1971-1974

[David]

Originally posted by Doctor Brown
And even if I had heard something, I was always hoping that my heroes would return just as suddenly as they had vanished.

Doc, you're one of the few Green fans I've encountered who was a diehard supporter of Green FM & grew to enjoy & respect the incarnations that came much later. Several of my co-workers, for example, are diehard Green fans & blues fans in general, & have extreme disdain for what they call the "sellout" years. Then I went to check out user reviews on Amazon or something for all the old Green FM albums, & most of them really despise the later FM incarnations.

I think serious blues & pop just don't mix for most folks. Guys like you & ChiliD & some others here are the exception rather than the rule.

[Doctor Brown]

Hey David!

It was a tough pill to swollow for me too at first. I'm still a blues enthusiast at heart.

But in listening to their later stuff. The Fleetwood Mac sound is still there. It is not that far removed from some stuff from "Then Play On" or "Kiln House".

And every song on the "White Album" and "Rumors" is either hit material, or highly listenable, no matter what kind of music that you like. I hope that I am never so narrow-minded not to be able to recognize that.

And it's all Fleetwood Mac. I guess that helps!

Doc

[wetcamelfood]

I knew what you meant (how you thought Welch was cool too etc.) so sure, I see what you're saying though I gotta agree with ChiliD to a degree here as well in that yes, there is the "unknown factor" etc. (as Chili describes above) and maybe ticket prices for concerts weren't as much back then as they are/seem to be these days (I personally wouldn't know as I hadn't seen FM or any live band for that matter until 1987), BUT assuming tix were around the same "amount of money" back then (and the prices have just simply risen with inflation etc.), "I" personally would find out all I could about a band I would fork out how many bucks to go and see in concert before I went to make sure (or, as sure as possible anyways...) that there were no "disappointments" (as such) in store for me such as the type that you unfortunately encountered.

I realize there are many people that can just go to a concert in a willy nilly, "general" way etc. as that is obviously what "touring" is all about, to get those at the show that are unfamiliar with the records to go and buy them. However, and without breaking out the violins, I, as well as other blue collar folk I know certainly am not (and will likely never be...) in the financial position to just say "oh (so & so) is playing in town tonight and it cost $100 per ticket, well, we don't know much about what's going on with them but let's go cash our paychecks, forget the bills this week and go the show anyways". I sure would love to be in such a position like tose "general" concert goers but if it was costing me a lot of money, I'd want to find out what I could about the artist before buying a ticket (or at least before I go to the show), like when you go and buy a car, you don't just close your eyes spin around a few times in the show room and whichever car your pointing at when you open your eyes is the car you'll buy, you'd want to look in to things first (obviously buying concert ticks is a much smaller situation in comparison, I'm just giving an example that I'm sure many here can relate to).

I'm not saying "you were wrong" for doing what you did (or didn't do as the case may be) as I also realize that there were not as many resources back then as their are now (internet, etc.) but I would've at least gone to look at the records (by the artists I was going to go and see in concert) in the record store to check and see what the latest lineup was or whatever (OK, cue TITN example, Lindsey on album, not on tour, so I'd try and double check it by picking up whatever mags were around back then etc. as in the case of TITN, I'm most certain that LB's departure and the addition of Burnette/Vito was widely covered). It's like "I" personally don't watch C-SPAN etc., but I'm aware of the fighting going on with Saddam etc. same kinda deal (but obviously on a much smaller scale once again). I guess I'd feel better if I went to a show and was disappointed with it that at least I could walk away knowing that I tried to investigate it before hand, I wouldn't always think later on if I was strapped for cash "gee, if I had only looked around and saw that (so & so) have left the band and that they were replaced by people with a much different musical background and they are doing a different kind of music now then I would've reconsidered going and I would have been able to save that money for now".

Well, it's JMHO and I'm glad that you do enjoy Welch's work etc. as well (as I knew you did/do). I guess I needed to grow up in the 60's to appreciate what things were like and why things turned out that way for you at the show, I'm sure you had good reason to "think the way you did" with not being used to personnel changes in bands etc. like you were saying I've just noticed above.

John

[chiliD]

BUT assuming tix were around the same "amount of money" back then (and the prices have just simply risen with inflation etc.),

Actually, no...the percentage of income it takes to go to a concert nowadays is probably 5x's what it was just 15 years ago.

