Ken Caillat Trashes Lindsey In His New Book
 

I just read an excerpt from Ken Caillat's new book on his web site, makingrumours.com. In one little blurb, about recording GYOW, Ken wrote, "I would really love to use Lindsey as a guitarist on the albums I'm working on today, but he's just a difficult, unhappy person so much of the time that it's too much work to deal with him. Lindsey and I never discussed his trying to strangle me back in Miami, even though I often thought about it when he walked into the studio, especially in the days and weeks after it happened."

I thought Ken and Lindsey were friends, but maybe not so much. I also wonder if Ken knows what Lindsey is like now that he is a happily married family man.

lol... there was another strangling incident? Jeez first Ken, then Stevie... :shocked:

It's likely there is no ill-will between them. They are friends/associates with a long history. It's normal for relationships to change or fade over time, due to the varying circumstances of life.

It's not surprising to hear that Lindsey is "too much work to deal with" or that he might have some anger-control issues. Despite the strangling accusation, Ken still appears to respect Lindsey's talent. His comments reflect feelings about what he experienced working with Lindsey. It's nothing we didn't already know. No one is perfect, not even Lindsey!

Ken said he's played golf with Lindsey's wife...

They probably share strangling stories, while wedging balls out of the sand.

I think it's funny that he claims he'd use Lindsey as a guitarist on some of his songs, like Lindsey is just waiting around for the phone call. I'm sure he could be corraled into guesting on a tune. If you bump into him in the hall, it's not hard to pull him into a studio, judging from what happened to Vanessa Carlton. So, he might do Ken a favor if he was in the mood, but I hardly think he's sitting around hoping to play guitar on Colbie's album.

The choice of working with the difficult and unhappy Lindsey is probably not up to Ken.

Michele

Well, well, well. I bet Ken won't be getting
any Christmas presents from the strangler this
year.

Who knows what's true? Though it's easy to
imagine Lindsey being difficult to deal with in
the studio. But being a physical threat to a
man? That's a little hard to believe.

You forgot about Carol Anne.

He went after her neck, too?! :distress:

Several times. Haven't you read her book yet? (Louie,:wavey: do I have to mail it to New Zealand now???)

Man. :distress: Lindsey's not faring to well with all these 'strangling' stories. This will be, like, the third.

Ugh.

haha nah I never read it. Something seemed dodgy about it. :shrug: Maybe I just don't want Lindsey tarnished in my mind. ;)

I agree with Brendan. What's past is passed. He's a different man than he used to be. People can change.

Good choice. It's in my top five books I wish I could "unread."

Oh, did Ken ever speak of the actual strangling incident or just dropped a bombshell and ran like a sniveling little muckraker? Newsflash: People would have cared around the time it happened. People might have been able to....oh, get Lindsey some help of some sort so he wouldn't go around being the California Strangler. 30 (or so) years later? Not so much. Lindsey Who???? And, if they don't know/care about who Lindsey is, they certainly don't give a rat's behind about who Ken is. So, again, what's the purpose? He didn't have the balls to talk about the strangling incident when it happened because he was probably worried about blackballing his career. So, now? Why? To tarnish the dude's reputation among the (maybe) few hundred who would read his book, soley because of his FM connection? I had the same issue with Carol Ann, but...at least she had a right to exorcise her demons.

Really? I have yet to witness firsthand the act of people changing. They may behave differently, or they may have more insight into their behaviors, but the underlying pathology is still there; only the symptoms change.

I think it's one thing for one person to report an isolated incident. But there is a pattern here. CAH reports several incidents of physical violence. There was the guitar chucking incident in NZ in 1980. There was the infamous Stevie strangling incident in 1987. And now the Ken strangling incident has come to light. Yeesh, anger management much?! I think it's one thing if Lindsey atoned for his transgressions... but as far as we are aware, he has never addressed these episodes. I mean, Buddah knows I have a temper. But I have never sought to strangle someone. That goes way beyond merely trying to inflict physical pain upon someone; that is literally murderous. Thank goodness for Lindsey's slight stature; he could be in the hoosegow serving a life sentence if he actually managed to follow through on his intentions.

I love this board! :lol:

I don't disagree with you. BUT, I guess I'm questioning Ken's veracity. Seriously, how many people would pick up his book without his connections to others. And, there is a strong FM contingent that would pick up a book for ANY FM-connection whatsoever. But, you know, if he says something about how f-ed up, yet wonderful they all were during Rumours...ho-hum. If he drops the strangulation angle--all of a sudden, there is (a small, IMO) controversy. Maybe someone will actually ask him about this in the mainstream press and help him sell 5 more books. And, yes, it could be true. But, this is a guy who Lindsey allegedly tried to strangle. So, what happened? Did he beat the crap out of Lindsey? Did he press charges (No)? Lack of detail makes me question this because it's easy to say Lindsey did this when his other transgressions are on record.
And, yeah, it doesn't really matter that there were 2 or 3 or 90 episodes like this. He needed anger management help and, hopefully, got it somewhere down the line. His not publicly addressing it doesn't bother me. It's opening up a can of worms that he doesn't have to.

