Inside the house it was bedlam, with cops and longhairs scattering in every direction. “It was very heavy,” said Linda Stevens. “They came in on us from the front and the back. It was like being storm-trooped.”
Everyone was arrested except for Stills, who slipped out a window and ran to call for help. “Stephen had the attorneys on the phone before we even hit Malibu,” said Stevens. Prebooked in Malibu, then taken to the L.A. county jail on the prison bus, “It was guys in back, chicks in front. We started singing ‘For What It’s Worth.’”
Inside the jail, the men were stripped down and sprayed with DDT. Clapton’s long hair and pink boots seemed to particularly amuse and anger the authorities, so they made him—naked except for his boots—stand separate from the rest. “They set him out in front of us to humiliate him, I guess,” said Messina. “It was a time when long hair was not cool.” Chris Sarns remembers that Clapton “handled it beautifully. Typically British stiff-upper-lip: ‘Oh, well, we’ve got good lawyers. We’ll be out of here by morning.’”
Everyone worried about Young. “Neil was afraid of having an attack because they denied him his medicine,” said Sarns. “They separated him from the rest of us and put him in a tank with a bunch of drunks.”
Despite the initial fears of conviction—and, for Clapton and Young, deportation—the lawyers took care of everything. All were found guilty only of disturbing the peace—except the unlucky Chris Sarns, who wound up literally holding the bag. “Three hundred bucks and three years probation,” he said glumly. “It was kind of a piss, because there was no one left to get the money from.”
There was no one left because Buffalo Springfield was on the verge of disintegration, and the bust was yet another nail in the coffin. Expecting to fly, the group had never really gotten off the ground. There was a crazed final gig in Long Beach on May 5, 1968; five days later, Buffalo Springfield called a legal meeting announcing their demise. Ahmet Ertegun was devastated. “I think it was one of the few times I cried, because I just thought that I had the historic group,” he said. “Bands didn’t make it in those days without hit singles, but my attachment to that group had nothing to do with commerce. The Buffalo Springfield were ahead of their time. They were too artistic.” Ertegun would hang on to Stills as a solo artist, releasing Young to pursue a solo career at Warner/Reprise.
“I had to make a choice,” said Ertegun. “I don’t think Neil and Stephen wanted to be on the same label, and it was a tough decision, but the decision was made for me by Neil, who said he wanted to go on Warner’s with Jack Nitzsche and make some records that I thought could be financially disastrous—uncommercial and expensive. I figured he and Neil would go off on a wild tangent, so it seemed to me I had a very good shot with Steve.”
In August 1968, the band’s final effort, Last Time Around, was released. Young contributed only two songs and criticized the sound of the album, telling Tony Pig, “Jimmy Messina did a miserable job of mixing it.” Commenting on the cover shot, he said, “I quit the group—as a matter of fact, the day that photo session was being taken, I was meeting with Mo Ostin at Reprise … I just didn’t want to have anything to do with the group anymore.” Young was later pasted into the photo—facing in the opposite direction from his bandmates.
Last Time Around betrayed its lack of collaborative effort. “I remember thinkin’ to myself, ‘Wow, this sounds like a bunch of solo tracks,’” said Ken Viola. “It no longer had that group thing to it.” Young contributed his first foray into an explicitly country-tinged sound, “I Am a Child,” a song that seems to celebrate childhood while looking a bit wryly at those who bring us into the world. Some took the number as a response to Furay’s critique of Young’s petulant ways on the previous Springfield album’s “A Child’s Claim to Fame.” Young said no, but Stills would later claim the bittersweet “On the Way Home” was addressed to him, and Young doesn’t deny it. Sung by Furay, it could be taken as the story of the band—and also as goodbye.
“Maybe ‘On the Way Home’ is the coolest rock song written during that period,” said Moby Grape’s Peter Lewis. “That song made me smile when I heard it, because if you can write that way in the midst of the battle, then, y’know, you’ve got it. There was tremendous competition in that band—they could’ve destroyed Neil’s self-confidence. But what I hear in ‘On the Way Home’ is a guy who went through all that stuff without becoming cynical. That’s what’s amazing to me.”
