BEAT MUSIC - Year Of The Horse

___ ___ BEAT MUSIC______

YEAR OF THE HORSE - A FILM BY JIM JARMUSCH

When Kurt Cobain penned his farewell note to this world he borrowed the line 'better to burn out than to fade away' from an old Neil Young song. If nothing else, it served to emphasise Young's place as spiritual godfather to the generation of bands that included Nirvana, Sonic Youth and Dinosaur Jr.

Unlike Cobain, Neil Young and Crazy Horse have proved themselves to be anything but quitters, surviving for more than three decades the craziness that is rock'n'roll, whilst almost uniquely retaining both artistic merit and critical credibility.

Year of the Horse, a new documentary by Jim Jarmusch, follows the Canadian rocker and the former LA bar band on their 1996 European tour. As well as superb live footage from venues across the continent, there are revealing interviews with the main players recorded in Dublin on the last night of the tour.

Short, insightful and sometimes comical, inserts from the band's 1976 and '86 tours are also included - drummer, Ralph Molina and bassist, Billy Talbot arguing over their respective harmony roles on Like a Hurricane is pure Spinal Tap. And when he's confronted backstage by a spaced-out individual claiming to be Jesus, Young quips: "hope you make it this time".

Shot entirely on Super 8 by the director himself and editor LA Johnson, this film was obviously a labour of love for Jarmusch. Long edits with the entire band in shot are a welcome change from the in your face close-ups and fast cutting favoured in the MTV age.

A furious version of Tonight's the Night shows the band haunted still by the death of original guitarist Danny Whitten from a drug overdose 25 years ago. His replacement, Frank "Poncho" Sampedro explains that though the rock lifestyle destroyed Whitten, joining the band probably saved him from a similar fate.

The one fault, is the director's blind love for his subject which leads him to celebrate the excesses that have crept into the bands music in recent years; song after song has a prolonged intro and ending. Yet, it was the lack of superfluous notes that separated Crazy Horse from their '70s counterparts, and gave them greater longevity than long deceased rock dinosaurs.

Absolute highlight is when the overlong intro to Like a Hurricane '96 segues seamlessly into a performance of the same song 20 years earlier. The sight of the suddenly rejuvenated Young is a genuinely touching, goose-pimple inducing moment.

Greater use of the archive footage and this could have been the definitive picture of one of the few groups truly deserving the status of rock greats. But then, as far as Young and co are concerned, 1996 won't be the last 'year of the horse'.

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