Now for a little break from the mudslinging with a rather obscure sidelight to Young's career.
Back in the summer of 1977, Neil Young temporarily relocated to Santa Cruz, CA and joined up with some local musicians (Jeff Blackburn, Bob Mosley & Johnny Craviotto) to form a band called
The Ducks. They played unannounced gigs in small clubs around town and quickly built up a strong local following. Long before the days of social media, it became a popular game to figure out where the band would show up next, with fans digging around for any scrap of intel they could find. More than once, a crowd would show up at a club, but
The Ducks were nowhere to be found. And per Young's insistence, the clubs only charged their regular cover to get in, which was usually just a few bucks.
I had a friend at the time who was connected to the local music scene and he could sometimes sniff out where
The Ducks would be playing next. I was fortunate to have seen them several times, usually standing only few feet from the stage.
All good things must come to an end though. As you might imagine, word spread quickly about these happenings in Santa Cruz, and soon people from outside the local area started coming to the shows and it became difficult for the small venues to deal with the crowds. In true egalitarian fashion,
The Ducks would play tunes written and sung by each member of the band, but the new larger crowds made it clear that they only wanted to hear Young's classics. This wasn't how the band wanted to operate, so after doing a couple of final shows at larger local venues, and after some jackass stole the hood ornament off Young's '48 Packard woodie, they pulled the plug and
The Ducks were no more.
L to R, Johnny Craviotto Jeff Blackburn, Young & Bob Mosley
