Could we be faced with a culture war?

It seems like such an odd -and unfortunate- question to have to ask. My brother, a law student and therefore very particular about how language is used, would scold me, and indeed already has. But I feel there is some merit to it nonetheless. Perhaps, though, it should in fact be altered: are we being dragged into a culture war?

Of course, there's no such thing as a culture war. It's hard to imagine university scholars taking up kalashnikovs and uzis for a battle to the death over who is the finer artist, Rembrandt or Caravaggio. Wars are fought over resources, territory and ideology. But there is the crux - ideology. "Culture" may not be the right term (although I use it in reference to famed -and [ob]noxious- conservative American pundit Bill O'Reilly's book title), but there is a growing schism in our society (by "our", I do in this case mean British, although this does apply, in slightly different terms and circumstances, to other countries such as the USA, France, Germany and The Netherlands). It's a schism between those of us who believe in secularism, and those who wish to impose religion on society as a whole.

To be honest, I'm no Richard Dawkins or Johann Hari. For yonks, this kind of thing passed me by (I was only a nipper when the whole Salman Rushdie farce kicked off), despite being a lifelong atheist and secularist. But slowly, the conflicts between the religious and the secularists began to rear their heads into my life.

First up was the "no veils" scandal that swept France a few years back. The French government caused much outrage and accusations of racism by banning the wearing of veils in schools and for civil servants. The scandal even meant that for a while France overtook London as a potential terrorist target. At first, I was rather ambivalent about the matter. It seemed a bit insensitive on the part of then-interior minister Nicolas Sarkozy to target what is deemed by many muslims (including women) to be an integral part of their faith. Much as I feel perturbed by the idea that woman should cover themselves up to please backwards-thinking men, the full-out banning of veils seemed over-the-top. A burka, fine. But a simple veil?

But after much heated debate with friends and colleagues, and a little investigation, I found out that this was not a simple case of anti-Islam bigotry. The principle of secularism ("la laïcité" in French) is deeply ingrained in the constitution of France. The state and religion are completely separate, and no religion shall be given precedence over others. If crosses and kippahs are not allowed in public schools, then why should veils be given special treatment? And, ultimately, French society acquiesced to this view. The Republic is an almost sacrosanct institution in France, ideally viewed as a system where all are equal and no-one gets placed ahead of someone else except on merit. Of course, this is more utopia than reality, but for the most part, France's ethnic and religious minorities (and even the Catholic religious majority) are happy to put the values of the Republic before their own, for the sake of national unity.

However, just months after this relatively storm-in-a-teacup-ish incident, there came the much more horrifying murder (fuck it, I think the word "slaughter" applies more) of controversial Dutch director Theo Van Gogh. We could debate until we're blue in the face about the merits (or lack thereof) of his film. I personally feel that, as simplistic as it was, it would be a travesty to suppress his views (and those of writer and politician Ayaan Hirsi Ali, whose suffering at the hands of extremist Islam was terrible, including genital mutiliation). Those views are there to be debated, and if they prove to be erroneous or false, then surely that can be demonstrated. Suppressing them through violence and hatred is the way of the weak and cowardly. I have read enough of the Koran to know that it contains much beauty. The people who objected to Van Gogh's films would have best served Islam by highlighting these elements in a civilised manner to the director, rather than resorting to the heinous violence they ultimately unleashed.
But what ultimately shocked me, perhaps even more than the violence of the crime itself, was the way the world reacted. Of course, there was the usual outpouring of anger and disgust at the killer and those who incited him. But, in several liberal circles, not to mention among some extremist (and even moderate) muslims, there was sense that Van Gogh had gone too far with his film and that he had ultimately provoked the reaction he got. Taken to the extreme, it basically sounded like these people were saying he got what he deserved! How can this be possible? A man deserves to be murdered, because his views were extreme? Extremist violence as an answer to extreme thoughts? Am I the only one to see a disparity here? Thoughts, or words, don't kill. There is no justification for the murder of Van Gogh, and it should be resoundedly condemned as an assault on free speech, regardless of what anyone thought of his film.

At this stage, I must point to whoever may be reading this -let's face it, not many people- that I am not, in any way, shape or form, anti-Islam. It is unfortunate that the two incidents that awakened my awareness of the assaults on secularism and free speech by religions should involve radical islamism. I want it on the record right now that I have friends, colleagues and acquaintances who are Muslims, and I have nothing but the utmost respect for them. But this respect does not insulate them (or indeed, my Christian or Jewish or Buddhist or Hindu friends) from criticism of the tenets of their faith. Indeed, some of the most eye-opening, tolerant, interesting and rewarding discussions I have ever had have been with Muslims on the subject of Islam. The mutual respect we have is that neither feels the need to shout down or suppress the views of the other. They respect my right to criticise some of the ideas expressed in the Koran, and I respect their right to live their faith, and express their thoughts on it freely. The idea that we all could be sentenced to death, just for having said conversations, is deeply abhorrent for me. Yet is this not what happened to Van Gogh? Or those editors and caricaturists in Denmark? For me, such violent intolerance is not at the core of what I have learned about Islam, and yet it is so vocal. The aim of this blog is not to bash any religion, but to call for all moderate Muslims, Christians, Jews, etc. to stand up for free speech and the basic principle of democracy that is the free exchange of ideas.

In fairness, I'm not expecting this blog to be even remotely important enough to warrant any persecution. But you never know...

In the last few days, I have to say, my secularist self has been bristling considerably at recent news. There was the incident involving yet another Dutch polemicist, Geert Wilders, who was refused entry to the UK on the grounds that his controversial film (again! What is it with the Dutch and films condemning Islam?) Fitna could provoke the local Muslim population into violence. I've seen the film. It's crap. Absolute incendiary tripe. But he should not have been banned. The only way to address bigotry and stupidity like Wilders' is to let it out into the open, and then slam it down by exposing its emptiness. Instead, fearing riots and violence, Jacqui Smith made a stupid decision, one that has hit free speech in this country smack-bang in the face.

There was also the Palestinian appeal, that the BBC stupidly decided not to air, on the basis of "neutrality" in the Israel-Palestine conflict. Have we got so afraid of angering people (in this case, the Jewish lobby) that an appeal to save lives is deemed unacceptable? Okay, granted, that had little to do with religion and more to do with the vocal belligerence of Israel, but the principle remains the same. Still, at least Britain's jews would not threaten to firebomb the Beeb had the appeal gone to air, as was the risk for the House of Lords in the Wilders case. But in both cases, it stinks of free speech and the right to differing opinions being slapped down by vocal and aggressive minorities or lobbies.

