2004-03-05

http://www.chicagotribune.com/features/lifestyle/chi-0403040024mar04,1,5176173.s\
tory?coll=chi-leisuretempo-hed
Neil Young

By Greg Kot
Tribune music critic
Published March 4, 2004

Neil Young knew he had bitten off almost more than he -- or his fans -- could
chew after he developed the music and story lines for his latest album and
movie, "Greendale."

But for Young, the idea that he's pushing himself and his audience is what has
made "Greendale" his most vibrant work in more than a decade.


"I woke up a couple years ago and decided that I was going to re-apply myself to
trying to find out how to do things that gave me the same spark I had when I
first started making music," he says in a phone interview. "I knew I was still
alive, and that meant new things. But I thought, have I been doing this for too
long? Because I have been doing this for a long time. Then the evolution of
using the camera came in and I'm real happy it did, because it rejuvenated me."

It all began humbly enough in August 2002 with Young writing songs for his next
album and playing them with his longtime band, Crazy Horse. It quickly evolved
into a series of interconnected songs about corporate greed, media manipulation,
environmental disaster and grass-roots protest set in a fictional Northern
California coastal town. The tale mushroomed into a massive multimedia project
that encompasses a CD and accompanying DVD released last year as "Greendale" on
Reprise Records, a Web site complete with a family tree and biographies (at
neilyoung.com), a yearlong concert tour that includes performances Thursday and
Friday at the Rosemont Theatre, and a Young-directed movie that makes its
Chicago debut March 12 at Century Centre Cinema, 2828 N. Clark St.

In a mercurial career that spans nearly 40 years, Young has rarely invested so
much in a project. Nor have his fans been so widely divided on any of his works.
His "Greendale" tour was alternately praised for its substance and derided for
its indulgences, which include a touring company lip-syncing the songs and
acting out the roles in Young's "musical novel." At times the production
resembles a high school play, with its homemade scenery and amateur thespians,
including Young's wife, Pegi. But the power of the ideas in Young's songs, and
the simple, melodic, blues-based music that underpins them, can't be denied.

In an election year starved for substantive commentary, Young has delivered his
most political album, and the stage show takes it even further, jabbing at
everyone from Atty. Gen. John Ashcroft to media giant Clear Channel.

The album, tour and movie, shot by Young himself with a hand-held Super-8
camera, summarizes everything he has stood for in his career: the nurturing
strength of family, respect for our elders, the sacredness of nature and youth,
the corrupt invasiveness of political and economic institutions and the power of
a really loud guitar to cut through all the distractions.

Little wonder that at age 58, Young sounds like an artist renewed.

Q. I think you like seeing how far you can push your fans.

A[. Laughs] "Greendale" is as close as I could come in my own meager way to what
Bob Dylan did with the Band when he was booed for going electric. I knew that by
playing an hour-and-a-half of new material, the audience would go berserk. Some
would be ecstatic and others would be so ticked off at me, they'd be throwing
bottles. When we opened the American tour last year in West Palm Beach [Fla.],
people were standing there with their mouths open. A couple of 'em were yelling
out `Southern Man' and `Powderfinger,' and then that stopped. When grandpa [one
of the characters in the play] started yelling about `Some people have taken
pure [expletive] and turned it into gold,' half of the guys in the center
section all stood up with their fists in the air and started yelling and
screaming, and when [a picture of] Ashcroft came on the video screen, a guy
stood up in front and turned to the audience and raised his hand and started
cheering. I knew something was going on. I didn't know what it was, and I still
don't really know what it is. But I think it's a play. Now I think it's a play,
and the audience is responding in a way that makes me think we have something
here.

Q. Last year you stood on stages owned by Clear Channel and skewered the
corporation for buying up so many radio stations and concert venues. Now you're
touring under the aegis of Clear Channel again. Why?

A. It's a sound business relationship we have that allows me to play for my
audience. I haven't made a decision to react any other way to this, because I
feel like they bought my house. I feel it's still my house, but they own it. Now
what am I gonna do with it? Those concert venues are my house, and they own them
all across America. That's where I go. It's like telling the devil he can't go
to the jail in "Greendale."

Q. To me it's fascinating that these issues -- Clear Channel and corporate
consolidation, the Bush administration's attitude toward the environment, the
way the media reports on the news -- are all in play on this album and movie
during an election year.

At the same time, the attitude toward pop culture is that the corporations want
music that is less controversial than ever, in order to sell it more
effectively. Did you consider those repercussions when you put out an album and
movie that points fingers like this one does?

A. It's certainly become more provocative than I ever thought it would be. I
really didn't know what I was doing, to tell you the truth, I really had no
idea. It's just a story that came out. And it just seemed real everywhere I've
turned. I started getting questions right away about the content of these songs.
Being interviewed in the record business had become a surface ritual, talking
about how my style was different from the last record, or do people believe me
when I go from one style to another, or how committed am I to Crazy Horse -- how
many times can I answer these questions? But with the film, people were talking
about what I said, not how I said it or who I am. They have something to focus
on besides me. The whole idea of me figuring out through the movie that it was
more effective to have other people lip-syncing my songs, rather than me doing
it, that doing it that way I could take the story and the messages further, was
a real revelation to me. Having all kinds of characters [in the movie] using my
voice really freed me up to comment on all these things.

Q. A lot of popular music avoids these issues altogether. We're hearing a lot of
hit songs about acquiring things, or celebrating a lavish lifestyle. Does that
disappoint you that popular music isn't more engaged with politics in an
election year?

A. I feel like being concerned about that is like being out of step with the
possibilities. Because I have seen everything change in my lifetime. Radio has
completely changed. It's gone somewhere that is so controlled and so corporate
and so programmed, aside from college radio, it's so different from what I grew
up with, that I moved into pictures, for many reasons. It's so rewarding to
shoot. I felt like I was doing something new.

I love to use the camera, it's a logical extension of my music, especially when
I shoot the thing myself, and I make the camera move with the music. It's part
of playing my guitar, the way I look at it. It's a moving, fluid thing. I can
get into making a picture the same way that I can get into making a guitar solo.
It's going by in real time. That's where I went, instead of being concerned that
no one else is saying anything. It's one thing to say something and avoid it,
having it echo around in your head or in the room. I'm just looking for a way to
say something that will be heard and talked about. I feel like I got there with
this one.



inteL8er,

RDB
http://blomstedt.jwdx.com
"she's an angel and she loves to spread her wings
I'm a stranger here but I love the song she sings" - paul cotton


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