BuckVie Producer Needham
 

This is such an annoyingly sh*tty interview. Of all things to ask the guy who worked with Christine and Lindsey - this dude chose to ask "will FM get back together again" and "Did you like the Bob Welch era?" JFC...

Honestly, it sounded like he knew nothing about Christine McVie/Lindsey Buckingham album.

And boy was he afraid to "confess" as they say. His voice inflections were kind of telling. (I'm afraid to answer any of these questions)

I have not watched the video yet, but that's pretty weird.

Because in this interview he told about how they "used more experimental recording methods" after they decided the album would be just with Lindsey and Christine, among other mentions like the microphones they used, Mick's drums, Christine's demos, etc.

https://www.soundonsound.com/techniq...feel-about-you

ok. so i'm annoyed.

The fact that mick and john really wanted to go out on the road to support chris and her recent return to the band on the buck/vie tour, but apparently were not allowed to because then it would appear too much like a FM tour without stevie??

wtf. i never knew this. those 2 guys should have been able to go on that tour!! amazingly unfair, how they all had to tiptoe around the many moods of ms nicks. if she didn't want to be involved, they should have been able to do whatever tf they wanted without her. that seems very unfair that they couldn't go.

ugh. she keeps giving me reasons to like her less and less as the years go by.

--Lis

Mick knows she's his only chance of big paychecks. What a loser he is.

this feels like an Azoff mandate.....:mad:

yes he can be a loser at times. But i assume it was management that made that decision, no?? to ensure they have the right "vibe" and lay the groundwork to have an eventual tour with all five of them, they told mick and john not to go on the road with LB and chris? I mean what kind of BS is this?! god forbid chris have a chance to shine a little, with the three guys to support her without stevie stealing the show with her stories and costume changes. that could have been a beautiful experience for chris.

this really makes me sad.

I remember lindsey saying he was glad chris had the chance to see what the road was like without the chaos of the mac machinery going along w them, but let's be honest, much of that chaos and "extra" comes from stevie. i hardly see the inclusion of mick and john as causing a ruckus or making more demands for security etc... i mean the Time tour was pretty basic lol. J&M could have happily gone along on the scaled down/simplified tour w buck/vie, it really wasn't all that long. It could have been a comfortable, relaxed environment that chris might have really enjoyed. i'm not saying she didn't enjoy touring with just lindsey, but the four of them together would have been so interesting.

ugh. what a shame. and then stevie and mick went and had LB fired anyway when all 5 were gonna go out again. :( this is nuts.

--Lis

yes he can be a loser at times. But i assume it was management that made that decision, no?? to ensure they have the right "vibe" and lay the groundwork to have an eventual tour with all five of them, they told mick and john not to go on the road with LB and chris? I mean what kind of BS is this?! god forbid chris have a chance to shine a little, with the three guys to support her without stevie stealing the show with her stories and costume changes. that could have been a beautiful experience for chris.

this really makes me sad.

I remember lindsey saying he was glad chris had the chance to see what the road was like without the chaos of the mac machinery going along w them, but let's be honest, much of that chaos and "extra" comes from stevie. i hardly see the inclusion of mick and john as causing a ruckus or making more demands for security etc... i mean the Time tour was pretty basic lol. J&M could have happily gone along on the scaled down/simplified tour w buck/vie, it really wasn't all that long. It could have been a comfortable, relaxed environment that chris might have really enjoyed. i'm not saying she didn't enjoy touring with just lindsey, but the four of them together would have been so interesting.

ugh. what a shame. and then stevie and mick went and had LB fired anyway when all 5 were gonna go out again. :( this is nuts.

--Lis

And they (J&M) agreed. Well Mick is Mick. But I wonder if John was upset with that decision or he didn't care.

And John and Christine accepted the "new lineup".

My point is, even after I learned the details of how Lindsey was fired—basically by Stevie, her sycophant Azoff, and the double-edged sycophant Mick—John and Christine chose to accept the terms and tour with Mike and Neil. That's why I stopped listening to Fleetwood Mac for months in 2018, I was really really angry. And I've never watched a video from that tour. I was angry with all of them. And maybe that's why I'm not excited about new material (songs, documentaries, etc.) and love just the old music and possible old unknown tracks.