Yes, could be a pattern of him strangling people or a pattern of people who know of each other's allegations then saying something similar happened to them.

At any rate, I'd like to read his description of that incident, which I assume will provide more detail than the flashback reference to it does.

I will say that the various pictures of Lindsey holding people around the neck seem strange to me. He likes to feel their neck in the crook of his elbow. I don't particularly think he's a strangler, but I think the chokehold hug is rather odd and it seems to be a favorite of his. He'd often do the same thing to John in concert. Although, since John was playing at the time, maybe he hugged him that way because John's arms were full.

Michele

If you don't have the advantage of superior strength, I'm not even sure how you get to the point of strangling a guy, unless you grab them from behind. I mean, you accidentally destroy all the acetates for GYOW and Lindsey finds out and it's not going to be pretty. As he comes stomping over in approach, what are you doing to counter? Strangling is not like a punch that comes out of nowhere.

It's like Herbert saying that when they did the White album, when John came towards Lindsey, Lindsey was automatically wary, until he realized that John only wanted to hug him. With Lindsey on his guard, I don't think John could have strangled him. But I trust the book will explain more than the glancing excerpt did.

Michele

Who knows how much truth there is to any of these 'strangling/choking' incidents.

You have Mick saying in his book that Lindsey attacked Stevie. You have Stevie in more than one place saying that she is the one who attacked Lindsey. Stevie's own words (from Lindsey's Behind the Music)
"I think I got up and ran across the room and tried to kill him. I think I ran and attacked him."

Just the fact that there are different accounts of that incident leaves me to doubt the others.

Ray, Richard, did you leave because Lindsey strangled you? Likes necks and fragile shoulders.:(

Michele

Oh, I think it goes without saying that Lindsey has plenty of eccentricities and has likely sought/received treatment to address them. But, as you said, we don't really know the degree to which Lindsey has evolved into a more, um... humane individual. We can only draw our own conclusions based upon anecdotes, recollections and impressionistic fragments of memories that may or may not have been blurred by the haze of drug/alcohol use. But you can't deny, in the totality of accounts received thus far, that a trend seems to be apparent. This is further underscored by Stevie's accounts of the (verbal, I assume) fights that occurred even as recently as the Say You Will album and tour. And even though it was clearly said in jest, Lindsey calling Stevie the "B" word at the 92nd Street Y last year was telling, if not a wee bit disturbing. I would like to think that Lindsey and Stevie, even at their rockiest, would have fought in a civilized, adult-like manner. But in that innocuous instant, it was made clear to me that Lindsey was capable of going there- to the darkest, most demeaning places. I'm sure age, therapy and family life have mellowed him tremendously, but that glimmer of darkness is still there. I still would not want to cross his path.

What would really be funny if the excerpt contains the only description of the strangling. In that passage, he's talking about a happy Lindsey hugging him and comments that it was better than being strangled. You know he just mentioned it as a little tease, a tantalizing tidbit. If it is not a reference to something he explained earlier in the book, then you can really tell how disingenuous it is. No effort to inform, just to titillate.

But my first reaction is still to laugh at: Gee I'd really love to use Lindsey on the albums I'm working on today, but he's too difficult and unhappy. Lindsey's no session player. His chronic depression is not why Ken isn't using him as a guitarist. Heck, I don't even consider him a guitarist for Fleetwood Mac, much less for Ken Caillat. Michele

You can suppress, but not expunge... :lol:

A leopard never really changes it's spots! ;)

So, Lindsey, feel free to come at my neck baby - but a gentle nibble will do nicely! :rolleyes::D

How is this "trashing" him? :confused:

Pardon?

When asked what he'd be doing if he hadn't gone into music, didn't Lindsey once answer that he'd probably be in prison?

Maybe there was more truth to that "joke" than we would've thought! Lol.

Right!!??!!!:blob1::blob1::blob1::lol:

He's clearly paid for his infractions!!

What's done is done, yes, but that doesn't make what happened any less important. Ken obviously doesn't have the right to slander anyone - but if that is what happened, then he has the right to tell it.

That said, whatever happened in the past I think Lindsey has dealt with his demons now in whatever way whether it be through professional help or not, and is a better man for it - as so many close to him also seem to say.

I've also never heard of the Lindsey calling Stevie a b**** (publicly lol) before - can someone elaborate?

And in regards to the varying stories regarding the Tango incident - who went after who first isn't really all that relevant, ultimately, and doesn't discredit the event. The point was that they got in a physical fight - that's what everyone could agree on - no? And it's interesting that Stevie herself was the one who said she instigated it, incriminating herself, while others had different stories. Which could very well be true, of course, it's just always seemed a bit ironic somehow.

