On The Beach

On The Beach

It began with a Lincoln Continental and a bottle of Mateus Rose. It ended in a drug-addled implosion that signified LA noire’s final trippy comedown, writhing on its belly like a hallucinogenic serpent, baying for blood.

What transpired in between these two fabled bookends is the story of Neil Young’s seasick salute to the demise of the sixties, in all its glory/glorious failings.

On The Beach would be released to an apprehensive and critical audience, led by a Rolling Stone headshake that labelled the record ‘one of the most despairing albums of the decade.’ Thirty years later its demented deterioration of sound would come to define Young’s knife-edged spirit in the face of critical acclaim, spurring over 5000 fans to sign an online petition in 2000 calling for the release of the album on CD. In 2003, their prayers were answered…

Released before the demonic cackle of Tonight’s The Night, On The Beach was deemed a bleak follow up to the critically acclaimed smooth sounds of bestseller Harvest. In all respects, this was Neil Young’s statement of intent. An unforgiving one-fingered salute, brought to life by opening track ‘Walk On’: a vitriolic mix of world weary cynicism and focused drive that would spur Young to keep moving, whatever the cost. ‘I hear some people been talkin’ me down/Bring up my name/Pass it round’ he gnarls. ‘Walk on’ he concludes. It’s an anthem that still continues to define the lone wolf’s career…

On The Beach came to being at the Sunset Marquis Hotel, suffocating beneath Hollywood’s bleak underbelly at the close of 1973. Porn star Linda Lovelace was a regular visitor to Young’s congregated players, as were the Everly Brothers, who would often prop themselves up amidst a sprinkling of Playboy bunnies. As bassist Tim Drummond succinctly put it, the hell-raising sessions embodied ‘Hollywood Babylon at its fullest.’

In 1973 the sleazefest was fully in session, fuelled by a ‘honey slide’ homemade concoction of sautéed marijuana and honey labelled by Young’s own manager Elliot Roberts as, ‘much worse than heroin…within ten minutes you were catatonic.’

As guitarist Rusty Kershaw’s wife Julie cooked up the debilitating psychedelic goop, wolfed down by Young and co in-between regular trips to Dr. Feelgood for B12 “popcorn” shots, Neil Young turned his attentions to flesh-eating feelings of antagony and disintegration. No stone was left unturned: what with his marriage to actress Carrie Snodgress on the rocks, vampire sucking oil tacoons/Richard Nixon/CSNY weighing on his mind and baying critics on his back, the singer was hardly starved of inspiration.

The heavy guitar playing of The Band’s rhythm section (namely Rick Danko and Levon Helm) only added to the album’s sodden and weary disillusionment.

Defined by his own distinctive take on the blues: ‘Revolution Blues’, ‘Vampire Blues’ and ‘Ambulance Blues’ act as soulful psalms amidst the chaos.

Whereas ‘Vampire Blues’ launches a millionaire rock star’s attack on the blood sucking exploits of the oil industry (listen carefully and you may just hear the “chhh-chhh” of a capitalist credit card against Tim Drummond’s defiant beard), the concluding knell of closing ‘Ambulance Blues’, inspired by Bert Jansch’s ‘Needle Of Death’, addresses fractioned feelings of antagonism towards critics, Richard Nixon, and even fellow collaborators CSNY (lamenting lyric ‘you’re all just pissing in the wind’ is a direct quote from manager Elliot Roberts regarding the inactivity of the quartet.)

Crucially, ‘Revolution Blues’, inspired by Charles Manson who Young met in his Topanga Canyon days, best sums up the record’s juxtaposition of fiction and reality, as musician-and-ringmaster Rusty Kershaw bewitched the track’s recording, instigating chemically in-balanced anarchy during recording, (Kershaw bizarrely claimed to be possessed by animal spirits and slithered like a snake on the floor, even managing to spook chief hell raiser David Crosby and Graham Nash who contributed on tracks ‘On The Beach’ and said ‘Revolution Blues’.)

The circus-act wasn’t lost on Neil Young, who adopts a demented Manson persona during the song as he manically rants the couplet ‘I hear that Laurel Canyon is full of famous stars/But I hate them worse than lepers and I’ll kill them in their cars.’

