But here's what I was thinking as the Horse washed over Zilker Park just now.
Once upon in America, everything sucked. Culturally that is. Art and music, as such, existed within a narrow post-war strait jacket, in which anything the slightest bit unusual risked being smeared as Red, and sent off to Leavenworth, or blacklisted. Doris Day and Perry Como topped the pop charts. Hank Williams was incomparable, but burned out quickly. Whatever art existed was forgettable at best. Women stayed at home and raised kids. Men went to school and got jobs. Everyone did what they were expected to do. Blacks could barely vote, and couldn't mix, so they had long developed their own art and music. Jazz and blues, primarily. But whites had no regard for it. Then, white kids started listening to "race music." In small numbers at first, but it began to grow. Alan Freed sponsored the very first rock concert in Cleveland in 1952, which ended in a riot after three minutes. Writers, artists, even comedians started questioning this cultural conformity, with "subversive" expressions. A lot of it was ridiculous, but it started moving this country's cultural needle. Then this Memphis huckster named Sam Phillips had the idea that he could make huge money if he could find a white guy who could sing black music. He did...Elvis Presley. That sparked the first wave of the revolution. All of the sudden, the established cultural order was under siege. The new music was raw, animalistic, guttural, desperate, and sexual. The Man fought back of course. Chuck Berry was jailed. Jerry Lee Lewis was ruined. Elvis was drafted, then tamed. It didn't take long before Ricky Nelson was the top "rock star." Oy.
But the fuse had been lit. And a bunch of British kids of all things, not much more than street punks, started playing rock and roll the way it originally came out of the Sun and Chess studios. These kids didn't care about movie deals or opening for Sinatra, or "making it." They played rock and roll because it moved them. It said something to them that no one else in the 1950s would or could. They exploded along with the Beatles, and as Dylan wrote, they "brought it all back home." In turn they inspired other kids in the States to pick up the guitar and change things. These kids weren't necessarily trying to become famous rock stars. Or "just" becoming rock stars. They wanted to change the world. They wanted to tear down that cultural straight jacket. They didn't just write some pretty tunes. They went after America's ugly dark side: racism, sexism, discrimination, inequality, conformity. Hence...the Sixties. Still the only time in history where popular music often had a political or social message, and the stars didn't feel content just to write a number one song. They wanted it to matter. Dylan, Lennon, Brian Wilson, Crosby, Stills and Nash, George Harrison, Joan Baez, Hendrix, the Who, the Stones, the Dead, the Airplane...these people wanted to change things.
At least at first. Then, of course, the inevitable happened. The money started flowing in hand over fist, the rules no longer applied, the drugs had their effect, they all became Rock Gods playing to sold out houses full of sycophants who couldn't hear the message ("play My Generation!") and after a decade of wrenching social change, people just wanted to hear something nice. Enter Fleetwood Mac. Now days, pop stars are born on some TV show like American Idol, or the Disney Channel. It only matters how you look, and whether you've released a sex tape or been on the View. The only way any of these people want to matter is by hanging with Beyonce and P. Diddy, or getting on Dancing With the Stars.
The old War Horses who managed to survive the times intact either moved on, or found they could live out the rest of their lives very comfortably on the summer tour circuit, raking in cash as they rolled from town to town. You know. The Eagles. All the yuppies eagerly turn out to relive the old times, and listen to bloated old Mick Jagger sing "Satisfaction" for the 20,000th time. I've seen just about all these shows, of course. One or two of the original band members get together, so they can use the old name, hire a bunch of back up musicians so they don't really have to do much during concerts, and they hit the road. Play a couple of hours, making sure to work in all the old hits, then pick up your check and move on to the next town. Some times these shows are really good, but these performers generally have a kind of "mail it in" attitude. Like they're thinking "where's my check and what time does the town car get here?" during the second part of the show. In most cases, its been 30 years since they did anything artistically relevant, so like Miss America going to every mall opening in the country, these people spend most of their lives chucking up tunes that actually meant something decades ago. When they were actually trying to create something.
Then there's Neil Young and Crazy Horse.
Neil came down from Canada to meet up with his friend Stephen Stills, and joined his band Buffalo Springfield. In 1966. Then, when they were poised to take the world by storm, Neil quit and the band broke up. Neil pursued a solo career until Stills invited him to join this new band he and David Crosby were putting together with a guy from the Hollies, Graham Nash. They recorded an absolute monster album, played Woodstock, and toured America. Then Neil quit the band and resumed his solo career. Every time Neil Young has been poised to hit the big time, he's followed his inner muse and gone where the music called. Not where fame and fortune lay. So, Neil has had phases where he's been the folkie singer, country artist, 50s rockabilly throwback, electronica, and hard core star. He's succeeded, in a manner of sorts, in just about every such vein. Not because he sought success, but because he followed his own path.
