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David Young (at an Element of Crime concert in 2006): His departure was only announced in June
Photo:
Jakubaszek/Getty Images
The critic of the Hamburg regional edition of the daily newspaper "Die Welt" called the musician David Young the "most casual bass player in the world" after a guest performance by the Berlin band Element of Crime in the Hanseatic city.
Other concert observers wanted to have seen Young on the edge of being underchallenged or thought he had made himself comfortable in the mid-tempo of the music group led by Sven Regener.
David Young's role in the fabric of Element of Crime was easy to underestimate.
It all started with Young only becoming an official band member in 2002, succeeding Christian Hartje.
Before that he had only occasionally supported Element of Crime on stage as a guest musician on an additional guitar.
But Young shaped the band, which only had the most successful single hit of their career with »Delmenhorst« in 2005, in the studio for much longer.
"Dave has been instrumental in shaping ELEMENT OF CRIME over the past 35 years," the band wrote on their Facebook account, where they announced David Young's death: "He was a comrade-in-arms, colleague, teacher, friend and brother to us.
We will miss him very much!«
David Young was born on May 2, 1949 in London.
His connection to music began as a live mixer at concerts.
In 1974, for example, he accompanied David Bowie on his "Diamond Dogs" USA tour, as Young once told the magazine "Guitar & Bass".
In New York he worked as a sound engineer in studios.
There, Young also becomes a close companion of former Velvet Underground musician John Cale.
He played in Cale's band, first guitar and then bass. In 1984 he was also present at John Cale's »Rockpalast« performance in Essen's Grugahalle.
The Englishman Young also assisted the Welshman Cale as assistant producer on the album »Artificial Intelligence«, which was recorded in London.
In this tried and tested constellation, Cale and Young also welcomed the Berlin band Element of Crime to the London Fire House Studio in 1987. As hopefuls freshly signed by the major label Polydor, they had been able to choose an international producer.
The big name John Cale brought some publicity to the Try to Be Mensch album, but it felt like working in the studio was more of a Young thing.
Accordingly, Element of Crime recorded their next album with David Young as producer in New York;
Young became something of the band's regular producer from then on.
He has handed down the sentence "A producer makes everything 20 percent better".
In 1994 he formulated his understanding of the music Element of Crimes in the SPIEGEL as »a kind of cinema for the soul«.
David Young's departure was announced in one sentence in the band newsletter in June 2022, as a message on his own behalf: Young "unfortunately no longer plays with us." Markus Runzheimer was introduced as his successor.
The death notice stated that David Young had been suffering from poor health for a long time.
Nevertheless, his death hit the band completely unexpectedly.
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