As the sessions became increasingly frenetic, the shambolic goings-on proved too far-out for engineer Al Schmidt who walked out on the session before its completion, amidst exasperated exclaims of “what the fuck is goin’ on?”

Good question: what the fuck was going on? Simple: Neil Young was making his escape. The iconic album cover speaks the only truth you ever need know: trailer trash patio furniture is strewn under the grey breezy sky as a 1959 cadillac fender rises out of the sandy rubble. The day’s paper is discarded on the anaemic sand, reading ‘SENATOR BUCKLEY CALLS FOR NIXON TO RESIGN’. Someway in the not-too-distant horizon, a windswept Neil Young stands with his back against the world, staring out to sea in a yellow and white polyester suit. Subversive when you bear in mind the album’s defining mantra: ‘The world is turnin’/I hope it don’t turn away.’ With that, Young’s pre-emptive strike against the world is complete…Half a heartbeat before the world dares contemplate turning its back away from him…

Crosby, Stills & Nash, re-issued

They are one person. They are two alone. They are three together. Crosby, Stills & Nash will always be for each other.

In 1969, an entire US nation was ‘helplessly hoping’: the same year that Woodstock hit and man landed on the moon; Robert Kennedy was shot and 10,889 “Communist guerrillas” died in Vietnam. Anti-Nixon sentiment lingered in the Californian air like a claustrophobic fog. The sixties’ underworld (*aka – the youth*) was finally finding their voice.

Their fears and hopes were voiced by CS&N’s eponymous album, which delved into the folk roots of rock music and strapped it like a cathartic band-aid across a ruling class that had lost its way. CS&N would spectacularly lose theirs in the ‘Helter Skelter’ hell that followed the Charles Manson murders. The sea change, however, had already occurred.

Introducing David Crosby (godfather of social commentary, lynch pin and all-round hell raiser), Stephen Stills (ambidextrous guitar player, career-driven game-player and soul man) and Graham Nash (angel voiced peacemaker and bubblegum pop star). CS&N weren’t just a band – they were a super group made up of individual artists in their own right. Each member brought their own rhythm and demons to the table. And what a table it was…

The trio’s debut was truly born in Laurel Canyon – their debut success would signal a movement managed under the partnership of Elliot Roberts and David Geffen. From CS&N came Canadian songbird Joni Mitchell, Jackson Browne and…not forgetting…the lone wolf that came to define the era: Neil Young.

Looking back, David Crosby is quick to bring the romanticism down a peg or two. “Lately people have been looking back a lot, trying to analyze what happened; and that period of time, the ‘60s – has acquired the “rosy glow” that the aggrandizement of time can do to things…with Laurel Canyon – some people are making it into this mythical place, beyond what it was. Some of it was truly delightful. I enjoyed the hell out of it at the time.”

So, just what were the songs that came to define them? And where were they gloriously conceived? In February ’69, when the rain came to Laurel Canyon, David, Graham and Stephen headed indoors, and into Wally Heider’s studio on the corner of Cahuenga and Selma in Hollywood.

Studio manager Bill Halverson recalls, “they all showed up in Crosby’s VW bus. I asked them what they wanted to do. They said, “tonight we’re going to sing and play acoustic guitars.””

That’s exactly what they did – starting with Stills’ strangely-tuned (rather than the usual EADGBE, it favours EEEEBE instead) ode to ex-lover Judy Collins, ‘Suite: Judy Blue Eyes’, which sparkles and spirals over an epic 7:22 minutes. No one could accuse Stills of not taking his shit seriously. He wasn’t nicknamed ‘Captain Manyhands’ in the studio for n’owt, compensating Nash’s adequate guitar skills by executing all bass parts, lead guitar, most finger picking and rhythm parts and unleashing the demon on the organ.

It was Stills’ focus that gave birth to the soaring guitar solo-intro (spiralling as it’s recorded backwards) on ‘Marrakesh Express’, which took Graham Nash’s inspired train-ditty to new levels. And who could forget David Crosby’s Monty Python-esque “whoopa-a-mess-a-hooga-hoofa-a-messi-goush-goush’ ramblings before Stills cranks in?

