MacNuggets

[vivfox]

Lights channels, then improves upon, Fleetwood Mac on second album, ‘Rites’
Who ever thought a band could out-Fleetwood Mac mid-’70s Fleetwood Mac? It scarcely seemed possible, but that’s exactly what Lights does on its second album, “Rites” (Drag City).

It’s a lush, trippy record, and you’d be forgiven for wondering at times if it’s a deadpan send-up of “Rumours” or “Tusk” – they even cover “Save Me a Place,” for crissakes. It’s not ironic, though. Lights just really loves that over-the-top, Our Rock is Art sound. And even though Listen, Dammit, hates Fleetwood Mac and everything it stands for, Lights makes it work.

Surely that’s due to the heavy dose of psychedelia here that goes in directions the Mac was too self-absorbed to consider: “Rites” is full of swirling wah-wah guitars, occasional horns and blissed-out female vocal harmonies. Taken at face value, the songs are ridiculous: there are lots of lyrics about water and mountains and fire, and in the liner notes under “War Theme,” it simply says “(clap your hands).”

All the same, “Rites” is fascinating, both for the rippling soundscapes and for the completely unselfconscious ways in which the musicians create them. It’s like they’re alone in a gauzy world full of music, and maybe kindly dragons, following their creative impulses wherever they lead.

July 21, 2009 at 7:30 am
2 Responses to “Lights channels, then improves upon, Fleetwood Mac on second album, ‘Rites’”
Pat, on July 21st, 2009 at 11:36 am Said:
What’s wrong with Fleetwood Mac?

Listen, Dammit, on July 21st, 2009 at 12:38 pm Said:
Just never dug ‘em. Too much self-absorbed self importance.
http://listendammit.com/2009/07/21/l...tes-cd-review/

[vivfox]

From the 60's into the 70s celebrities continued to come to the Villa Capri including such regulars as Lauren Bacall, Dom DeLuise, Debbie Reynolds, Joe Barbera (of Hanna-Barbera), Henry Mancini, Sal Mineo, Stevie Nicks, and Jay Leno, ...
Jazz Profiles - http://jazzprofiles.blogspot.com/

[michelej1]

Article on Christopher Owens:

http://www.owlandbear.com/2009/07/22/a-girls-tale/

San Francisco’s Girls craft lo-fi, hazy pop songs that get in your head and leave you with a euphoric Oxycontin buzz. Singer/songwriter Christopher Owens’ life has been a picaresque tale of sex, drugs, and the saving graces of rock and roll. He was born into the Children of God, a cult founded in California in 1968. As a child, he was forced to endure a barrage of psychologically damaging events, such as traveling through Japan with his mother, an unwilling prostitute forced to raise money for the cult.

Despite his troubled upbringing, Owens was able to find solace in music, and began playing guitar at a young age. Interestingly enough, his first guitar was given to him by former Fleetwood Mac’s Jeremy Spencer, also a member of the Children of God cult. To this day, Owens still records with the guitar.
At the age of sixteen, Owens escaped the cult and moved to Amarillo, Texas, where he fell in love with its burgeoning punk scene. Unfortunately, he also fell in love with the town’s drug scene, launching into a downward spiral that would nearly kill him.

Enter interesting plot twist number two: Owens met millionaire philanthropist Stanley Marsh III, who gave him a job, a home, and helped him turn his life around. Owens then moved to San Francisco with a girlfriend, with whom he briefly recorded under the moniker Curls.

Shortly after that band and relationship dissolved, he met Chet “JR” White, a producer/musician who would become the other half of Girls. They quickly became friends and started recording together. The resulting sound was a beautiful marriage of heartache, nostalgia, and triumph that gets better with each listen. Their debut album, aptly entitled Album, will be out in September through Matador Records.

Check out my front runner for song and video of the year, “Hellhole Ratrace”:

[vivfox]

I dialed the number, casually deflecting the questions about the last time I'd been flossed and fluorided. After writing the appointment in my planner, I bolted to the sink to start doing all the **** I should've done for the past several years. I scrubbed and Scoped, wove a piece of waxed floss between my molars and dusted the back of my tongue, even though I knew it was way too late, like the kid who sits quietly in the back of the car for the ride home in the hopes his parents will forget that he threw a massive tantrum at the restaurant.