Yes, I agree that Stevie and Mick ruined the band and what could have been a wonderful ending. But John and Christine aren't entirely victims. Not even Lindsey, because I'm sure things happened during those years that we'll never know about.

i guess i had always assumed that mick had other stuff going on, and maybe john was a bit tired healthwise, didn't wanna push it after his treatments etc and maybe didn't want to do 2 tours back to back, so things would be just a lindsey/chris collaboration on the road. But if mark needham is saying they both really wanted to go, i'm gonna take that at face value that they wanted to be there.

i understand why you were angry; i've been angry many times at these people lol. I've heard john and chris had NO plans on leaving the tour, despite them both being against lindsey's firing. I mean even if they kept fighting it, does anyone think the issues between L&S would have magically gone away? what, would they have kissed and made up and put it all behind them?

Everyone was exhausted from their constant drama and yes, I'm sure lindsey was at fault as well. i heard chris was *really* upset by the way lindsey was treated, and this totally colored the way she felt about stevie, too, which is why it irritates me that stevie now has rewritten the narrative which is all over tiktok etc making it sound like they were like sisters/best friends/super close, *when they were not*. In many ways, chris felt she didn't have as much sway as she used to have since she'd been gone for so long, so she caved and sucked up the firing situation. come to think of it, that's prob why she sucked up mick and john being excluded on buck/vie tour also! but i digress.

Something really had to give. i would imagine J&C (who were verrry close again by that point) just wanted to go out on the road, period-- and now we know john had already been excluded from the *&^% buck/vie tour!-- so i guess they said 'fine, whatever, all 5 of us did go out in 2015 but at this point let's just accept these changes so we can go ahead and do *something* else, because we're not done yet.' (and the tension and drama between L&S from the 2015 tour might well have been part of this decision also...? the feeling of 'we don't need any more of that crap'..?) maybe they weren't entirely victims, but on the other hand they'd been victims of the unending issues between those two and were understandably sick of it. IMO they should not have had to be done just because L&S couldn't get their sh*t together.

the whole ending was just a shame. sigh. i remain grateful that chris got to come back and do as much as she did, because she LOVED it, even if poor LB was unfairly sacrificed in the process. wish it could have been different...as they probably did too!

--Lis

I wish that the interviewer asked more specifics about the making of the Buckingham McVie album, but he seemed to have the essentials of the band history down. I'm sure that the majority of the general public couldn't name even one of Buckingham's replacements, yet he managed to do so.

This is heartbreaking. I can imagine how much fun they would have had on this tour. I know that Lindsey can be a lot and contributed to the dynamic with Stevie, but it also seems pretty clear that the Mick, John, Chris and Lindsey did enjoy playing together, and I would think a tour would have been a lot of fun for them and us.

And the thing is, it's mostly about ego. The business people around FM may not have wanted to dilute the brand, but this has Stevie's fingerprints all over it.

Wrong thread, because the sun is shining on my damned phone.

Nobody’s saying anything about the Rick Turner guitar hanging on his wall.

It’s clear now that Stevie really robbed Christine and the rest of the band of a whole lot of opportunity to work together in their final years. It’s such a blessing that Chris and John mended their fences. I’m glad Chris departed with that relationship in a good place. She rejoined Fleetwood Mac only to witness the same BS…again. That must have been disappointing, to rejoin only to realize things were not any better since ‘97 - if anything worse.

Agree about she rejoined and found things had gotten bad between those two fools (to put it subtly). Cause on the OWTS tour I already sensed that things weren't the same as before.

