The Rock Report

• Neil Young is recording a new album with Crazy Horse, according to a post on Young's fansite Thrasher's Wheat – and now confirmed by Rolling Stone: "It's looking good," a representative for Young says. According to the fansite report, Young shared the news over the weekend at the Slamdance Film Festival in Park City, Utah, at an event with Jonathan Demme to promote their new movie Journeys. The audience "erupted in applause" when Young said that he was working with Crazy Horse again. Multiple fans subsequently posted on Crazy Horse drummer Ralph Molina's Facebook wall to ask if the news was true. His response: "Yes!" 
• Young began playing with the garage rock band in 1968 and they back him on many of his greatest albums, including Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere, Zuma, Rust Never Sleeps and Ragged Glory. Their last album was the 2003 rock opera Greendale, though it didn't feature guitarist Frank "Poncho" Sampedro. The band (including Poncho) toured with Young in 2003 and 2004 to support the disc, though they haven't played together since the tour ended March 21st, 2004 at the Mullins Center in Amherst, Massachusetts. This has been the longest time Young has gone without performing with the group since their formation, though Crazy Horse drummer Ralph Molina played with Young on his 2007 disc Chrome Dreams II and the first few legs of the supporting tour. He was replaced by drummer Chad Cromwell in the summer of 2008 for unknown reasons.
• The full line-up of Crazy Horse hasn't backed Young on an album since Broken Arrow in 1996, though they did record an LP in 2000 called Toast that Neil opted to shelf. "It's great rock & roll, very moody, kind of jazzy," Young told Rolling Stone in 2008, who was then contemplating a release of the disc. "It's really dark. It's got everything that the best Crazy Horse albums have had. It won't be the most commercial Crazy Horse album ever out."
• In that same interview, we asked Neil if he had any desire to work with Crazy Horse again. "I'm not thinking about that right now," he said. "We'll just see what happens. Something might happen. You never know. Or something else we don't even know about could happen, and that would be really good, rather than go back. But if the vibe's right to go back and grab what's back there and yank it into the future, that's a big job."
• According to the report on Thrasher's Wheat, Young said that he's already recorded one album with Crazy Horse and another is in the works. It's unclear if Toast is the finished album. There's word of a spring release for the album, but don't get your hopes up too high. Things change very quickly in the world of Neil Young. Remember that 30-date Buffalo Springfield that was supposedly happening this year?  (Rolling Stone)

POWER 97 PRESENTS FIVE FINGER DEATH PUNCH
with Soulfly and guests

• April 9^th at Burton Cummings Theatre
• Tickets are $33.50 and $37.50 and go on sale Saturday at 10am through Ticketmaster: http://bit.ly/zHSFBd
• The Power Insider Presale is on NOW until Thursday night: http://bit.ly/xCTNaq
• Beat The Box Office all week with Casey Norman on the Power Drive.

CHRIS CORNELL CALLS KANYE WEST “RETARDED”

• Soundgarden frontman Chris Cornell blasted rapper Kanye West when the latter's late soundcheck at an Australian stop on the Big Day Out festival tour interrupted Soundgarden's set on a different stage. According to The Grunge Report, West showed up 45 minutes late on Saturday (January 21st) for his scheduled soundcheck, by which time Soundgarden had begun their performance on a neighboring stage. As West started his soundcheck, which was audible to the crowd watching Soundgarden, fans began booing the interruption.
• Chris Cornell quickly chimed in, although he may have opened himself up to criticism as well with his choice of words. He told the crowd, ""Sounds like there's children playing music there, retarded children, retarded as in held back. There's no other word for it."
• There's been no word on how Cornell meant to use the term "retarded" or whether he has drawn any heat for it.
• This isn't the first time that the always controversial West has ran afoul of a well-known grunge act. He blamed Pearl Jam for playing too long and making him take the stage at 4:30 a.m. during 2008's Bonnaroo Festival.
• Soundgarden continues on the Big Day Out tour this week, playing Darling Harbour, Australia tomorrow. (Pulse)