The truth is that other than my money situation--which can only be expressed by turning my pockets inside out and making a frowny face--I'm actually kind of terrified of dentists. I've never had a bad experience in any of their identical mint-scented and Highlights-filled offices, and even dated one of 'em for the better part of a baseball season. The reason we split had less to do with his job and more because of his unfortunate Stevie Nicks fixation; as much as I liked him, I'm never gonna pull off that fingerless lace gloves and witchcraft vibe. Also I hate white-winged doves.

http://www.thetypingmakesmesoundbusy...ty-search.html

[vivfox]

July 29, 2009

A few years back, Blender published an article on the 25 greatest songs about Los Angeles, which included short, snarky explanations on what was "the most L.A. thing" about each band. Apparently, any connection to drugs, movies, or hot girls meant a song is about LA. "Welcome to the Jungle" took the number-one spot, and Fleetwood Mac's "Gold Dust Woman" came in at number ten. So what makes Fleetwood Mac songwriter and singer Stevie Nicks "so L.A.?" According to Blender, "inquiring after the most LA thing about Nicks is like asking, 'What's the most Egyptian thing about Cleopatra?'" Since Nicks was born in Phoenix and started her career in the Bay Area, the line was cute but not particularly apt. But it's a perfect way to describe what Miguel Reyes is for Oakland.
http://www.eastbayexpress.com/music/...nt?oid=1164080

[vivfox]

I love the bass playing of John McVie from Fleetwood Mac. As his long-time crony Mick Fleetwood said, "John tends to play in front of the beat, I tend to play slightly behind and we meet somewhere in the middle." It's a style you cannot teach - and maybe some would never want to learn it - but it has served the pair well, working with Peter Green to present a direct descendent of the Chicago blues, taking on soft-rock with Bob Welch and supporting the million-selling breakup pop and rock of Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham.

Like McVie, Roger Glover of Deep Purple knows how to drive, playing thick chunks of sound, doubling the guitar when required, offering a standalone bass motif now and then. Neither McVie nor Glover has the harmonic grace of Pastorious but both were just right (and continue to be) for the bands they play in. You would not want Jaco (if he were still alive) working in and around Fleetwood or Iain Paice.

Larry Graham deserves a mention from me - for his work with Sly & The Family Stone and for being one of the pioneers of the slap sound in bass playing. It can be ghastly but Graham, who apparently came up with the idea because he was playing in a band without a drummer and wanted to try to replicate a snare sound, had the Midas touch.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/entertainment...t-bass-players

[michelej1]

This is from a radio station in Ireland. They profiled the host, Paul Moriarity

http://www.clare.fm/node/104

Introducing the Clare FM completely pointless but obligatory Presenter Profile Questionnaire;


On-air at Clare FM since? technically November 1997 - then a bit of a break - then June 2007!

What is your favourite Feel Good Song/Tune? The Cure - Friday I'm in Love...
What's your most embarrassing moment on-air? so so many - a recent classic was having Keith Barry guessing the colour of a female colleague's underwear live on-air... followed by bra size... He got both right in fairness!

Do you have any hidden talents? The ability to shed more hair than my springer spaniel...

What is your favourite part of County Clare? The road to Killaloe - just as you turn the corner in to Ogonnelloe as Lough Derg spreads out before you!! Amazing...

Who would be your fantasy superstar interview? Fleetwood Mac - if any of them managed to stop arguing long enough to do an interview...

Have you ever told a lie and what was it? To get my first job with Clare FM I may have pretended I was slightly older than i actually was... lies from the very beginning - cheeky 16 year old!

Finish this sentence in no more that 20 words - Listen to my show on Clare FM because..... Music in one hand - Chat in the other hand - put your hands together for the 11 to 3 Show :-) Cheesy!

[michelej1]

From an article in the Mirror (UK) on the Secret Garden Party Musical Festival, July 29. 2009:

http://blogs.mirror.co.uk/festivals/...as-the-he.html

However, I was incredibly sad to have missed original Fleetwood Mac member Peter Green perform Albatross. Who knew?

[vivfox]

Dale Ann Bradley Won't Back Down « Bluegrass Unlimited

The new CD also dips back to some of her favorite '70s and '80s pop and rock music, with bluegrass arrangements of Christine McVie's Fleetwood Mac hit, “Over My Head,” and, keeping with Bradley's resolute character, Tom Petty's “I Won't ...
Bluegrass Unlimited - http://bluegrassmusic.com/content/

[vivfox]

For a woman who recently turned 40, Heche has had more than her share of incarnations. She started life as the sexually abused child of an evangelical Christian father, who was also a closeted gay man who died of AIDS in 1983, and his eerily compliant wife, who after his death became a Christian therapist, lecturing on behalf of James Dobson’s Focus on the Family about “overcoming” homosexuality. Fresh out of high school in 1987, Heche had a four-year starter career as a soap star, playing good and evil twins on “Another World,” for which she won a Daytime Emmy in 1991. That led to a period as a budding Hollywood leading lady, co-starring with Johnny Depp in “Donnie Brasco,” Robert De Niro and Dustin Hoffman in “Wag the Dog” and Harrison Ford in “Six Days, Seven Nights,” while off screen she veered through a string of relationships with a variety of father figures, including Lindsey Buckingham of Fleetwood Mac and Steve Martin.