But the crux for me has come in the last two weeks. A few weeks back, respected (and excellent) Independent journalist Johann Hari wrote an article defending the value of free speech in the wake of growing pressure on no less a body than the UN to not only defend religion, but ultimately to condemn all forms of criticism of religion, specifically Islam. The driving forces behind this pressure, which included Saudi Arabia, The Vatican and the Christian Right in America, basically ended with the Pakistani UN delegate demanding that UN's Rapporteur on Human Rights' job description be, in Haris' words "changed so he can seek out and condemn 'abuses of free expression' including 'defamation of religions and prophets'.
Hari was justifiably outraged, and put it succinctly this way: "The council agreed – so the job has been turned on its head. Instead of condemning the people who wanted to murder Salman Rushdie, they will be condemning Salman Rushdie himself." You can read the whole article here: http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/johann-hari/johann-hari-why-should-i-respect-these-oppressive-religions-1517789.html.
This is a serious assault on our civil liberties. Now, religious extremists can actually go to the UN and demand that the likes of Rushdie, or Hari himself (fuck, even me, if I were more significant) be condemned under international law for whatever offences they perceive as being inflicted on them. And it got worse. In his article, Hari demonstrated just why this ruling is an abhorrence by highlighting passages in all three major monotheist religions that are ugly, repugnant and unsound, yet which pretty soon we may not be allowed to condemn. The response? When his article was reproduced in an Indian newspaper, extremist Muslims in Calcutta, objecting to a passage about Mohammed's rape of a 9-year-old he chose to be his bride, rioted, called for the death of Hari and the editors and ultimately succeeded in getting the latter arrested. This in the world's largest democracy! http://www.johannhari.com/archive/article.php?id=1448

How can this be possible? How can the governing bodies of the entire world be bowing down to such hysterical pressure? I repeat, I am all for the freedom of every individual to express his or her religious faith. But NOT if this expression curbs or assaults the basic freedoms of others. That is what being a secularist is all about (please do not confuse it with militant atheism - I know quite a few religious secularists). And amongst the many backlashes against this insanity (read messages of support for Hari and the Indian editors here: http://www.johannhari.com/archive/article.php?id=1451), we are also now seeing a resurgence (did it ever leave?) of Christian hysteria in the UK, one that is increasingly matching the virulence of America's Christian Right and the extremism of radical Islam.

The big one was the nurse. Caroline Petrie was suspended from her hospital for offering to pray for a sick patient. This turned out to be a breach of hospital practice, and Petrie was duly sanctioned. Yet, the increasingly vociferous Christian Institute (that ultimately preaches a BNP-style mantra of restoring Britain's Christian roots at the centre of our society) caused a right stink, backed by those foul-crying harpies of our gutter press: The Daily Mail, The Daily Express and The Telegraph. They all equally screamed and stamped and cried "discrimination" at the tops of their voices when a school receptionist was reprimanded for sending an e-mail to friends during work hours asking for them to pray for her daughter who had been scolded in class for, in the CI's words "referring to Jesus and God".
Turns out, that's bullshit. The little five-year-old had been telling one of her school chums that, as a non-Christian, she would be going to Hell. The other child was frightened by this and a teacher intervened to tell the receptionist's daughter that scaring other children was not acceptable. The mother got the wrong end of the stick, sent a disparaging and unprofessional e-mail to her friends, one of whom happened to be married a school governor, who, noting the impropriety of this behaviour, duly informed the headteacher. Hence the reprimand. You can find out the full truth, and that behind other such "anti-Christian" stories as that of BA employee Nadia Eweida here: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/belief/2009/feb/24/religion-christianity-atheism. Unlike the Mail or the Telegraph, Guardian reporter Terry Sanderson has actually bothered to check the facts before spouting off. And he does it with much more eloquence. Funny that...
The CI and its allies have not bothered to check anything, instead trying to whip up conflict, scandal and hysteria by claiming Christians are being systematically discriminated against in the UK. Hell, it worked in the USA.

At the centre of all these situations is the central belief by many religious people that somehow their faiths deserve to be protected from criticism and debate. So, they take employers, journalists, authors to court, demonstrate outside embassies or newspaper offices and in the worst cases resort to violence or murder. And increasingly, our governing bodies are all too eager (because they're scared?) to play along. Surely these people's beliefs are not so fragile as to warrant such behaviour? Surely the words of secularists or free-thinking moderates are not so threatening? They're just words after all.
Above all, religions are based on ideas, in the same way philosophies and scientific theories are. Ideas should not be protected and shielded in the same way we protect ethnic or sexual minorities from racism or prejudice. They should be discussed, debated and critiqued, as a way of developping our societies as a whole. Otherwise, we will be one step away from getting our very own religious thought police. And that is the path to the death of democracy.

Maybe we are in a culture war after all. And freedom of expression could be the ultimate loser...


For anyone interested in promoting and upholding secularism, here's a great website: http://www.secularism.org.uk/

Got Live If You Want It!

Ah, the live album. Unpredictable little bastards, live albums. Some of the most reliable and successful studio bands have failed to ever deliver a decent one, despite their positive reputations as live acts (I'm thinking Led Zeppelin, Eagles, The Beatles, Black Sabbath, Fleetwood Mac, Funkadelic, The Stooges, Radiohead - you may not like all these bands, but there's no denying their popularity or the fact that people who have seen them live tend to wax lyrical about the experience). Shit, The Clash's posthumous live was an absolute stinker!

But, if a band or artist is good live, then for music-heads there will never be a better experience than seeing said band in the flesh. It's tantamount to a pilgrimage, a religious or spiritual experience that subsumes your whole being and takes you to places that no studio album could ever manage. After seeing Neil Young last year (twice), I felt my soul melt and tears leap to my eyes, such was the hold he had on me, such were the emotions that raced through my body with every line and every guitar solo. The same thing happened when I went to see Wilco at the Elysee Montmartre in Paris. Something about the charisma of lead singer Jeff Tweedy, coupled with the beauty of his songs and the reckless abandon of the band's playing reached deep into my heart and left me breathless. Even their immense A Ghost Is Born album could not mimic the effect the gig had on me, and I've been dying to see them again ever since.

And, rest assured, there have been more than a few live albums that have succeeded where The Zep's How The West Was Won or Yes' Yessongs failed, managing to capture on vinyl or CD the energy, sense of communion and spirit of the band or artist on stage. The most famous are well renowned: The Who's Live at Leeds (possibly the best live album ever), MC5's Kick out the Jams, The Rolling Stones' Get Yer Ya-Ya's Out, The Allman Brothers Band's At Fillmore East, not to mention classics by Deep Purple, King Curtis, Aretha Franklin, The Grateful Dead and Lou Reed.

But this blog is not for such much-lauded fair. I'm going by the assumption that you already are familiar with Hendrix's Band of Gypsies and Reed's Rock'n'Roll Animal. But there are quite a few other stunning live gems out there, and here is a smattering of my personal faves.

