Neil Young fans, rejoice! Not only were you treated to the first volume of Young’s massive Archives project this summer, but now his first four albums are being re-released on 140-gram vinyl.

Arguably some of the best works from Young’s exhaustive catalog, his self-titled debut, Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere, After the Gold Rush, and Harvest have all been remastered for the upcoming reissue, scheduled to drop on November 23rd. If you want to purchase all four, there are also limited edition box sets available on Young’s website and Because Sound Matters, collecting all four albums on 180-gram vinyl or 24-karat gold CDs.

Sounds to me like the perfect opportunity to re-purchase some great records or finally hear what your dad had been fussing about on all those long car rides.

Two things have been clearly evident of recent Neil Young material. First, the man certainly has a back catalog. And second, Neil Young is a strange strange man. The latter might be the only rationale we get for why he has skipped from the very early portion of his planned archival project straight to disc number 12. But alas, sometimes it’s best not to ask questions when you find out you’re getting a full live album of performances spanning several of Young’s 1992 solo sets that will together create a complete live performance of Harvest Moon.

The live album will be entitled Dreamin’ Man, and is currently slated for a November 2nd release date.

[Via Rolling Stone]

Matthew Houck, the brains and tattered voice behind Phosphorescent, has been spending a lot of time with Willie Nelson this year. In February, Houck released To Willie, an achy breaky collection of Nelson covers so well-received Nelson invited Houck to meet-up and perform on his Sirius/XM show as part of his 76th birthday celebration months later. They must have really hit it off: Phosphorescent has been asked to join Nelson, Neil Young, John Mellencamp and others at Farm Aid in October. And, in addition, Houck and Co. will be touring the States behind new Phosphorescent material just recorded in Brooklyn this summer. Many tears for you beers, dates below:

09.05 Brooklyn, NY @ Music Hall of Williamsburg
10.02 Chicago, IL @ Beat Kitchen
10.04 St. Louis, MO @ Farm Aid, Verizon Wireless Amphitheater
10.05 Memphis, TN @ Hi Tone Cafe
10.07 Nashville, TN @ Exit In
10.08 Birmingham, AL @ Bottletree Cafe
10.09 Atlanta, GA @ The Earl
10.11 Chapel Hill, NC @ Local 506
10.12 Charlotteville, VA @ IS Venue
10.13 Washington, DC @ Black Cat
10.14 Baltimore, MD @ The Ottobar
10.15 Philadelphia, PA @ First Unitarian Church
10.16 Providence, RI @ Providence Black Repetory Theater

Behold: great video up from this past weekend as Neil Young and Paul McCartney covered “A Day In The Life” at Hyde Park.

We’ve been scrambling to keep you up-to-date as Glastonbury’s slowly leaked megaconfirmation after megaconfirmation in the past few months. But today’s full lineup announcement is something to behold, the headlining package of Neil Young, the Boss and a reunited Blur now propped up by a roster so behemoth and iron-clad, it’s equal parts intimidating and enticing. Also playing: Bloc Party, Lady Gaga, Jarvis Cocker, Regina Spektor, Maximo Park, Bon Iver, Fleet Foxes, Lily Allen, Tom Jones, Pete Doherty, Q-Tip, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, The Streets, Ray Davies and and and and…

There will be mud.

He’ll be seeing the old gang at Glastonbury and he’s got a new album coming out next week — if Neil Young fans weren’t already salivating, they will be when they find out they can stream his upcoming LP live from MySpace tonight.

The album, Fork In The Road, will begin streaming from Young’s MySpace page at midnight. Fork In The Road hits shelves April 7, and the video for the first single, “Cough Up The Bucks,” has been making the rounds. Check it out below.

Neil Young – “Cough Up The Bucks”
Neil Young – Cough Up The Bucks

If you grew up in the 90s like some of us (no names will be mentioned), then you must be creaming your collective pants. Let’s see, we’ve had Jane’s Addiction, Blur, Faith No More, Sublime, Jesus Lizard, Pavement, Orbital and The Libertines all in the news in the past couple months about confirmed or rumored reunions. And that’s not even taking into account The Specials or Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young. Well, add one more to your list. The already once-reformed and broken up Pixies are at it again three years after their 2004 reunion stint.

Earlier today, NME reported that the Pixies will be playing Isle of Wight Festival on June 14 before headliner Neil Young. Festival promoter John Giddings was quoted as saying, “It was hard to think of someone capable of complementing the musical talent of Neil Young, but once I had the idea it was blindly obvious and it will surely be a legendary day on the Isle Of Wight.”

The Isle Of Wight Festival line-up so far is:
The Prodigy
Basement Jaxx
The Ting Tings
Pendulum
Stereophonics
Razorlight
Neil Young
Pixies
The Charlatans

And in case you want some juice with your news, Pitchfork has reminded us that in 2007 Kim Deal said, “I think [a new Pixies album] is something to bring up whenever [Frank Black] needs press. That’s the only time I hear about it. I have no idea, dude.”

