TimesOnline Article...

[MacMan]

Fleetwood Mac legend Lindsey Buckingham mixes the old and new
Lindsey Buckingham tells our correspondent how he found happiness after the madness of Fleetwood Mac

http://entertainment.timesonline.co....cle4724371.ece

Miles beyond Sunset Strip, beyond the Hollywood sign and Laurel Canyon, a familiar sound is coming from a rehearsal stage.

The opening couplet of Go Your Own Way wafts across the Warner Brothers lot in Burbank, California: “Loving you/ Isn’t the right thing to do . . .” The Fleetwood Mac legend Lindsey Buckingham is in final rehearsals for a six-week solo tour. A tour de force of Californian angst, the song first appeared on Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours album – whose smooth curves masked a partner-swapping, drug-snorting epic of dysfunction. Those songs still resonate today – in recent months both Vampire Weekend and Fleet Foxes have covered Mac songs.

“Our first show is in two days, but I don’t feel like we’re quite ready,” he says, but that’s just the perfectionist in him speaking. In truth the show is an exhilarating mix of the old and new, reworked Mac classics combined with lost solo singles and tracks from his new album Gift of Screws. It’s a career-spanning set at a time when Buckingham is, he declares, “the happiest I’ve ever been”.

Buckingham today is a far cry from the hirsute, heartbroken pin-up of 1970s Fleetwood Mac, or even the lone, studio-bound experimental egg-head of the 1980s. He is married to the photographer and LA society belle Kristen Messner (with whom he has three children) and domestic contentment has reinvigorated his erratic solo career. Fourteen years had elapsed between Out of the Cradle (1992) and Under the Skin, and now Gift of Screws appears. His fifth solo album is as dense and engrossing as you would expect.

The best bits are classic Buckingham – mixing arch LA pop with avant-garde touches. The results are even more impressive live. Good Day channels Radiohead’s Idioteque with bluesy licks direct from The Chain, while Love Runs Deeper bops about joyfully, like a reconstructed new wave hit from 1982. His state of mind is reflected in the banter with band-mates. The vibe among the group, he says with a grin, is “camaraderie central”.

We go to chat in his office, which is feng shui-tidy – three identical white shirts are lined up next to three identical black leather jackets. A vintage Beach Boys poster hangs behind his see-through wardrobe. Through the door the bassline of FloRida’s Elevator can be heard.

“Is thatus?” he asks, half-joking, as the track blasts from the adjacent sound stage where the high-octane reality TV show So You Think You Can Dance? is being shot.

He is impressively well preserved for a 58-year-old rock survivor. The “blue-grey” eyes that his former paramour Stevie Nicks longingly sang about in Blue Denim radiate a fresh Californian glow. In conversation he’s forthright and relaxed. Interviews in the past have reflected the self-help books that saw him through the turmoil of Fleetwood Mac. But there is no trace of that now.

A Californian boy through and through, Buckingham was born in Palo Alto. There were early ambitions to be a professional swimmer (his brother Greg won a silver medal in the 1968 Olympics) but he was galvanised by music after hearing his brother Jeff’s copy of Presley’s Heartbreak Hotel.

“I was eight when I first started playing guitar,” he recalls, “because Jeff would bring home all these records. Not much later I got into acoustic, finger pickings, but I couldn’t read music.”

After meeting Stevie Nicks at high school (“I was playing California Dreamin’ and she came along and harmonised”), the two formed a duo, first with the band Fritz (“We opened for Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin”) and then on their own as Buckingham Nicks.

A chance encounter with Mick Fleetwood followed and he asked them to join his faltering British blues band, with Buckingham as lead guitarist. His predecessors had either fallen into drug-induced schizophrenia (Peter Green), left to join cults (Jeremy Spencer) or became violent alcoholics (Danny Kirwan). Was he worried about being afflicted with the “Curse of the Fleetwood Mac Guitarist”?

“I knew about it, it was almost a joke,” he laughs. “I loved Peter’s work but when I met him . . . Well, let’s just say that he was less nice than he could have been. As for me? I’m still here – I didn’t join a cult and I didn’t go crazy. At least I think I didn’t . . .” His solo work has always been an escape from the debauched, multi-platinum madness that Fleetwood Mac involved. He cites Tusk, the eccentric follow-up to Rumours in 1979, as the “lightning bolt” moment.

“I consider it to be my first solo album – I recorded things at my home and brought them in to the band,” including, he says, percussion parts banged out on Kleenex boxes.

“With that album I was trying to accomplish stuff to the left of what Fleetwood Mac had become.”