I remember buying tickets to the 1987 FMac tour for $20 each, sat in what would now be $90-120 seats. Considering the "service charges" at Ticketmaster nowadays is more than some TICKET prices at concerts I went to in the late '70's, it's well beyond "inflation"...it's greed.

[Doctor Brown]

Thanks for trying to save me there John. But no, I wasn't paying that much attention. I had all the albums and that was what I was expecting to hear. Hell we were stoned most of the time and were just going to see the shows we liked. Plus we weren't expecting any changes at first.

I think tickets were between $8 and $12. and that was high. I had seen a show with The James Gang, Jethro Tull, Creedence Clearwater Revival, The Box Tops, and a couple of other bands for $3.

This again was the time frame between when the Kiln House tour and the Future Games tour took place. So it was not a long period of time. And I was going to see Fleetwood Mac no matter what anyway. So I wouldn't have shopped it.

And I was about 18 years old

Doc

[becca]

Music, bands, creators, times; they all change and evolve and experiment. So many fans (short for fanatic) want to just listen to one thing over and over and over and demand artists do just the one thing over and over in slight variations. The thing is that most musicians and artists may be mimics and imitators in part like Jeremy Spencer was maybe the best at (though I see total red when these Brits say he was better than Elmore James, grrrr, it's like saying Elvis was better than Chuck Berry or something), anyway, most artists want to try new things and get bored imitating or even imitating themself. Green and Welch are both great examples of musicians who moved on and took risks, because if you don't there never would have been anything for there to be fans of in the first place. Sometimes I really hate fans and the effect they have on music and many other forms of artistic expression. If you are driven by following the fans you are not leading where you want to go. The best thing that could have happened for the Beatles (other than Ringo maybe) is that they broke up. Hurray! The best thing to happen to Peter Green and FM was that they parted ways. I think every album was interesting, even Tusk which I felt ripped off by when it came out. But some people love that album and I'm glad it was done. I have heaped scorn on it at times and Jeremy Spencer's pastiches of other people's styles showing great technical skill but often seeming to be making fun of the material. I shouldn't do that, but I can say I doubt that FM would have gone far on Spencer's creativity or on self indulgent double albums like Tusk.

The trouble with fans is that they are fanatical and they close off from appreciating anything that is not fitting into the specific thing they are devoted to for whatever reason. Fleetwood Mac with Peter Green, Spencer and Kirwan was a great white blues band. They did some great original tunes and some eerie covers. Where could it have gone? Who knows, we only know where it did go. It changed, it evolved. That is more interesting that what happened with say Chicken Shack, an equally good group with Stan Webb. Who remembers Alexis Korner like they do this stuff? And a lot of it is because this band went on to have radio friendly hits lots of people bought copies of than bought blues records. I had Then Play On around when I was little but outside of the blues fanatic ghetto I doubt anyone else much would have ever heard FM had they just kept doing that one style of thing. The blues has everything to do with rock music's development, but in some ways it is like mento is to ska and ska is to reggae, for awhile there was a bunch of white guys in England going back to the original sound as much as they could but it was really just a three to five year nostalgia trip disconnected from what else was going on at the time. When you are travelling backwards you reach an already recognized end, while travelling forward you don;t know the end. FM went on to connect to the outside world more and more, reaching outside of the mimicry or pastiches which had no future. They looked forward, Spencer sure couldn't. In some ways the white blues are a 1960s oddity anyway I think. Maybe one day white rap will seem the same, I don't know. Even the material I enjoy I find something a little bit arrogant about it, like they are stealing. I really think Green, and Kirwan for the short period he really was into it, expanded on it without that residue of arrogance, but I can't say this for many of the white blues artists. I mean you could still see many of the creators of the blues but what made the teenybopper hippies spend money was the white cover artists just like always. The musicans had all the race records and knew who they all were and saw them perform, but the Stones and Animals and so forth made most of the money and fame, and somehow it never trickled down to their inspirations or people finding out more about them.

Peter Green is still around, when he wasn't that was up to him. Hating what FM went on to become just serves to show how close minded someone can be. I am glad to see there are a few exceptions. To be honest the blues fans would tend to put me off of checking out the old FM stuff because they act like it's their personal property. Even though the musicans themselves moved on long ago. Fans are like that. I'm glad they don't run everything, I don't trust their judgement on creative matters but trust the creative people. I would like to think all religions are everyone's property in some sense, I would like to think that about all music. I don't need to stick to one kind for an identity, and I don't ever want to live in the past but do want to be informed by it. There will be a new FM album out and I am going to do my best not to despise it. :^)

[Doctor Brown]

Well becca, I don't know what to say. Good, I guess.

