaker 1: Angeles in nine, Like you couldn't go into a head
Speaker 1: shop or the grocery store anywhere in l A without
Speaker 1: hearing those songs over and over again. So they're a
Speaker 1: huge band. They're the biggest band in America basically at
Speaker 1: that time. So there's a lot of anticipation for Deja Vu.
Speaker 1: Of course, they've added Neil Young into the mix, and
Speaker 1: Neil Young really wasn't that big of a star yet.
Speaker 1: He would become a big star because of his association
Speaker 1: with this band. But as they're recording that record in
Speaker 1: contrast with the first album, which again it seems like
Speaker 1: that would relatively smooth, you know, there was the novelty
Speaker 1: of working together. It seems like they weren't arguing as much.
Speaker 1: Now they're go into Deja Vu, and it's the old
Speaker 1: story about you know, people getting a little bit of
Speaker 1: money and notoriety. The ego start coming into play. You
Speaker 1: have Neil Young entering the picture and he has a
Speaker 1: much different way of working. He's challenging Steven Still's authority again,
Speaker 1: We're going to get it warned that in our next
Speaker 1: episode the Skills versus Young psychodrama going on. But as
Speaker 1: it pertains to Crosby, it seems like Stills like he
Speaker 1: was not all that understanding of like the pain that
Speaker 1: Crosby was going through at this time. Like Stills is
Speaker 1: like this perfectionist taskmaster and he is um just making
Speaker 1: Crosby go through the paces on the record. He's demanding perfection,
Speaker 1: Like I think on the title track, he made Crosby
Speaker 1: play that song like a hundred times, like they did
Speaker 1: a hundred takes of that song. It's a very tricky
Speaker 1: time signature. And there was also the conflict over almost
Speaker 1: Cut My Hair, where Stills was just like the song
Speaker 1: is too sloppy, and also I have to say that,
Speaker 1: like I don't know how you feel about this almost
Speaker 1: cut my Hair. I kind of like that song, but
Speaker 1: it's also like pretty dumb like song lyrically, like that
Speaker 1: line where he's like, must be because I had the
Speaker 1: flu for Christmas and I'm not feeling up to par
Speaker 1: it increases my paranoia, like looking out my mirror and
Speaker 1: seeing a lit up and he says police car. It's like,
Speaker 1: come on, dude, but anyway, you know. But at the
Speaker 1: same time it's like, hey, Stills, go easy on cross here. Man.
Speaker 1: He's like just lost his Girlfriend's a pretty terrible time
Speaker 1: for him. In his very Still's way, he tried to
Speaker 1: kind of make a man's He wrote him a song
Speaker 1: called Do for the Others, which I don't think didn't
Speaker 1: wind up in the album. I said, I don't know where.
Speaker 1: It might have been a bonus track later on, where
Speaker 1: he wrote it for Crosby to sing, and it was
Speaker 1: basically about It had lines portrays Crosby as cries with
Speaker 1: the misery lies singing harmony before coaxing him to borrow
Speaker 1: the life of his brothers. Was kind of like, you know,
Speaker 1: lean on your brothers for strength kind of song, which
Speaker 1: was his way of trying to distract Crosby. I guess
Speaker 1: you could say with work, which is a very Stills
Speaker 1: thing to do, and even get him back on the
Speaker 1: mic with something that he might might relate to. I mean,
Speaker 1: I always, whenever I think of their relationship, I think
Speaker 1: of that footage that is in Every Crosby Stills, a
Speaker 1: Nash documentary of Crosby in a hammock, just kind of
Speaker 1: lying there with a joint hanging out of his mouth
Speaker 1: and Stills hanging over him, just being like, I'm not
Speaker 1: going to give it an inch to fear. You know,
Speaker 1: I've been waiting for you for two days. You ask
Speaker 1: whole he's just like brating Crosby. I don't know what
Speaker 1: caused the fight, but I can use my imagination that
Speaker 1: they're working. Methods are so different. I mean, still, he said,
Speaker 1: is the guy who was in the studio for eighteen
Speaker 1: hours a day or or you know, and then later
Speaker 1: in the seventies, well not even that. I mean from
Speaker 1: what I've read, it was like twenty four hours a day.
Speaker 1: Like he would go on these benders like where he
Speaker 1: would be in the studio around the clock for like
Speaker 1: five days, and like engineers would come in and out
Speaker 1: of the studio essentially because he would not stop working.
Speaker 1: I mean, I've seen that confrontation you're talking about, and
Speaker 1: I just look at it as like an example of
Speaker 1: two different types of drugs at work. Like to me,
Speaker 1: Crosby is pure weed, you know, he's on the hammock,
Speaker 1: and Stills is just like uncut merk cocaine, you know,
Speaker 1: just a hundred miles an hour, and uh, you know
Speaker 1: that's going to come into the But the other thing
Speaker 1: with Cross at this time too, And I wanted to
Speaker 1: get your take on this because you know, we both
Speaker 1: have seen the documentary. Remember My Name came out in
Speaker 1: nineteen like really great documentary about David Crosby. One of
Speaker 1: the things that struck me about that movie though, is that,
Speaker 1: like they spent a lot of time talking about the
Speaker 1: song Ohio, which ended up you know, that came out
Speaker 1: in of course, right after the Kent State shooting and uh,
Speaker 1: ended up being this iconic Crosby Still's Nation Young song.
Speaker 1: But I feel like Crosby whenever he talks about that song,
Speaker 1: it's almost like he wants to take partial credit for
Speaker 1: writing it, because he always tells a story about like
Speaker 1: how he told Neil Young that he should write a
Speaker 1: song about this, and like he showed him. I think
Speaker 1: it was like the cover of Life magazine with the
Speaker 1: Kent State like famous Kent State photo. I don't know.
Speaker 1: I just look at that like as another example of
Speaker 1: him maybe kind of glombing onto something that someone else did,
Speaker 1: because because Neil Young wrote that song, like David Crosby
Speaker 1: didn't write that song, But I mean, am I being
Speaker 1: too hard on him? Though? In that respect. To hear
Speaker 1: Cross tell it, he makes it sound like he's spoon
Speaker 1: fed the lyrics to Neil who just kind of like
Speaker 1: basically edited it and they went from there. But yeah,
Speaker 1: Cross always makes it seem like it was his idea.
Speaker 1: He made the call, Okay, we should all say something,
Speaker 1: get into the studio right now, we're gonna We're gonna
Speaker 1: work this out right now. I don't think it really
Speaker 1: went down like that, but I think that that that
Speaker 1: song I think more or than definitely more than like
Speaker 1: almost cut My Hair or something like that, or A
Speaker 1: Long Time Gone, which is written after OURFK was killed.
Speaker 1: I think Ohio cemented csn Y as politicized. They weren't
Speaker 1: just like kind of Laurel Canyon hippies, like flower children
Speaker 1: like it actually made them figures that stood for something.
