The Ducks: From left, Johnny Craviotto, Bob Mosley, Jeff Blackburn and Neil Young. (Creative Commons photo, via Wikipedia.)
Santa Cruz is not a particularly large California city (about 63,000 people) but it has its share of weirdness. For one thing, Robert Anton Wilson lived there for many years in the last years of his life.
I have been listening to a lot of Neil Young lately (my favorite albums so far are Harvest and Rust Never Sleeps) and I recently read about the odd story of The Ducks, a short-lived summer of 1977 rock band that featured Neil Young and three lesser-known musicians. The Wikipedia article details various oddities, such as the fact that Neil Young's contract with Crazy Horse said he could only tour with them, so The Ducks could only play in Santa Cruz and could not leave the city to tour. Young tried to live in Santa Cruz but suffered important losses in a burglary, one factor that apparently helped spark his exit from the band.
I want to live in a town where I am in a bar with a live band, and I suddenly notice that the bar band has a guy who looks and sounds a lot like Neil Young.
2 comments:
I saw Neil Young perform in a small venue in Ann Arbor
Michigan in the late sixties shortly after he left the Buffalo Springfield. He actually told the audience the motel he was staying at and the room number. I attended a small liberal arts college that did not have liberal policies toward women. One of our group lived in a female dorm that had a curfew so we had to take her back and miss the festivities.
As a former Santa Cruz resident, I recommend my late friend, Ralph Abraham's "Hip Santa Cruz" books. I also talk about the city a lot in my recent book, COMPLEAT.
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