1) King Crimson: Earthbound (1972)

Few bands' own fans have hated one of their idol's albums with quite as much venom as King Crimson's when confronted with the messy slab of dysfunction that is Earthbound. There is no denying how atonal, violent and ramshackle this, the band's first live album, is. It sounds, well, awful, as it was recorded straight to a cassette deck. No 8-track, remote studio cleanliness here. The instruments all blend together, the saturation is vicious and there are only five tracks. This is a brutal, brutal album, and the closest Crimson ever came to producing a metal opus. In volume and intensity, it rivals anything Led Zep, Sabbath or Free ever did. And in terms of reckless abandon, it's akin to the best of The Stooges, The MC5 or Neu!.

Earthbound came along at one of many crossroads for King Crimson. It remains an unanswered question as to just how many masterpieces Crimson could have created if they'd managed to get a stable lineup. As it is, they delivered a classic, must-have debut and several amazing, if inconsistent follow-ups, and this cow-pat in the poppy field. By Earthbound, that stunning debut album from '69 seemed a lifetime away, with only genius guitarist Robert Fripp remaining from the original lineup, and with tensions running at all-time high. Indeed, by the time the album was released, it seemed Crimson was gone for good, and that this was Fripp's last big "fuck you" to the world and to his ex-band members. Few albums have been born out of so much spite.

Gosh, I'm probably not selling this very well. Truth is, Earthbound is a "yes, but" album. Yes, the sound is messy. Yes, the band members hated each other. Yes, Fripp disliked the funky direction bassist/singer Boz Burrell and drummer Ian Wallace were taking the band. But, my God, it's a fucking slap in the gob from the word go. A good live album makes you want to have been in the audience at the moment of recording. I can confidently say that I have rarely wished I was somewhere with more vigor than in the mosh pit for the opening thunderstorm version of "21st Century Schizoid Man". It has to be one of the most intense moments in rock history. The crowd's cheering is immediately subsumed by an almighty burst of drums, sax and guitar and the guys are off, pummeling this prog classic into the ground with sheer reckless abandon. They basically wipe the floor with the original studio version, which sounds almost limp in comparison. Boz was never as good a vocalist as Greg Lake, but here his voice is filtered deliriously through a VCS3 synth, making him sound robotic and even more deranged than Lake ever did. Then the band launches into a transcendent jam. Fripp may have been all miserable by this stage, but you wouldn't guess it as he pours a pure molten solo, followed by Mel Collins' barnstorming sax break. The whole piece careers along at freight-train speed, before collapsing in on itself and shuddering to a grateful and chaotic halt, leaving the listener breathless.

The rest of the album was always going to struggle to maintain such energy, but they give it a fantastic shot. Do not expect a greatest hits live package. Two of the four remaining tracks are unique-to-this-album improvisations that showcase Wallace and Boz's taste for funk and scatting. Not outstanding, although "Earthbound" does feature some truly monumental guitar work from Fripp, who also lets rips on a screaming, free-jazz overload version of "The Sailor's Tale". Sadly, it's the shortest track here, and the audience is silent (I'd have been roaring my head off at such masterful playing) or obliterated, but it features some gorgeous Mellotron from Collins and one of Fripp's greatest solos. But the cherry on this bloated, sinister cake remains closer "Groon", expanded here (from it's origins as a non-album single) into a 15-minute mess that starts off normally enough, with some cool jazzy interplay, before each member sets about tearing it to bits, the culminating moment being when Wallace's drum solo is filtered into the VCS3. It's an almost disturbingly fraught cacophony, sounding so ragged and raw, as if they practically stopped caring, before Fripp swoops in with yet another screaming solo and the whole thing burns out before the piece is even over!

Like I say, the whole album is a mess: roughly recorded, incoherently edited, loud, raw and saturated to buggery. The anti-prog live album. But I am so grateful it's out there, permeating the stale atmosphere of 70s prog-rock with its proto-black-metal stench. For "21st Century Schizoid Man" and "Groon" alone this is a masterpiece of rampant rock and definitely worth tracking down. Fuck, it's cover was even aped by those masters of heavy psych, Acid Mothers Temple. Surely that's a guarantee of underground credibility?

2 - Jefferson Airplane - Bless Its Pointed Little Head - 1969

Live albums really sprung to the fore at the tail-end of the 1960s, in the wake of Bob Dylan's seminal 1966 Tour with The Band, when The Rock Bard unleashed his Highway 61-era songs to the anger and revulsion of many in the audience. Gone were the days of packed clubs or stadia where screaming kids emptied their lungs at the feet of The Beatles and their two-minute wonders. Dylan's actions ushered in the days of ROCK, and extended jams and ear-splitting amp volume became the norm. And pretty soon, all the major acts of the late '60s had hopped on the bandwagon, leading to the defining era of live single- and double-albums, with such classics as The Allmans' At Fillmore East, The Dead's Live/Dead and Hendrix's Band of Gypsies, all mentioned above.

In this morass, Jefferson Airplane's contribution, the immense Bless It's Pointed Little Head, seems to have gone oddly un-heralded, despite being one of the very best of the period. Jefferson Airplane were -and remain- legends of the hippy counter-culture that sprung up in the mid-sixties in San Francisco. Their politically-charged and drug-tinged anthems touched a deep chord in the hearts and minds of California's youth, whilst the charisma and beauty of singer Grace Slick made them perhaps the most media-friendly of all the West Coast bands bar The Byrds. Their 1967 hits "Somebody to Love" and "White Rabbit" became staples and signatures foran entire generation of American refuseniks.

But all that only tells a small part of the story of this singular band. They may have had hits and media exposure, which probably caused them to burn out and become rapidly obsolete as the starry-eyed sixties gave way to the cynical seventies, but at their height, they were so much more than simple poster children for fashionable -and dispensable- hippyness. Jefferson Airplane was in fact perhaps the hardest-hitting acid band in Frisco, capable of belting out a raw and ragged sound that even the Grateful Dead and Quicksilver Messenger Silver, in all their jamming, couldn't equal. By 1969, Jefferson Airplane had an edge to rival the Doors and Iron Butterfly, which sat up nicely alongside their anthemic singles.

And Bless Its Pointed Little Head captured that edge and energy on vinyl. It's a proper, unfettered, warts-and-all live masterpiece that showcases not only the band's knack for anthemic tunes and the neat vocal interplay of Slick and fellow singer Marty Balin, but also their ability to let loose, to improvise and to rave it up. Everyone's a hero on Bless It's Pointed Little Head. Slick is at her best, taking her staple "Somebody to Love", for example, and turning it inside out as the band funks it up behind her, belting out some delirious rapping vocalisations like a crazed Southern gospel singer. The song is revved up, white hot, yet tight and crisp, and the band delivers similar punchy moments of brilliance on Balin's staples "The Other Side of This Life", "It's No Secret" and "3/5's of a Mile in 10 Seconds". The 'Plane's other singer demonstrates just how underrated he is, particularly on an almost punkish version of "Plastic Fantastic Lover", where he shouts himself roar above a fierce garage beat.