Speaker 1: And I think as the years went on, the reputation
Speaker 1: of the song Ohio is grown for that reason that
Speaker 1: that so much of the substance of Crosby, Stills, Nash,
Speaker 1: and Young rests on that, and I can see why
Speaker 1: Crosby would want to have a piece of that legacy
Speaker 1: and be responsible for it because that was their platform, right,
Speaker 1: And I think he does deserve credit for, like you said,
Speaker 1: like he was um, I think the driving force and
Speaker 1: recording that song so quickly and getting it out and
Speaker 1: there's that part at the end of the song where
Speaker 1: he starts yelling how many more and you can hear
Speaker 1: the emotion in his voice, and that is I think
Speaker 1: the emotional peak of that song. I think you're right though,
Speaker 1: in terms of like their political reputation, Ohio is like
Speaker 1: a big reason why people look at them as you know,
Speaker 1: being like protest singers. And I do think that's that's
Speaker 1: probably the best protest song outside of maybe Fight the
Speaker 1: Power by Public Enemy of like the last fifty years.
Speaker 1: I mean, that's an incredible song. But when I think
Speaker 1: about David Crosby, like his musical sensibility, I think more
Speaker 1: about like his first solo record, If I Can Only
Speaker 1: Remember My Name, which I think is like one of
Speaker 1: the great like vibe records of all time. Like you
Speaker 1: put that album on and you feel like, Okay, I
Speaker 1: know what it was like to be super high in
Speaker 1: l A in one, and you know the strength of
Speaker 1: that record is not lyrics. I mean, there's like songs
Speaker 1: that don't even have lyrics. It's just like Crosby saying
Speaker 1: like la la la the entire song. Like literally, I
Speaker 1: think it's like a couple of songs like that on
Speaker 1: that record. But um, I actually think that's a strength
Speaker 1: of that album, Like it doesn't need a lot of lyrics. Again,
Speaker 1: it's more about like the feeling in the vibe of it.
Speaker 1: And you know, it's a hammock record. It's the perfect
Speaker 1: record to have on when you're in a hamm It.
Speaker 1: It is gorgeous. I mean, yeah, the song without Words,
Speaker 1: oh my god laughing is incredible. And then of course
Speaker 1: you've got the Cowboy Song, which is like an eight
Speaker 1: minute or nine minute like mythical retelling of the Crosby, Stills,
Speaker 1: Nash and Youngest story to date, which is pretty hilarious too.
Speaker 1: But oh my god, Yeah, that album is gorgeous. And
Speaker 1: he got some incredible people on there too, right, I mean,
Speaker 1: he got Nash and Young, he got Jerry Garcia, got
Speaker 1: Joni Mitchell. I think he had members of of Santana
Speaker 1: and Jefferson Airplane on there. The thing that's amazing to
Speaker 1: know about that album too, is that it was really
Speaker 1: done to kind of help him through the grief of
Speaker 1: losing Christine Hinton too. So to hear this beauty that
Speaker 1: he made from this really really dark place kind of
Speaker 1: makes it all the more astonishing. Yeah, exactly. And you
Speaker 1: know it's interesting too that like Crosby was making a
Speaker 1: solo record at that time and all the other guys
Speaker 1: were making solo records because essentially, after you know, making
Speaker 1: the first Crosby Stills a Nash record and they put
Speaker 1: out Deja Vu, which ended up being an enormous hit.
Speaker 1: You know, they went on that tour in nineteen seventy,
Speaker 1: and it seems like that was a pretty miserable tour,
Speaker 1: and like, I think after that tour and seventy they
Speaker 1: were like, Okay, we need to be a part, we
Speaker 1: need to make our own records now. Yeah, I'm kind
Speaker 1: of amazed that that tour didn't like finish off the
Speaker 1: group for good forever, or at least for like, you know,
Speaker 1: forty years or something. It was it was pretty miserable.
Speaker 1: Steven Stills had fired their bassist for reasons that were
Speaker 1: really like basically political, because he was getting tight with Neil.
Speaker 1: Neil retaliated by demanding that they fired the drummer who
Speaker 1: was type with Stephen. This led to a huge fight
Speaker 1: with Cross and Neil. There was a opening night on
Speaker 1: the tour UM. I guess Stills had gotten into a
Speaker 1: he fell off a horse, right, he fell out a horse,
Speaker 1: and he came on stage with like a body cast
Speaker 1: or something, or on crutches. He was on crutches and
Speaker 1: he was just like out of it all night. And
Speaker 1: I'm guessing we'll probably get in this more on the
Speaker 1: Stills episode that he kind of felt his hold on
Speaker 1: the group slipping, and he was just all over the place,
Speaker 1: like he's backing Neil on on helpless and like playing
Speaker 1: piano and just like played all over him. And then
Speaker 1: when Crosby goes to introduce Stills for a solo set,
Speaker 1: Stills is just like nowhere to be found. It was, Yeah,
Speaker 1: a miserable tour came to a head in New York
Speaker 1: when Um every band member had a little mini solo
Speaker 1: set in their show. I think they did like two
Speaker 1: songs a piece, and during this one night, Stills just
Speaker 1: like kept going and that really piste off the rest
Speaker 1: of the band. I think there was like a physical
Speaker 1: like battle royal backstage after the show was over, and yeah,
Speaker 1: that really kind of like is a defining moment of
Speaker 1: that tour, I think, And um, what's worse that Stills
Speaker 1: and Graham are fighting over a woman? They were fighting
Speaker 1: over Rita Coolidge, the incredible singer who Crosby and this
Speaker 1: might have just been the cocaine or really bad weed
Speaker 1: either or believed it to be some government agent that
Speaker 1: was sent by Nixons. Yeah, yeah, perfectly reasonable. I think
Speaker 1: he was stone called sober when he came up with that.
Speaker 1: I mean, I think that seems pretty you know, on
Speaker 1: the on the money. Yeah, he's like terrified of It's like, man, like,
Speaker 1: can you imagine being a woman coming into this situation,
Speaker 1: like these poor women that had to deal with these
Speaker 1: like lunatics, because yeah, like Stills was into Rida Coolidge,
Speaker 1: but she was more into Nash. And then like the
Speaker 1: other guy, think that you're you know, like Jacker Hoover.
Speaker 1: You know, it's just like insane. But I don't know,
Speaker 1: I mean I feel like in a way, like you
Speaker 1: know that that CSN y Um world, it had this
Speaker 1: like inherent toxicity that didn't necessarily translate like when say,
Speaker 1: like Crosby and Nash worked together because like they actually
Speaker 1: end up making a bunch of records together, David Crosby
Speaker 1: and Graham Nash like through the early seventies that I
Speaker 1: think are actually like pretty good, Like the first one
Speaker 1: in particular, Graham Nash. David Crosby is what it's called.
Speaker 1: I think has some great songs on it, like Southbound Train,
Speaker 1: Page forty three, Frozen Smiles, a bunch of really good songs.
Speaker 1: And it seems like those two guys had a genuine
Speaker 1: friendship that I don't know if like that they had
Speaker 1: with the other guys in the bands. Yeah, Like I
Speaker 1: feel like those two guys um really liked each other,
Speaker 1: and also they just worked together musically. Their voices of course,
Speaker 1: just fit together so well. I mean that is really
Speaker 1: the core of like that harmony sound. I mean, like
Speaker 1: Stills I think is like I think pretty clearly the
Speaker 1: third best singer out of those three guys. I mean,
Speaker 1: like his voice I think has some cool qualities to it.
Speaker 1: Like I said, I'm a huge Stills fan, But in
Speaker 1: terms of just like pure harmony, you can't beat Crosby
Speaker 1: and Nash. And you know, as we said at the top,
Speaker 1: we're not doing a separate episode on Nash because I
Speaker 1: think Nash is like the nicest guy in this band.