Where CS&N really mesmerised their captive audience was in their crystal-clear harmonies. As Hollies publicist sums up when he first heard album track ‘Bye Bye Baby’, “I don’t think my nipples have softened since.’

To all purposes, CS&N’s unashamed romanticism softened a nation’s nipples in one fell folk record. No track encapsulates their harmonised romanticism quite as succinctly as ‘Guinnevere’ – a medieval yarn that acts as an anecdote to ‘69’s troubled times. It’s a hypnotic composition that cuts through the ether like ice. Myth relents to timely reality on Crosby’s ‘Long Time Gone’, addressing the assassination of Robert Kennedy. Which brings us round full circle: humanity and political consciousness are never far displaced from this debut, rooted in David Crosby’s acute awareness of the band’s time and place.

The time was 1969. The place was Laurel Canyon. The band were CS&N. Forty years later, their debut still soars. Hoofa-amessi-goush-goush!

Boys Keep Swinging

So, in the same weekend that I had a lengthy (*add insubstantial and frivolous to that mix actually – this was less about battling the throes of theology and more about whiling away my bored Saturday night with inane observations on throwaway subjects I am unequivocally unqualified to comment on, yet still seem to have a wealth of un-researched opinions about*)…

Do you know what? I’m complicating things. Lets start this again.

So, in the same weekend that I had a (actually, not so lengthy) “discussion” with my mate Andy about how I reckon Jesus was the first feminist (in so far as any man can actually be a feminist…which is another theological issue altogether), I put on some David Bowie and…yes, you’ve guessed it! Bowie and Jesus really do have more in common than you’d think.

Gender issues as a given (I’m also sure Bowie must’ve worn a loin cloth at some point in his career), I’ve been looking at his lyrics with refreshed interest. David Bowie: un-championed male feminist in rock music?

I mean, lets look at the facts. Most of the rock ‘n’ roll greats have cemented an entire career upon the burning embers of their glorious misogyny. We’ve all acknowledged the likes of Bob Dylan (“I didn’t mean to treat you so bad/You shouldn’t take it so personal/I didn’t mean to make you so sad/You just happened to be there, that’s all.”), Neil Young (“A man needs a maid”), Leonard Cohen (to an extent, I guess if you’re talking about categorising a woman as merely a “muse” above all other things) and The Rolling Stones (“It’s down to me, the difference in the clothes she wears, down to me, the change has come, she’s under my thumb”), but kudos to The Beatles for slipping past the net. I don’t know any other band that could pull off a cheery tune like ‘Getting Better’ and whack the most blatant wife-beating discourse over the top.

“I used to be cruel to my woman, I beat her, and kept her apart from the things that she loved. Then I was mean, but I’m changing my scene, I’m doing the best that I can…”

(Well that’s fine then Maccas, as long as you’re doing the best that you can…that’s all that matters. Why don’t you lay another shiner on her whilst you’re at it? All in the name of rehabilitation, naturally…) Are these the same boys that most mothers in the 60s claimed they’d prefer their daughters brought home, over The Rolling Stones? Top marks for misogyny-under-the-radar, kids! I mean, how many of us have whistled along to lyrics that in the cold light of day, read like a Jeremy Kyle transcript? Hands up, we’ve all done it…

Then you have something like David Bowie’s ‘Boy Keep Swinging’ which really does hit you right between the eyes, in terms of the kind of sharp summation that you easily could’ve been written by a woman.

Heaven loves ya

The clouds part for ya

Nothing stands in your way

When you’re a boy

 

Clothes always fit ya

Life is a pop of the cherry

When you’re a boy

 

When you’re a boy

You can wear a uniform

When you’re a boy

Other boys check you out

You get a girl

These are your favourite things

When you’re a boy

Which I guess is the crux here – many men try and satirise machismo, yet few pull it off with such insightful ease. Throw in the video for good measure – a suited Bowie backed by backing singers that turn out to be Bowie again in drag – and the WI has themselves a cracking good pop tune.