But, as was often the case with '60s bands, the best moments are reserved for when the band sheds its shackles and rears its improvisational head. First up comes "Fat Angel", a Donovan cover that the band completely reworks, turning it into a seven-minute psych-drone epic given over to warbling guitar solos and Paul Kantner's stoned vocals. Then the reins are handed over to guitarist Jorma Kaukonen (a truly underrated axe master, in my opinion) and superb bassist Jack Casady, who basically showcase what would become their Hot Tuna side-project with a blisffully psyched-out blues called "Rock Me Baby". Kaukonen is of course the star here, unleashing molten guitar solos that are equal parts Muddy Waters and Happy Trails-era John Cippolina.

But it's the final psych-sludge landslide improv, "Bear Melt", that seals this album as one of the truly great live albums. Slick returns to the forefront to remind us all who's boss as, over a slow, heavy blues riff, she begins rapping again, her voice hurtling skywards as she reels off bizarre lyrics and Kaukonen rips up a storm behind her. Then the band takes over, unleashing a furious, mind-melting (see what I did there?) jam that stretches out for the best part of 10 minutes before Slick takes over again to bring it all to a shuddering, growling halt. Then, ever the slick customer (man, I am an a roll here!), she drolly quips to the delirious audience, "You can move your rear ends now" before strolling off.

Raw and rampant, Bless Its Pointed Little Head is a classic live album, brilliantly displaying the Ariplane's talents for improvisation and jamming whilst also providing enough punchy, jagged rock bursts to satisfy anyone out there gagging for a little MC5-ish raw power. At times, I swear, they move into proto-metal territory, with "Bear Melt" sitting alongside the best of The Doors' and Velvet Underground's output as some sort of precursor to nineties doom, albeit with a cleaner, more innocent vibe. Check it out if you like a bit of high-octane psych joy. I would defy anyone to say that, at their height, the Airplane weren't the best in the business.

Oh, and the sound is gorgeous throughout, for those of you who hated Earthbound.

3 - Townes Van Zandt - Live at the Old Quarter, Houston, Texas - 1977

There's a lot to say for a bit of the above-mentioned sturm-und-drang. However, at the other end of the spectrum, you have those live albums that gain their force not from pumped-up amp volume and wild guitar thrashing, but rather from their artists' ability to capitivate an audience with more rudimentary and intimate means.

In this respect, Townes Van Zandt had few peers. Steve Earle once declared that he would stand up on Bob Dylan's coffee table to praise Van Zandt as the greatest singer-songwriter in America. Quite a compliment and one I'm afraid I share ("I'm afraid" - how British of me). For those of you who haven't turned away in shocked horror at my blasphemy, maybe your curiosity is piqued. Or, more likely, you have experienced the genius of Townes Van Zandt and know that there is almost certainly some merit to these lines.

Townes' strength was his hurt, and I don't think any other American singer-songwriter, maybe apart from Skip Spence and Neil Young (and in the latter's case not always, plus he's Canadian) who poured out such anguish, despair and loss into his songs, certainly with such regularity. But Townes' other strength was his sense of humour, even in the darkest of times. Which means that a Townes Van Zandt song, such as "Pancho and Lefty" or "Lungs" veers from witty to sad to wistful to droll to sardonic to melancholic in the space of just a few minutes. And Live at The Old Quarter contains just about the greatest collection of all his best tracks, making it something of a greatest hits compilation, as well as a demonstration of his unique acoustic guitar playing, wry humour and depth of emotion.

Old Quarter is intimate, with possibly one of the smallest crowds ever to feature on a major live album, a couple of hundred at best. It's so intimate, you can hear glasses smashing, the sound of boots on the floor and murmurs of conversation as Townes is introduced and begins getting ready. When I first popped it into my machine and heard this, I was worried that the noise would distract from the music. Silly me. Barely have the first few notes of "Pancho and Lefty" kicked in and that warm, drawling voice begun wafting across the packed bar than the punters are transfixed, caught by his stirring narration and gentle pathos. It's a great intro, with a great song, and above all it demonstrates just how great a performer Townes Van Zandt was. He didn't need guitar pyrotechnics, stacks of Marshall amps or to leap around a stage in order to captivate his audience. Just that voice, those lyrics, those tunes. And from "Pancho" onwards, he holds his audience like a snake charmer does a cobra. He intersperses tracks with hilarious jokes if the mood gets too intense, raps quietly (and perhaps a tad drunkenly) about this and that, before getting down to the core of the task by reeling out such superb tracks as "To Live is to Fly", "If I Needed You", "Tower Song", "Waiting Around to Die" and "Rex's Blues" (perhaps the highlight of the whole set for me). Some of these are heartbreaking, some, such as "Fraternity Blues", are rib-crackingly funny, and he even demonstrates a stomping gift to let loose and boogie on just his acoustic guitar with real pounders like "White Freight Liner Blues" and "Who Do You Love". To really get the full impact of this unique live show, the latest CD edition, which includes every track played on the night, is a must, and a real boon for any fan of the great man.

But, from the number of tracks with the word "Blues" in the title, you'll have gathered that Van Zandt was above all a man who had inexorably tapped into the darkest reaches of the human soul, and was not afraid to share what he found there with his audience. Townes didn't patronise or simplify: he shot from the hip, delivering his sombre truths and bittersweet musings in elegant prose and poetic turns of phrase, but without ever shying away from harshness, despair or fear. And Live Quarter displays this in the most intimate, up-close and personal way: one man laying his soul at to a lucky, and rapturous crowd. For me, this album is a rare and beautiful treasure.

4 - Cabaret Voltaire - Live at the Y.M.C.A., 27-10-79 - 1980

This is quite possibly the least-known of the live albums presented here. It doesn't even have the benefit of being notorious and hated like Earthbound. After all, Cabaret Voltaire fans were used to the low-fi, harsh sound their idols dispensed, so anything as "controversial" as industrial noise, electronic beats and snarling, inaudible voices was just par-for-the-course.

But the punk and post-punk ages were not great for fans of live albums. Most groups were simply too short-lived to ever get to the live album stage. A whole lot more simply weren't that great live, due to being too messy, disorganised and drunk. Most gigs were short, and the sound quality wasn't great, as tight, packed clubs didn't always allow for the kind of instrument separation that massive venues like the Fillmores and Lyceums of this world did. And indeed, the main criticism that Live at the YMCA receives is that it sounds like shit.

