It is a triumphant comeback, which Neil Young celebrates with his band Crazy Horse and the new joint album "Colorado". Everything is different, and yet somehow everything remains the same. What more do we want?!
50 years ago Neil Young, previously celebrated singer and guitarist of the hippie group Buffalo Springfield, founded a completely new musical concept with the trash band Crazy Horse. On the whitecap of virtuosity madness he was simply concerned with energy. The partnership between Young and the band certainly has some holes in it, and yet there are few projects where the old poet is as convincing as with Crazy Horse.
NEIL YOUNG - The Indomitable
Even as a young singer, as a representative of the hippie generation, Neil Young didn't mince his words. And he has remained the most controversial, sometimes in the best sense of the word uninhibited spirit of rock music: The Canadian, who turns seventy on November 12, shows no signs of age-mild. In the following we show why it is so important that "the old man" is still there.
JEFF LYNNE'S ELO - Alte Schule
The exciting thing about Neil Young's "Performance Series" is that he digs out concerts for them from not unjustly repressed creative phases instead of giving the fans what they want. After the traditional country songs with the New Harvesters, the tour now includes a recording of the Big Band album "This Note's For You", which is not exactly one of the milestones in Young's oeuvre. But this live album, which documents a complete gig, has its own special charm.
In the September issue we also discussed his campaign against the seed giant Monsanto. But Neil Young has already changed the battlefield again. His latest skirmish is with Donald Trump. The US billionaire and arch-conservative presidential candidate had got himself into Young's trouble for running his song "Rockin' In The Free World" during the public announcement of his candidacy - quite legally, as the businessman tweeted with pleasure: His office had acquired the rights of use for one day at ASCAP, comparable to GEMA in Germany. Trump also distributed a photo via the Internet showing him together with the controversial Canadian: A few months ago Young had auditioned Pono at the real estate tycoon for financial support for his online music service and had himself photographed with him.
Young's excitement on the new album is real. It recalls his commitment to movements like No Nukes in the late seventies or Farm Aid a decade later. On "The Monsanto Years" the old rocker rages against everything and everyone, is not afraid to name names. The most prominent are Monsanto and Starbucks. "Monsanto and Starbucks: Mothers want to know what they feed their children" is one of the words in the song "A Rock Star Bucks A Coffee Shop".
Only a few weeks before the release date, Neil Young's new album was announced, which he recorded not with Crazy Horse, but with the L.A. band Promise Of The Real, in which two sons of country veteran Willie Nelson were involved. It is a concept album that deals with the destruction of the environment by the greed for profit of large corporations.
SUPERTRAMP - 40 years "Crime Of The Century"
Actually they were already dead. Even dead as a doornail. After two albums that sold as well as soap-flavoured chocolate and, according to guitarist/singer Roger Hodgson, didn't sound much better, the chapter Supertramp seemed to be over in 1971 - because everything really went wrong. The band, which at that time consisted of Kevin Currie, Frank Farrell, Dave Winthrop, Rick Davies and Hodgson, fell apart after a disastrous Scandinavian tour.
AC/DC - Temporary power outage
Where Neil Young's story with his new album "Storytone" will fit into, we can't say yet. One thing is certain for now: the reactions to the record once again oscillate between astonishment, head shaking, amazement and respect. With large orchestral arrangements this work could be one of the most beautiful records of his long and not exactly poor career in terms of releases, but with his fragile and meanwhile amazingly limited voice the old bard makes sure that a feeling of relaxed grace never arises.
LED ZEPPELIN
The grand finale
There is no going back: 32 years after the end of Led Zeppelin the last hopes for a comeback of the rock legend have been dashed. Page, Plant and Jones couldn't come up with a common denominator, they have an ambivalent relationship to their own past and have long since moved elsewhere mentally. So the release of their new live DVD "Celebration Day" is also a rare occasion for collective nostalgia and detailed conversations with Jimmy Page and John Paul Jones, which we reproduce here in full, which eclipsed of course does not miss.
PETER GABRIEL
There you go!
