Buffalo Springfield TV Collection

My review today is for the Buffalo Springfield TV Collection DVD. It features a variety of clips of the band in it's heyday, in addition to their induction to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, their speeches from the induction (including a funny bit about Neil Young's absence), a live jam at the end of the night with Tom Petty, David Crosby, and Graham Nash singing For What It's Worth, a "Where Are They Now" feature about Richie Furay, a clip from the television show Mannix where the band appeared as a house band at a 'typical Sunset Strip bar where the kids get together', a quick clip of a the band playing For What It's Worth for about 30 seconds, and an outtake from Woodstock of an obviously inibriated Neil playing Mr. Soul. (Could this be why Neil demanded that he not appear in any of the footage in the actual movie?)

The biggest problem most people have with this collection is the quality of the sound and video. And I'm not going to lie to you, they're not great. They vary from clip to clip, some are pretty fantastic (considering their age) and some are barely tolerable. The clip I liked the very best was the best on The Smothers' Brothers show, followed very closely by the band's appearance at Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. These were in excellent quality. The black and white short clip from American Bandstand was pitiful, only slightly better were a set of clips from an unnamed program that were also in black and white. On the first clip, Go And Say Goodbye there were cutaway scenes of people (including Mt. Rushmore) attempting (sometimes succeeding, sometimes failing) to blow a bubble with chewing gum replacing the band on screen, and with audience laughter piped in over the band's music during these. The second clip, Mr. Soul had cutaways to very beautiful girls styled in the miniskirts and bouffant hairdos of the era, ending with the blonde girl at the end having a missing front as a sight gag.

I'm a big fan of Buffalo Springfield, and they've had a lot of influence on me as a musician and songwriter. It's easy for me to gloss over some of the obvious faults of this DVD because of my love for the band, their music, and the chance to view this incredibly rare material. The biggest fault I would find in this if I was a casual fan (aside from the quality issues that plague a couple of the clips.) is the fact that eight out of the 17 tracks are the song For What It's Worth. However, when you consider that the band was only together for 18 months and that For What It's Worth was their hit, it's not that surprising. My copy had a track listed that wasn't on the DVD, an appearance by the band (sans Neil, but with David Crosby on guitar) from the 1967 Monterey Pop Festival. After a little research (via Google) I was able to find out that the song was removed from most (but not all) of the DVDs because of the Monterey Pop Festival's release on DVD. This is apparently one of those bootlegs that doesn't benefit from the internet age and existed as a VHS bootleg for years only to make the transition to DVD when the rest of us did. As someone who owns the Monterey Pop Festival on DVD, I didn't really miss the clip because I had it elsewhere. But I can definitely see where it would be a problem (although surely not a deal breaker) for somewhere starting a Buffalo Springfield collection who doesn't have the means to afford the $70 (and up) Monterey Pop collectors set from Criterion.

I would recommend this to anyone with an interest in Buffalo Springfield or Steven Stills. To the Neil Young fan who doesn't have much interest in Buffalo Springfield, I'm not sure that I would recommend this to you. However, to a Neil Young completist, I would recommend it. Neil's appearance in this DVD is fleeting, honestly, but for a hard core fan there's more than enough to satisfy.

I give it a 3.5 out of 5.

Here's a picture of the cover:



(As always, not a copy of my actual copy, but rather one I found posted on the web.)