Agreed. The title of the thread is pretty inflammatory... I'd understand if this was the first time someone from the Mac inner circle has recounted acts of physical aggression/violence from Lindsey. But that's not the case... quite a few people from Lindsey's past have brought to light stories of violent behavior from the man. Mick, Stevie, Christine, and John have all spoken on the record about Lindsey's past violence. Obviously there's Carol Ann Harris' rather dubious claims as well. Despite this, some fans continue to stick their heads in the sand every time a new/different story surfaces from a credible source, and blame absolutely everyone but Lindsey himself. Just because Lindsey is an extraordinary musician doesn't make him an extraordinary person.

He didn't call the Stevie of today a B. I was there and if memory serves, the interviewer asked him about the time during the Rumours recording sessions and what introducing the songs spewing about the other was like...and long story short the interviewer said something along the line of "What did you do just walk in there and go, look at my new song...Go Your Own Way." To which Lindsey responded with a big cackle, and i'm paraphrasing slightly, but "sure yeah, something like Go Your Own You...you B..."

And he said it with a big grin and laugh and i just translated that as the fact that there was soooo much tension and anger and unresolved issues at the time and looking back at it he just blamed her for him being so miserable. It was a reminiscent memory, not some malicious comment or some violent dive deep into his soul channeling some demonic rage from 1977 that keeps him from functioning today.

For what it's worth, he had other potty mouth moments that night so to me it was all just par for the course.

At least IMO.

I have the audio if anyone needs/wants to hear it again.

I think blaming someone would be saying they deserve to get strangled, kicked, or guitar thrown. No one has said Stevie, Ken, or CAH deserved that. Questioning a story or different versions of an event is not tantamount to blaming the victim or absolving Lindsey.

For instance, with New Zealand, I don't doubt that Lindsey did something, but I have no idea what he did, because Mick said one thing, Christine never said (just acknowledged throwing her drink at him, after he did what he did) and Stevie first said she couldn't remember, that he kicked her or something and then, years later, she added a guitar to the scenario and said she ducked it. If she'd said it had missed her, I might believe it. But thinking that she ducked it is a little much. I don't think he threw a guitar at her on stage in New Zealand. I'm not blaming her or forgiving Lindsey. He may well have beat her with a guitar after they completed Soldier's Angel and that's why she decided to tour with Rod Stewart again and ditched FM for 2012.

Michele

Even more pertinent, all the varying (or slightly varying) accounts all stem from the account in the Mick Fleetwood book. One account predates all the others, as far as I know.

Does anyone remember the Timothy White cover story of the band in a 1989 issue of Musician magazine? The article started: "The high priestess of rock is spitting mad ..." or something like that. The 1987 blowup is the springboard for the article, but I don't recall a specific reference made to physical violence at the showdown meeting over the tour. So Mick's book (1990) is the very first mention ever -- even in the sleazoid press (which broke other big stories, like Stevie's abortion & Mick's affair with Stevie & even John's drug bust in 1980).

The fact that one book can be pinpointed as the single source of the stories about Lindsey beating everybody up doesn't mean the stories aren't true--only that the book must have reminded everyone involved of something that happened, & they all proceeded to riff on their drug- and age-addled memories.

I laughed & even farted when I read iamnotafraid's referring to LB as "strangler." I picture this sort of Monty Pythonish figure, wrapped in a red papal gown, running around & strangling members of Fleetwood Mac & shrieking, "Nooooooobody expects the Spanish Inquisition!"

:laugh::laugh::laugh:

Still lovin' this board!

Hi there, my wife just told me about these posts. In context, the strangling thing happened in the heat of LB trying to get a guitar solo and I mentioned it only to show what kind of energy and passion it takes to create a guitar solo like on Go your Own way. He apologized for putting his hands on my throat and we never talked about it again. My book tells what it takes to make a great album.
Ken Caillat

Thanks for clarifying the "Lindsey called Stevie a B" incidence. I could tell he was laughing (and everyone else did too). Of course, I am quite sure he called her that in less jestful moments... and she has referred to herself that way...and has called him names too - according to Ken! ;)

Ha! Now, Michele - don't start THAT rumour! :lol:

Hi there, my wife just told me about these posts. In context, the strangling/choking thing happened in the heat of LB trying to get a guitar solo and I mentioned it only to show what kind of energy and passion it takes to create a great guitar solo like on "Go your Own Way". He apologized for putting his hands on my throat and we never talked about it again. My book only tells what it takes to make a great album.
And I've never played golf with Lindsey or his wife.
Ken Caillat

Thanks Ken! :thumbsup: Before you go would you mind clarifying how the strangler got his hands around your neck while playing guitar? Is that in the book?