rolling stone reviews of kiln house, future games and bare trees

[aleuzzi]

If anyone's interested, I found these old rolling stone reviews of kiln house, future games, and bare trees...Maybe someone could post them into the Blue Letter archive next to the '71 Mick and Jeremy interview.

Rolling Stone Record Review for Heroes are Hard to Find
October 24, 1974, p. 74
by Ken Barnes

After a brief identity crisis (another band usurping their identities), the real Fleetwood Mac is back on record. They've still got the same soft-rock sound they've had for three years, since Jeremy Spencer found religion (or vice-versa). The group's gone a little funkier in places, which turns out both annoying ("Born Enchanter," "Angel") and intriguing ("Heroes are Hard to Find"). Their smoother number alternately mesmerize ("She's Changing Me") or narcotize ("Coming Home"). A major problem remains in Bob Welch's naggingly nasal vocals, although he's usually swathed in protective layers of lush harmonies.
Overall, though, Heroes are Hard to Find stacks up as a very pleasant album, thanks chiefly to a pair of Christine McVie tracks. "Prove Your Love" is exquisitely pretty and "Come a Little Bit Closer" is a gorgeous tune reminiscent of the Beach Boys and especially of the Raspberries' brilliant "Overnight Sensation." Add the ominous "Bermuda Triangle" and an attractive "Bad Loser" and the end results are definitely worth investigating.


"The Real Fleetwood Mac Stands Up"
Rolling Stone article, November 7, 1974
by Cameron Crowe

Los Angeles -- Even amid their legal action against former manager Clifford Davis, Fleetwood Mac maintains a low profile. The group has had few hit singles or magazine cover stories in a quiet seven-year career, yet their concert appearances draw a steady stream of loyal followers and at least seven albums have sold in excess of 200, 000 copies [each].
Sitting in the living room of John and Christine McVie's modest Laurel Canyon home, Fleetwood Mac (current lineup: Bow Welch, guitar and vocals; John McVie, bass; Christine McVie, keyboards and vocals; Mick Fleetwood, drums) is about as visually mild offstage as they are on. There is little about their faded Levi's and J.C. Penney shirts that even hint at rock & roll.
"I guess it's just not our nature to have an image," Welch, the band's only non-Englishman, concedes. "At some point you just have to realize that you may never be Elton John. But then again, the point isn't to sell a record to every man, woman, and child on earth. The point is to have a career, do what you're doing and do it well. Fleetwood Mac has done just that."
For the past year, thought, much of the band's time has been spent in law offices, locking horns with ex-manager Davis. According to Fleetwood, Davis approached the road-weary musicians last year about another nationwide tour. Met with rejection, he assembled a new Fleetwood Mac and -- claiming full rights to the name -- booked a tour.
"We were all on holiday when we found out what had happened," Fleetwood says. "Before the bogus band played too many dates, we had to physically get together and take legal advice. The impression Clifford had given was that he had every legal right to do what he did. We very soon found out, apart from morally having no excuse, there was no legal right."
The band went to court and also to the studio. They emerged from the former with a restraining order that put a halt to the pseudo-Mac, and from the latter with their 12th album, Heroes are Hard to Find. Still outstanding, though, is a final legal determination on ownership of the name.
The band agrees they have already won an important victory. "When things like this have happened," Fleetwood says, "many bands haven't had the stamina to see it through. It's very easy to say, 'God, it's just not worth it.' I'm sure Clifford never felt for one moment that we would stick this out. We manage ourselves now."
So Fleetwood Mac is on the road again, for the first time in a year. "Ironically, this is gonna be our vacation," Fleetwood says, grinning. "It's like we've forgotten what all the hassles were about….We should have a lot of fun."
Mick Fleetwood, along with John McVie, an original member, remembers the early club days when it was Peter Green's Fleetwood Mac and the quartet also included double lead guitarists Green and Jeremy Spencer.
Their first album, Fleetwood Mac, topped the English LP charts, and a string of medium-sized British hit singles followed, including the original "Black Magic Woman," Soon after, Danny Kirwan join the group as third lead, and a month later they cut their only million-selling 45, an instrumental "Albatross."
The band produced four more albums -- English Rose, Mr. Wonderful, Fleetwood Mac in Chicago, and Then Play On, their debut LP for Warner Bros. -- before getting a taste of musical chairs in 1970. Peter Green quit the band and began to work on an instrumental solo album. It was titled, prophetically, The End of the Game; Green subsequently disappeared from the music business. For a replacement, the band added John McVie's wife, the former Christine Perfect of Chicken Shack. Leaderless, they recorded the much acclaimed Kiln House. From there, it was off to America.
Spencer departed in 1971--simply disappeared from hi Los Angeles hotel room, later turning up in the ranks of the Children of God, a religious cult. Welch, a Californian who came from a background of Los Vegas showbands, filled the slot.
Fleetwood Mac's next albums, Future Games and Bare Trees, displayed a brighter style of rock, laced with cooing harmonies and pretty melodies, Not long after Bare Trees, however, Danny Kirwan amicably left to pursue a solo career and was replaced by former John Baldry guitarist Bob Weston. The five piece band lasted for two albums, Mystery to Me and Penguin (with the brief inclusion of ex-Savoy Brown singer Dave "Tell Mama" Walker n the latter). Now with the release of Heroes are Hard to Find, Weston is gone, too.
But the real Fleetwood Mac is accenting the future -- and right now that's the tour, a 43-date swing that ends December 1st -- with yet another addition, Doug Graves on keyboards. "We can't complain," Fleetwood says. "This band has always been able to work when we wanted to."