Buffalo Springfield wasn’t the only thing coming to an end. “Nineteen sixty-eight was the year the whole political edge hit the wall,” said writer Richard Meltzer. “The Democratic convention. It was the heaviest casualty period in Vietnam. That was the year Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy both got killed—and Andy Warhol was shot. That was basically the year the powers that be decided, ‘Hippies EAT SHIT. If we don’t kill ya, we’ll make it pretty tough.’
“It was somewhere in sixty-eight you realized nobody was listening…. It woulda been nice if everything worked, if the ideology had delivered on a certain level, but I don’t think that it did—the only thing to me that succeeded about the sixties was the music. The fact is, the music was, for a moment, good.”
In the wake of mega-events like Monterey Pop and Sgt. Pepper, rock would only get bigger, bigger, bigger. But for some, the thrill was already gone. “The music ran out of steam … there was no thrill in it anymore,” said Meltzer. “The Beatles, Stones, Kinks—even the major ones ran out of new turf. It seemed like it was too soon for everything to dry up, but it dried up.” Rock would move away from groups into hype-laden superstar configurations and singer/songwriter confessionals. Buffalo Springfield had lasted two years and one month, the end flameout of a turbulent but relatively innocent time. “When the Springfield broke up, it heralded the end of the magic,” said Ken Viola. “I was completely devastated.”
For Neil Young, Buffalo Springfield remains a painful memory, linked forever to epilepsy and inner turmoil. “We were good, even great—I thought when we started we’d be together forever,” Neil Young would tell his father years later. “We were just too young to be patient, and I was the worst. I was having these seizures, and I was sure—I’m sure now—knowing more about it, that the way I felt and acted was mostly because of nerves, the seizures. It got so I didn’t care. I didn’t want to make it with them. I didn’t want to be a slave to the medication I was taking for epilepsy. I couldn’t stand the way I was feeling. My thing, I figured, was to keep going, doing something else. I know I should’ve been happy, but in some ways it was the worst time in my life….”
After Buffalo Springfield, Stephen Stills would be the architect of the unrelentingly successful Crosby, Stills and Nash; Richie Furay would have success in Poco before becoming a minister; and Neil Young would go on to do a million things. Dewey Martin and Bruce Palmer, after releasing a solo album apiece, didn’t fare so well. Almost immediately after the Springfield’s demise, Martin would gather up a bunch of musicians and start advertising his group—which included a tuba player and two drummers—as “the New Buffalo Springfield.” This did not endear him to Young and Stills, who took him to court. Martin wound up giving away his stake in the Springfield for the ability to advertise his band as “The New Buffalo.” It quickly faded away. Martin would file a lawsuit in 1974 to get back the rights he gave away in 1968, then would settle out of court. It left him with considerable bitterness, particularly toward Young. “Certain things that went on with the Buffalo Springfield gave me good reason to drink myself to death, cocaine myself to death,” said Martin, who credits a religious experience in 1983 with saving his life. Other than playing the oldies circuit in Buffalo Springfield Revisited with Martin, Palmer has remained nearly invisible, although both Martin and Palmer have still played occasionally with Young.
In the late eighties, respected archivist and producer Bill Inglot began laying the groundwork for a Buffalo Springfield boxed set. Young immediately quashed the project. He has hoarded nearly every tap
e of the Springfield, and in the fall of 1998 finished the definitive four-CD set, which was finally released in July 2001.
There was a private Springfield reunion in 1986 at the home of Stephen Stills, a videotape of which has escaped into the hands of fans. The performances are unremarkable. The best moment comes after the songs, when the musicians pose for a group shot. “We should try to re-create our earlier album covers,” says Young. Furay shouts out, “You weren’t even in ’em!” as Stills pretends to strangle Neil.
There was another reunion a few years later that Young failed to show for. The band waited around, eventually learning that Neil was off in the studio—with Jack Nitzsche. “Some things never change,” said Richie Furay, who had flown in for the occasion and was so irate that he demanded Young reimburse him for his ticket. “They don’t call him Shakey for nothin’,” quipped David Crosby, present for the no-show. In 1997, Young, protesting the crass television event the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame awards ceremony had become, failed to show at the last minute for the band’s induction. “So, Rich,” said Stills, turning back to Furay as he began his acceptance speech, “he quit it again.”
