BBC Radio 4 'Tusk' documentary tomorrow
 

Hi Ledgies, I don't know if you've heard about this radio documentary but it sounds rather interesting - it's on BBC Radio tomorrow morning at 11.30am:

'Follow-Up Albums

Music critic Pete Paphides tells the story behind three 'follow-up' albums - from Dexys Midnight Runners, Fleetwood Mac and Suede - with tales of musical pressure, creative differences, personal politics and mixed results.

How many bands have found themselves with a massive and often unexpected hit album, only to struggle with the creation of their next opus? Sometimes the follow-up exceeds the first album, but often nerves kick in and bands are removed from the very stimulus that created their magic in the first place, finding themselves in a world of creative confusion, sycophants and accountants.

Pete Paphides talks to musicians, producers, and critics to explore the stories of follow-up albums with the same expert knowledge he brought to Lost Albums.

Programme 2: Fleetwood Mac - Tusk

How do you follow a record that sells 21 million copies worldwide and spends over 30 weeks at number one in the US album chart?

The answer is Tusk - the album Fleetwood Mac recorded in the wake of 1976's Rumours.

Despite joining the band just three years previously, this was the record that saw Lindsey Buckingham impose his will on Fleetwood Mac using the studio as a crucible in which he shovelled intra-band infidelities and his new-found love of punk.

In 1979 it was deemed a failure, nicknamed "Lindsey's folly" from industry insiders. After 35 years, it has been reappraised as their boldest, most forward-looking release, "a peerless piece of pop art", influencing Radiohead and REM.

Broadcast:
Thu 24 May 2012 11:30 BBC Radio 4.'

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01hxpxp

I'm expect non-UK Ledgies can listen on the internet, but don't quote me.

I've heard a short trailer which features a new-sounding interview with Lindsey, but even so I'm sure we should expect to hear about 'Christmas bonuses flying out the window...'

Please, let someone record this....I'm at work....Peestie????

I'm at work as well but I think I should be able to do it anyway. I just need to find out how to record it. Otherwise it'll (hopefully) be on BBC iPlayer.

"A peerless piece of pop art". I love the brits. They can say it so much better than the yanks...

For anyone in the UK - it will be on the iPlayer later today.

I heard the last one on Dexy's Midnight Runners and it was pretty good.

Twitter: @fmfanuk: So Lindsey Buckingham has written a bunch of new songs and he wants Stevie Nicks to hear them, so that they can record them together! Good!

I bet Stevie can't wait to sing on Dancing. The raven spoke to her, from the pallid bust of Pallas just above her chamber door.

Michele

:lol::lol::lol:

I don't care what they sing - just get to it people! :)

Posted on BBC Iplayer now
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/bigscre...sode/b01hxpxp/

A guy in the US posted on Facebook that he could stream this, hopefully you guys can as well

Some really interesting info from Lindsey on new songs and working again with Stevie

Does anyone know when the interview was done originally?

I'm in the U.S. and I'm playing it as we speak.

37 days ago

Pete Paphides (@petepaphides)
17/04/2012 18:00
I had a bit of a man-crush on Lindsey Buckingham before I interviewed him last night. Now I have quite a lot of a man-crush on him.

Oh, great! Thanks for the info!

thank you!! (for everything :xoxo:) i was just about to go look for this tweet. :nod:

some stuff LB said...
 

lots of stuff from LB in this interview. and some stuff from stevie, mick and ken (from ken what we've mostly heard in his various interviews for the book lately).

LB is cute... says he doesn't remember anything from tusk time but if he requested something from Ken (like turning all the knobs 180 degrees from where Ken thought the sound is good), he says there must have been some bright idea behind it - of course LB would never do something just because, must have been some wisdom behind it :lol::lol::angel::xoxo:

ken says something like - LB is a weird very nervous guy and there's a thin line between genius and insanity...

when asked about the drug abuse back in the day LB says he did indulge in a bit of alcohol and some drugs but was never into things that would make you stay perpetually awake... (right, a little bit lol :D)

Paphides asked him about ken's statement that LB sucks the fun out of every room and then he qualifies it by saying that what that must have meant is that when LB comes into studio there's no more fun just work. LB acknowledges that and says - sure, i'm very serious about the work.