Today, there is no tension between his solo work and working with Fleetwood Mac. “Being a father and a husband I realised that there are more important things than music. Solo work is a boutique effort for me; it’s a labour of love. I long ago gave up the idea that it would be appreciated on a commercial level. Fleetwood Mac is the golden carrot and my solo work is kind of indulged by the record company.”

And, he says, unlike Nicks, the needs of Fleetwood Mac always came before his solo records. “Stevie was always able to pull back from the Fleetwood Mac machine and say ‘OK, now I’m doing my solo stuff.’ But I wasn’t in a position to do that, nor would I have felt comfortable to do that and call myself a band member – possibly because of my role as an arranger in the band.”

Indeed, Buckingham was twice poised to do albums that became Fleetwood Mac projects instead. “It happened with Tango in the Night [1987] and in 2000 with Say You Will. But this time I put my foot down and said I wanted three years when I’ll make a solo album, tour, then make another solo album.”

So after this six-week solo tour, he is due to reunite with his main band for a tour in 2009 and then possibly an album. “In Fleetwood Mac nothing is certain until you actually see it,” he notes wryly. “But it’s up to us to not shoot ourselves in the foot.” The band is still very much a “work in progress”, by which he means both emotionally and musically.

“Happily they are still part of the fabric of my life,” he says. “I’ve known Stevie since I was 17, which is something to cherish – and why it’s still worth working on getting rid of all the bulls*** between us. Because there still is after all this time, would you believe.”

Bel Air Rain, a song from Gift of Screws, looks back at the decadence of Fleetwood Mac and contrasts it with the relatively calm life he is living now. “I lived in Bel Air for a number of years as a bachelor with some crazy girlfriends. I also built a house there when I started my family. Fame is really funny, it gives you lots of freedom but then at the same time it takes away a lot of yourself.”

After all the madness, it’s good to see that he has managed to retain what made him so special in the first place.

Gift of Screws is released by Warners on Monday 15 September 2008

[michelej1]

It's amusing to hear someone else besides us talk about his eyes and Blue Denim.



Michele

[nodmod]

Talking of UK Papers, here's a review of GOS from The Guardian

Rock review: Lindsey Buckingham, Gift of Screws
The Guardian, Friday September 12th 2008
Dave Simpson

Lindsey Buckingham
Gift of Screws
Reprise, 2008


At the height of Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours supernova, guitarist Lindsey Buckingham suddenly started listening to Talking Heads and the Clash. Gift of Screws’ harder moments suggest these influences remain, though Buckingham has returned to the ethereal pop-rock songwriting that spawned the band’s classic hits. With the trusty Mick Fleetwood-John McVie rhythm section giving lots of sonic wallop, this is more than just a Mac album without the female vocalists: Buckingham seems to be rediscovering some sort of idealism. Time Precious Time addresses life’s urgency with virtuoso brilliance. Did You Miss Me, with its uplifting hook and lyrics about dreaming and loss, is the best pop song he has written since Go Your Own Way.

Rating **** (4) out of ***** (5)

http://browse.guardian.co.uk/search?...uardian=Search

[nodmod]

The Times
September 13, 2008
The Big CD: Lindsey Buckingham - Gift of Screws
John Mulvey


It is rarely edifying to hear a multimillion-selling rock star whinge about lack of credibility. But on his previous solo album, Under the Skin, Buckingham just about got away with it. Buckingham, remember, was the man who had propelled Fleetwood Mac to their commercial zenith in the mid-1970s. And consequently, he was also one of the prime musical enemies of anyone who had invigorated their record collections with punk rock.

In the past few years, however, Buckingham and Fleetwood Mac have undergone something of a critical rehabilitation. Buckingham's obsessive perfectionism in the studio, his occasionally deranged sonic experiments, and the excruciating emotional honesty that he shares with all his old bandmates are seen as fine things. On Under the Skin, a little bit of praise seemed to have pushed Buckingham into a doggedly solipsistic display of his leftfield chops. The album began with him noting: “Reading the paper, saw a review/ Said I was a visionary, but nobody knew,” and mainly consisted of him constructing nervy guitar loops in what may well have been his bedroom. A lovely album, but one of strategically limited appeal.

Gift of Screws is a more varied affair. There are fantastic solo workouts, such as Time Precious Time, on which Buckingham yelps harmoniously over some frantically intricate acoustic guitar. But then there are also pop songs - Love Runs Deeper and Did You Miss Me - that are blessed with the same combination of stadium thump and spiritual fragility that proved so lucrative for Fleetwood Mac.