Speaker 1: He hasn't really instigated a lot of conflicts. Although in
Speaker 1: a way, I feel bad that we're doing what I
Speaker 1: think a lot of people overlook Nash when they look
Speaker 1: at this band, like they don't give him his props
Speaker 1: for essentially like writing their biggest hits and you know,
Speaker 1: being like the pop star essentially in the group. But
Speaker 1: I think another reason why we're not talking about Nash
Speaker 1: separately is that him and Crosby they had like a
Speaker 1: lot of their adventures together until of course they ended
Speaker 1: up having a very decisive break later on, which we'll
Speaker 1: get to later in this episode. But it seems like
Speaker 1: like throughout the seventies you just see this like sort
Speaker 1: of off and on thing of like csn Y getting
Speaker 1: back together and falling apart, and around seventy three seventy
Speaker 1: four they started to come back together again. Yeah, they're commercial.
Speaker 1: Like fortunes had kind of fallen. Uh Stills had just
Speaker 1: done the second Manassas album, which was kind of everyone
Speaker 1: viewed as sort of a disaster. Graham Nash's second solo album,
Speaker 1: Wild Tales, kind of got ripped apart Crosby didn't have
Speaker 1: another solo album for many years, I believe Um and
Speaker 1: then Neil's post Harvest work wasn't selling up the expectations,
Speaker 1: so they they ended up reuniting in um in mauiuh
Speaker 1: to try to work on very early stages of a
Speaker 1: new Crosby Stills Nation Young album that they tentatively called
Speaker 1: Human Highway, which has become sort of semi mythical for
Speaker 1: its uh it's almost like their Smile. There's just tons
Speaker 1: of songs that were up for consideration at that point.
Speaker 1: Also extremely dysfunctional. I the sessions kind of fell apart.
Speaker 1: Graham suspects some kind of weird cocaine deal thing that
Speaker 1: that went awry, but yeah, it's just that they ended
Speaker 1: up going their separate ways until they came together the
Speaker 1: next year for what's been called the doom To, which
Speaker 1: was when oh my god, well because those are the
Speaker 1: year after Bill Graham that the music and Pissario got
Speaker 1: back the road. I think I think the Dylan and
Speaker 1: the band were early in seventy four, and then this
Speaker 1: Crosby Stills Nation Young tour was like the summer and
Speaker 1: it was like I think it was like the first
Speaker 1: stadium tour. Like there have been stadium shows that you know,
Speaker 1: the Beatles obviously played some shows that's Shade Stadium in sixties,
Speaker 1: like Grand Funk Railroad played at Shay, But like in
Speaker 1: terms of like a series of stadiums, I'm pretty sure
Speaker 1: that the Doom Tour was the first example of that.
Speaker 1: And yeah, I mean this was it just became synonymous
Speaker 1: with like excess in the seventies, not only because of
Speaker 1: what the musicians were doing backstage, including like David Crosby.
Speaker 1: Like wasn't this the period like Crosby was like traveling
Speaker 1: with with two women at once and like like he
Speaker 1: basically just had like a harem around him. That was
Speaker 1: like he didn't even try to hide it, like he
Speaker 1: was just known that he was like having like you know,
Speaker 1: like three way sex every night essentially. It's just like
Speaker 1: that was like his you know every night in the
Speaker 1: middle of me I think that people he would come
Speaker 1: in and like talk to people and then like midway
Speaker 1: through the conversation that people would realize that that he
Speaker 1: was getting a like a blow job underneath the table
Speaker 1: or something like that. Like that that level of depravity,
Speaker 1: I believe is what we're talking with Cross at this era.
Speaker 1: I mean, the phrase cocaine fueled gets tossed around a lot,
Speaker 1: but I think that's really the only way to put
Speaker 1: it for this tour. I mean, it was really this
Speaker 1: is the one where he like freaked out a hotel
Speaker 1: manager because his room is too breezy. I think I
Speaker 1: think this was the same era. Yeah, my favorite part
Speaker 1: is that, I mean for all the excess, and there's
Speaker 1: stories of them like spilling cocaine on rugs and then
Speaker 1: all falling to their knees and huffing the rug and
Speaker 1: stuff like that. The item that all the members tend
Speaker 1: to site for being like the ultimate excess of this
Speaker 1: tour are these SI pillow cases where they had Joni
Speaker 1: Mitchell's illustration embroidered on them, And I'm just like, yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean I'm sure that cost some money. But like,
Speaker 1: how about the time like Still's got a private jet
Speaker 1: to like fly in his favorite years. Course he wanted
Speaker 1: six packs, of course, so he like charted a private
Speaker 1: jet and had like Cours brought to him. And I
Speaker 1: think like in the seventies, Cours was maybe sort of
Speaker 1: like a like a more of a boutique beer. But still, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's just insane extravagance. Yeah, there's a there's a figure
Speaker 1: that like they made something like eleven million dollars from
Speaker 1: this tour, but because of all the expenses that they incurred,
Speaker 1: that each guy only made like maybe you know, a
Speaker 1: couple hundred thousand dollars, you know, Like so like they
Speaker 1: expected this to be like a big windfall. But you know,
Speaker 1: it's that old story about like when you put a
Speaker 1: bunch of expensive things on your writer as a band,
Speaker 1: the then you charges you for that. Yeah, like you
Speaker 1: paid so Yeah, I had like the fancy meals by chefs,
Speaker 1: and like the private jets and like the silk embroidered
Speaker 1: pillow cases and like all these unnecessary expenses. You know,
Speaker 1: it just killed them and they go from there to
Speaker 1: try to make another record. I feel like there's like
Speaker 1: several aborted attempts to like to make another record, Like
Speaker 1: didn't they try to do Human Highway again after the
Speaker 1: Doom tour, Yeah, which is such a huge tactical error.
Speaker 1: I mean, if you can't get back together in the
Speaker 1: studio after years apart and have tensions flare up, you
Speaker 1: don't want to do it after being on the road
Speaker 1: for two or three months. In you know, relatively confined space.
Speaker 1: I mean, that was just a bad idea from the star.
Speaker 1: They Yeah, they tried to do Human Highway again. I
Speaker 1: think they went to I think it was a grand
Speaker 1: um at Neil Young's Broken Arrow Ranch and Crosby and
Speaker 1: Nash started fighting with Stills almost immediately. They were arguing
Speaker 1: about doing a harmony part on the Steven Still's song
Speaker 1: Guardian Angel, and Still's got so angry that he took
Speaker 1: the tape master of their song Wind on the Water
Speaker 1: and just ripped it apart with the racer blamed. I
Speaker 1: mean again, which at the beginning when I said that
Speaker 1: these guys are bitchy divas, like, I was not joking,
Speaker 1: like they're like, there are no divas bigger than these guys.
Speaker 1: Just insane behavior that they would do that. The story
Speaker 1: that gets me is about the long May You Run record,
Speaker 1: which started out as a Steven Skills and Neil Young album.
Speaker 1: They were going to make a duo record, and this
Speaker 1: was at the same time that Crosby and Nash were
Speaker 1: making a record called Whistling Down the Wire and uh,
Speaker 1: you know, Stills and Young are working together, and they
Speaker 1: eventually decided, hey, let's bring Crosby and Nash into the fold.
