The Ledge

Go Back   The Ledge > Main Forums > Christine McVie
User Name
Password
Register FAQ Members List Calendar Mark Forums Read


Make the Ads Go Away! Click here.
Reply
 
Thread Tools Display Modes
  #1  
Old 03-06-2016, 10:27 PM
michelej1 michelej1 is offline
Addicted Ledgie
 
Join Date: Aug 2003
Location: California
Posts: 25,975
Default Christine Mirage Interview (Sounds Magazine)

[This is an article that Ledgie Ejb1969 found, scanned and went to the trouble of typing up for us. Thank you so much!]

Sounds Magazine June 5, 1982: MAC ATTACK - Sandy Robertson finds out what’s eating Christine McVie of Fleetwood Mac


Credibility is a weird thing, that’s for sure. Impossible to explain how it is attained, difficult to define once it has arrived. But one thing is assured: whatever it is, Fleetwood Mac have it.

From a blues band to a broken unit with deranged members exiting left and right to an unknown outfit in American exile to a megabuck mélange of wild divorcees, credibility has (surprisingly) never been far behind the Mac. Even at their hugest with ‘Fleetwood Mac’ and ‘Rumours’, they were the West Coast kids you were still allowed to like. Cripes, they could still release a double LP (‘Tusk’) at enormous recording expense and be lauded for it; when they played Wembley the Mac got good reviews. Charmed lives, or a mirage?

‘Mirage’ is the title of the brand new Fleetwood Mac LP and Christine McVie, as one of the English part of the band, has been despatched straight to London with a rough cassette of the work to play for sundry hacks. And I, being the first of the day, am (gasp!) told that I am the first scribbler in the world to hear the new Fleetwood Mac album!!!

If I’m not wowed by the mystery, I’m jazzed by the trax: ‘Mirage’ could almost be an album by another band, were it not for the assured harmonies and confident playing, the mood is so optimistic and up. Titles, hitpicks? ‘Oh Diane’, ‘Love In Store’, ‘Book Of Love’ (no, not…), and ‘Hold Me’, to mention but a handful. Every cut I heard had that Mac magic.

Ms. McVie looks only slightly the worse for her Transatlantic wrestle with a failing Concorde schedule, blonde hair offset by world weary wrinkles as she sits in her plush suite. Extravagance? One had heard that the new Mac opus would represent a scaling down of the operations that led to ‘Tusk’ costing as much as buying a whole studio. So was ‘Mirage’ cheap?

“No, it took a year to make, but then in the meantime there was Lindsey, Mick and Stevie’s solo stuff, so in fact we had four albums in a year, which is pretty good if you look at it that way.

“But the money isn’t as fluid as it used to be, though Fleetwood Mac have never been known to do things in a cheap way, we definitely like to do things in style! We don’t have crates of Dom Perignon delivered to the studio every night, in the past it’s been outrageous. We don’t cut short on the music, just personal needs”.
Was it really all caviar and decadence?

“Caviar is an exaggeration, but our riders were ridiculous! One time Dennis Wilson came down and said ‘The food and booze you guys have here costs more per week than it’d cost me to hire a studio!’ It was kind of getting ludicrous,’ she avows with a certain nostalgia in her voice.

I didn’t ask about the rumour of Coke bottle lids filled with their powdered namesake backstage at Wembley. Myth, myth…

She seems unperturbed by the vagaries of the Press and blissfully unsurprised by the good reviews.

“You get good Press, you get bad Press, if we get any Press, it’s good! Just as long as they’re still writing about you. The thing is when you don’t get any at all you start worrying. We set the fashions, we don’t follow them”.

I express surprise at how, er, raunchy they were live at Wembley.

“The albums are a lot cleaner in general they’re well thought out. I figure there’s definitely two sides to Fleetwood Mac, the live side is a lot more rock ‘n’ roll than people thing we are, we’re not so clean cut.”

I bring up the view of Mac oft perpetrated that says a writer/performer as talented as Christine McVie must find it galling to be upstaged by a young Stevie Nicks running around and changing frocks all the time.

“Yeah, well she certainly does that! Believe me, I would hate to run around onstage changing clothes every five minutes and things,” here her voice hints ever so slightly at claws extending in a feline manner. “I would hate to be in her shoes. I’m very happy, thank you, standing behind the keyboards. I’m a musician, y’know? I’m more a musician band member than a frontline…”, and her voice trails off for a second, the short silence making its own point.

“There’s no competition, in fact, she’s jealous of me because I can play keyboards better than her.

Rock royalty of today suffer as much from intrusion into privacy as the Hollywood stars of old, but in the recent past F. Mac appeared to be reveling in the garish spotlight of who-is-doing-what-to-whom-with-whom-with-what, an intergroup ménage-a-band scenario that wrecked relationships but sold records. In retrospect, do they resent all that?

“We joke about that now, it’s a source of amusement to us. Now the pain is no longer there we’re all really good friends. In fact, we create things just for fun. In fact,” she deadpans before a guffaw, “I’m going out with Mick at the moment!”
‘Mirage’ reflects the upbeat current at work in Mac now, even on a ballad like McVie’s haunting ‘Only Over You’. Sadly, to these ears, there is nothing as willfully experimental as the title track of ‘Tusk’ with its marching band pseudo-Charles Ives flavours.

“No, there’s nothing weird on it at all, there’s no little hidden goblins anywhere, it’s all straightforward, simple rock ‘n’ roll songs. ‘Tusk’ sold nine million copies so it can’t be too shabby can it? But a lot of people gave us flak about that album. It’s very different, very different, very Lindsey Buckingham, I’ll have to say that. He was going through some musical experiments at the time”.