It's not actually that bad, but it does have a very bootleggish sort of vibe going on. Whoever recorded this obviously was towards the back of the crowd with some pretty rudimentary equipment indeed. But to bitch about that is to completely miss the point. Cabaret Voltaire were a cash-strapped, underground, industrial, electro-punk outfit from harsh post-industrial Sheffield. How anyone can then expect one of their live albums to sound like a Queen or Pink Floyd live album is beyond. For me, taking an audience-tape recording and releasing it officially is the ultimate pied-de-nez to the world, a true punk gesture. In fact, the feeling you ultimately get is one of actually being there, more than on any other live album I've heard, except perhaps Live at the Old Quarter. You are rapidly swallowed up by the stomping percussion and twisted synth noise as it rumbles away from the stage, drowning out the crowd buzz around you and submerging all before it. It may be low-fi, but Live at the YMCA does not lack power at all.

By 1979, The Cabs were smack-dab in the middle of their creative peak. Personally, I'm not such a fan of their post-Chris Watson phase, much as I respect and admire their contribution to acid-house and techno music. For me, though, the music produced from their seminal debut Mix-Up all the way to 1982's 2x45 remains some of the best electronica ever made, right up there with more celebrated acts such as The Human League, OMD and The Normal. The Cabs, though, remain more obscure, sadly, mostly a name people have heard without hearing the music. Yet, for me, they today sound less dated, and more futuristic than 90% of their contemporaries, distilling a timeless electronica-meets-rock-meets-funk groove that I can quite easily picture future generations of humans, androids and robots swaying their hips to. 

This is beyond doubt due to The Cabs relentless non-conformism and dedication to their sound. Never having had to conform to studio demands for hits and massive tours, they were able to continually push their boundaries, with saturated noise, waves of distortion, sound samples and processed rhythm patterns all being meshed together, then added to oblique lyrics that referenced Burroughs, Burgess, Dick and Ballard that all pointed to a stark dystopian future that, for all our progress as a race, has never seemed to recede or get less likely. As we face economic meltdown and the threat of ecological apocalypse, the harsh, robotic and cold sound of Cabaret Voltaire becomes more and more relevant, and oddly more and more danceable.

And what I wouldn't do to get a chance to seem them perform these songs live. Personally, I'm not that bothered that there are no unique tracks on here. No-one complains when Bob Dylan or Led Zeppelin do that. And this collection of tracks gives a near-perfect cliche of what The Cabs were doing at this time. Their motto may have been "no dancing" at one point, but here the mixture of repetitive electronic beats and sweeping analogue synth noise creates a bizarre mixture of funk and noise that can't fail to have you swaying even as your senses are assaulted. Whether this is on the insistent pounding opener "Untitled" or the industrial dance of signature tune "Nag Nag Nag", the effect is disconcerting, like hearing robots trying to tackle disco or something. Stephen Mallinder's nasty, seething vocals only add to the disquiet, as, submerged in the wall of sound, they come out more like an extra mechanical instrument than an actual voice.

But this not all about proto-dance music played by obnoxious futurists with no sense of humour. The Cabs, for all, their musical devolution and messy sense of harmonics, were not just rabble-rousers or sloppy belligerents. These fuckers could play, and they demonstrate it hear on the slower, less instantly rhythmical tracks such as "The Set up" (the jewel in this live set), "On Every Other Street" and their distorted, barely-recognizable cover of The Velvet Underground's classic "Here She Comes Now". Here, the synths and slashes of saturated guitar and bass noise compete, dipping and diving in around each other as Mallinder sneers incoherently into his mic, the whole pieces dripping with pathos, anger and barely contained violence. Live at the YMCA is intense, in a way only really rivaled by Bob Dylan's live '66 bootleg and the 30 Minutes Over Brussels EP by Suicide. Although the audience is more appreciative here than on either of those, there is a sense of menace and bile that few artists have ever looked to release as a live album. And to end the album on the experimental noisefest that is "Baader Meinhof", a tribute to or comment on the German terrorists from the 70s, took some guts, in my book. 

So, whilst not confrontational -the at first quite quiet (disconcerted, maybe?) audience seems to quickly succumb to the dark charms of Cabaret Voltaire- Live at the YMCA is dark and aggressive, uncompromising and sullen like the artists themselves were. It wasn't put out to please or get you head-banging (hence the sound quality), but rather hit its audience in the gut and demonstrate the full, snarling fury of an average Cabs gig. These aren't showmen, they're fiercely anti-rock, anti-frills. But it is powerful, pulsating with suppressed energy and hidden menace. And, it is also one of the very few live albums to document the post punk period and the omnipresent anti-rock, anti-showbiz, pro-experimentation mentality that was streaking across Britain at the time. Seeing as PiL, Joy Division and Throbbing Gristle all missed the boat when it came to live albums (PiL's post-everyone except Lydon one was a disaster), thank God Cabaret Voltaire were out there letting us know the abuse they were heaping on their audiences. Who seemed to enjoy it and I bet were actually dancing.

Other great, and often under-appreciated live albums worth checking out (and that I'll certainly come back to) include Grand Funk's Live Album, Van der Graaf Generator's Vital and Humble Pie's Performance. Not to mention the already-reviewed Year of the Horse by Neil Young and Crazy Horse. But it's time to move on, as I'd like to mention the recent Pian Jerk / Emeralds gig I just went to, and the sumptuous masterpieces that are Simon Finn's Pass The Distance and Takehisa Kosugi's Catch-Wave. That's the great thing about blogs, you can always come back to posts you feel need elaborating on!

Great Underappreciated or Obscure Albums 7: Y by The Pop Group (1979)

It may be a cliche, but the moment Punk rock crept into my life completely set my world on its head. Up until then, my music exploration was still -albeit less and less- in thrall to those three God-bands of student idleness: The Doors, Led Zeppelin and, most hackneyed of all, Pink Floyd. In fairness, I had always been more Jefferson Airplane and Love-centric than Jim and co, whilst I always held more admiration for Black Sabbath than for the Zep (much to the chagrin of my Page-loving pals); plus, I had long since become a devotee of Neil Young and David Bowie (all periods), so I guess I can say I was moving away from those student staples, at least slightly.

But Punk slammed into this like someone taking a dump in a Regent's Park lake next to the swans (Sid Vicious, maybe?). It was through a Rock & Folk anthology. Now, that magazine may be France's putrid answer to the UK's NME, with all the sycophantic Doherty-loving to boot, but at least they know their punk (at least of the seventies and eighties, sadly Blink 182 then seems to swindle them). The magazine blew my mind, as I trawled through the history of the UK's most controversial rock genre, with a rest-stop in NYC, taking in -like some musico-literary sponge- The Damned's first New York gig (all capes and gobbing), The Pistols' McClaren-devised publicity stunts, Suicide's literally knife-edged encounter with UK audiences, Siouxsie's first ramshackle gig, Rock against Racism and all the rest. It vibrated unrest, sexual deviance, rebellion and disdain, and I was hooked. I ripped up some of my t-shirts, turned my nose up at my friends' Floyd-and-Morrison adulations and turned from pot to pills and booze. I was never going to be a real punk, but my record collection would. Out went the prog, the classic rock (though I maintained a weird affection for Frampton Comes Alive - should I admit to that??) and the country, in came a list of names that still remain legendary for me, long after I put my dogmatism away and re-expanded my tastes: Buzzcocks, The Stranglers, The Slits, Television, Magazine, The Clash, The Jam, Patti Smith, The Undertones, The Damned, The Saints, PiL...