But in 1997 things seemed to be going fine. Sadly, Christine wasn't enthusiastic to continue with them. But don't forget they already had recorded Twisted. And although some friction was visible in the Destiny Rules video, they still seemed to be working well together. It's Fleetwood Mac, it's Lindsey and Stevie, after all, so it was never going to be a paradise. But don't forget Lindsey invited her to sing two songs in his 2005 Soundstage. You don't do that if it's a BS. I think it worked fine in the late 90s and early 2000s. So I guess it started to get worse in the mid 2010s, just when Christine started to knock knock. :(

Looking back, there was definitely an abnormal dynamic going on (IMO). Stevie complained about the 2009 tour being "benign/boring" because there weren't any conflicts with Lindsey. Lindsey is no peach, but it seemed like it caused frustration when Lindsey did peel back from the drama. BuckVie is sort of a great example. Stevie didn't want to participate so they very quietly said fine and released it anyway. We all know how that ended. She would never admit it, but Stevie was pissed that Christine's return not only shifted the power/votes within the band, but also now there was new attention being given to Lindsey and Christine working together. It wasn't just the Stevie/Lindsey Fleetwood Mac narrative. She was so resentful of the 2014 tour shadowing her solo project that she had to run off and make sure she was on the cover of Rolling Stone.


I remember the day Buckingham McVie was officially announced and having two very distinct reactions. One being beyond excited and the other a very heavy sense of dread, knowing that this would not end well with Stevie Nicks in any way. It would almost guarantee a major upset in some shape or form, although it may not be immediate. She was ice cold to the project, then sat back and waited for any excuse to pull her power-move.

She absolutely did rob them of that opportunity. John and chris had their fences mended from before they even signed their divorce papers, and stayed extremely close over the years with a friendship and a love that nobody paid any attention to because they didn't do anything performative, like a staged tusk dance, which surely would have meant true love.

Chris was thrilled to bits to come back, but not at all thrilled to realize she had not missed much in terms of the dynamics of those cranky Americans, which i think was far worse when she came back than it was in 97. But all of that aside, the rhythm section should have been allowed (like they needed f&^*ing permission??) to go on that tour with Chris and LB, and have a blast with just the four of them without all that stress and drama.

If Stevie was pissed about the attention given to Chris and Lindsey working together, it was her own damn fault. She punished them all because she couldn't come up with any decent new material to contribute?? or because Lindsey actually enjoyed working with Chris?? Her childish and diva behavior cost them a lot, and you're right that she prob planned even then to pull a "power move" down the road, just because she could. ugh it all irritates me.


--Lis

She's the worst thing that ever happened to FM. Her ego ruined the ending, of the band of my life. I hope karma gets her, BUT GOOD!

I couldn’t agree with you more Lis.……I do feel Stevie did ruin the last chapter of the band that has been the soundtrack of my life for 50 years. It is what it is….. I will continue to let them play on.

With the surge in Stevie’s popularity after American Horror Story, I get why Stevie and her people didn’t want to do the album. It would have been another TITN, which isn’t a good thing from her perspective. Why risk looking diminished compared to Lindsey and Christine? (Same applies to the Finn-Campbell lineup.)

After IYD, I think Stevie lost whatever enthusiasm she had for making new music. Even the album she did make was entirely old, previously leaked songs rerecorded in a couple of weeks, far from an artistic statement. It’s only taken her 15 years to make another new album.

What I resent is Mick and John being kept off the tour, although that tour was so Memorex that I wonder if it might have caused further dissension in the ranks. I think Christine was just enjoying being back, but I could see John not totally digging it. But, they should have been allowed to call the band Buckingham McVie (not Lindsey Buckingham/Christine McVie) and have it be a quartet.

I don't think there was dissention between those 4 people though...? I mean john was digging the project enough to wanna go on the tour lol He's not into drama, he's all about playing, so I could see him really enjoying that foursome going on the road for a scaled-down mini-tour. It really wasn't long. And if they called it Buckingham McVie tour and not Fleetwood Mac I could have lived with it, but they should have been able to do it.

Re the album, even if stevie brought in some old demos for the band to work on, that would have been better than nothing imo. She must have tons of stuff they could have played around with. Be a team player now that your best friend in the world, Chris 🙄 has returned w such enthusiasm! You two were the ones who kept the peace, right?? Please. Such a party pooper.

--Lis

Megalomaniac is a real thing. And a lot of people feed into it. As we have seen throughout history, being worshipped and adored no matter how awful one is, will somehow bring on the followers. And, rabid ones at that!