Speaker 1: So they end up recording vocals for this Stills Young record,
Speaker 1: and there's an idea I think for a moment that
Speaker 1: this might become a csn Y record. Um, but then
Speaker 1: like I forget what the particulars were exactly, but it
Speaker 1: was decided that no, we're not going to make this
Speaker 1: a CSNY record, We're going to keep it as Stills
Speaker 1: Young record. Crosby and Nash left to kind of finish
Speaker 1: their own record, and then like Young decided to wipe
Speaker 1: their vocals, Crosby and Nash's vocals off this record. Like
Speaker 1: why did he decide to do that? Like was there
Speaker 1: some fight or something. Well, I think that Cross and
Speaker 1: Graham were called back by the label like okay, you
Speaker 1: gotta finish your record and start promoting this. So I
Speaker 1: think that they were called the It wasn't that they
Speaker 1: stormed out at so Young was just mad that they
Speaker 1: left it. Sounds like that, Yeah, it was just so
Speaker 1: pissed that they left in them. You know, maybe not
Speaker 1: the middle of it, but like when it wasn't completed
Speaker 1: yet that he wiped their vocals. Again, let's let's repeat.
Speaker 1: Neil Young was upset that someone left early, Like, you know,
Speaker 1: can we just like marinate in the irony of that
Speaker 1: for a moment here? Uh, you know, like Neil Young,
Speaker 1: of all people, I feel like you should understand if
Speaker 1: like someone has to leave a project early, but at
Speaker 1: any rate, he's mad, he wipes their vocals off the record,
Speaker 1: and like Crosby and Nash I think understandably are very
Speaker 1: piste off about that, and they're like, basically, screw these guys,
Speaker 1: We're not going to work with them again. Uh, but
Speaker 1: that was not true because they were back in the
Speaker 1: studio was Still's like very soon after that to work
Speaker 1: on the CSN record from seventy I think it was
Speaker 1: like months later. I mean, Neil famously crushed still spirit
Speaker 1: by leaving him in the middle of the Still's Young
Speaker 1: band tour with the famous you know, funny how things
Speaker 1: that starts spontaneously in the same way eat a peach
Speaker 1: Neil telegram. Yeah, we're gonna get into that a lot
Speaker 1: in our next episode. Neil Young just like traumatizing Steven
Speaker 1: Stills over and over again. But yeah, like he ditches Stills,
Speaker 1: and Stills is like I think Stills at one point
Speaker 1: that like, you know, like my life is over, or
Speaker 1: like my career is over. I have no future, have
Speaker 1: no future. He like, you know, basically like Hanks tail
Speaker 1: and goes back to uh, Crosby and Nash and they
Speaker 1: make this record CSN, and I feel like you and
Speaker 1: I disagree about this a little bit. I actually really
Speaker 1: like the CSN record from seventy seven. It's the one
Speaker 1: where they're on the yacht and it's like it's a
Speaker 1: literal exactly the yacht with the yacht rock. Then because
Speaker 1: it's very smooth, it's very soft rock. It's very I
Speaker 1: think emblematic of like nineteen seventy seven, which was the
Speaker 1: year of rumors by Fleetwood Mac Hotel, California by the
Speaker 1: Eagles ended up. I think that came out at the
Speaker 1: end of seventy six, but it was like a huge
Speaker 1: seller in seventy seven. And I really look at CSN
Speaker 1: is like the third record of that, like l a
Speaker 1: rock triumvirate um. You know, you've got great songs on there.
Speaker 1: You like Shadow Captain, which I think it's like one
Speaker 1: of the best David Crosby songs. That's like one of
Speaker 1: my favorite Cross songs for sure. And you know, like
Speaker 1: Steven Still's dark Star. I think it's a great song.
Speaker 1: I actually really like the soft rock Graham Nash song
Speaker 1: just a Song Before I Go. I appreciate that for
Speaker 1: what it is. I really feel like that's maybe like
Speaker 1: their last great record. But I don't know, what, do
Speaker 1: you think, You're not as big into that album now?
Speaker 1: For me, that was that just felt like, I mean,
Speaker 1: in a way, I understand that it makes sense that
Speaker 1: they embraced the whole yacht rock thing. I mean because
Speaker 1: I feel like the success of their first two records
Speaker 1: kind of laid the groundwork for all the the sort
Speaker 1: of l a excess that was the common the seventies,
Speaker 1: so it kind of makes sense that they ended up there.
Speaker 1: But I don't know something about it. It It feels to
Speaker 1: me like that was the moment when they started becoming
Speaker 1: more of a nostalgia act. I mean, the soft rock
Speaker 1: sound for them, it felt like it felt too easy.
Speaker 1: I don't know, it's not. I prefer the Laurel Canyon
Speaker 1: kind of more acoustic vibe to the the just a
Speaker 1: Song Before I Go or Cathedral. I do like Shadow Captain.
Speaker 1: That is a great song, but I don't know, just
Speaker 1: the soft rock thing kind of bums me out with
Speaker 1: them in the same way that like Hotel California makes
Speaker 1: me uncomfortable because it does has that l a excess
Speaker 1: cocaine paranoia vibe. And when I think of CSN Y,
Speaker 1: I don't want to think of that. I want to
Speaker 1: think of them in like, you know, in a Hammock
Speaker 1: and Laurel Canyon, this sort a hippie idyllic setting, And
Speaker 1: so maybe that's why it just makes me said. It's
Speaker 1: like later seasons of Mad Men, when you see everybody's
Speaker 1: kind of like it just looks bad, Like Pete Campbell's
Speaker 1: got like the receding hairline and stuff, and they've got
Speaker 1: all the like wide Paisley ties and stuff. It just
Speaker 1: you think back to like how cool and slick and
Speaker 1: everybody was in the earlier season. I think that's how
Speaker 1: I feel about the CSN album. It just feels like,
Speaker 1: you see how far they've come in this sort of
Speaker 1: uncomfortable setting that they're in now, and it just makes
Speaker 1: me nostalgic. I guess, well, if you think CSN marked
Speaker 1: their declined, then I'm sorry to report that we've got
Speaker 1: a long way to go down slope with these guys,
Speaker 1: especially with David Crosby, because as we enter into the
Speaker 1: late seventies and early eighties, this is the time where
Speaker 1: Crosby really starts to fall into a bad way and
Speaker 1: he discovers something that we like to call free basing
Speaker 1: cocaine um, which is a terrible thing for anyone to do.
Speaker 1: If you're listening, Uh, this is my p s A
Speaker 1: announcement for this episode. Do not free base cocaine. Do
Speaker 1: not really even snort cocaine. Avoid drugs if you can,
Speaker 1: but do not be like David Crosby as he was
Speaker 1: in the late seventies and early eighties, because yeah, he
Speaker 1: was in terrible shape at this time. And I mean,
Speaker 1: there's so many horrible stories that we could tell about
Speaker 1: Crosby at this time. Again, like I alluded to this
Speaker 1: earlier about how Crosby's habits became so bad at one
Speaker 1: point that they had to set up like separate rooms
Speaker 1: like in the studio or like offstage at concerts where
Speaker 1: Cross could just go and literally smoke cocaine during shows
Speaker 1: or like during recording sessions. Like he really was that
Speaker 1: dependent this drug. And it seems like there were so
Speaker 1: many instances, like through the eighties, like where he would
Speaker 1: relapse and then maybe try to go to rehab and
Speaker 1: then relapse again, like so many instances, Like I didn't
Speaker 1: realize like how much like he like he was, like
Speaker 1: how many opportunities he was given basically to recover and
Speaker 1: then like when he got into legal trouble, he was
Speaker 1: given many chances to avoid jail time and he just
Speaker 1: could not stop smoking the rock no I mc graham
Speaker 1: and UM and Jackson Brown stage an intervention at his
Speaker 1: house and in the middle of the intervention, he ran
Speaker 1: off to go to the bathroom to free base and
Speaker 1: they caught him and that and that was when, you know,
Speaker 1: they were just like Jesus Christ, like I kind of
Speaker 1: give up. I mean, this is there's only so much
Speaker 1: that you, as his friend, can do. Yeah, and even
Speaker 1: his best friend Graham, they were trying to make a
Speaker 1: duo album together and they were having a jam session.