But Neil Young was just starting on his journey when he left Buffalo Springfield. What he had to give couldn’t be contained by any one band, and Young would not only go on, he would prevail—alone.
Perhaps unconsciously, Young learned some lessons from his tumultuous time in the Springfield. He would never relinquish control over his music—or much of anything else in his life—again. By his very next record, he would have both a manager and a producer who would protect him ferociously, and he would physically extricate himself from the Los Angeles scene. Never again would Neil Young be so “wide open.”
Denny Bruce remembers the long limo ride back to Los Angeles from the Springfield’s final gig in Long Beach: “Jimmy Messina hung his head and cried the whole fucking way back. He couldn’t speak, look up, nothing. Neil was in a pretty good mood. I sensed a little relief on his part that it was over. The feeling was that it certainly wasn’t over for Neil.”
People were very emotional, because they knew that was it, and those people had been with us since the very beginning. That was our base. Too bad. But hey—that’s the way it goes. Too many problems. I took it as a sign of “Good—it’s over now. I don’t have to worry about it. I don’t have to do this over and over again.” Somethin’ was wrong, y’know?
Dewey was tryin’ to keep Buffalo Springfield going. He put some time into it himself, so he felt it was part his. It was part his, but it wasn’t his to destroy. It was his to live with, like the rest of us have to.
Dewey gave away all his shit two or three times. I just keep givin’ it back to him. Then he wants to sell it. At one point I think Bruce was tryin’ to sell his interest in stuff that was gonna be in the Archives. Fuck, it’s not even out yet.
I feel sorry for them—not even sorry, I feel for them. I just think it’s not my problem anymore. I mean, maybe I felt a little guilty five years after the group broke up and I’d been in Crosby, Stills and Nash, doin’ all this shit and doin’ great. But fuck, man, I’ve outlived my lifespan several times, so I don’t owe anybody from way back there anything. I’ve started over several times.
Buffalo Springfield never achieved their potential. Poorly made records. Shoulda had more direction. Real direction from somebody who knew what the fuck was goin’ on. If we’d had a real producer, that band woulda been huge, and—more importantly—we would’ve made some great music that you could listen to today.
We had a couple of records that sounded good—“Hung Upside Down,” “For What It’s Worth”—Stan Ross. “Mr. Soul” with the red-haired guy. But there was no continuity. We didn’t have a producer that forced us to be a band. Forced people just to play and shut up—all of us. Somebody who would have it so when we came in, it sounded great. We never got the elation of playing a great take and walking in and hearing it. Everything always sounded shitty. No one knew what they were doing. Never recorded hardly anything live. Everything was overdubbed, all the vocals. Never got that feel. When we were playin’ live and cookin’, that’s what blew everybody’s fuckin’ mind. “Bluebird,” man—I used to pull the strings off my guitar. I can remember looking down and having the spring in my hand. We were doing that in 1968.
But you’ll never hear it. It’s not on the fuckin’ records. That’s why Buffalo Springfield is so mythical. You listen to the record and go, “I know this is great,” but the truth is, it’s not there. It’s just not there.
You gotta remember Buffalo Springfield was a major force in music and it didn’t reach fruition. It never happened the way it should’ve. Buffalo Springfield was a failure. I was pretty intense back in the Springfield. Everything was intense. There wasn’t anything lightweight goin’ on. Everything was blown out of perspective. People were either growin’ up—or blowin’ up.
I went back to Commodore Gardens awhile ago—just to kinda find myself. It’s no longer the Commodore Gardens. I don’t know what it is now, but when you drive down that street, it looks completely different than it used to. Commodore Gardens, heh heh. It’s only in my mind. I saw some people who were obviously in a band—they were sittin’ on the porch of what used to be Commodore Gardens. I stopped, got out of my car and they recognized me. So I got back in the car and left.