Since 1970 or so, he's collaborated with Crazy Horse, a straight line, straight up rock band. The relationship somewhat confounds me. He's not a band member, as such, but thinks of himself as one of the band, not treating them like hired help. They genuinely collaborate. And, together they've produced some seminal rock records. Its long been about the chunkiest music in rock. Neil told an interviewer recently that when he distributed the Live Rust album to radio stations, some of them returned it saying there was something wrong with the recording. What was "wrong" was the incredibly intense distortion that fueled that record's energy and impact. Neil and Crazy Horse, heavily influenced by punk rock's fleeting effort to drive commercialism back out of rock, put out maybe THE defining statement of rock and roll history: "its better to burn out, than it is to rust," or "to fade away." How many rockers have gone down that path? But is fading away any more noble? Eric Clapton circa 2012 may be able to write some nice little tunes, but in his day, this guy played for the Yardbirds. With Cream! He held his own with Duane Allman. Now you can pay $75 to hear him play "After Midnight" for the 10 zillionth time. Very nicely done.
I've seen Neil Young perform many times. I've seen his folkie show, his rockabilly show, and his country show. At Jazz Festival, I saw him rock for the first time, really. I even saw the Buffalo Springfield reunion show in Oakland last year, with him joining Richie Furay and Stephen Stills. All these shows have had special moments, and I've never seen such a thing as a ho-hum Neil Young show.
But I've never seen him with Crazy Horse. They hadn't recorded or toured together, to my knowledge, for more than 10 years. But they recently put out a new album with American "standards," ("Americana") and were touring to support it. Incredibly, they have a second album due out later this month.
Simply put, nothing prepared me for this show. This wasn't a bloated old rock star cashing in with a nostalgia tour. This was like a door had opened up from 1970 and these guys stepped through, complete with what looked to be their original Fender amps that they probably once stacked up at the Fillmore East. They looked different of course, but this was like Godzilla set loose upon the land, destroying every living creature and every structure in their path. New songs and old, they attacked every note with the ferocity of men playing the last notes they would ever play, taking every fan there by the throat and desperately shaking them to the core until everyone understood what was happening. In the words of one of the new songs, this was "giants walking the Earth." About half the crowd were geezers like me, but the other half were much younger, who, interestingly, didn't go see the Jack White show at the other end of the park, which was scheduled opposite Crazy Horse.
Love and Only Love was the opener, and they stretched it to 17 minutes. Down By the River, an over 40 year old song, stretched to a monumental 16 minutes. Along the way, the band crushed Cinnamon Girl, Fuckin' Up, did a 13 minute version of Powderfinger, and Neil soloed on Needle and the Damage Done, his paean against the heroin abuse that claimed the life of his close friend and original Crazy Horse guitarist Danny Whidden so long ago. They played some new songs as well. In addition to the aforementioned Walk With a Giant, we heard Born in Ontario and Psychedelic Pill. The complete set list is available here. Hey Hey, My My was the closer. Neil virtually spit out the lyrics, as if every word was the difference between life and death. He wrote it in 1979, responding to the punk rock movement, but as incredibly overplayed as "classic rock radio" has made them, a field full of people from all over the country screaming "rock and roll can never die" and "rock and roll is here to stay" along with Neil Young just was a really poignant moment. Simply put, rock and roll is on the wane. Other music styles have risen to prominence, and pushed rock to the edges. Neil sang that song like he was still on a mission, to show that the music he's pursued with Crazy Horse most of his adult life still means something. That while many of his contemporaries long ago rested on their laurels, he and Crazy Horse are still creating, still mining that vein where the Giants walk. They didn't play an encore, which was appropriate. Nothing, not even Rocking In The Free World, could have topped that moment.
Kids, THIS was and is what a rock and roll band can accomplish.
OK, now I'm just rambling.
Other bands played at ACL today, of course. They were all really cute. They had musical instruments and everything.
Oh, and it rained like buckets off and on through the afternoon. I may be starting to develop swamp butt.
Too much info? I thought so. I'll give you that one.
Not sure whether I'll write anything tomorrow. But on the docket is the Red Hot Chili Peppers, and Iggy Pop and the Stooges. I'm expecting a good show.
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