STEVEN TYLER'S RENDITION OF NATIONAL ANTHEM BLASTED

• Aerosmith lead singer Steven Tyler's rendition of "The Star-Spangled Banner" at Sunday's (January 22nd) AFC title game between the New England Patriots and the Baltimore Ravens was blasted online, with one fan writing on Twitter, "Steven Tyler's national anthem before the Patriots/Ravens game couldn't have been any worse if John Madden farted it through a harmonica." Tyler was also ridiculed for having a teleprompter nearby -- apparently in case he forgot the words.
• The singer's previous performance of the national anthem, at a Boston Bruins hockey game in 2010, came under fire when he mumbled or mispronounced some of the lyrics, and his 2001 performance at the Indianapolis 500 was panned when he changed the line "home of the brave" to "home of the Indianapolis 500."
• Tyler returned earlier this month to American Idol for his second season on the panel of judges.
• He and the rest of Aerosmith have been working on a new studio album, which is tentatively set for release this spring. (Pulse)
• See what others are saying about Tyler's performance at http://ultimateclassicrock.com/steven-tyler-national-anthem-twitter/

NEW DYLAN TRIBUTE FEATURES CAGE THE ELEPHANT, RISE AGAINST, MANY OTHERS

• Out today is Chimes Of Freedom: The Songs Of Bob Dylan, a massive tribute album to the legendary singer-songwriter featuring newly-recorded covers of 75 of his tunes. The four-disc set features contributions from My Chemical Romance, Cage The Elephant, the Silversun Pickups, Rise Against, Eddie Vedder, Tom Morello, Queens Of The Stone Age, Adele, the Airborne Toxic Event and dozens more. The collection is being released to salute the 50th anniversary of Amnesty International, with proceeds from its sales going to the organization.
• Rise Against tackled "The Ballad Of Hollis Brown" for the set and singer Tim McIlrath told us how his band approached covering Dylan AUDIO: "We just ran it through like the machine of Rise Against, and it's got a little bit of everything that we do. It's kind of like, instead of like a song with like a verse and a chorus, this was more like this big, dark story, and it was almost more like a soundtrack. And that's how we treated the song, which, I'll be honest, is kind of foreign territory for Rise Against."
• The four-disc set will also include some sure-to-be-controversial recordings from Miley Cyrus, Ke$ha and actress Evan Rachel Wood.
• Eddie Vedder contributes to Who guitarist Pete Townshend's track, "Corina, Corina."
• Among the others, Tom Morello performs "Blind Willie McTell," the Silversun Pickups take on "Not Dark Yet," Cage The Elephant covers "The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll" and Bad Religion doing “It’s All Over Now Baby Blue.” (Pulse)

QUICK HITS

• Nickelback has taken its share of abuse in recent months, but now the band -- or at least a representative -- is hitting back on Twitter. The group is taking the time to respond to every bad thing or joke said about them on the social networking site and to everyone who writes something nasty to their account. To one person who wrote that he "an aneurysm and violently s*** myself at the same time" upon hearing a Nickelback song, the band replied, "I bet it was the best day you've had in a while." When another young woman wrote, "Nickelback makes me want to chop my ears off," the band asked, "Did you do it yet?" Want to take a shot at them? Go to https://twitter.com/#!/Nickelback (Rolling Stone)
• Slipknot will apparently headline this year's edition of the Rockstar Energy Mayhem Festival. Although the lineup won't be officially announced until Wednesday (January 25th), a representative for Ibanez guitars seemed to let the news slip while introducing a new line of signature Ibanez guitars for Slipknot axeman Mick Thomson. Slipknot has confirmed that it will tour the U.S. this summer but has not provided any further details. Watch the clip of the Ibanez rep giving away the news at http://tinyurl.com/88rykc8 (Blabbermouth)
• The members of Green Day are the latest rock artists to pose for a campaign by fashion designer John Varvatos. The punk trio appear in photos for Varvatos' new spring/summer 2012 collection. Previous acts that have posed for Varvatos include Chris Cornell, Alice Cooper, Iggy Pop and the Roots. The campaign's official promo video features Green Day modeling the new clothes on girders flashing over New York City's skyline. (Audio Ink)