Speaker 1: It was going really well until uh crosses free base
Speaker 1: pipe fell off an amp and fell on the floor
Speaker 1: and broke, and then Crosby stopped the session and went
Speaker 1: to go pick up the pieces and NSS. You know,
Speaker 1: until that point, the music had always been first, regardless
Speaker 1: of David's personal problems, but at this moment I knew
Speaker 1: I couldn't work with them anymore. And so that's when
Speaker 1: Nash and Still's got together to try to make Daylight Again,
Speaker 1: which was their duo album with the two of them,
Speaker 1: and the record company wasn't interested. They said, we'll get
Speaker 1: cross me back in and we can talk, but at
Speaker 1: this point we don't really want still That's what I think.
Speaker 1: You know why I said that thing before about why
Speaker 1: having each member's name in the band title really protected
Speaker 1: them from being replaced, because you know, for all intensive purposes,
Speaker 1: like Crosby like shouldn't have been on that record, Like
Speaker 1: he was not in any condition to contribute to that album,
Speaker 1: although he did actually end up adding a really great
Speaker 1: song to that record called Delta, I think one of
Speaker 1: the strongest songs on Daylight Again. But for the most part,
Speaker 1: I mean, like he shouldn't have been making records, he
Speaker 1: shouldn't have been touring. He should have been like, you know,
Speaker 1: chained to a bed and like basically drying out and
Speaker 1: and and straightening out his life. But because of the
Speaker 1: power of the brand, like he was brought back into
Speaker 1: the fold. Know, Crosby has talked about over the years
Speaker 1: about how he felt like, yeah, I feel like those
Speaker 1: guys cared about me, but I also know that they
Speaker 1: had to pay their bills, and you know, if I
Speaker 1: wasn't in the band, you know, they weren't going to
Speaker 1: get the type of concert bookings or the kind of
Speaker 1: record deals that they would get if it was a
Speaker 1: Crosby Stills, a Nash record. I have to say too, though,
Speaker 1: like when you listen to bootlegs from that time, Like
Speaker 1: I have a bootleg of CSN from and St. Louis,
Speaker 1: and that was like I think right around the time
Speaker 1: that he went to jail, like pretty soon after that,
Speaker 1: I think he went to prison. And again this is
Speaker 1: in the middle of him like free basing cocaine during shows.
Speaker 1: There's like this one example of like how like Crosby
Speaker 1: left a show to free based cocaine and like I
Speaker 1: think Stills through like a bucket of water on him
Speaker 1: and then like Crosby walked out like drenched in water,
Speaker 1: like he was like kind of dazed. Watching him on
Speaker 1: stage in that area, like the live video for Southern Cross,
Speaker 1: I mean, he just looks like he's got this thousand
Speaker 1: yards he's not there. He just looks horrible. But like
Speaker 1: if you listen to the bootlegs, it actually sounds pretty good.
Speaker 1: Like I don't know, like how much cocaine you have
Speaker 1: to smoke to ruin your voice, but like Crosby apparently
Speaker 1: didn't get to that threshold because his voice steal sounds
Speaker 1: pretty good even though he's like in a terrible way.
Speaker 1: Like I said, I think, was it an eighty five
Speaker 1: that he went to jail finally? I think, uh yes,
Speaker 1: I think it was the end of eighty five. I mean,
Speaker 1: he was a fugitive from the FBI. He liked soul
Speaker 1: Blast like valuable item that he had, which was a piano,
Speaker 1: and rented a plane to fly from California to Florida
Speaker 1: to try to get to his yacht. When he gets there,
Speaker 1: he's he was gonna basically take his yacht and just
Speaker 1: spend the rest of his days at sea or something.
Speaker 1: I guess he hadn't really fully thought that one through.
Speaker 1: And then when he found his yacht, it was just
Speaker 1: in total disrepair and unseaworthy after just years of neglect,
Speaker 1: and he turned himself in and he went to prison
Speaker 1: I think for about a year and nine months or
Speaker 1: something like that, and he he detalks in prison, but
Speaker 1: they didn't even give an aspurn or anything. He would say,
Speaker 1: like he just completely went through all that just on
Speaker 1: like a you know, a prison bench. And then when
Speaker 1: he ended up performing for the first time sober and
Speaker 1: like twenty years soon after got out in August of
Speaker 1: eighty six and um, and he got back together with
Speaker 1: CSN Line not long after. It was part of Neil
Speaker 1: Young's promise. Basically they performed together. They did one song
Speaker 1: at at Live Aid then it was it was a shambles,
Speaker 1: and Neil basically said, look, Crosby, if you can get
Speaker 1: your act together, I'll come back and we'll we'll do
Speaker 1: something together. I wonder, like when Kneel Young said that,
Speaker 1: if you actually like thought that Crosby, Like I just wonder,
Speaker 1: because like when I read about that, it kind of
Speaker 1: feels like one of those promises we were like, yeah, Crows,
Speaker 1: if you survive, which ye right you won't, but like
Speaker 1: if you do, yeah, sure, I'll play with you guys,
Speaker 1: because like we'll talk and we'll get into this in
Speaker 1: our Neil Young episode. But like he dissed those guys
Speaker 1: so much over the years, and like he obviously had
Speaker 1: his own thing going. I just feel like he wouldn't
Speaker 1: have otherwise felt a strong compulsion to play with those
Speaker 1: guys again. And and the results American Dream kind of
Speaker 1: bears that out. Is not a lot of effort in there,
Speaker 1: and he didn't even bother to tour it. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: that record isn't great. And I mean, like when we
Speaker 1: look at like the nineties records that like CSN put out,
Speaker 1: Like I mean, like Live It Up. That record, which
Speaker 1: is like one of the worst album covers of all time.
Speaker 1: It's like it's a shot of the moon and there's
Speaker 1: like these huge sticks and there's hot dogs on the sticks,
Speaker 1: and then there's like it looks like there's like telephone
Speaker 1: operators climbing the poles on the cover, and like you
Speaker 1: see the planet Earth in the back. It's like it
Speaker 1: makes no sense. Do you know what there is there
Speaker 1: any kind of meaning to have you? I've not been
Speaker 1: able to find anything. I would love to know. I
Speaker 1: was just like, oh yeah, like okay, this this record
Speaker 1: is called Live It Up. We're trying to assert that
Speaker 1: we're still a relevant band. We've had some problems over
Speaker 1: the years. What can we graphically use to represent our
Speaker 1: sort of rising from the ashes if you will? Oh,
Speaker 1: how about some hot dogs on sticks on the moon,
Speaker 1: like oh yeah, perfect, perfect, Uh yeah, I don't know.
