Cuttings

"instant feedback"  Neil Young plus electricity plus us, the ticket-holders. It's been a volatile but vital combination for over three decades. On the eve of the great man's return to the heart of the hurricane with Crazy Horse, he talks exclusively to Sylvie Simmons. Meanwhile, band-members and bystanders over the years recall "the most intense experience" in live rock music. In a misty redwood clearing an hour south of San Francisco, high up on Skyline off of Highway 92, sites the Mountain House Restaurant like a lost Twin Peaks prop. Wood-clad, fireplaced, folksy - fake owl on the mantelpiece, signed hockey-stick on the wall — local boys Neil Young and Crazy Horse once played a seven-hour electric set on the enormous verandah that soars out over a ravine. No use the neighbours complaining; the cops were enjoying the show. Young’s ranch Broken Arrow is a 10-minute drive away — less if any of his cars were under 30 years old—but the Mountain House is where ...

Touched by the hand of God Joy Division and New Order, album by album, by Andrew Male  Unknown Pleasures AUGUST 1979 Joy Division's debut, recorded in April 1979 at Stockport's famed Strawberry Studios, retained the nervy, paranoid energy of punk but thanks to Hooky's subterranean bass, Bernard's febrile guitar and Stephen Morris's relentless echoing drums ended up some place entirely 'other'. What with Martin Hannett's effects-dappled production - glass smashing, metal doors creaking - and Curtis's stark narratives, the whole thing now sounds like the soundtrack to some dystopic J.G. Ballard drama about existential crisis and uncertain provenance in an NCP car park. Closer JULY 1980 From the futuristic tribal clamour of Atrocity Exhibition to the wintery advance of Decades, Closer throbs and hums with a steady threat. Curtis's lyrics progress from grim prediction to ultimate resignation. Encased in the hard pack-ice of Martin Hannett...

The accidental tourists Is the uber-Manc legends’ return good news or just hot gossip? By David Peschek New Order Get Ready   LONDON First album in eight years, after a slew of side-projects. Featuring guest contributors Billy Corgan and Bobby Gillespie. ONE OF the singles bands of the '80s, New Order didn't actually make a consistently great album until the decade was almost over. 1989's Technique , and its fine if more conservative successor Republic (1993), tower over everything individual band members have done since, save maybe the first Electronic records. Even if - as with Echo And The Bunnymen 2.0 - the joy was primarily nostalgic, a genuinely triumphant appearance at Reading '98 suggested that New Order still had fire in their bellies. Eight years down the line, with Ecstasy use now commonplace among the nation's young (and not so young), now that pop has assimilated New Order's glorious blueprint, it would be wonderful to say they were still vital. T...

DREAMS NEVER END IN THE FACE OF THE VERY PUBLIC PROTESTS FROM THEIR DEPARTED FOUNDER BASSIST, MANCHESTER'S GREATEST GROUP REACTIVATE TO ADD ANOTHER CHAPTER TO THEIR LAUDED HISTORY, PONDERING CONTROL, LOSS AND REDEMPTION, THEY REVEAL THAT " NEW ORDER IS A WOUND THAT'S HEALED ITSELF." WORDS: IAN HARRISON . PHOTOGRAPHY: KEVIN CUMMINS IN THE RAIN-LASHED NIGHT OF OCTOBER 18, 2011, Paris’ 11th Arrondissement has an ambience approaching the classically Mancunian. The noisy bar attached to concert venue Le Bataclan, built in the cod-Sino Chinoiserie style in 1864, resounds with northern English accents not long embarked from the Eurostar terminal at the nearby Gare du Nord, while inside the 1,500 capacity hall next door the soundtrack is a Hacienda-friendly mix of Kraftwerk and A Guy Called Gerald. It’s a suitable setting for New Order’s second live performance since Bernard Sumner, Stephen Morris and Gillian Gilbert announced the surprise resurrection of their monumen...