Neil Young performed last weekend in Victoria, British Columbia at the United For Old Growth march and rally, aimed at protecting old-growth trees and promoting “forest stewardship.” In his first live appearance since Farm Aid in September 2019 he said: “I’m only here for those trees up there. It’s a precious, sacred thing, these old trees. They show us the power of nature when we are being threatened. They show us the past. They show us our future. That’s something that I hope our Canadian government and business section will recognize. This has to do with Canada. It has to do with the ages, if we’re lucky enough to have ages. These trees have lasted so long. They deserve Canada’s respect.” Then he played 'Heart of Gold'.

Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young have pulled their respective solo catalogs as well as the music they made together from Spotify, Rolling Stone reports. “We support Neil and we agree with him that there is dangerous disinformation being aired on Spotify’s Joe Rogan podcast” a joint statement announcing that they plan to remove their music reads - “While we always value alternate points of view, knowingly spreading disinformation during this global pandemic has deadly consequences. Until real action is taken to show that a concern for humanity must be balanced with commerce, we don’t want our music — or the music we made together — to be on the same platform”.

MBW founder Tim Ingham discusses Neil Young’s decision to remove his catalog from Spotify in protest to what he deems Covid-19 misinformation appearing on the platform, on Talking Trends podcast: “Ultimately, people aren’t loyal to music streaming services, whatever playlists they’ve built – they’re loyal to the artists they love. Fans will spend hundreds of dollars they don’t have, sitting next to a drug addled lunatic on a long night-bus ride, walk hours in the pissing rain, just to attend a Neil Young concert. They’ll switch music streaming provider with a waggle of their thumb”.

Billboard calculates losses Neil Yung and Joni Mitchell are going to have due to their withdrawal from Spotify: "At an estimated $2.8 million in streaming royalties last year, Young’s decision will forego about $1.2 million each year for him and his label, Warner Music/Reprise (Spotify accounted for about 43%). Of that, Young likely received half — $600,000. On top of that, Young earned $308,000 in publishing revenue from Spotify last year. Half of that — $154,000 — he would receive for the songwriter share with the other half going to Hipgnosis Songs. For Young, personally, the decision to pull his music from Spotify will cost him about $754,000 annually. In 2021, Mitchell’s recording catalog earned $373,000 from Spotify revenues. Like Young, Mitchell’s heritage contract likely earns her half of those revenues, adding up to about $186,500 in artist royalties she is foregoing. Her publishing, including her songwriting share, earned about $702,000 annually, of which about 11% — $79,000 — came from Spotify. Mitchell’s personal annual loss, based on her catalog’s performance for 2021, would be about $257,000 in total artist and publishing royalties", Billboard estimates.

LA Times traces Neil Young's fights against corporations throughout his career: "Over the decades, Young has made the news for indicting: MTV’s corporate ties; musical peers including Eric Clapton, Michael Jackson and the Rolling Stones for earning millions selling their music for commercials; record mogul David Geffen’s market-driven tastes; Monsanto and corporate control of family farms; the owner of Lionel trains for announcing its closure (Young ended up buying the company); the sonic inferiority of compact discs; and the ways in which tech companies have been willing to compromise on audio quality for bigger profit margins".

Neil Young has posted an open letter to his website directing his management and record label to remove all of his music from Spotify, which he accused of “spreading fake information about vaccines—potentially causing death to those who believe the disinformation being spread by them”. He wrote “they can have [Joe] Rogan or Young. Not both”, referencing the Spotify podcast The Joe Rogan Experience, which doctors have decried for spreading misinformation about COVID-19 and vaccines, Rolling Stone reports.

Fucked Up release an epic 19-minute punk beast 'Year Of The Horse – Act One'; Night Beats are part psychedelia part garage in 'New Day', a fun strange song; The Armed release a familiar-sounding yet new 'All Futures'; it took Neil Young decades to share his folk-waltz 'Daughters', well it's here now.

Neil Young has sold 50 percent of the worldwide copyright and income interests in his 1,180 song catalogue to the U.K. investment firm Hipgnosis Songs, Variety reports. This deal includes both 50% of the publisher's share and 50% of the writer’s share in Young’s music, spanning his work with Buffalo Springfield, Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young and Crazy Horse, in addition to the singer/songwriter’s full solo catalog. Industry experts Music Business Worldwide consulted suggest that the deal would have cost Hipgnosis in the region of $150m. Hipgnosis's Merck Mercuriadis told Rolling Stone "there will never be a ‘Burger of Gold’", since Young has never licensed his music for commercials.