And in fact, Frank Black does have have somethings to promote, including a new album with his wife, Violet Clark, under the name Grand Duchy, out April 14 in the U.S. on Cooking Vinyl. He also produced Art Brut’s latest LP, Art Brut vs. Satan, and there may or may not be a new Breeders EP in the works.

The rumors about Neil Young playing Glastonbury were finally confirmed earlier this week. Now it’s been announced that Young’s former band mates Dave Crosby, Stephen Stills and Graham Nash will be playing as well, leading us to speculate if a CSNY reunion might take place on stage at this year’s Glasto.

The band’s web site lists a show date of Saturday, June 27, but Glastonbury has not officially announced Young’s performance date as of yet. As NME pointed out, Young is listed as one of the headliners of the event and since Bruce Springsteen is already headlining on Saturday, it makes a reunion unlikely (at least for promotional purposes). The festival’s third headliner will be Blur, making for a very strange combination of old and older.

It’ll be interesting to see if songs like “Ohio” will resonate with the largely British crowd. We also wonder if they’ll pull out some old CSNY hits like “Teach Your Children.” We find it’s sure to get the party started. All four members last got together back in 2006 to play the Freedom of Speech tour in the U.S.

When Glastonbury organizer Michael Eavis announced that Neil Young would be playing the fest this year, he said, “Neil Young to play this year is a dream come true for me personally. He is one of my all-time favourites and we have always wanted him to play.”

This year’s festival takes place in Pilton, Somerset, June 24-28.

A while back, we told you about a plan from some of the major labels to launch a Hulu-like music video web site as an alternative to the unthinkable pennance they were apparently earning for letting their artists’ videos air on YouTube. Now, as some of the majors renegotiate liscensing deals with YouTube (and others just flip out), Universal has partnered with the Google-owned operation to create its own UMG-artists-only online home for music videos.

Though nothing’s set in stone as yet, a deal could be signed within the next few weeks, according to The Wall Street Journal. The new site is called Vevo — under the proposed agreement, YouTube would distribute UMG’s video content to other web sites.

Universal is the biggest record label in the world; no word yet on whether YouTube/Google will be looking to make the same kind of arrangement with other labels, too. This humorous quote on the matter comes directly from an official YouTube statement: “We are always working with our partners to find creative ways to connect music, musicians and fans.” Really? Because the easiest way to do that would probably be just to let us all watch videos for free on YouTube. Like we used to do. In the dark ages of 2008.

Sony renewed its contract with YouTube last month and EMI is currently locked in talks with the company. Universal’s deal expires at the end of this month, but it looks like that won’t be a problem for them, at least.

And we don’t have to tell you the status of Warner’s situation. We’d like to let Neil Young do the talking, anyway.

With all of the festivals going on in 2009, it’s starting to seem like the market is getting a bit over-saturated. But lest we forget the one that started them all turns 40 this year, and Woodstock organizers are hoping to land some of the original participants that performed at Yasgur’s Farm back in ‘69, including Santana, the Who, Joan Baez, Joe Cocker, Neil Young and the once-again reformed Grateful Dead.

According to The Daily Swarm, citing The Rock Radio and the Austrian Times, chief Woodstock promoter Michael Lang is planning two free Woodstock concerts in Berlin, Germany and in New York to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the original 1969 festival. According to the press release, the New York show still doesn’t have a venue, but will take place on the actual 40th anniversary of August 15 and 16. The Berlin show will take place at the now-closed Tempelhof Airport on August 22 and August 23.

Ironically, Berlin’s Tempelhof airport was a Nazi stronghold and used regularly by Adolf Hitler and his cohorts, leaving many to wonder how much peace and love can be found at the site.

It looks like Bruce Springsteen is making his way through the festival circuit this spring and summer. It was rumored just last week that Mr. America himself might possibly be headlining Bonnaroo Festival, but now Bruce will be making his way over to the U.K. for the Glastonbury Festival, where he will be the Saturday night headliner as well.

While we’re a little curious as to how “Born In the U.S.A.” will pan out over on the other side of the pond, the sold out music festival — which will take place on June 26-28 — and the its organizers are very excited to have Springsteen grace their stage. “I’m so pleased that Bruce Springsteen has agreed to come to Worthy Farm for the first time,” said festival chief Michael Eavis. “He’s one of the all-time rock legends and I’m confident that this will be one of our best shows ever.”

Just last week, Emily Eavis, who helps run the festival, dismissed rumors that The Rolling Stones and U2 would be headlining the festival, but said “I’m knocked out that we’ve managed to get Bruce to play. It’s the icing on the cake of this year’s bill, which I’m sure will take everyone’s breath away when we announce the full details.”

So far, only a hand full of acts along with Bruce have been confirmed for the festival, including Bon Iver, Lilly Allen, and Franz Ferdinand. Among other artists rumored to play are Neil Young,Blur, Coldplay, and Oasis.