Speaker 1: To me, it just seems like no one gave a shit,
Speaker 1: and and that's how it is. That seems like the
Speaker 1: only reasonable explanation. So that record is pretty bad. After
Speaker 1: the storm came after that, that's like pretty good record.
Speaker 1: It inc like relatively speaking, like if you if you
Speaker 1: have little expectations, um, it's not too bad. Glenn John's
Speaker 1: produced it. So I feel like a lot of these
Speaker 1: CSN records like sound bad production wise, and I think
Speaker 1: the production on that record is pretty good relatively speaking.
Speaker 1: I remember being really disappointed by Looking Forward because that
Speaker 1: was like the first cs N Y record since Deja Vu,
Speaker 1: and like Neil Young had a great nineties and I
Speaker 1: think I was expecting it to sound more like a
Speaker 1: Neil Young record from the nineties, but like that's another
Speaker 1: one where uh it just sounds kind of weak and
Speaker 1: a little to sort of like adult contemporary. Well, I
Speaker 1: think he came in late in the game and basically said,
Speaker 1: oh yeah, I've got these two or three acoustic songs
Speaker 1: you can just sort of like stick on it. And
Speaker 1: then so it was really like a CSN plus y album.
Speaker 1: I feel like there, I don't think there was a
Speaker 1: lot of of collaboration going on there at all. It
Speaker 1: seems like to like, you know, one of the big
Speaker 1: splits that proved to be decisive in this band was
Speaker 1: they were going to do a covers record with Rick Rubin. Um.
Speaker 1: I think that was like a two thousand kind of like.
Speaker 1: I think they had worked on it for a while
Speaker 1: and like they couldn't get it together mainly because like
Speaker 1: David Crosby didn't like Rick Rubin. Yeah, I guess he
Speaker 1: thought Rick Rubin was like too much of an autocrat
Speaker 1: to really work with. He just thought he completely owned
Speaker 1: every element of the creative process and felt stifled. H
Speaker 1: I know, I don't think any of them Have you
Speaker 1: heard any of those tracks? I don't think any of
Speaker 1: those tracks have ever. No, I haven't. I mean, like,
Speaker 1: you know, like I won't respect you're like, oh, a
Speaker 1: cover's record, Okay? That I mean that that kind of
Speaker 1: speaks to artistic bankruptcy right there. But it's also like
Speaker 1: kros like Rick Rubin, whatever you want to say about
Speaker 1: the guy, he has been involved in like some pretty
Speaker 1: high profile uh comebacks, you know, and you would think
Speaker 1: that like a Rick Rubin CSN record, it's going to
Speaker 1: get a lot more attention than like live it up
Speaker 1: or after the storm, did you know? I think that
Speaker 1: that would have given them a pretty good bump, but
Speaker 1: they just couldn't get it together. But I feel like
Speaker 1: that's just a precursor to like the big incidents that
Speaker 1: involved David Crosby that ended up really sort of self
Speaker 1: destructing this band. And it just, I mean, it boils
Speaker 1: down to David Crosby talking like ship and interviews, right,
Speaker 1: I mean, like at least with the Neil Young Darryl
Speaker 1: Hannah story, it's maybe the pettiest example of the fighting
Speaker 1: throughout this entire story, and the fact that it seems
Speaker 1: to be like responsible for the longest lasting schism between
Speaker 1: them all is blows my mind. You're right, It's just
Speaker 1: David Crosby was given an interview. It was after Neil
Speaker 1: divorced his wife Peggy, his wife of twenty nine years,
Speaker 1: and he started dating actress Daryl Hannah, and David Crosby
Speaker 1: in septem is giving an interview with the Idaho Statesman,
Speaker 1: and apparently these quotes were supposed to be off the record.
Speaker 1: That's what I later heard, but of course they were
Speaker 1: so uh inflammatory that they were I guess put In
Speaker 1: the interview, Crosby refers to Daryl Hannah as a purely
Speaker 1: poisonous predator. Uh and and which you know you don't
Speaker 1: say that about your friend's girlfriend, especially to an outlet,
Speaker 1: even if it is like supposedly off the record. Neil
Speaker 1: goes on Stay. Not long after this interview, Hit stands
Speaker 1: and tells the concert go or CSM, I will never
Speaker 1: tour again ever. Uh And soon after he makes that pronouncement,
Speaker 1: Crosby confirms that that Neil is very angry with me,
Speaker 1: and he goes on this big apology tour. He's apologizing
Speaker 1: on Twitter, and he goes on Howard Stern and says,
Speaker 1: you know, basically tries to make a man's sport. He says,
Speaker 1: I'm screwed up, way worse than that girl. What do
Speaker 1: I get off criticizing her? She's making Neil happy. I
Speaker 1: love Neil and I want him to be happy. Darryl,
Speaker 1: if you're out there, I apologize, Where do I get
Speaker 1: off criticizing it? Yeah? But then he did the same
Speaker 1: thing to Graham Nash. Like Graham Nash you know, ended
Speaker 1: up leaving his wife, his longtime wife, Susan I think
Speaker 1: her name was or Is, and he started dating woman
Speaker 1: in her thirties, which you know, look, you can criticize
Speaker 1: rock stars for doing that. It's a very rock star
Speaker 1: thing to do. Um, but he is not the first. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he's not the first to do it. And like David
Speaker 1: Crosby is not in a position to judge other people.
Speaker 1: But like apparently like he confronted Graham Nash about this
Speaker 1: or didn't say something on stage even where he was like, well,
Speaker 1: I'm you know, I haven't left my wife, you know,
Speaker 1: like Graham over here like making a joe about it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think he made he made a joke about like
Speaker 1: Crosby stills Nash and always I'm the one who's keeping
Speaker 1: to my marriage house right, which you know, by the way,
Speaker 1: And again I'm not trying to be judgmental here, I'm
Speaker 1: just bringing up as a fact that like the woman
Speaker 1: that David Crosby is with Jan Dance, they've been together
Speaker 1: for a long time, but like I think Crosby was
Speaker 1: responsible for like getting her addicted to drugs for a
Speaker 1: long time. They had to like go through rehab together
Speaker 1: because they were in such a bad way, like they
Speaker 1: were free basing essentially together, like you know in the
Speaker 1: late seventies and early eighties. Uh so again, maybe don't
Speaker 1: throw stones at people, especially at Graham Nash. Like again,
Speaker 1: we've talked about how I feel like Graham Nash is
Speaker 1: like the nicest guy in this band. Like one story
Speaker 1: that I forgot to tell earlier is that when Crosby
Speaker 1: was in such bad shape and uh you know it
Speaker 1: was basically selling off everything in order to get money
Speaker 1: for drugs, Graham Nash like very quietly bought Crosby Song Publishing,
Speaker 1: I think grand and then when Crosby got cleaned up,
Speaker 1: he sold the publishing back to Crosby, like basically bought
Speaker 1: the publishing so Crosby couldn't sell it off for drugs,
Speaker 1: which is like an incredible thing for a friend to do.
Speaker 1: And I think it speaks to like what kind of
Speaker 1: person Nashes and like how much he genuinely cared for Crosby.
Speaker 1: So after all of the crap that Nash had to
Speaker 1: put up with over the years, you know, for Crosby
Speaker 1: now to like be given him shit about you know,
Speaker 1: his relationship, it just must have been infuriating for him.