Neil Young filed a copyright infringement lawsuit against Donald Trump's campaign for playing his songs at campaign rallies. The complaint filed in New York federal court states that "Plaintiff in good conscience cannot allow his music to be used as a 'theme song' for a divisive, un-American campaign of ignorance and hate". Young alleges that Trump's campaign lacks a license to publicly perform 'Rockin' in the Free World' and 'Devil's Sidewalk'.

Neil Young is creating his own version of bootleg series - the plan is to take famous concert bootlegs, track down the actual master recordings and release them himself via his website. He promises "radically better sound" than on usual bootlegs. Young plans on bootlegging the bootleggers by using artwork from the original release. Frank Zappa did something very similar with his Beat the Boots! series in the early Nineties.

Neil Young has shared his fifth Fireside Session, lockdown shows streamed from his yard, and this week it was a special "Banyard Edition". Young played this time for an audience of chickens, and some other of his and Daryl Hannah's animals, like Laslo the llama. Neil breaks out the ukulele for 'Tumbleweed', plays 'Homegrown', 'Harvest', 'Old Man' and 'Everybody Knows This is Nowhere'. The audience seemed cheerful! Watch the show at Neil Young Archives.

All Music made a selection of single-artist soundtracks, some lesser-known scores, worthy of a listen. It's all great, different kinds of soundtracks, being it 'Virgin Suicides' by Air, 'Tron Legacy' by Daft Punk, 'Death Wish 2' by Dan the Automator, or 'Dead Man' by Neil Young.

Neil Young and Crazy Horse are planning a tour in support of their latest album 'Colorado', so they started booking some "barns". As they explain on the Neil Young Archives website - "many of the old places we used to play are gone now, replaced by new coliseums we have to book year in advance and we don’t want to go to anyway". Apart from that, "largely soulless, these new buildings cost a fortune to play in... We don’t like the new rules. So we asked for the old arenas where we used to play, and we learned [that a huge amount of them are demolished, but many are also still standing]. Among those on their list of arenas still standing: MSG, Forum, Nassau Coliseum, Long Beach Arena, Cow Palace, Chicago Arena, Nashville Municipal Auditorium".

David Bowie, Gorillaz, Black Sabbath, New Order, kd Lang, Notorious BIG, My Chemical Romance, John Lennon, Grateful Dead, Neil Young, Prince and Pink Floyd, among others, are releasing exclusive records on Record Store Day. The big day is on April 18.

Neil Young appeared at the Convention Center in downtown L.A. on Wednesday to take his oath of citizenship. Following the ceremony, the 75-year-old was seen exiting the building accompanied by his wife Daryl Hannah — and waving a tiny star-spangled banner high and proud. The legendary rocker previously encountered issues with his application due to his history of using cannabis. Young is Canadian but has been living in California since the 1960s.

Neil Young has been living in the US for most of his life, has been trying to become an American for some time now, but he is still only a Canadian citizen, Stereogum reports. The latest occasion when he applied for US citizenship there was a delay in the process because his use of marijuana may […]

In true Neil Young fashion, he splits his time in the trailer between performing songs and yelling expletives into his microphone - Exclaim says about the trailer for new Neil Young documentary about recording his latest album 'Colorado' (out October 25, watch trailer below). The film is described as "a raw and extremely unfiltered look […]

Just a lovely article by the Rolling Stone, about famous artists and their early bands. There's Madonna and her post-punk act Emmy where she played drums at first; Radiohead members played in a saxophone heavy band On a Friday (“the worst band name ever” Thom Yorke later said); Neil Young had a Motown pop band […]

The Quietus has an interesting list - their writers tell about cover versions that acted as their gateway drugs to the work of the original artist. There's Muse covering Nina Simone, Nick Cave covering Leonard Cohen, and a perfect example - Saint Etienne covering Neil Young.

Laurel Canyon was a centre of counterculture activity in the mid-late 1960s and early 1970s - it was home to Frank Zappa, Jim Morrison, The Byrds, Buffalo Springfield, The Eagles, Love, Neil Young, The Monkees - and it is the subject of new documentary 'Echo in the Canyon'. It features in-depth interviews with many of […]

Guardian has an interesting article about how artists are unable to stop politicians to stop playing their songs at political rallies. It just so happens that's it's mostly conservative politicians who played songs that they weren't allowed to: Donald Trump played Pharrell Williams' 'Happy', John McCain played Abba's 'Take a Chance on Me', and so […]

Neil Young says he will be leaving Facebook to focus on expanding Neil Young Archives, where he has offered access to nearly all of his recorded music. Now in a new post - on Facebook - he says he will be leaving the platform, to focus on his “giant time machine cabinet” filled with “albums […]