I’ll await Lily Allen’s rendition with bated breath…

They wanna be adored…

Oh, Penny. Where do I start? If you’re going to write a Guardian blog, at least get a few things right…

For a start – ‘I Am The Resurrection’ is 8.13 minutes on my watch…don’t knock off that last second…because, and this is the point, Penny: Every second counts when it comes to The Stone Roses. 

Secondly – not only do you seem to have no grasp of the importance of Stone Roses’ place and meaning within popular musical culture (are we forgetting that glorious moment in ‘89 on ‘Waterfall’ when rhythm and guitars were brought spectacularly back together again after years of existing solitarily apart), but now you’ve gone and brought in the whole chromsome debate again. I thought we’d cleared this up a few blogs ago!

For the record: I am a girl. I adore The Stone Roses…and for me, their debut is up there with The La’s (probably another debut Guardian writer Penny Anderson deems ‘overrated’ yet is as perfect a debut as any band is ever likely to get.)

Lumping The Stone Roses stodgily as a “lad’s band” offers nothing in the way of an active explanation. Because they attract a largely male audience, does that void them of significance? If so, then we might as well throw out The Smiths, Led Zeppelin and AC/DC whilst we’re at it.

Thirdly, are you really suggesting Reni (that’s Reni, Penny, not Rennie. He’s not an indigestion tablet) was merely a drummer to patronisingly pat on the back for simply “loving music”? Get thee to ‘Elephant Stone’ at once.

Let me get back to the question of those 8.13 minutes. 8.13 minutes of undeniable musical prowess by any musician’s standards. Does Neil Young’s ‘Down By The River’ lose any of it’s power because it chugs over 5 minutes? No, because each second is on it’s way to something. ‘I Am The Resurrection’ is always going somewhere. And as John Squire’s guitars jingles and the bass line soars 3/4 of the way through, they finally bring you home. In all sense and purposes, this is a prog-rock song. It’s the ultimate prog-rock song for the throngs of followers who were looking for a band to finally take them back home.

On a more personal note, I remember sending my first love (unrequited, naturally) a Stone Roses CD to his university digs when I was 19. Strapped to the record was a message explaining just what ‘I Am The Resurrection’ meant to me. I recall something along the lines of “and for that 8.13 seconds, let all be well and good with the world.” As if this would unlock his adoration for Ian Brown, and in turn, unleash his love for me. (Naturally it didn’t work. I lapsed into The Smiths soon after).

But that’s the power of a life-changing song. I felt the same way when I heard Love’s ‘Alone Again Or’ all those years ago, or when my mate Kev turned me onto the wonders of XTC one random Saturday afternoon. When you feel like a song was written for you, and only you – that’s the mark of a true life-changing song.

The Stone Roses wrote life-changing songs. They deserve to be celebrated. Long may they reign. Bring on that re-issue!

Men are from Marr, women are from…

It’s been some time since a supplement feature has provoked a tirade-fuelled blog from me.

The feature in question holds fort on page 12 of today’s Sunday Times Culture. The headline kicks off a patronising theme that clumsily treads its lumpy boots throughout an entire double page of un-researched, irrelevant and back-dated opinions, peppered with woeful generalisations and laughable stereotypes. 

Apparantly ‘Men are into Marr, women prefer Amos’ and the common dividing line between the sexes is down to musical integrity. (Namely, that men have it, and women…don’t.)

Couple this clunky manifesto, with a headline that reads ‘Listen, darling, they’re playing your song’ and perhaps you can see where I’m going with this…

For broadsheet writer Andrew Smith, the sexes are divided and consequently listen to two types of music. For our reading delight (and perhaps this is Smith’s handicapped idea of contextualisation) he lists both, defining them as thus:

ARTISTS THAT WOMEN LOVE BUT MEN HATE

James Blunt, Take That, Cat Stevens (Cat Stevens? ‘The thinking woman’s James Blunt’ apparantly. I’m sorry, does this man know anything about musical integrity himself? Or does he just compile tedious articles about it?), Justin Timberlake, Tori Amos, Alanis Morisette, Simply Red, Janis Joplin, Early Genesis (I’ve italicised Early there because Smith clearly didn’t think he had been patronising enough, therefore he quickly adds ‘Before they for all serious and jumped on the boys’ side’. Lovely)

ARTISTS THAT MEN LOVE BUT WOMEN HATE

Neil Young, The Smiths, The House Of Love, The Fall, Steely Dan, Joy Division, Gang Of Four, Led Zeppelin.

