Old Neu!

Today, I’m planning on going up to Lincoln Center to check out Michael Rother’s new project Hallogallo 2010, Rother, guitarist of one of my favorite bands, Neu!, has brushed off some of his old tunes and is taking them out for a spin with Steve Shelley from Sonic Youth, and some other guy who’s name escapes me. They’ve been getting some pretty positive notices as they’ve played out – their show at Primavera Sound in Spain was well received. The clips look pretty awesome – Rother can certainly still lay down some slick guitar lines. In addition to trotting out the Neu! material, they’ll also be playing some stuff from Harmonia, Rother’s mid-70s project with Hans-Joachim Roedelius and Dieter Möbius of Cluster and (occasionally) Brian Eno.

Which is all well and good – it’s exciting to see our musical heroes in a live setting. So what’s the problem? Well, Neu! was originally a duo – Michael Rother and Klaus Dinger. Dinger passed away in 2008. It was unlikely that that either of them would ever get together again – from everything I’ve read, it sounds like there wasn’t a whole lot of love lost between the two of them, especially after Neu! 75. Which is too bad, but perhaps that was part of the chemistry that created their unique music in the first place. But how are we to deal with acts that tour long after a vital partner is out of the picture, either through death or estrangement?

I saw the Who at Cleveland’s Gund Arena in 2000. This was post-Moon’s and pre-Entwistle’s deaths. The issue is not that the person they had playing drums (Ringo Starr’s son, I believe) wasn’t competent – he was. It’s more, “Is this authentic?” Of course, that just opens up a whole series of new, not-really-answerable questions, “what is authenticity?” being chief among them. Seventy-five percent seems like a pretty good ratio of original members : hired guns. Fifty percent, as in the recent Who outings, doesn’t seem quite as legitimate.

Of course, then we have the case of someone like Pink Floyd or the Rolling Stones. Both of those bands lost essential members early, and both went on to their greatest fame and success afterwards. And, I think, that’s the defining issue: what did they create after the death of essential, founding members? In Pink Floyd’s case, you’ve got Meddle, Dark Side of the Moon, Wish You Were Here. Those are all vital albums – for me, Pink Floyd is the post Barrett, Roger Waters-led band. For the Rolling Stones, it’s a bit trickier, because I enjoy the Brian Jones material almost as much as their later stuff, but they still had Exile on Main Street ahead of them. With the Who, what did they have ahead of them? Kenny Jones, “Who Are You” (which is a good song), and Face Dances. Hardly their most triumphant hour.

So the issue for me is, “Are they still a vital concern? Or, at least, where they when Person X died?” When Keith Moon died, the Who stopped, for all intents and purposes, to be an essential, vital band – they had a handful of decent songs scattered across two poor albums. So, twenty years after Moon’s death, their touring is clearly just a cash grab – there’s nothing more to be said or that Townshend and Daltrey can add to their legacy. I don’t begrudge them their chance to rake in some cash, but I think we can all agree that it’s slightly undignified. The same goes for the post-Waters Pink Floyd and any number of projects. Most Rock stars haven’t really coped with how to grow old gracefully. I don’t think there really is anyway to play rock music, as popularly constituted, when you’re almost old enough to draw social security.

Which brings us back to Neu! Whatever else it might be, I would say that Neu!’s music isn’t primarily rock in origin or intent. It certainly doesn’t rely on aggression as its driving force (although they do have songs that do – but they’re Klaus Dinger’s songs, like “Hero” off of Neu! 75. So, when Michael Rother goes out and plays a handful of indie festivals like Primavera Sound and All Tomorrow’s Parties, as well as clubs like Maxwell’s and small art spaces like the Wexner Center in Columbus, Ohio, it just doesn’t come across as as much of a cash-in as a Rolling Stones 200-date world tour does. For whatever reason, the music still seems to me as vital and important. Which, I suppose, is a long way of justifying why I’m going to go see a dinosaur act for free tonight. But, RIP Klaus Dinger.