Speaker 1: And I know, like he there's a couple interviews that
Speaker 1: he's done. There's like one on YouTube where he is
Speaker 1: just I rate about Crosby. He says, like he tore
Speaker 1: the fucking heart out of the band, and like, you know,
Speaker 1: like he distinguishes. He said, he tore the heart out
Speaker 1: of CSN and he tore the heart out of CSN Y,
Speaker 1: which uh is just brutal and like to see Graham
Speaker 1: Nash of all people angry, it just shows like how
Speaker 1: far he had been pushed, you know, over the course
Speaker 1: of like fifty years. Oh yeah, he says, I've been
Speaker 1: there and saved this ask for forty five years and
Speaker 1: he's treating me like shit, and he's right, yeah, it's awful.
Speaker 1: And so you know, I feel like the story now
Speaker 1: that gets told is like the official end of the
Speaker 1: band occurred at of all places, a Christmas tree lighting
Speaker 1: ceremony at the White House, which it just goes to
Speaker 1: show like the most innocuous setting, you know, even that
Speaker 1: would be infused with drama by you know CSN, because
Speaker 1: like they did this performance, what song were they doing?
Speaker 1: It was like and like you know, there was some
Speaker 1: issue with the monitors. They couldn't really hear each other.
Speaker 1: And it's really I think it's on YouTube. I think
Speaker 1: you can go on and watch it. It just sounds horrible.
Speaker 1: I know Crosby has talked about that being the end
Speaker 1: of the band. I don't know if they just kind
Speaker 1: of realized at that point that, like, we're not sounding
Speaker 1: very good. I mean, it sounds like there were all
Speaker 1: these other conflicts as well, that we're bubbling under the surface.
Speaker 1: That really kind of again, as Nash said, tore the
Speaker 1: heart out of the band. Yeah, and the reference you
Speaker 1: made the new Young saying that Cross should write a
Speaker 1: book about like why all my friends hate me. That's
Speaker 1: kind of where we're at now with Crosby. When he
Speaker 1: put out his documentary Remember My Name in twenty nine team,
Speaker 1: it comes across as this like massive apology tour dating
Speaker 1: back to the Birds of like everyone he's ever piste off,
Speaker 1: so he's very open about how he can be and
Speaker 1: and now most recently he's just been sort of trying
Speaker 1: to make amends and uh making over truths to the
Speaker 1: others to to get the band back together for political purposes,
Speaker 1: to do uh election stuff. I mean he's sort of
Speaker 1: doing that, But then he also is you know, he
Speaker 1: reiterates in every interview that he does that like he's
Speaker 1: in the middle of this great creative renaissance right now, like,
Speaker 1: which is true. Like I think his first record in
Speaker 1: this run that he's put out lately was Crossed. I
Speaker 1: think that came out and that was his first solo
Speaker 1: record since if I could only remember my name, it
Speaker 1: was like what is that? Like, you know, forty three
Speaker 1: years after that record, and now he's just like put
Speaker 1: out a record almost every year, like and each one
Speaker 1: like really strong. Like I would say that Crosby, out
Speaker 1: of all these guys right now, is making the best music,
Speaker 1: like by far easily here if you listen, as an
Speaker 1: incredible album. So I think he wants to get the
Speaker 1: band that together. But he's also talked a lot about
Speaker 1: how he was sick of playing the hits over and
Speaker 1: over again and that he feels much more sort of
Speaker 1: creatively satisfied on his own. So I don't know. Again,
Speaker 1: I go back to what that you know that psychiatrist said, uh,
Speaker 1: that was quoted David Brown's book that I think there's
Speaker 1: a question quality to David Crosby. He's searching for contentment
Speaker 1: and he still hasn't found it, and uh, you know,
Speaker 1: maybe he's just sort of destined to be that kind
Speaker 1: of guy. We're gonna take a quick break to get
Speaker 1: a word from our sponsor before we get too more rivals. Okay,
Speaker 1: so this is the part of the episode where we
Speaker 1: talk about I guess the pro side of each part
Speaker 1: of the rivelry. So I guess with Crosby. We'll look
Speaker 1: at the pro Crosby case first. And I think, for me, like,
Speaker 1: you know, Crosby is probably the most emblematic member of
Speaker 1: the band, Like he looks the most like the sixties.
Speaker 1: You know, he's got the bushy musta ash in the
Speaker 1: long brown hair. I think he also in many ways
Speaker 1: is like the most unique of the band in terms
Speaker 1: of like his artistic sensibility. He has that sort of
Speaker 1: jazzy quality to a lot of his music. He uses
Speaker 1: like a lot of you know, weird tunings. He's not
Speaker 1: really writing like the conventional pop songs that Graham Nash
Speaker 1: writes or you know that amalgam of folk and blues
Speaker 1: that Steven Stills is involved in. Crosby really has his
Speaker 1: own sort of unique voice artistically, and again, you know,
Speaker 1: he is making the best music right now. I think
Speaker 1: his late career renaissance is incredibly impressive, you know, especially
Speaker 1: in the midst of all the drama that he's been
Speaker 1: in the middle of. You know, like he's really rededicated himself,
Speaker 1: maybe more than he ever has in his life to
Speaker 1: like making great music. And uh, you know, for an
Speaker 1: artist his age, that's really commendable. Like he's definitely not
Speaker 1: leaning on nostalgia. No, absolutely not getting back there. You
Speaker 1: said earlier too, I mean, but what he brought musically
Speaker 1: to csm Y, I feel like it's not discussed enough.
Speaker 1: I mean, dejav and Guenevere, You're right, has this weird
Speaker 1: sort of jazz influence. But I all the credit him
Speaker 1: as being sort of the chief vocal arranger of the band,
Speaker 1: and he came up with these all the really unique
Speaker 1: harmony lines that aren't just like the normal chortal triads,
Speaker 1: I mean, all going in in the same way that
Speaker 1: he does weird guitar tunings. He would find really unique
Speaker 1: ways to blend all their voices. That's so so interesting,
Speaker 1: and it's funny that his voice is sort of the
Speaker 1: least distinct I think of of the three. I mean,
Speaker 1: you've got kind of stills anchoring it with this bluesy growl,
Speaker 1: and then you've got um Nash's harmony like razor sharp
Speaker 1: cutting through on top. He just kind of has this.
Speaker 1: He's like the glue. I always thought vocally that holds
Speaker 1: it all together. Were you almost don't notice it until
Speaker 1: it's not there, and then it feels hollow. So yeah,
Speaker 1: I think that the vocal work that the band is
Speaker 1: known for, I really think he doesn't get enough credit for.
