Neil Young tribute with The My My Hey Heys, Spanish for 100, Low Hums, Smokey Brights and more!

The My My Hey Heys

The word's most exciting Crazy Horse era Neil Young tribute band.

Interview with Hannah Levin (Seattle Weekly)

Local musician and At the Spine leader Mike Toschi is whip-smart, sweet as pie, and blessedly free of cliché when it comes to describing his love for Neil Young and the motivations behind tonight’s Young tribute night.

Do you have any distinct memories of when you were first exposed to his work and why it moved you?

My first first exposure to Neil Young was via my father listening to Crosby Stills, Nash, and Young on vinyl. My father loved the vocal harmonies of CSNY, and The My My Hey Heys will be bringing in a bit of that tonight on “Ohio”, “Southern Man”, etc. My dad also had After the Gold Rush on vinyl, which is a great album. I think Neil’s music moves me because he is not afraid to say and do what he wants, the same way Fugazi, or any other great artist isn’t afraid to be who they are and to take tough stands on things, like the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. He has made some brilliant music, and some awful music, but he seems to have been true to himself, and I think that can be rare at his level of success. I remember reading in, The Mansion on the Hill: Dylan, Young, Geffen, Springsteen, and the Head-on Collision of Rock and Commerce, that Neil Young got sued by David Geffen. Geffen begged Young to sign with his label, promising him the artistic freedom he could not get at other labels, and when Young turned in albums that Geffen didn’t like, he sued him for making “un-Neil Young like” albums. I find this to be a very telling moment both about Neil Young as an artist and the crass commercialization of rock and roll.

Why do you think his material is well-suited to a cover night? Not all great artists make great cover night topics.

Neil has such a wide and wild range of stuff. On one side you have the noise scape of Arc Weld, on another side the 1982 electronic Trans, and then the tenderness of songs like “The Needle and the Damage Done”, and rockers like “Hey Hey, My My”, which is inspired by Mark Mothersbaugh /Devo, references Johnny Rotten and the Vietnam War, and gets quoted by Cobain in his suicide note. If that song doesn’t summarize life, I’m not sure what does.

Spanish For 100

After weathering the underground Chicago indie circuit for a number of years, Illinois native, Aaron Starkey, packed up his guitars and moved west to the temperate environ of Seattle. Meanwhile, Washington State natives Corey Passons and Ross McGilvary, both former founding members of the gritty regional rock act, Preston Mill, wanted to stretch their creative legs beyond the tried and true form that Mill established during its long, successful tenure in the Northwest music scene.

A serendipitous meeting revealed a mutual affinity for Class A amps, thinline telecasters, heartfelt melodies, chips, and salsa. Their desire for honest, straightforward songcraft, deeply rooted in the tradition of Neil Young, Built to Spill, and The Jayhawks, further fueled the three musicians, and Spanish for 100 was born in the spring of 2002.

In the months that followed, Spanish for 100 performed countless shows and regional tours, culminating in their first full-length effort, Newborn Driving (released December 2003), produced by the notorious Phil Ek (Built to Spill, Modest Mouse, The Shins).

It was the summer of 2004, and after a relentless performance schedule in support of Newborn, the band swept back into the studio, again with Phil Ek at the helm, recording the follow-up EP, Metric. However, the drum chair had been a revolving door.
Though the band itself yielded a healthy cache of talented drummer friends volunteering their services toward the cause, schedules and prior commitment conflicts prevented the band from securing a permanent replacement for the job.

Enter Chris Crumpler, another Spokane native and classiclly schooled percussionist. A veteran of the northwest music scene Chris has brought a strong presense to the drum throne enabled his survival during Spanish for 100′s 542nd drummer audition. 

Low Hums

Smokey Brights

Formed from members of Seattle bands Hounds of the Wild Hunt/The Whore Moans, Armed with Legs, and What What Now. This is the songwriting project of guitarist and songwriter Ryan Devlin. A mash of Americana, RnB, rock, and soul.

Sad Face

For a more objective, eloquent biography I will defer to our beloved comrade, Arvel Brushward;

I, not one these days for much rock n' roll, found that my good friend Spurlock tied me to his wrists as a bird keeper does with his flock, and dragged me to an impromptu show after another of his successful Cirque Du Jazz performances. As I passed through the corridor, feeling much like a ghost, a dim presence amongst electric red and blue, I heard the wails and cries that captured the pain of the loss of every pet Spurlock had lost. When he blew truth through his horn when his parrot, Life, had died, I almost lamented that such a moment of beauty could be so fleeting and only in times of crisis and loss. Every note these lads played captured the memory of every animal, now up to 61 since 1994.

Just when I thought I'd lost any sense of the essence of things, I heard this group, this collective known as Sad Face, and that sense has gone from lost and lachrymal to delightfully ambiguous. Ah, ambiguity..