To label this feature as testosterone-fuelled, cock waving ignorance masquerading as mature arts-based journalism would be doing this piece a disservice. It’s a winning formula that (at least) goes to show just how bogged down this industry still is in blatant sexist stereotypes. 

I am probably less shocked that (and I’m going to hedge my bets here and categorise Andrew Smith just like he has attempted to categorise an entire sex) a male writer, approaching his middle-years subsequently enjoys a double-page spread in a weekend broadsheet with a piece that (yet again) scrapes the idea-barrel. It’s a running theme that regularly defines music journalism as we know it.

Getting back to the feature at hand, and one question remains: Are we really still expected to believe (in todays’ climate) that the world is actually made up of two such simpleton generalisations?

Let me crank this down a notch: What is Andrew Smith actually trying to say here? That men scratch their bollocks to Led Zep with a can of Stella in hand whilst girls whip up cosmopolitans in their pink pyjamas to James Blunt? 

As Smith creakily attempts to back up this (unimaginative excuse for an opinion piece) with scientific research that he clearly has no knowledge on (or indeed, experience in), the feature descends further into circus journalism.

Merely attributing his science to “recent research” (recent research where exactly?), he goes on to rhetorically raise the question of whether the musical divide between the sexes is a direct result of how differently we as adults talk to our children…and so he meanders:

‘…if we talk differently to our girls, as we very well might without even realising, could we be predisposing them to different types of music later in life?’

I shit you not…

Speaking as a woman who obsesses over Neil Young, The Smiths and Led Zeppelin, just as much (and with as much passion if not more) then her male counterparts; I have found today’s feature an embarrassing and insulting waste of paper, endorsed by countless male readers and editors no doubt, but as far off the mark as one is ever likely to get.

Men are from Marr indeed…

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The Hippie Hippie Shake

 A few years late on the uptake, but what do you expect? It’s 738 pages for christ sakes…

Hands down, the definitive rock biography – a few darker shades of disturbing, but always with that trademark Neil Young humour threading through…I found parts of it devastating to read, but I guess that’s the whole deal. This isn’t some Waltons re-hash of the bygone era. It’s a book that defines the death of the existential hero who was celebrated on the pages of Albert Camus’ ‘The Outsider’.

You’re not supposed to amiably agree with what it has to say. It’s supposed to wind you up in places…and it succeeds:

You cringe at Stephen Stills’ over-bloated insecurities masquerading as rock ‘n’ roll arrogance as you watch the Woodstock dream metamorphose into the drugs-fuelled nightmare it was inevitably going to become. The binges, the murders, the violence…all simmering under the pretence of “peace and love”. Whatever those words meant…’Shakey’ is really about delusion. It’s a tale of ego and excess. The only truth is the truth you find in the music. And even then, it sometimes eludes even that…

You laugh at the insane anecdotes that are offered up along the way: choice passages being Neil Young’s farewell telegram to Stephen Stills before he legged it off tour: ‘Dear Stephen, funny how some things that start spontaneously end that way. Eat a peach, Neil’; in addition there’s a genius account of a noise being heard in the back of Neil Young’s hearse, quickly revealed to be an unravelling Bob Dylan in his ‘turban phase.’

Which brings me onto comment that perhaps at the centre of all of this (forgive me if I’m wrong in stating this but what the hell) are Neil Young and Bob Dylan. Cruising down Route 66 in that hearse. Evaders of truth? Yes…but ultimately torch-bearers for their generation. 