Of course, Punk would never last, and much of it proved to be a facade. The Pistols, The Clash, The Jam and Buzzcocks all signed to major record labels. The most forward-thinking bands of the first punk wave were met with disdain and hatred (Suicide, Throbbing Gristle, even Television and the Ramones). Ultimately, we all should have paid more attention to Johnny Rotten than to Sid Vicious. For whilst the former ditched the crass commercialism of McClaren's Pistols and turned to more challenging straights with PiL, name-checking Van Der Graaf Generator and Neil Young along the way, the latter burned out in a blaze of silly excess and cheap sensationalism. And Punk died, leading the way for tacky imitations such as Blink, Sum 41, Green Day and The Libertines.

But, what a lot of those who lament Punk's broken promises neglect to notice or concentrate upon, is that, from those halcyon years of 1977 to 1982, we have, despite all I've just written, been left with some of the most sensational music ever made. No less. Typically, the best of it came from 78 (symbolically, the year the Pistols split up)-onwards, and by that time, Punk in its purest, most incompetent, snotty-nosed and brutal form, had made way for bands that were eager to experiment, broaden their horizons and go beyond the confines of three-chord thrashing. Think Siouxsie and the Banshees, the aforementioned PiL, Talking Heads, This Heat, Throbbing Gristle, Magazine, Joy Division, and many others.

What Punk did is wipe the slate clean. The significance of Rotten's praise for Van der Graaf Generator is great. They were the black sheep of that most hated (by Punks) of genres: progressive rock. They were smart, intellectual, long-winded. But Rotten (by then back to being John Lydon) also could see that they were aggressive, nihilistic and violent, propelled by the dark visions of their screaming lead singer, Peter Hammill. In 1977, VdGG played at Punk's signature venue, The Marquee. They played long songs, full of odd time shifts, arcane lyrics (no political sloganeering here!) and lyrical musical breaks. Yet the Punks loved them. Because they had the very same passion, intelligence and sense of adventure that characterised the Blank Generation, and had become the undoing of the moral establishment and the rock aristocracy. Punk was about ripping down complacency and prejudice. Whether it was a singer-songwriter (Young), Glam Rocker (Marc Bolan, who played with The Damned), a prog band (VdGG) or a fast'n'loud punk quartet, if you had the balls, energy and bile, you could play ball.

And play ball they did. In the wake of Punk's first wave, Goth, New Wave, Post Punk, Electro-pop, Industrial and No Wave all sprang up, taking rock music to new heights. And, barely noticed among all this creative euphoria, but creating enough of a stir in their own little way, was a snarling, virulent quintet from the nondescript British town of Bristol. In the ultimate Punk move, they insolently called themselves The Pop Group.

The Pop Group were quite the flash in the pan. They appeared in 1978 and had split just three years later. They only managed two official albums, of which Y was the first, and the only one of much note. But it was a blazing flash, I can assure you. Y sounds like little else in Punk, let alone mainstream rock. Put succinctly, it is one of the greatest of all post-punk albums, easily matching PiL's first two, anything by Joy Division and Magazine's Real Life on all levels. And of the lot, it is the one that maintains the Punk spirit the most, despite being unbelievably forward-thinking and challenging.

Bristol has long had a history of leftist activism (something maintained by the likes of Massive Attack in recent years), and The Pop Group were no exceptions. Y is highly-charges, taught and angry. the perfect railing letter against Thatcherite Britain. The artwork presents gripping and disturbing images, from the creepy pygmies on the cover to the bold red lettering, via pictures of prisoner camps, shady political figures and charnel houses. The lyrics were similarly bold: "I admit my crime/I'm a thief of fire!" screams singer Mark Stewart on opener "Thief of Fire", his voice interspersed by recordings of political speeches. "But who to trust/When you're stealing from a nation of killers" he rails a bit later on. On "Blood Money" he eructs: "Money's a weapon of terror", topical words in this day and age. Other songs mention totalitarianism, torture and colonialism, the whole being so potent it's hard to imagine anything similar ever getting released today. It's just too heavy.

And that's before we get to the music. The sound of The Pop Group borders on the indefinable, which is why it's so memorable, for all it's occasional flaws (some of the more experimental bits feel fumbled, noise for noise's sake). These guys saw no boundaries, and so met none. Produced by reggae stalwart Dennis Bovell, they took in his background of fat bass and stuttered rhythm, threw in some ragged punk guitar and screams, and a fair dollop of rigid funk, and got a sound like no other. Tracks like "Thief of Fire" and "We Are Time" groove like few other punk tracks, scattered through with sax bursts, nutty effects, echoed vocals and stunning bass hooks that would almost sound perfect in a disco or in a Jamaican dance hall. Equally stunning is "Snowgirl", slower (their attempt at a ballad maybe?), but no less weird and strangely catchy, with cabaret piano (!) sneaking out of the weird vocal mixes and juddering percussion/guitar/bass explosions.

And I already mentioned the experimentation. Despite probably not having the required chops, The Pop Group were fearless, and looked to the avant-garde at all times. On "Thief of Fire", for example, this adds even more edge to the dance grooves, with even jazz touches through the saxophone breaks. It's a sensual overload of sorts, and a precursor to the sort of twisted funk the likes of The Streets and !!! would attempt two decades later, only with more convention and much less balls. On "Blood Money", "Savage Sea" "Don't Call Me Pain", it becomes full-blown experiment, with stop-start rhythm, overloads of effects and some crazy scatty vocal eructations. It doesn't always work, but when it does it's stunning, and I will always be in awe of these guys for throwing themselves at their art and their vision with such vicious abandon. All of them are great, be it Gareth Sager with his staccato bursts of distorted guitar or his Brotzmann-esque sax wails; the roaring, crooning or howling Mark Stewart; or soulful, funkadelicised bassman Simon Underwood, the beating heart of the whole thing. And special mention to Bovell for letting his charges run amok like this, whilst somehow also tying them to such a strong reggae/funk/punk vibe.