at the end when asked whether he'd be open to working with stevie again, he says that he'd love to and asks Pete Paphides to put in a good word for him when he's talking to her... and then he stops himself in the middle of sentence and says - ah you already talked to her? and laughs. Paphides says - yeah, and stevie is making all the right noises... then LB says - oh good... b/c i've written a bunch of songs that i'd like her to hear and that we can record together... and that it would be circular to come back where they started and that he hopes they do. he doesn't make it completely clear whether that would be FM or BN, since he also mentions that S and L relationship has been a subtext in FM from the start.

so it sound like LB is open to either thing... and that his incredibly prolific phase of the last few years is still going strong if not stronger than ever!! :]:] the guy is just unbelievable - the studio album, the DVD + live CD, plus different shows he's been doing for the last year - plus bunch of new songs?! wow!! :thumbsup:

tweet:

@ChrisMonk
Love how the subtext of every Lindsey Buckingham comment in this documentary is basically "I thought I'd act like a massive c*nt" #tusk

Funny exchange about putting in a good word for him with Stevie.
Michele

oh, just noticed that David Lowery also shared the link to the interview on his FB page - he was also interviewed for this, and LB was asked whether he heard CVB's Tusk (he did, thought it was interesting where they took some songs and that it was a huge complement) and what he thought about what Lowery said. Lowery said that the production of Tusk was at the same time great and horrible. LB said that's not inaccurate considering he was kinda going for no production.


Lowery's FB post:

David Lowery
Haven't heard it. No Idea what I said. But lindsey buckingham myself and others talk about the album Tusk.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01hxpxp
BBC - BBC Radio 4 Programmes - Follow-Up Albums, Fleetwood Mac - Tusk
www.bbc.co.uk
Pete Paphides tells the story behind Tusk by Fleetwood Mac.

Sounds intriguing! Hoping it is YouTube'd soon.

hmmm... anyone who listened agree with this or care to take a stab at explaining it? Just that LB was being an arrogant ass??

If you're able to listen to iplayer you can download the show into MP3 format using the radio downloader. http://www.nerdoftheherd.com/tools/radiodld/

I use it all the time for downloading and listening to BBC radio shows/documentaries on my ipod.

Just downloaded the Tusk show, looking forward to giving this a listen later. :D

I listened to it, and I can't explain it. It didn't come across that way at all to me :shrug: The tweeter just sounds like a Lindsey hater...so what's new?

Here, I just uploaded the mp3:

http://www.mediafire.com/?p8p9yp33b6ubb1f

He thanks you.

Great interview! Thanks for posting, lots of new material for me.

Thanks so much. Michele

From Radio Times
http://www.radiotimes.com/episode/qs...ood-mac---tusk

Review by:Jack Seale

How many million people who own Rumours have no idea what the next Fleetwood Mac record even sounds like? 1979’s Tusk was a double platinum album but achieved nothing like the same level of popularity, despite a stupendous million-dollar budget. Having given the world the beautiful sound of the group falling apart, Tusk was the misshapen fragments that were left.

In-the-know fans now adore its jarring mix of Stevie Nicks and Christine McVie’s lovely sketches and band leader Lindsey Buckingham’s deranged, punky polkas — and Buckingham himself has mellowed enormously and says he’s proud of this odd masterpiece.

ABOUT THIS PROGRAMME
2/3. Pete Paphides focuses on Fleetwood Mac's Tusk, the follow-up to the band's 1976 groundbreaking album Rumours, which sold 21 million copies and topped the American chart for 30 weeks. The music journalist examines why critics at the time considered the release a flop, and guitarist Lindsey Buckingham and singer Stevie Nicks share their own views about the record.

CAST AND CREW

Cast
PresenterPete Paphides

Very cool. Thank you!

Guardian UK, Miranda Sawyer, May 26, 2012

http://www.guardian.co.uk/tv-and-rad...?newsfeed=true

More music and money: on Radio 4, Pete Paphides continued Follow-Up Albums, his short series on difficult follow-up albums, with Fleetwood Mac's Tusk. After the enormous success of Rumours, which sold more than 40m copies, Tusk is known as "Fleetwood's folly": a sprawling double album that "only" clocked up 4m sales. Stevie Nicks was as cool as she always is – I worship that woman – and at the end of the programme Paphides managed to get both her and Mick Fleetwood to say, separately, that they'd be up for making another LP. The day Tusk was released was declared by the mayor of LA to be "Fleetwood Mac Day". That would never happen again. But they might get a bit of spare bunting.