* Nitzsche said Young told him at the time the song was about “fear of making it with a girl”—that he grew apprehensive as he approached his Utica Drive home because Robin Lane was waiting for him inside and he might have a seizure. “I knew he had epilepsy,” said Lane. “But I never saw it … Neil didn’t talk about anything personal.” She wound up fleeing from Utica Drive. “I just left … it wasn’t gonna work out. We weren’t communicating, and I think he got real upset with me one time when his grandmother died and I felt bad for him.”
* An odd coda to the Hendrix/Stills relationship: While living in London in 1970, Stills recorded his hit song “Love the One You’re With.” Agent/manager Larry Kurzon was knocked out by the original acoustic demo and witnessed Jimi Hendrix overdub a wild solo on the song. “It was a one-take electric lead—he just dropped his guitar and walked out the door. It was an animal, this record,” said Kurzon, who went all over London raving about the performance. He was stunned when he heard the finished record weeks later. “There was no more Hendrix … [Stephen] replaced it with a steel drum that he played himself.” Bassist Greg Reeves claimed that the lost overdub “was the last guitar solo Hendrix ever played” before his death on September 18, 1970. Stills dedicated his first self-titled solo album to Hendrix. “When Jimi died,” Stills would tell Dave Zimmer years later, “I almost quit the business.”
* Leave it to Young to dwell on the failure of their first album. “The only good album we made was the second one,” he would tell writer Pete Johnson in 1968. “But the first one was better than the second one … if the production on the first album had been anywhere near the production on the second one, we’d have had a much better thing.”
the no men
“Artists are manipulated by business all the time,” said Neil Young in 1992 to Johnny Walker. “A lot of artists are weak when it comes to their own direction and their own future. Many of them just put themselves in other people’s hands—and then feel frustrated that things aren’t turning out right. They really have no one to blame but themselves.”
Few rock and rollers have Young’s acumen for wheeling and dealing, and it leaves many of his peers awestruck. “His sense of business is extraordinary,” said Dennis Hopper. “He’s a cutthroat in a cutthroat business…. Neil demands certain things that if anyone else demanded them, they would say that they were outrageous—and he gets them. It’s a business manipulation, not an artistic manipulation, and very few artists ever have it. They may have the same ideal and approach it the same way—but they ain’t gonna get it. Neil gets it.”
Over and over again in our interviews, Young would credit his l
ongevity to the extraordinary people around him. “The reason I’m still here today is not so much because of me. Most teams are not as solid as my team. I need that,” he said, adding quickly, “with other people who are just as crazy as I am. They have to be—or it doesn’t work.”
As Buffalo Springfield fell apart, Neil Young would meet two men who were indeed just as crazy as he was, and they would become his two most important allies: Elliot Roberts, his manager, and David Briggs, his producer. Control freaks who seemed to covet the power the other had, each would prove the other’s greatest adversary. And they protected Young with a Rassy-like intensity that could be frightening to outsiders. There is no question that each was occasionally frustrated and maybe even heartbroken by Young’s mercurial nature—just as there is no doubt that both loved him unconditionally.
First to arrive in Neil Young’s life was Elliot Roberts.
I went to Lookout Management’s shithole of an office—at that time just a bunch of rooms not far from the beach in Santa Monica. Crap piled everywhere, spare and unpretentious. On the walls were prints by M. C. Escher—cold, analytical art befitting a former chess player.
I wasn’t looking foward to this. Months and months spent trying to get this book off the ground had degenerated into screaming matches between Roberts and me over the phone. Most recently Elliot had crept behind the back of my agent and started negotiations with publishers himself. Crazily enough, Elliot would invite my agent back into the deal many months later, but at the moment I was without representation or a dime to my name.
Soon enough, Elliot swept into the room, a blur of white hair under a cloud of pot smoke. Immediately he lunged into his rap—how he was gonna represent me, how he didn’t have a contract with Joni or Neil, don’t worry, he was gonna take care of me. I interrupted him: “All right, Elliot, cut the crap.” He frowned, and I wanna tell you: There is nothing worse than the Mama Soprano frown of Elliot Roberts. NOTHING. But I pressed on. “How bad am I gonna get fucked?” Elliot paused for a millisecond. “Maybe a finger or a little tongue, Jimmy—but not full penetration.”
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