Then, at the 1997 Vanity Fair Oscar party, lightning struck and she fell madly in love with Ellen DeGeneres, becoming half of the most famous lesbian couple in America. Because she had never given any indication of being gay, Heche was pilloried as both publicity hound and career opportunist — though in retrospect, given her experience with her duplicitous father and homophobic mother, it could seem that her attraction to DeGeneres had less to do with acting than acting out. The romance actually destroyed her prospects as a leading lady; the deal for “Six Days, Seven Nights” was the last one made as the affair became public, and no more were offered. When the relationship soured after three and a half years and the couple split, Heche experienced what seemed to be a psychotic break, giving in to Celestia, whom she described as an alternate personality she had lived with for years, one who ultimately believed a spaceship was coming to take her to a better place. Her 2001 memoir, “Call Me Crazy,” recounted that episode, along with her sordid childhood, and started her on the road to career recovery.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/02/ma...che-t.html?hpw

[vivfox]

"To Be The Last to Leave" on Flickr - Photo Sharing!
By nobody@flickr.com (T isdale)
The old Fleetwood Mac Tune (Stevie Nicks Doing the lead Vocal) came to mind as I waited for the last kid to leave the pool Saturday Night. I took the shot as a lark but I liked the Silhouette and the reflection of one of perimeter ...
Uploads de T isdale - http://www.flickr.com/photos/tisdale53/

[vivfox]

Even though Marcus Gauntlett has only been producing since 2001, he has had a string of success as 'LMN Project'. He had a monster hit with his version of Fleetwood Mac's 'Everywhere' on Hed Kandi. Marcus has continued to produce and dj all over the glode and he has carved a unique sound of all of his own, mashing up electro with indie dance.
Here he delivers a very cool indie dance/electro monster in the form of 'New York City'.
On the remix and adding a great remix to this package is producer of the moment 'Marc Ustari'. Marc is already a firm favourite with Radio 1 dj's 'Jaymo & George' so much so this remix has already had a few plays on there 'In New Music We Trust' show.
http://www.houseplanet.dj/index.php/...ecordings.html

[vivfox]

Time Travel “Hot Tub Time Machine.” No, Really. August 13, 2009

Richard Faulk The Time Traveler’s Wife may have sadly just arrived, but that doesn’t mean we have to bid farewell to time travel cinema just yet. Hot Tub Time Machine, a comedy staring John Cusack, is slated to hit the theaters early next year. The premise? Four idiots find a hot tub that, er, travels through time. Of course, they go back to 1986.

I have to say that I love the premise, but the execution strains credulity. After all, who takes a hot-tub-cum-time-machine back to 1986 to listen to Animotion? The rules of time travel strictly dictate that you must go to 1976 and make sure that Fleetwood Mac successfully complete Rumours, thus guaranteeing the continued existence of hot tubs for generations to come.

http://thefastertimes.com/timetravel...ine-no-really/

[vivfox]

Staying true to her daughter-of-a-preacher roots, Don't Turn Your Back includes three bluegrass gospel numbers: the humorous "Rusty Old Halo", The Carter Family's "Fifty Miles of Elbow Room", and the traditional "Heaven", which features reigning IBMA Entertainers of the Year Jamie Dailey and Darrin Vincent. Sharing her love of classic rock and its influence on her music and voice, Bradley includes bluegrass versions of Fleetwood Mac's "Over My Head"and Tom Petty's "I Won't Back Down", yet stays close to tradition with the Kentucky mountain ballad "Blue Eyed Boy".

http://www.cybergrass.com/modules.ph...ticle&sid=6641

[vivfox]

Are there any female musicians that you sort of feel are stepping up and challenging the rock canon, or at the very least making great music today?

I have to be honest — I haven’t seen a lot of the newer artists that have surprised me. I still kind of go with my old standbys. We just went to see Stevie Nicks and Fleetwood Mac. I actually interviewed [Stevie] when I was pregnant with my daughter, for MTV, and so last summer we went to see Stevie at Jones Beach, and Cicely, my daughter, drew her this really cool picture. She gave it to her and Stevie said, “I’ve gotten a lot of pictures from people and I can tell you, this one’s actually good.” There’s just certain people that … I don’t know if there’s ever going to be another Stevie Nicks or another Chrissie Hynde or Joni Mitchell or Laura Nyro. I don’t know what this generation is going to produce or if the environment will allow that person to evolve in the way that those artists got to evolve.

http://features.outinamerica.com/200...kes-for-truth/