The Pop Group fell apart quite quickly after Y, managing only a mediocre follow-up and some gigs before Stewart ended up splitting to go solo, staying true to the vibe he helped launch on this masterpiece. Post-punk would continue to evolve in new and fascinating directions, but few albums released afterwards would reach such heights of bonkers fury and innovation. Luckily, the CD format has seen Y get a gorgeous sonic facelift, whilst tacking seminal p-funk single "She Is Beyond Good and Evil" to the beginning of the track-list. The album sounds all the more cohesive for it, and even 29 years on, few records can produce such a heady mix of vicious bile, musical exploration and leg-shaking grooves.

Great Underappreciated or Obscure Albums 6: BAIKAL by Baikal (2007)

If I'm honest and blunt, there is very little of any merit in today's mainstream music scene. Easily 90% is utter contemptible dross. There was a time when a musical event was the arrival of the Fab Four in a country, or the release of an emphatic and relevant protest song, or the Sex Pistol creating mayhem on the TV. The 2008 equivalent is the "comeback" performance on X Factor (obviously it always involves TV these days) of a deluded, drug-addled, white trash bint who doesn't even write her own songs, lip-synching and dancing like a drunken old lady in front of millions of sychophantic viewers and self-proclaimed "experts".

Nowadays, in lieu of truly transcendant rock (not that this is going to be a nostalgia piece. After all, previous decades gave us the Bay City Rollers and Showaddywaddy), we're subjected to album after album of mostly bland, lyrically unadventurous tripe by The Killers, Kings of Leon and Kaiser Chiefs. Nothing intrinsically wrong with those guys, I guess (the first Killers albums is a gem), but nothing special either, yet we are regularly treated to swathes of hyperbole and drivveling praise about said bands in Britain's once-great music press. And I won't even get started on Amy Winehouse...
The fact is that modern mainstream pop and rock music increasingly resembles a decrepit, influenza-riddled old man, whose occasional flashes of brilliance (Arcade Fire's flawed but essential debut, M83, Ladytron, Sigur Ros) are not so much par for the course but rather infrequent consumptive gasps for rapidly-decreasing air. To paraphrase David Bowie circa 1977, "music has become a disgusting toothless old lady", with very little of the life-affirming quality it should have. Not so much music as muzak.

In such dire and dull circumstances, it's nice to know Bardo Pond are out there. The Philadelphia heavy psych masters have been plugging away in the shadows since the early 90s, taking a bludgeoning Krautrock groove but filtering it through the influence of punk, grunge and shoegaze to leave us some of the most heroic and righteous rock this side of Japan.

Baikal is one of their many side projects (flautist and singer Isobel Sollenberger and synth player Aaron Igler are missing -the latter only from one track-, leaving guitarist brothers John and Michael Gibbons, bassist Clint Takeda and drummer Jason Kourkonis). In the past, they've also recorded a couple of stunning albums with Roy Montgomery as Hash Jar Tempo and did splits with guitarist Tom Carter and even Mogwai. Nearly everything they do is brilliant. Slow, heavy, druggy and hypnotic, Bardo Pond's music is the stuff I live for. It's like heroin. Which is probably the effect they're looking for.

At first listen, Baikal doesn't seem massively different. It's psychedelic, but with a bit of grunge and lashings of shoegazery guitar saturation and fuzzed-out bass. But it's also heavy. Much heavier than anything these guys have done before. Don't mean to go on, but this motherfucker is heavy! It seems Kourkonis, Takeda and the Gibbons brothers have been worshipping at the altar of some of rock's most gloriously heathen demi-Gods. Think Vincebus Eruptum-era Blue Cheer, the electric guitar overloads of Ash Ra Tempel's "Amboss" or early Neil Young and Crazy Horse. But heavier even than all of those. And longer. There are only two tracks, yet the album lasts more than an hour! You do the math. More than anything else, Baikal is influenced by those Japanese psych-freak outlaws, Acid Mothers Temple, even down to the Japanese words that Takeda spits out Damo Suzuki-like throughout the 36-odd minutes of opener "I Forgot" (interspersed with some English).

"I Forgot" is a slow-burner. Fuck, at nearly 40 minutes, it'd have to be. This is not Comets on Fire heavy psych. This is pulled from a deep, dark, growling well, ancient and formidable. The cover art featuring a skeleton in shamanic garb tells it all. This is truly pagan rock, the stuff Julian Cope writes about with such glee. It feels, for all it's crackling electricity and volume, like something ancient, primordial. It starts quietly, a smattering of drums, a low bass riff, some guitar noodling that segues in and out. But before long, the volume starts to clamber, Takeda begins his stoned incantations and Kourkonis and the Gibbons brothers start to unleash some of the most righteous arcane noise you'll ever hear. The guitars scissor and shoot aroung each other. Whilst one of the brothers keeps up a marathon of unfettered soloing, channeling the twins spirits of Manuel Göttsching and Tony McPhee, the other bursts in and out of the mix, sputing out some random saturated guitar noise, as if trying to use his guitar to duet with the equally spasmodic Takeda. The whole piece continues like this, a contantly shifting, growling, incandescant miasma of noise, rythm and beauty. Never dull, always surprising. Oh, and did I mention heavy??

The next track, "Hanafuda" was probably never going to match the intensity of "I Forgot". It does bring synths (courtesy of Igler) and extra percussion, showing more of an affinity therefore with Amon Düül II (to keep with the Krautrock references) than Ash Ra Tempel, but still keeping with the Acid Mothers Temple freakout vibe throughout. It's messy and almost jazzy, at times as elegiacally beautiful, haunting and mystical as its predecessor, but at others getting too experimental and freeform to really keep channeling the shamanistic spirit in quite the same way. But it does show just how good these guys really are. Kourkonis is a revelation throughout this album. He can do hard'n'loud. But he is also sensitive, propelling the tracks with heavy jazz grooves and shifting patterns, keeping the other three on the improvisational toes.

Like I said, this is the kind of music I'm most used to hearing from Japanese bands. Not just Acid Mothers Temple (although I do see Baikal as a slower, more Native American twin of the Mothers' recent tantric freakout metal opus Recurring Dream and Apocalypse of Darkness), but also Mainliner, Fushitsusha or Les Rallizes Dénudés. That's the company these guys, whether as Baikal or Bardo Pond, keep. And to return to my opening rant, it's nice to know that an album as dark, heathen, uncompromising and transcendant as Baikal is out there (special thanks to the excellent Important Records label. I owe them, and other labels such as Hydra Head, Southern Lord, Kranky,Fargo and Sub Pop a debt of grattitude for the level of quality they tirelessly put out despite meanial exposure and probably cash). It's a comfort to know that such guys will keep ploughing that furrow, and that I can turn to them when the current mire gets me down. Can I get an Amen?

And here's some irony - "Amen" is the title of one of Bardo Pond's greatest tracks! Must be a sign...

