Donald Trump's campaign runs into trouble right at the start

It's not unusual for a presidential candidate to get into difficulties with their musical soundtracks - mostly for using songs without permission.

I think Donald Trump - very much the Zeppo of this year's Republican hopefuls - has broken some sort of record, having got slapped down virtually before he left the stage announcing his - admittedly amusing - candidacy.

"Heh" Trump must have thought, "I've only just said that I intend to clutter up the 2016 race with my limited understanding and honking outrage routine, and already my email box is pinging. I wonder if this email is from a wellwisher, or a rival throwing in the towel. Let's check."

Official Statement from Neil Young:

"Donald Trump was not authorized to use "Rockin' In The Free World" in his presidential candidacy announcement. Neil Young, a Canadian citizen, is a supporter of Bernie Sanders for President of the United States of America."

Trump sighs. He had really wanted to go with Barrett Strong's 'Money', but didn't feel America was ready to vote for a black Republican Presidential theme song.

Young strengthens Pono with, er, trademarks

Give Neil Young credit, he's happy to push on with his fundamentally flawed Pono adventure.

He's registered some trademarks. Rolling Stone has had a look:

Evidence of Neil Young's latest move to brand and market Pono, his forthcoming music service featuring high-resolution master downloads of songs, can be found in his recent federal trademark applications for a pair of slogans – "Pono Promise" and "21st Century Digital" – which reside on Pono's website.

The latest trademark applications, filed this month, refer to "cases for audio tuners, audio receivers, amplifiers, tape players, compact disc players, MP3 controllers/players, audio mixers, audio speakers in the nature of music studio monitors, microphones, audio speakers, compact discs, audio tapes, portable computers, antennas, phonographic record players, audio recording equipment," according to documents on file with the United States Patent and Trademark Office.

That's the ticket, Neil - make sure nobody tries to hitch a free ride on your downward spiral.

Formatwatch: Pono

Neil Young is unhappy thathis high-quality music is being squished into mp3 format and played back on crappy speakers.

He's got a plan though: He's going to persuade people to buy a new player and a new format. This will be high-quality music. What could go wrong?

Obviously, if you're punting a high-quality music player, it's going to have to be a high-end product all the way through. So this player, Pono, is going to be a thing of great beauty, right?

Um... okay, maybe they're starting with a Fisher Price version for toddlers to catch them young, yeah?

Young doesn't seem to have any understanding of how people are listening to music now - streaming it from the cloud, using their phones - which is why the obvious questions, like 'what makes you think people are suddenly going to buy a standalone music player like it's 2002 all over again?' haven't derailed the process of bringing this product to market.

More to the point, Young's motivation is misplaced:

For quite some time now, Young has lamented the decline of music during the digital age. It’s not pirating that’s the culprit. It’s the MP3, a format that degrades the quality of the music we hear. Speaking at a Wall Street Journal conference earlier this year (watch here), Young complained that the MP3 can’t “transfer the depth of the art.” “My goal,” he continued, “is to try and rescue the art form that I’ve been practicing for the past 50 years.”

Trouble is, hardly anyone has ever listened to music in high quality. Sure, a few people spent thousands on top-end hi-fi systems and treated playing vinyl as a sacrement.

But most people who played Cosby, Stills, Nash And Young records would have done so on a wobbly turntable, with a needle that should have been replaced at some point in the past. Lucky copies of the disc might have got a quick wipe-over with an EMITECH cloth, but most would have just been defluffed by a rub on a jumper sleeve. Once sent on its bouncy, crackly way, the music would have been heard through a built-in tinny speaker, or a couple of wall speakers located not to create a perfect diamond of sound, but to avoid having to move the fish bowl and to make use of a shelf already on the wall.

Beyond that, it would have been stretched cassette tapes turning at strange speeds as batteries faded, or CD players in cars fighting engine and road noise.

Yeah, MP3 and earbuds are a bit crappy. But there has never been a time in the history of rock when people have treated musical fidelity with the respect Young seems to think it deserves.

[Thanks to Michel M]

Guitarobit: Ben Keith

Ben Keith, for four decades a vital part of Neil Young's backing team, has died.

Born in Kansas, Keith once landed himself in hospital after too hard, too heavy practice on the steel guitar. The pain was worth it, though, as he quickly became a sought-after session player - that's him on Patsy Cline's I Fall To Pieces.

Working in Nashville paid off for Keith when Young arrived in town to record an album - a series of recommendations led to Keith being co-opted into a backing group, dubbed the Stray Gators. He didn't know who Neil Young was, and yet he was to help Young create Harvest. It was the start of a long association which took Ben through Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young and then into a key role supporting Young's solo career.

He also made his own music - although it wasn't until 1984 that he released something under his own name. Keith also turned his hand to production - Jewel's first album was one of his - but never stopped playing live or working as a session player.

Recently, he had been supporting Pegi Young on tour. Neil Young dedicated Old Men - the track which started their association - to Keith during a Monday show in Winnipeg.

73 years old, it's believed Ben Keith suffered a fatal heart attack at Neil Young's ranch at the weekend.