Note: The article is accompanied by a group shot of Fleetwood, C. McVie, J. McVie, and Welch drinking champagne out of one another's glasses.



Rolling Stone Record Review for Bare Trees
June 08, 1972, p. 56
by Bud Scoppa

Fleetwood Mac's last two records, Kiln House and Future Games, have between them provided me with perhaps a hundred hours of enjoyment. And that's the ultimate test of a record's worth. Personally, I was never interested in early Fleetwood Mac, the British blues band; but this Fleetwood Mac has little in common with that group except for the name and rhythm section of Mick Fleetwood and John McVie. The closest thing I can think of to the kind of music the new Mac plays is the moody rock of the middle-period Beatles. Kiln House is similar to Beatles 65 in its dual concerns with vintage rock 'n' roll and muted, romantic pieces. Jeremy Spencer took care of the former, while Danny Kirwan, extended the style best represented by McCartney's "I'll Follow the Sun."
Since Spencer left, the band has been forced to re-orient itself somewhat: Kirwan has become the sole focal figure, and this central role has forced him to deal in the visceral as well as the moody areas. But Kirwan had already shown that he was well-equipped to handle both. His "Jewel Eyed Judy," "Tell Me All the Things You Do," and "Station Man" are among the best examples of the soft-hard rock song, with their lively, silky vocals and smoking guitars. If Kiln House holds up somewhat better than the gentler Future Games, Kirwan's dynamic songs are at least as responsible as Spencer's presence on the former album.
Bare Trees falls somewhere between the last two Fleetwood Macs; that is, it hits harder than Future Games, but its concerns are much more introspective than those of Kiln House. Kirwan has written two melancholic, really elegiac songs based on the bitter sweet poem of an elderly woman, "Thoughts on a Grey day" that closes the album. The first song, "Bare Trees," its title suggested by a line from old Mrs. Scarrot's poem moves along exhilaratingly, even though its lyric is a metaphor of old age and approaching death; perhaps it's the acceptance of the cycle that gives the music a hopeful, almost happy feeling. The second, "Dust," is a great deal more somber, but it retains Kirwan's deft melodic touch, manifesting itself in both the sighing vocals and in the guitar lines that sweep softly alongside it. "Dust" sets the stage for the poem, which is similar in effect to the "Voices of Old People" track on Simon and Garfunkel's Bookends. The group has thoroughly preceded the poem with about fifteen seconds of silence, sufficient time to pick up the tone arm if you're not in the mood.
The rest of Bare Trees isn't nearly so melancholy, nor is it structured to conform to the theme Kirwan has developed. Christine McVie's two songs, "Homeward Bound" and "Spare me a Little of You Love" (which sounds like a hit single to me), make it clear that she's become a fine songwriter and a persuasive vocalist -- she's somewhere between Sandy Denny and Dusty Springfield, and there's no doubt that she could make it on her own. Bob Welch's two contributions, however, don't approach the power of "Future games." His "The Ghost" and "Sentimental Lady," while not unattractive in themselves, are the weakest tracks on the album. Both are trite.
As before, it's Danny Kirwan who makes the difference. There's nothing on Bare Trees to equal "Station Man" or "Jewel Eyed Judy," but, aside from "Dust," Kirwan's songs here rock much more than his Future Games material did. He really lets loose on "Danny's Chant," which features tough-guy electric guitar sounds purely for their own sake. His "Child of Mine" is a lyrically disjointed but musically forthright rock 'n' roll son. Kirwan's instrumental, "Sunny Side of Heaven," shows off his unique electric guitar style to good advantage. Like most outstanding guitarists, Kirwan gets a sound that is more plainly human than mechanical. His guitar tone is piercing but tremulous -- powerful but at the same time plaintive, especially in the upper ranges.
With his multiple skills, Kirwan can't help being the focal point. It is his presence that makes Fleetwood Mac something more than another competent rock group. He gives them a distinctiveness, a sting. He makes you want to hear these songs again.