Great Underappreciated or Obscure Albums 5 - YEAR OF THE HORSE by Neil Young & Crazy Horse (1997)

It was Neil Young's 63rd birthday last week, and as such it only seems fitting that I dedicate this post to what may just be his most underrated album, even more so than Trans or Greendale (both great, and unfairly panned, by the way).

Year of the Horse came along during a decisive time in the great artist's life and career. Two years earlier, his producer, mentor and close friend David Briggs passed away. It was just after Young had turned 50, and been indicted into the Rock'n'roll Hall of Fame. Young was coming off a run of three immensely popular albums from the start of the decade (Ragged Glory, Harvest Moon and Unplugged), but already this return to favour was waning, as the fiercly underground Sleeps with Angels and the beyond-ragged Mirror Ball failed to keep up the chart-friendliness. Now, with Briggs gone, there was a concern that the Canadian's muse would follow suit.

To be honest, for those wanting a repeat of the easy-listening fare of Harvest Moon, that disappointed was possibly well-founded. Briggs' last advice to Young was "to get closer to the source", to make the music "purer". For a duo whose mantra had always been "the more you think, the more you stink", this meant stripping down even further the Crazy Horse sound, taking it to its absolute ragged grunge apex. In the studio, this floundered a tad. 1996's Broken Arrow had its moments of elegiac grunge-rock guitar beauty, but for the most part was a disappointing last tribute to Briggs' memory and legacy. Yet, the subsequent sold-out tour would be the basis for what in my mind has to be Young and the Horse's ultimate live opus.

Sure, Live Rust has the hits, and Weld has the volume, but Neil with the Horse was always about so much more than that. And during his Broken Arrow tour, the old master became increasingly dedicated to channeling the earthy, primitive vibe that had always characterised his collaborations with Crazy Horse. Indeed, on 1969's Everbybody Know this Is Nowhere, their debut, the Horse's simple rythm style provided the perfect blank canvas ("boom-boom-thack" drums, repeated guitar chords, plodding bass lines) for some of Young's most soaring musical statements, be it on short, sharp rocker 'Cinammon Girl', the mysterious avant-garde folk dirge 'Running Dry (Requiem for the Rockets)' or the two epic monster workouts 'Down by the River' and 'Cowgirl in the Sand'. I could write a whole book on Young's guitar-playing on those two tracks. It's the stuff that very few of even the greatest guitar heroes have ever achieved, because it channels such a heady cocktail of emotions.

Year of the Horse conjures up this very same vibe to perfection. The track selection (which oddly differs from those featured in the movie -directed by Jim Jarmusch no less- that accompanied its release) is outstanding, mixing re-vamped versions of classic tracks such as 'Pocahontas' and 'Mr Soul' (as a weird psychedelic folk raga for the latter, and a soaring metal ballad for the former), but above all featuring a wealth of lesser-known beauties. And these are great songs to "get closer to the source" on. One thing that characterised the great tracks on Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere, along with the primal rythym and sheets-of-noise guitar solos, were the lyrics. Oblique and mystical, they seemed to be beamed out of a timeless American folklore. It didn't matter that this was some of the most forward-thinking rock music in America, it felt as unrefined and ancient as if it had been recorded before the very first white men had arrived on the continent.

And the tracks on Year of the Horse keep that very same spirit alive. If anything, it's stronger here, with Young and the guys hitting 50+ and getting wiser, wilier and crabbier. The image on the back cover tells it all: Young leans into his microphone, face lined and grey hair swept all over his face, looking uncannily like the Old Man of the Mountain. The tracks here are long, for the most part, stretched out. Titanic. From the opening cudgeling of 'When You Dance' onwards, this motherfucker never stops bludgeoning, except a bloody brief acoustic interlude, which keeps the vibe going nonetheless, especially on 'Mr Soul'.

For the rest, this is Neil at his grungiest. Scrap that, it's beyong grunge. 'Barstool Blues' is a lesson in guitar mayhem. A riff is repeated over and over for the best part of ten minutes, whilst Neil roars some warped lyrics, including the monumental line "I saw you in my nightmares/but I'll see you in my dreams", as he rips out a non-stop avalanche of distorted, saturated solos. For nearly ten minutes! Sorry, felt I had to repeat that... 'When Your Lonely Heart Breaks' couldn't be more different, yet doesn't break the vibe. A thumping bass note repeats like a Godly heartbeat, deep and loud. Young's voice is pained, and the song -a rarely heard gem- gains so much more potency ten years after it's studio release, in the vastness of a concert hall, with Young the old man gasping hoarsly into his mike. You get the feeling he's seen his fair share of broken hearts, including his own.

The rest of the album is built around three titanic workouts, two from Broken Arrow. 'Big Time' and 'Slip Away' gain so much from the live setting, the former at last achieving its true status as a great lament for the departed Briggs. It's heavy, stripped down, meandering, rock as Briggs would have loved it. 'Slip Away' is a new 'Cowgirl in the Sand' for the nineties, another elegy to a mysterious, fleeting woman, and sees Young tearing at his guitar with manic fury. But it's a mighty, 13-minute-long rendition of 'Dangerbird', the most underrated track off 1975's Zuma that really has my heart pumping and the tears flowing down my cheeks.

It emerges in a tornado of distortion and feedback from the dismembered remains of its predecessor, 'Scattered', the lead guitar breaking forth out of the miasma and launching immediately into surely one of the greatest solos Young has ever laid onto record. The rythm cunches, the guitars twist and entwine around each other and the cryptic, mystical lyrics soar out over the whooping audience, doom-laden and intense. It's one of the most powerful moments in Neil Young's discography, and he could only have achieved it with the Horse. 'Dangerbird' is the sound of Neil Young and Crazy Horse reaching the source Briggs spoke of. Reaching it and letting it loose with full raging force.

On Year of the Horse, by getting closer to the essence of their music, Neil Young and Crazy Horse re-connect with the primeval, cosmic force of their debut, one that would constantly crop up throughout their career, but not with this regularity or intensity, as Young's lyrics often became more "literal" after his smash 1972 success Harvest. In 1969, this band was perhaps the only one in America outside Detroit that truly matched the monstrous psychedelic vibe that the German bands (Amon Düül II, Ash Ra Tempel, early Tangerine Dream) were also letting loose on their audiences. By 1997, a loss of innocence, and an even greater taste for volume turned The Horse into an even more spacey, quasi-doom metal outfit, close to the likes of Boris, Jesu or Nadja, but looser and with that eternal sense of melancholy and melody only Neil Young ever truly achieved.

This is all a pretty long-winded way of saying how much I love Year of the Horse. It's rough, anything but clean-cut, and it stretches out for seemingly eons. But it reaches heights of cosmic grunge/psych/metal/folk meltdown that few albums by a mainstream artist have ever managed. Only Neil Young, and people wonder why I worship the guy!