What struck me more than anything was the scene’s blatant testosterone-fuelled tunnel vision – a generation of Southern-Bible-Belted rockers wanking themselves off (and often wanking each other off) in the name of guitar rock. The whole book revolves around their hanging “attributes”…the women in their lives are always the silhouettes. Ever present, (say, with the over-domineering presence of Neil Young’s own mother) ever haunting, but ultimately shadows that fall behind in the proverbial lay-by of their own story.

As Neil Young once told his son Zeke when he started yelling “no no no” on his tour bus: “Look – we’re men. It’s okay for men to tell women no – that’s cool. But look around, Zeke – there’s no women on this bus. You don’t say no to a man.”

Or if we really want to highlight the offensive, in the words of Crazy Horse guitarist Frank “Poncho” Sampedro: “Rock and roll – I thought that meant Loot the Village and Rape the Women.”

Also surprising is Young’s ever-shape shifting political and social views: a singer that protest sings against the recent war in Iraq also is a staunch believer in the death penalty and infamously supported Reagan under the banner of “pro American patriotism.”

As the book goes onto highlight, Neil is none of things. What he is, is an isolationist. Perhaps the last of Camus’ outsiders. In the words of Elliot Roberts: “You never know which Neil Young you’re dealing with.”

In the immortal words of Shakey himself: innaresting…

Girls Like Us

“This is a man’s world”.

James Brown sung it. Music breathes it. Have I got the masses groaning yet?

I’d be lying if I said it hasn’t been an ongoing aspiration of mine to write a non-fiction book on the status of women in the music industry.

How revealing then, that whenever I’ve expressed this particular interest to colleagues and friends, the statement has been ritually met with a raised eyebrow or a knowing smirk.

“Are you a feminist?” is the usual response. It’s even more revealing that this response is not just concentrated to a strictly male camp. Whisper the word “feminism” and the term evokes a shudder from most people. My relayed response used to be this: “I’m not a feminist, I’m all for equal rights”. But was this just a defensive reaction to divert people away from picturing me as some kind of greasy-haired lesbian in DM boots and dungarees, burning my bra against a chorus of “votes for women!”?

Does championing against the blatant sexism in the music industry (of which I have personally experienced at first hand) make me a feminist? More importantly: should feminism really be something to shy away from?

When did “feminism” become a dirty word?

Getting back on track with my interest in writing this book: Sure, I’ve dabbled around the outskirts of the subject on a few occasions, writing two features on my frustrations at the portrayal and treatment of women within the industry. With both features I always had the sneaking suspicion that my editors were “indulging” me in a flight of fancy, un-convinced at my belief that women are still denied equal footing. They’re entitled to their opinion – but lets face it. Most rock the Y chromosome themselves. Is it any wonder?

Let me back this rant up with a small anecdote: having decided that this was something I wished to write more about, I set about sending out proposals and synopsis to various book publishers. A few got back to me: a polite “thanks but no thanks” was all that was required.

But wait…One well known publishing house surprisingly got back to me with a shocking “maybe”. My ears pricked up as I read through his email. And then my heart sank at his investigative questions in response:

“We already have two female writers on our books already. Both of whom have written musical biogs. My question to you is: what makes you so different to the women we already represent?”

Now, for many of you, this may seem a fairly inoffensive question to ask. For me, it highlighted the obvious:

“The fact that you are even asking me what makes me different from the minimal two female writers you already represent exactly proves why I want to write this book in the first place” I bluntly responded back.

“If you can honestly tell me that you would ask a male writer what made him different from the twenty male writers you already have on your burgeoning books, then I’ll happily explain to you why I should be considered as an individual journalist as opposed to a gender that needs to be minimised.”

Of course I never heard from that particular editor ever again. I’m sure he blamed it on my hormones.

So it is with great interest that I have been reading various reviews for Sheila Weller’s latest non-fiction book ‘Girls Like Us’ (a book which aims to dissect and compare the musical careers of Joni Mitchell, Carole King and Carly Simon).

My first grievance is as follows…Actually, it’s concentrated in the one word: Girls. This book title sounds like the kind of Mills & Boon romance trash you find free with your August edition of Glamour. These artists weren’t girls, they were women. And should be celebrated as such. Is the term “girls” supposed to make them non-offensive acoustic guitar-strumming hippies? Would you ever call a novel comparing the careers of Neil Young, Bob Dylan and Leonard Cohen “Boys Like Us”?