McVie swigs some wine, looking less like a rock star than an accountant’s wife from Maidenhead, and compares ‘Mirage’ to ‘Rumours’, noting the lyrical differences.
“These songs are an awful lot happier. ‘Rumours’ was kind of the message of doom, the songs were up but the words were all about each other’s jaded love lives’.
Our photographer notes the resilience it must have taken to keep the band together while they all loathed each other.

“We just go from day to day,’ she says, like an advice column, “We have done for seven years and I’m sure we will for another seven. Right now we’re fine. We’re better friends now than ever”.

It’s indeed a random alchemy that breeds success: “The band as it is now is by far the most popular series of people. Now and again someone’ll come up and say ‘What happened to Peter Green, Danny Kirwan, Jeremy Spencer?’ and we just go ‘Who?”
Do they ever see any of those groaning oldies, I wonder?

“Not any more. Peter came over to the States and stayed with Mick for a while. Jeremy came over for a while. Danny Kirwan? I haven’t seen him since the day he left the band!”

The ‘Fleetwood Mac’ LP was the one that started the ball rolling in earnest.
“Yeah, that ‘Penguin’ album was our worst, even though there were a couple of my songs on it that I liked and would like to re-do, but we knew that the ‘Fleetwood Mac’ record was good. And we knew we had a chemistry onstage even though we were playing to half-filled halls of people going ‘Oh no! They haven’t got another line-up have they?’ But the people who came went crazy without smoke bombs or weird make-up. I mean we’re too old to be punky, we’re all knockin’ on now!

“I’m being educated at the moment, but I’m not too familiar with all these new up and coming bands here, I’m ashamed to say”.

I venture to tell her about the merits of the wunnerful ABC, the pulsing talent of Martin Fry and his merriment. “ABC, is that a band?”

That is California stardom!
Reply With Quote
.
  #2  
Old 03-06-2016, 10:40 PM
michelej1 michelej1 is offline
Addicted Ledgie
 
Join Date: Aug 2003
Location: California
Posts: 25,975
Default



Reply With Quote
  #3  
Old 03-07-2016, 08:02 AM
Macfan4life's Avatar
Macfan4life Macfan4life is offline
Addicted Ledgie
 
Join Date: Sep 2014
Location: Somewhere near Key Biscayne, nothing there so I came back
Posts: 6,110
Default

Thanks for posting this. I love these forgotten gems. If you don't know Chris's sense of humor you would think she is making fun of Stevie. And she sort of is in a passive/aggressive way i.e. I could never change clothes every 5 minutes. I am a musician LMAO

I remember the Rolling Stone article from 1982 "Happy at the top" where she talks about someone handing her a stuffed animal on stage. " Someone actually handed this to me, usually Stevie gets all that stuff."
At the time, I did not know Chris's wicked sense of humor and it sounds harsh like they did not get along.
__________________
My heart will rise up with the morning sun and the hurt I feel will simply melt away
Reply With Quote
  #4  
Old 03-07-2016, 02:35 PM
michelej1 michelej1 is offline
Addicted Ledgie
 
Join Date: Aug 2003
Location: California
Posts: 25,975
Default

One of the videos (is it Mirage) shows Christine grabbing that stuffed animal at the end of the show and Stevie is next to her.

I laughed when she said she played the piano better than Stevie. Um, yeah I guess you could say that.

Michele
Reply With Quote
  #5  
Old 03-09-2016, 09:24 AM
vivfox's Avatar
vivfox vivfox is offline
Addicted Ledgie
 
Join Date: Jun 2007
Posts: 13,956
Default

Quote:
Originally Posted by michelej1 View Post
One of the videos (is it Mirage) shows Christine grabbing that stuffed animal at the end of the show and Stevie is next to her.
Those were roses. They had a cute, quick tug of war and SN let Chris win.
Reply With Quote
Reply

Thread Tools
Display Modes

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

BB code is On
Smilies are On
[IMG] code is On
HTML code is Off

Forum Jump


BEKKA BRAMLETT - I Got News For You - CD - **Excellent Condition** - RARE picture

BEKKA BRAMLETT - I Got News For You - CD - **Excellent Condition** - RARE

$59.95



RITA COOLIDGE CD THINKIN' ABOUT YOU BEKKA BRAMLETT LETTING YOU GO WITH LOVE 1998 picture

RITA COOLIDGE CD THINKIN' ABOUT YOU BEKKA BRAMLETT LETTING YOU GO WITH LOVE 1998

$14.99



The Zoo Shakin' the Cage CD Mick Fleetwood Bekka Bramlett Billy Thorpe picture

The Zoo Shakin' the Cage CD Mick Fleetwood Bekka Bramlett Billy Thorpe

$14.72



I Got News for You - Audio CD By Bekka Bramlett - VERY GOOD picture

I Got News for You - Audio CD By Bekka Bramlett - VERY GOOD

$249.52



Bekka (Bramlett) & Billy (Burnette) - Bekka & Billy - 1997 Almo Sounds - Used CD picture

Bekka (Bramlett) & Billy (Burnette) - Bekka & Billy - 1997 Almo Sounds - Used CD

$9.00




All times are GMT -5. The time now is 03:35 AM.


Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.8.11
Copyright ©2000 - 2024, vBulletin Solutions Inc.
© 1995-2003 Martin and Lisa Adelson, All Rights Reserved