Mac Man Delivers: Lancaster Online

[michelej1]

October 5, 2008, Lancaster Online

http://articles.lancasteronline.com/local/4/228307

Mac man delivers 'Gift of Screws'
Lindsey Buckingham tours with latest solo effort

By John Duffy

For years, Lindsey Buckingham had the hardest time finishing solo projects. A resolute perfectionist and studio tinkerer, he would spend years crafting his elegant, eccentric pop music.

Half of the time he would be delayed by label indifference or corralled into one more round with Fleetwood Mac, the group he has fronted with Stevie Nicks since 1974.

His career stretches back to 1968, when Fritz, a band he co-led with Nicks, opened for Big Brother and the Holding Company at Fillmore Auditorium in San Francisco. But he's only put out five solo discs since first trying in 1982.

He left the Mac in 1987 in an effort to keep his creative energies focused on his own songs, but it was another six years before anything came of it.

With the delivery of "Gift of Screws" this month, he's improved his pace to two solo albums in two years. Buckingham is touring in support of the album and will swing by Sovereign Performing Arts Center in Reading on Friday, Oct. 10.

In 2006, Buckingham released "Under the Skin," a quiet, introspective and deeply personal recording. Most of the songs were written in hotel rooms on a mobile recording unit he crates along on tour. At the time of its much-praised release, Buckingham promised a new, "more rocking" record within a year. Many folks didn't believe it was possible, considering his track record, but here it is.

"I started 'Under the Skin' with deliberate ideas of what I wanted the songs to be like, or in fact not be like," he said in a telephone interview from a Nashville, Tenn., hotel room. Instead of rock songs, he came out with acoustic-drenched chamber pop with lush vocals and airy arrangements.

"When I got around to finishing these new songs, it just sort of happened that it turned into more of a loud, electric, lead-guitar sound."

Most of the 10 tracks on "Gift of Screws" feature the drums and driving pop hooks its predecessor avoided in favor of atmosphere and introspection. Like all Buckingham efforts, the disc was recorded entirely at his elaborate home studio. The songs themselves took a long time to find a home.


"Some of the tracks date all the way back to 1997 when we got back together to do the live album," Buckingham said, referring to the multiplatinum Fleetwood Mac CD/DVD "The Dance."

The solo album he was pursuing at the time got shelved, taking some songs along with it.

"Then working on a solo project again in 2001, we got into what became 'Say You Will.'" The 19-track Mac album contains virtually an entire Buckingham solo record.

"Its not the first time there was that kind of an intervention," he said, laughing. After more than 30 years with the group, he's learned not to be territorial.

That kind of heavy borrowing has happened a few times, and it isn't entirely unwelcome.

"It's sometimes difficult to have stuff sitting around for so long, you just want to get it out there just to get it off the books."

He would prefer to do so at his own pace, but band politics and label agendas can dictate otherwise.

While a respected tunesmith, Buckingham's solo discs have never moved the kind of units that the Mac has, and his work has often been met with indifference by the very people at his label that he has helped make millionaires many times over.

"Under the Skin" was dismissed out of hand by Warner Bros. "They said, 'Yeah, we want to work with you, but we're not going to do anything with this,'" he recalled. "And they didn't."

The album received minimum promotion.

But he's quick to admit the benefits of his position. "It's great to be part of this big machine," he said of Fleetwood Mac's perennial success. "And that allows me to be my own small machine."

That small machine has taken most of a lifetime to sync up with the bargains necessary to be an artist of both high commercial appeal and creative self-respect, a theme "Gift of Screws" explores at length.

"Underground" finds the singer at odds with his audience, his patron and the lover he feels he has neglected for his own pursuits. He wonders if it's just best to lay low and not fight the battles at all.

The explosive Phil Spector-meets-Jeff Lynne chorus of "Love Runs Deeper" speaks of the "underground" place where we hide our deepest love. "The Right Place to Fade" (sounding more than a little like the old Mac chestnut "Second Hand News") tries to discern the right time to cut one's losses and save face.

The driving rocker "Gift of Screws" declares that anything worth an ounce of investment doesn't come easily. The title cut, Buckingham said, was inspired by an Emily Dickinson poem.

"She writes about how in order to get the sweetest, most fragrant smell from the flower you must put it into the press. … I hope I'm paraphrasing it properly. You have to put in the effort to get the most of what's around you."

For Buckingham, that's a philosophy that has served him well, even if the wait sometimes seems interminable.

Lindsey Buckingham will perform at 8 p.m. Friday, Oct. 10, at Sovereign Performing Arts Center, 136 N. Sixth St., in Reading. For ticket information, call 610-898-7469.