Rolling Stone Record Review for Kiln House
November 26, 1970, p. 38
by. J. R. Young.

I was sure that Peter Green's departure from Fleetwood Mac signaled the end of that band. And it did. That band went under. It was, after all, Peter Green's Fleetwood Mac in the beginning, and although never a mere showcase for Green's all too obvious talents, he was still most decidedly the Kingfish of the Kombo.
OK. That band folded, but the band didn't fold. Danny Kirwan and Jeremy Spencer took up the slack and built a new engine for the Fleetwood Mac machine. They didn't try to drive around or hide what most people thought would be a conspicuous hole in the band (Green's place), but rather shifted gears and a made a quick high speed turn off the cosmic trail Green had left them on and headed out the two lane highway of high-class vintage rock & roll.
The road wasn't new to them. Perhaps a year or two ago, Jeremy Spencer made a solo English album (not released in the states), and it was apparently one of those things he had to "get out from under his skin." It, too, was vintage R & R, but it was also a parody of sounds ranging from Buddy Holly to Jan and Dean and even Presley's more maudlin stuff. It wasn't exactly a stellar performance on Spencer's part, but it was a lot of fun. The band that backed him on the album was the band that is today Fleetwood Mac. Peter Green played banjo on one track.
Kiln House, on the other hand, is not a parody, and it is a much more carefully conceived and prepared album, as opposed to the "hey, let's record all this raunchy stuff I have laying around my flat" that the Spencer album indicates. Spencer's album would make both Holly and Vincent blush; Kiln House, on the other hand, is a venture that would make Holly and Vincent unabashedly proud as godparents to the album.
This isn't merely another rock & roll revival album. Fleetwood Mac is only dependent upon the past for certain flavorings, and is not tied to the same Oldie-Goldie trip in the jejune manner that, sat, Cat Mother was, or any of the other hot**** bands attempting to resurrect the past on the past's own lost ground. With Kirwan keeping Spencer's apparent excesses in tow ("Blood on the Floor" could have been terrible had it gotten away from them. It didn't, however, and survived admirably.) and with more time to **** around in the studio, Fleetwood Mac has ferreted out the early subtleties of classic R & R rather than dealing with the early excesses that plague so many of today's Revivalists. The best of the oldie-moldie is met on Fleetwood Mac's own ground and own terms, and the sound is much wiser for it.
The roots aspect ("Let's see, isn't 'Hi Ho Silver' based upon John Lennon's Plastic Ono, which originally was based etc. etc…") eventually goes by the boards, and what emerges is one of those albums that hangs on to your head for a long time, and one which you seek out as relief from all those insipid-and-virtually-unlistenable-after-two-times-through albums making the rounds these days. Pick it up today and you'll find yourself humming "Tell Me All the Things You Do" for the next few months.