The next grievance is not so much with the book itself (I’m yet to pick up a copy in Waterstones – I’m sure there will be more de-constructions to follow…I’m polishing my Doc Martins as I write) but with the reviews that have commented on it. I find it incredibly telling that each review centres around the men they shagged as opposed to the songs they wrote. 

And I quote: “…how the bedsit singer/songwriter princesses of the early 1970s became rock royalty and feminist role models, a leap that saw everyone from James Taylor and Mick Jagger to Warren Beatty and Jack Nicholson leaping between their songsheets. Although not, sadly at the same time.”

That’s Metro Lite. The reviewer in question is, of course, a man (by the name of Keith Watson).

Keith, Keith, Keith. Where do I start? For one thing, did you seriously just use the phrase “between their songsheets”? Secondly, did you really just identify them as feminist role models in the same sentence that you role-called their various sexual conquests? Is this your clumsy and simpleton view of feminist role models? Do the men that they slept with personally validate the music that they made in your professional opinion?

It may seem like I’m ganging up on poor Keith. But actually, he only represents the majority of reviews which have stereotyped the book in the same way. Maybe the book is a stereotype itself, who knows. What I do know is that I’m sick and tired of reading some mis-guided feature on the nature of female musicianship by ageing male journalists who haven’t the foggiest idea on what it’s about and how it should be explored.

Having “personally” experienced an editor’s hand up my skirt as he suggested I might sleep with him in return for him “perusing” my written portfolio, forgive me if I’m a little prickly about this subject…

Surely this is a side to the music industry that truly needs to be exposed: a side that still continues to un-repently indulge in its own dated brand of over-bloated and blatant sexism?

CSNY til I die

CSNY. Wembley Stadium. 1974. What can I say? 

Having managed to track down a double-dvd bootleg of the gig in question, I am still in awe. Four hours of unbridled rock ‘n’ roll joy. Someone should be appointed to sit down each and every band gigging in 2008, make them sit their skinny-arsed jeans down and force them to watch this gem. A lesson in how it should be done and (dare I say) quite a depressing reflection on the live scene at the moment. Some people have called me a glass half-empty kinda gal, but I beg to differ.

Watching Stills (clad in a police shirt that oozes sexual arrogance) morph himself into a white Hendrix as he literally transubstantiates himself into his guitar only made me more sure of my stance on things. Imagine my sheer orgasmic delight when he told the thousands of long-haired Wembley-ites that he’d “just met someone a few days ago who I’ve been wanting to meet for years” before diving straight into ‘Blackbird’ with (could this get any better?) Joni Mitchell on backing vocals (yes, it can.) Kat’s cuppeth runneth over. Added to this, watching Neil Young in his aviator shades rocking out the old keyboards only pushed me slightly more over the precipice.

What’s my point? This band wasn’t just an unquestionable live force to be reckoned with. They weren’t just a rock ‘n’ roll band bashing out clumsy tunes about sex, drugs and…(fuck it, you know the rest.) This was a band with something to say – and whilst bands right now might consider it corny to “pontificate” about soldiers cutting them down, I consider it a cop-out that bands no longer have any desire to express themselves about anything that may demonstrate they have any degree of social/political/EMOTIONAL awareness, cowering under a math-rock misapprehension that actually celebrates wielding calculators and compasses instead of hearts and soul (Not naming any names. FOALS)

CSNY had Vietnam. We have Tibet. Have things changed that much? If anything, the time is even riper. So why is it being left to sixty year old rockers like Neil Young to keep on churning out the anti-war sentiment on records like ‘Living With War’? When did it become too corny to care?

(Can I just add at this point that I hysterically jump around the kitchen to AC/DC like everyone else, I’m not being a snob here. I’d just like to see a bit of variation. Back in Black forever. IDET.)

And If you haven’t had a listen to Neil Young’s last record ‘Living With War’, please click onto his anti-war video to ‘The Restless Consumer’. Don’t need no Madison Avenue War. Don’t need no more lies.