As a Christine fan, I have to say I loved the bit where Stevie says, "Christine was in charge...She was the only one people would listen to."

I'm assuming she was speaking of the work atmosphere and not so much about the musical direction. The interview makes clear that Lindsey was the master of that. I didn't think he sounded like a pompous ass, either.

I also don't know why Stevie and Ken in particular think Lindsey looked strange with his hair cut. He looked 100 times better, in my opinion. Maybe that first homemade haircut was just badly done?

I disagree with Ken that the album should have had a brighter sound (like Rumours). Tusk's dark strangeness is its appeal.

:lol::lol::lol::lol::lol: no wonder old-fashioned papers are going down when idiots like this one write recaps... :rolleyes:

i don't know... "if i said it there must have been some wisdom behind it even though i can't remember any of it now"? ;)

yeah it's funny how they focus and harp on that, isn't it? guess they have/had nothing better to think about:p ... actually, might be that they didn't like the message he was giving with that haircut - he left them behind or something... since LB makes it clear his hairdos were always a part of the overall direction / message he was going for at the time. and, i completely agree with you - Tusk = off the charts gorgeously hot Lindsey.

lol. you don't think Tusk should have been "perky"? :p:angel:

Exactly, And Chris' and Stevie's songs sound extremely good, and very ahead of time. Tusk sounds more nineties And 00's, than even eighties... Tusks production sounds fabulous...

But to me that's common sense, rather than arrogance. No, I don't remember, but I'm sure I didn't do that just to be a jerk. It must have been prompted by some sort of audio necessity. I really don't think that's conceited. I mean, it didn't sound to me like he was saying, "I'm so great there must have been a brilliant reason." I think, especially based on what John Stewart said about him, that that was one of his regular ways of experimenting and tweaking and he knows it is something he might have done at the time, because it has worked for him to good effect before and, knowing himself, he didn't do it to be demanding and annoying, but probably had a reason.

I mean, I doubt he would also say that he must have had a brilliant reason for doing NGBA in the wrong key after Ken took all of that time changing each string repeatedly. If he'd said that, then I'd think he was being pompous.

Michele

And they even got the info partially wrong: According to the interviewer, Tusk was called Buckingham's Folly.

In any case, if a comparison is being made with Seward's purchase of Alaska, then it is logical to assume what was once deemed folly is now seen as a remarkable example of foresight. I imagine Tusk has survived as well as it has because it DID NOT seem like a good idea at the time. Who really talks about The Eagles's The Long Run as an album? Sure a few of the tunes made it onto their Greatest Hits Vol.2, but as a follow up to Hotel California it was everything Buckingham didn't want Tusk to be for Mac.

Of all the criticism that Tusk has received, it's an album that still divides people and is talked about decades after it's release. To me, that means it was a success on a few levels!

I like the album - especially Stevie's songs. It doesn't let you settle down and let the music flow over you; instead, it demands a careful listen. PERSONALLY, I think if they had dropped a couple of Lindsey's and Christine's songs, I think it would have been a killer single album.

The Radio 4 prog was OK, not much new to learn. Don't you just love the BBC iPlayer (sorry for those not in the UK!)

I really like Tusk a lot. I understand why many people consider it Fleetwood Mac's masterpiece. The album as one big mood swing—it doesn't really conform. There are snippets of brilliance everywhere, but to me, songs were left in rudimentary form. It was like lyrics were never perfected, sounds were fragmented. It was like the songwriters were just throwing out songs from different sides of their brains and seeing if anything stuck. Songs like Over and over, Honey Hi, Brown Eyes, the Ledge, Storms, That's all for everyone and Sisters of the Moon are just gems.

Tusk has 18 songs. You're suggesting culling nine of them—all from LB & CN—to make a single album? While you're at it, why not replace Peter Beard's photography with that of Herbert Worthington? And all that nasty distortion, iridescent wobble, and fuzz-box gain on the guitar in the production—replace that with the radio-friendly sheen of late-70s Peter Asher or Barry Gibb.

Kiss Tusk bye-bye, kiddies. :thumbsup:

^^Tusk has 20 songs.

SYW has 18 songs.

David, do you confuse Tusk and SYW in your head?

Michele