Get Tusked

[David]

Ken fictionalizes a lot of verbiage in the conversations in the Tusk book. I don’t have a problem with the fictionalizing as long as I trust the writer to nail the general spirit of the conversation, the day, or the experience (Stevie used to be very good at this in radio interviews). But in Ken’s case, it isn’t that I don’t trust him per se, it’s that I think he has developed a political perspective about the old Fleetwood Mac experiences over the years and wants to frame them his way. He has an agenda, whatever it is. So his conversations wind up sounding phony and mechanical. When someone’s pushing a narrative in a certain way, you get typos and non-facts, one right after the other. This is just from skimming the opening few pages on the Amazon preview:

“On September 16, 1978, construction began on our new custom-build studio on the edge of Santa Monica, a new addition to the renowned Village Recorder Studios, and by June, Studio D was complete.” [June 1979? The album was in mastering stage by then! When is chapter 1 actually set? It’s the band’s first day of recording in Studio D, which followed the 1978 tour, which ended late August.]

“Stevie had written it on the couch of Studio D, looking up from her journal occasionally and somehow ignoring Mick during the insanely long hours we spent in the control room.” [Hello? Is there any editor in the room? How could Stevie have written Storms at the Village Recorder when chapter 1 is about the band’s first day (or week) recording?]

“The next song on the tape was Sisters of the Moon, which I recalled from a few years back, written about her failing health on tour. The new voice-and-piano demo was depressing and not very exciting, but it would evolve into a rocker more like Gold Dust Woman. ‘That one’s gonna be ****ing great, Stevie!’ exclaimed Christine, an old rocker at heart, holding her cigarette in the same hand as her glass of burgundy. ‘We should play it live this summer. I’ll play the Rhodes on that.’ ” [Ken is really screwed up by now with his timeline. By the time the band convened at the Village to record, they had already toured and been playing Sisters of the Moon in concert. Stevie would have had no reason to demo it for the band at that point.]

“All of a sudden, Lindsey and Carol walked into the control room, looking as if they had been fighting. Most startling, though, was Lindsey’s extreme haircut. ‘Lindsey, what the hell did you do to your beautiful hair?’ Christine asked, clearly dumbfounded and anxious for his explanation.” [Christine toured with the clean-shaven Lindsey all summer in 1978 before recording started. The impulse to fabricate verbiage here has once again destroyed chronology and facts.]