In the Neil Young biography 'Shakey', there is a reference to a mysterious concoction known as a 'honey slide' that was heavily consumed during the 'On The Beach' sessions:
Here's Neil's notorious recipe for "Honey Slides" as he described it at a concert at the Bottom Line Club in New York City, NY, May 16, 1974 while introducing the song "Motion Pictures".
Neil: "Anyway, we're in this hotel room (harmonica), we're trying some honey-slides, you know....You know what a honey-slide is? (voice from audience: Yes!) Honey-slide, mmmmmmn!
You know, poor grade marijuana (he's playing soft guitar all through this... Motion Pictures intro), worse than you get on the street, and you take it and you get your old lady, you know, if you got one, to cook it up on the stove, you know, put that stuff in the grinder, get it real fine, in a frying pan, put it on the stove, turn the heat up a little, wait till the grass just starts to smoke, just a little bit, take it off the heat, don't want to burn it too much (laughter and a few guitar bars), then you take the honey, you know, get a half a glass of honey about this big - I hope you ladies are listening to the recipies tonight - (audience laughter and a few words missing) just heat that honey up until it's slippery, you know, and mix that grass with it, you know the fine grass that you've cooked up just until it started to smoke and you took it off, mix those together and you get a spoon you know (voices from the audience and laughter).
I think you should eat it after that. Just eat a little of it, you know, maybe a spoonful or two, you'll be surprised, it just makes you feel fine... (laughter) That cheap grass is great. You know, in these times, you have to think about prices and things like that (laughter).
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
There you have it, straight from the Neiler's mouth. Although, before I ever heard the tape, we would just take some honey, heat it in a small frying pan, lay buds in it (turning them over to get them well soaked with the honey while it heated) Heat it pretty hot (but not "popping") for 5 - 10 minutes. Put it in the freezer to cool it off, and voila, that's what we called honey-slides. You can use the stem of the bud as a handle... Eat them just like candy. (not too much now!) OK, school is out. Have a blast boys and girls.
It's all in your mind,
-julio
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Apparently, the honey slides were quite wicked and could induce hallucinations. Check out the "On The Beach" liner notes by Rusty Kershaw, slide guitar and fiddle:
Plus I was eating up the Wicked indeed.
"Not to speak of the fun we had.
We laughed so hard we all had bruised ribs.
On revolution blues, I turned
into a python than an
aligator, I was crawling like one
making noises like one.
carpet and mike stands and such
and in the meanwhile I started
to crawl up towards neil,
which is pretty spooky."
Neil Young Internet Posts
A Neil Young Archives