Since that band's venerable rhythm section - Mick Fleetwood and John McVie - contribute to Gift of Screws it is tempting to wonder why Buckingham did not save these songs for the next Fleetwood Mac album. But then an earlier solo album, also entitled Gift of Screws, was aborted, and a good few songs from that turned up on the Mac's Say You Will in 2003. Maybe this time, Buckingham anxiously wants to prove that he can do it all himself, from avant-garde guitar noodles to fabulously airbrushed pop. The critical acclaim is in the bag these days. Now, if only he could sell millions without the Fleetwood Mac brand name.

(Reprise, TMS £12.99, call 0845 6026328)

http://entertainment.timesonline.co....cle4717596.ece

[iamnotafraid]

Enjoyed these articles, THANKS!

[David]

Originally Posted by MacMan

“I loved Peter’s work but when I met him . . . Well, let’s just say that he was less nice than he could have been.

We missed that meeting, but we saw the group gather on the Hall of Fame stage, & didn't see any connection between Green & the then-current band members.

“Happily they are still part of the fabric of my life,” he says. “I’ve known Stevie since I was 17, which is something to cherish – and why it’s still worth working on getting rid of all the bulls*** between us. Because there still is after all this time, would you believe.”

I've always been interested in hearing, from each one, what he genuinely admires in the other in musical terms. If they were asked, their answers would stray into other areas: personality, character, etc. So the question poser would have to steer them back to the question.

Fame is really funny, it gives you lots of freedom but then at the same time it takes away a lot of yourself.”

Oh, poor baby.

[michelej1]

I love DYMM, but to compare it to GYOW is rather ludicrous.

As far as Lindsey selling millions without the FM brand goes -- the FM brand can't even sell millions.

Michele

[Nico]

Originally Posted by MacMan

“Happily they are still part of the fabric of my life,” he says. “I’ve known Stevie since I was 17, which is something to cherish – and why it’s still worth working on getting rid of all the bulls*** between us. Because there still is after all this time, would you believe.”

I like that. Very sweet and succinct, as opposed to a lot of the banality I read in many of LB's interviews, no offense. I like the freshness, and the point he's trying to make.

Originally Posted by MacMan

Bel Air Rain, a song from Gift of Screws, looks back at the decadence of Fleetwood Mac and contrasts it with the relatively calm life he is living now. “I lived in Bel Air for a number of years as a bachelor with some crazy girlfriends. I also built a house there when I started my family. Fame is really funny, it gives you lots of freedom but then at the same time it takes away a lot of yourself.”
Gift of Screws is released by Warners on Monday 15 September 2008

Ok, so he's finally talking a little about Carol Ann I see. This interview rocks. I want more of this "candid Lindsey talk" stuff. I am so utterly tired of his interviews where he does the so-great-to-have-a-family-at-a-relatively-old-age thing over and over and then talks about everything related to Fleetwood Mac in vague & repetitive terms. This is great Linds.

[nodmod]

Lindsey Buckingham: Gift of Screws
The Sunday Times (UK) review
Dan Cairns


Buckingham’s last solo album, 2006’s Under the Skin, was a thing of wonder and beauty, but Gift of Screws finds him on even finer form. Fated for ever to be thought of as the man who reshaped Fleetwood Mac into a world-conquering rock band, the guitarist issues albums that, if they bore the group’s name, would sell by the bucketload; and he’s fated, too, to have his unsung status as one of the great geniuses of American sonic architecture obscured by his talent for undislodgable melody lines and radio-friendly hooks (though the hits invariably contained some deeply eccentric music-making). Here, commercial Lindsey again does battle with his darker, more experimental side. Great Day is pure Tusk-era Mac, its refrain of “It was a great day” shadowed by the characteristically droll riposte “It wasn’t such a great day”. Time Precious Time finds him giddily looping and lapping his extraordinary guitar-playing; Did You Miss Me may be the most beautiful song he has ever written; Love Runs Deeper just needs Ms Nicks on harmonies to scoot up the charts; Underground bemoans an entertainment industry interested only in instant cash prizes (“They heard 15 seconds, and that was enough”); the title track’s yelps and howls are almost sectionable; Treason nails the neocon age of permissible torture and executive malfeasance, to the sweetest of tunes. Sensational.

Warner Bros 9362498334

http://entertainment.timesonline.co....cle4734208.ece

[TrueFaith77]

What mac track did Fleet Foxes cover?

[MacMan]

Originally Posted by TrueFaith77

What mac track did Fleet Foxes cover?

I believe it was Dreams

[CADreaming]

Originally Posted by michelej1

I love DYMM, but to compare it to GYOW is rather ludicrous.

As far as Lindsey selling millions without the FM brand goes -- the FM brand can't even sell millions.

Michele

True, but - OUCH!