Is what you said there, what you got out of our posts? I don't see anything wrong with what you said, I'm just curious.

Oh, I could debate some of those points with you, but it would be splitting hairs. But I will if you wish. Just to talk about them.

Thanks,

Doc

[becca]

I just went off on a jag from a line or two in this thread, and a line or two in other recent threads, and just the whole Peter Green or Buckingham/Nicks centric camps. It's a rant against close mindedness and admitting to my own I guess, as well as not making the past out to have been some great perfect zenith that evaporated through cruel fate alone or the creators blowing it. There will always be things you don't get or like about anything but it comes with it because without any downs there are no ups either. Hope I wasn't too negative. I can have reasons for not liking something but I do respect others can get something else from it. I think Mick Fleetwood said something about how Dave Walker was kind of foisted upon them to try to bring them back to classic blues and they had moved on. I personally love his Derelict song with them on Penguin, but I think they did the right thing, so who can disagree with the creators of the music themselves? So often from the outside fans do feel artists have lost their minds and blown it, and maybe sometimes later on the artists might even agree. My favorite group of the last while Stereolab seems to always be changing personel and surprising people at concerts, but two people have been there throughout, kind of like Fleetwood and McVie have been. And the group Yes was always changing line ups and really surprising the fans at the concerts with who would actually be on stage. At one time you could find the 'classic or original' Yes more on another title CD than on actual Yes releases. I agree Welch is a different thing to get from either Green or Spencer and I'd be disappointed on that basis to some extent.

I have seen 'Welsh' and 'Kirwen' used in official CD releases, makes you wonder about how interested the companies are sometimes.

[Mac Fan]

Can we please stop going OT? It's very annoying.

[chiliD]

Hmmm, maybe it's just me , but I don't see where anything in this thread is "OT". Each post is relevant to the one before it. Maybe it is just the way my mind's stream of consciousness works, though.

[Mac Fan]

Originally posted by chiliD
Hmmm, maybe it's just me , but I don't see where anything in this thread is "OT". Each post is relevant to the one before it. Maybe it is just the way my mind's stream of consciousness works, though.

Well, it doesn't look like you lot are talking about FM during 1971-1974.

[chiliD]

Well, it doesn't look like you lot are talking about FM during 1971-1974.

Hmmmm, other than a response here or there, most of the posts mention either Spencer or Kirwan or Welch or Dave Walker...all members of Fleetwood Mac somewhere in that era...

...ironically, if anything has been OT has been our last three posts.

[Johnny Stew]

I can understand how veering off-course from the original topic, can be annoying to many people... but I've always loved how we tend to do that around here.

Goofy, I know, but it feels like a conversation with your friends or family... you start out talking about one thing, which leads into another and another, and eventually you come back to the original topic at hand.


Anyway, I greatly enjoy the band's output from '71 - '74.
Like most people, I became a fan of the band while Lindsey and Stevie were members (the first time!), so I worked my way backwards to the band's blues beginnings.

I had a little bit of trouble getting into the very first three albums (I took a shine to 'Then Play On' right away though), but I eventually developed a huge appreciation for that era of the band's sound.

I had no such trouble with the Welch & McVie era, as it's more along the lines of the music I was already listening to at the time.

That was a great period in the band's history... a little unstable, yes, but they still produced some amazing material.



Johnny Stew

[wondergirl9847]

I LOVE M2M, Bare Trees and Future Games. They each have a unique sound to them. Future Games is very etheral sounding, Bare Trees has a meloncholy thread running through it and M2M is very industrial sounding (to me, anyways. LOL). My fave of the three is Bare Trees...because I love Danny.

I like Bob Welch's jazzy tone especially on Future Games, what a wierd, neat song!!

[Mac Fan]

Originally posted by wondergirl9847
I LOVE M2M, Bare Trees and Future Games. They each have a unique sound to them. Future Games is very etheral sounding, Bare Trees has a meloncholy thread running through it and M2M is very industrial sounding (to me, anyways. LOL). My fave of the three is Bare Trees...because I love Danny.

I like Bob Welch's jazzy tone especially on Future Games, what a wierd, neat song!!

Thank you for posting that.
When I find it, I think I'll get Bare Trees.
One question, is there a Greatest Hits/Best Of from this era?
Sofie