Speaker 1: And you're right. I just think he's the soul and
Speaker 1: spirit of the band. I feel like he brought the cred,
Speaker 1: the coolness. I think that his social circle and being
Speaker 1: kind of like, you know, the king of the l
Speaker 1: A scene at that time, was really responsible for getting
Speaker 1: the band, which obviously had a tremendous amount of talent,
Speaker 1: to this higher level of the buzz that got everybody
Speaker 1: was excited about this band. All the cool people in
Speaker 1: l A. We're talking them up. They always talk about
Speaker 1: how when they were playing Woodstock, they had everybody in
Speaker 1: a semicircle behind them, Jefferson, Airplane, the Band, Hendrix all
Speaker 1: kind of watching them with their arms folded, seeing what
Speaker 1: they could do. I think the Crossby was a huge
Speaker 1: part of that. I think because he was such a
Speaker 1: key figure in that social scene that when they exploded,
Speaker 1: they exploded even bigger because of that. So yeah, I
Speaker 1: think that he's really the spirit of the band. So
Speaker 1: when we go, I guess to the pro Stills, Nash
Speaker 1: and Young side, or like the anti Crosby side of
Speaker 1: this equation. Look, I think for me, if you look
Speaker 1: at the story, it's pretty clear that Crosby is like
Speaker 1: a major pain in the ass, and like if he
Speaker 1: was your friend or he was in your band, yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't think there's any reason why you would react
Speaker 1: any differently than like Roger mcgwin did, or Graham Nash did,
Speaker 1: or Neil Young or any of these people who came
Speaker 1: to turn against him. As I said before, I think
Speaker 1: there's something in David Crosby's personality that just craves attention.
Speaker 1: You know that again is why he's so good on Twitter.
Speaker 1: He always has to have people hanging on his every word,
Speaker 1: and he feels bad if people aren't, you know, looking
Speaker 1: at him and giving him praise. So in order to
Speaker 1: do that, I just feel like he ends up hurting
Speaker 1: the people around him. And I think in the Neil
Speaker 1: Young story where he's like, you know, calling Darrell Hannah poisonous.
Speaker 1: You know, I think that was him trying to be
Speaker 1: a good interview. I think there was him trying to
Speaker 1: be compelling and like not really thinking like what the
Speaker 1: weight of his words would be, or like him making
Speaker 1: a joke at Graham Nash's expense about his recent divorce.
Speaker 1: It's like he's trying to be funny, you know, He's
Speaker 1: trying to be provocative, and like he hurt the people
Speaker 1: that were closest to him in the process of doing that,
Speaker 1: and it just seems like he can't help himself. You know,
Speaker 1: he can't help hurting those people, even if he might
Speaker 1: know intellectually that it's like not the best thing for
Speaker 1: him to do. So, you know, even in a band
Speaker 1: like with as many egomaniacs in them as like C. S.
Speaker 1: N Y, I feel like Crosby stands alone as like
Speaker 1: the king egotist in this band. And um, while like
Speaker 1: you said, I think it's helped the band a lot,
Speaker 1: because yeah, he was the king of l A and
Speaker 1: I think he was able to martial a lot of
Speaker 1: resources because of that, it's also hurt him a lot,
Speaker 1: and in a way, I feel bad for him, although
Speaker 1: at the same time it's like he's brought a lot
Speaker 1: of this on himself. Yeah, I was trying to figure
Speaker 1: out if CSN would have continued in relative stability had
Speaker 1: they not welcomed Young, and I think Young probably hastened
Speaker 1: their demise a lot sooner. But I was trying to
Speaker 1: figure out, like, would things have gone almost as smoothly
Speaker 1: as they had for the first record that they made,
Speaker 1: And I just was thinking of Crossby's personality and not
Speaker 1: even to say his rug adiction, just his personality alone,
Speaker 1: and thinking, yeah, no, there would have been problems there
Speaker 1: fairly soon after, even Neil hadn't been in there, Cross
Speaker 1: would have blown that ship up real quick. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: he certainly blew up there. I guess Legacy era like
Speaker 1: when they were touring and you know, you could say
Speaker 1: that they weren't maybe terribly relevant creatively, but they were
Speaker 1: still making a lot of money on the road. But again,
Speaker 1: maybe that was a good thing. You know. I think
Speaker 1: from Cross's perspective of as much as he might miss
Speaker 1: those guys, he's also going to say like, well, I'm
Speaker 1: making great records right now, you know, I'm looking forward
Speaker 1: and uh, you know, so there's lots of ways to
Speaker 1: look at that. But you know, when we look at
Speaker 1: all these guys together and I guess, like, you know
Speaker 1: what CROs brings uh to the table? I mean, I think, ultimately,
Speaker 1: like Cross, like he is along with being the biggest
Speaker 1: like egotists in the band, I think he is like
Speaker 1: probably the biggest star I guess outside of Neil Young,
Speaker 1: you know, like in terms of like the original three,
Speaker 1: Crosby certainly now is the most famous out of there.
Speaker 1: And as you said before, I think he made a
Speaker 1: really good point about how like when you listen to
Speaker 1: the vocal blend, you don't necessarily notice Crosby right away,
Speaker 1: but like he is the glue of that harmony. And
Speaker 1: I think the uniqueness of his talent and his ability
Speaker 1: to be like a great compliment to the other people
Speaker 1: in that band, you know, they just wouldn't have been
Speaker 1: a CSN I think without Crosby. Yeah, I feel like
Speaker 1: the band gave him the perfect set of parameters to
Speaker 1: really excel and make good work because it was structured
Speaker 1: enough to give him a reason the work, which if
Speaker 1: you consider all the decades where he didn't put on
Speaker 1: any solo albums, it's a pretty good indication that he
Speaker 1: probably wouldn't have he's not that prolific on his own.
Speaker 1: The game a reason to show up, but it was
Speaker 1: also free form enough that he felt like he could
Speaker 1: experiment and try different ideas and also different incarnations like
Speaker 1: with Nash. Yes, but you know, it looks like at
Speaker 1: this point there will be no incarnations with anybody. I mean,
Speaker 1: do you, I mean, do you have any hope that
Speaker 1: like they're going to forgive Crosby at some point and
Speaker 1: do something together. I mean, I do have hope, especially
Speaker 1: now with all the concerts being shut down. I'm hoping
Speaker 1: that kind of when everyone is able to get out
Speaker 1: and be together again, they kind of use as an
Speaker 1: opportunity to like, Okay, let's all join together musically, ourselves
Speaker 1: on stage and the community in front of us in
Speaker 1: the audience. I'm hoping. I don't know, it just it
Speaker 1: seems like that I know it's personal as opposed to well,
Speaker 1: some of the arguments before were more professional music based,
Speaker 1: and this is something so heartful about somebody's romantic partner.
Speaker 1: But I hope that as they're getting up there in
Speaker 1: years and they can move past this. He's apologized enough
Speaker 1: times yeah, well, we'll see if the hostility is a
Speaker 1: long time gone by that time and they're able to
Speaker 1: come back together. Always have to work in the corny
Speaker 1: joke incorporating a song title at the end of another
Speaker 1: Rivals episode. Like we said, this is the first part
Speaker 1: of our Crosby Stills National Young Series. We're gonna be
Speaker 1: talking about Steven Stills next week, which I'm really excited about.
Speaker 1: It's gonna be Part two, and then in part three
Speaker 1: it's gonna be Neil Young. So lots of fun Laurel
Speaker 1: Canyon cocaine fueled adventures ahead of us. I'm very excited
Speaker 1: to get into it. Until then, thanks for listening to
Speaker 1: another episode of Rivals. We will be back with more
Speaker 1: beefs and feuds in long simming resentments next week. Rivals
Speaker 1: is a production of My Heart Radio. The executive producers
Speaker 1: are Shaun Titone and Noel Brown. The supervising producers are
Speaker 1: Taylor chi Con and Tristan McNeil. The producer is Joel
Speaker 1: hat Stat. I'm Jordan run Talk. I'm Stephen Hyden. If
Speaker 1: you like what you heard, please subscribe and leave us
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