Glastonbury 2009: Neil Young

The ten-minute cut off on Youube videos appears to have resulted in no complete version of Young's Rocking In The Free World making it online yet, so instead: Neil Young does The Beatles:



[Part of Glastonbury 2009 video]

UPDATE:

Glastonbury 2009: View from the sofa - BBC 2

Ah, the senior service on BBC 2 gets a full complement of presenters - Radcliffe and Laverne sharing main duties, but throwing to Zane Lowe down in front of The Ting Tings, and Jo Whiley off in the studio.

Jo presents an acoustic performance from Paolo Nutini as if it's some sort of treat, although she does use the phrase "it's the same thing, year after year" so perhaps she was trying to be knowing.

They're currently showing a short film explaining who Neil Young is, rather than showing Neil Young playing live. Is there anyone alive who doesn't know who Young is, who is going to go "oh, if this chap David Crosby says he's worth hearing, maybe I will listen to him?"

Oh. Having spent five minutes of their time talking about Neil Young, Radcliffe is now promising they'll show him "in the next show". After - I kid you not - a Newsnight Michael Jackson special.

Saint Etienne weekend: Only Love Can Break Your Heart

A dollop of Neil Young coverage now. Apparently, this reached number one in the American Hot Dance Chart back in 1991:



[Part of Saint Etienne weekend]

Young doesn't like the sound of Apple

They don't go into very much detail, but Fortune reports Neil Young having a go at Apple:

“Apple has taken a detour down the convenience highway,” Young told the Brainstorm audience after taking the stage for an interview with Time Inc. editor-in-chief John Huey. “Quality has taken a complete backseat - if it even gets in the car at all.”
[...]
Young complained that music has become “like wallpaper” - more Muzak than music. “We have beautiful computers now but high-resolution music is one of the missing elements,” he said. “The ears are the windows to the soul.”

It does, of course, come down to what you want - immediate access to hundreds of thousands of tracks in acceptable quality, or a strictly controlled supply of super high quality tracks. The sad truth is, that for most people, for most songs, the quality of iTunes (and the Zune store) is good enough, for the same reason that before music shifted to computers, most people weren't going to spend twenty, thirty quid for gold-plated connectors for their hi-fi equipment. Hell, before the computer age, most music was played through crappy equipment - portable CD players, never-cleaned cassette machines, wobbly record players with enough fluff on the needle to keep Ken Dodd in tickling sticks for a decade and a half.

Young is right; the quality of digital music isn't the very highest. But - much as with Pete Townshend's comments on how iTunes is just a way of selling music - he's comparing it with a golden past that never existed.

Neil Young worries he might have been hasty

Neil Young seems to have worried that he might have been hasty claiming that music can no longer change the world. So he's issued a statement to clarify his position:

A Song Alone.
By Neil Young

No one song can change the world. But that doesn’t mean its time to stop singing.
Somewhere on Earth a scientist is alone working. No one knows what he or she is thinking. The secret is just within reach. If I knew that answer I would be singing the song.

This is the Age of innovation. Hope matters. But not hope alone. In the age of innovation, the people’s fuel must be found. That is the biggest challenge. Who is up to the challenge? Who is searching today? All day. All night. Every hour that goes by. I know I am.

My friends write to me don’t give up. I am not giving up. I know this is the time for change. But I know that it’s not a song. Maybe it was. But it isn’t now. It’s an action, an accomplishment, a revelation, a new way. I am searching for the people’s fuel. Will I find it? Yes. I think so. I don’t know why I may have been chosen to help enable a discovery of this magnitude. I know I can only write a song about it when I find it. Until then I can write a song about the search or spend all my time looking. But a song alone will not change the world. Even so, I will keep on singing.

Ah. So, having said that nobody can write songs to change the planet any more, his "clarification" is, effectively, adding "apart, perhaps, from me..."

Neil Young: Music has lost its strength

Neil Young has muttered gloomily about how the once world-changing power of music has gone. Not like in his day, of course:

"I think that the time when music could change the world is past," he told reporters. "I think it would be very naive to think that in this day and age."

Young added: "I think the world today is a different place, and that it's time for science and physics and spirituality to make a difference in this world and to try to save the planet."

Young's generation, of course, were able to stop the Vietnam War using music in just sixteen years; while in the 1980s strict injunctions from musicians for Margaret Thatcher to "stand down" saw her quit Downing Street just some eleven years after she entered it. Meanwhile, the world-changing power of music was bringing about the end of Aparthied. "We would have ended it a lot earlier" confirmed FW DeKlerk, "but when our policymakers went to the Virgin Megastore, they'd been buying Queen records instead of stuff by the Specials..."

Young, women

Doing good things for charity: Cinnamon Girl is a collection of female artists doing Neil Young songs for breast cancer charities. Included is Tanya Donelly, Eurotrash Girl, Veruca Salt and - of course the expected many, many more.

Thurston Moore math: Neil Young is greater than Avril Lavigne

It's not really much of a revelation, but Thurston Moore thinks older rock stars beat the pants off young pop stars:

"I am playing with Yoko Ono, and she's well past 70 and she rocks. Neil Young rocks. It's certainly not John Mayer or Avril Lavigne. Those people don't rock.

"If that's the young generation in the culture, then forget it. In the underground, the old guys are cool. I like the fact that the older we get the more we can rock."

There's a pretty strong argument that would suggest that Yoko Ono and Avril Lavigne both rock about precisely the same amount that we could advance here, but we're choosing not to.