This thread brought me back to reading one of my favorite "how the sauce is made" articles. It brought real clarity to how much Buckingham's genius had become obsession.

44 drum and percussion tracks, 26 guitar tracks, 14 keyboard tracks, 5 bass tracks, 76 backing vocal tracks, and a total of 189 tracks for a single song. They started songs as a 4 piece to build a basic track and then...So, yes, Mick played drums and percussion, but then you know there were a lot of programmed parts added by Lindsey, or John laid down some bass parts, but I am sure Lindsey picked up a bass too, Christine might have had a nice organ or rhodes part on the early track and then layers of synth parts that come in and out for split seconds probably got plugged in by Lindsey. It is tinkering to obsession. It is how he makes his art. I am not judging better or worse because music is subjective, but it is clear that technology allowed Lindsey to grow his craft, his way of making art, from 4 tracks, 24, 48, to 189....


https://www.soundonsound.com/techniq...feel-about-you

Per Taku and Finn (and implied by Campbell later), the prerecords were a point of contention. The LBCM tour leaned heavily on the prerecords. I’d love to believe John would have been on board for Christine, but I don’t think he’d be up for being even more diminished than what he’d already become within Fleetwood Mac. I could very easily be wrong.

Also, I could see why Mick would have been kept off the tour, but I don’t see where John would have been the x-factor as far as management goes. Fans like us would have loved it, but I don’t see where his presence could have possibly hurt a Fleetwood Mac tour or muddied the brand. Mick? Yeah, he’s easily the visual. Most people couldn’t spot John in a police lineup.

It's clear that there wasn't enough communication between them at that time, and now here we are!

They could of easily afforded the therapy that they needed to be able to create music together before Chris unfortunately passed away, and unfortunately Stevie probably didn't realise how important her input was to try to keep the band together at that time, because it is apparent that she is being blamed for how it is now.

She may have tried to, but we just don't know!

I'm sure she has regrets about what happened with Lindsey, as well!

This is why it would be nice for the remaining "Fireflies" to be able to get together for at least one last time, for their legacy and their long suffering supporters and fans before time runs out.

Nope. I respectfully disagree. No more go around. It got f****ed up and there’s no do-overs. And Lindsey needs to accept it. If he wants a final BN something-or-other that’s whatever it is. If he wants an solo album with mick and john on it again fine,whatever. But the remaining 4— nope. That’s like bobby ewing in the shower “it was all a dream” ie christines return would be like it ever happened. Eff off to them.

Basically exactly how I feel, although if John’s actually there, yeah, okay, whatever.

Even then, even though that quartet released a Fleetwood Mac album, could it just be Buckingham Nicks?

When the Buck/Vie tour was first announced and John and Mick weren’t included, my first thought was they wouldn’t be participating due to financial reasons. I don’t know how much money that tour made but 1) they were playing small venues 2) tickets didn’t cost as much as a FM ticket would and 3) dividing the money 4 ways, with John and Mick getting substantially less than Lindsey and Christine, well I always figured finances were the reason John and Mick weren’t allowed to participate. I know they, especially Mick, love to perform but at that point in their life, maybe they didn’t feel it was worth it to travel by bus and disrupt their life for 6 months or whatever and have little money to show for it. I wouldn’t blame them.

I figured it was about the money, too. They lost money with the Time band tours, so I assumed they didn’t want to go there again.

Not only bring on followers. Haters too. But I agree with Oscar about it. Those who hatefully rant about someone (even with a valid point), ironically are actually doing them a favor. They keep them relevant. If no one talked about someone, they would soon disappear from the map.

https://kwize.com/pics/Oscar-Wilde-q...ray-1c8431.jpg

Could you please elaborate on this point?

That's true that they wouldn't have made too much, but on the other hand the Time tour hardly raked in the big bucks and they traveled by bus at that point... although to be fair bekka made that all sound as if it was kind of a sh*t show lol. But if the point was to NOT make it seem like a fleetwood mac tour, Mick would definitely be hard to ignore, like Steve said. nobody ever notices John anyway, and i think he would have enjoyed the different dynamic with just the 4 of them... but maybe it was better for him to kind of rest up before the bigger 2018 tour anyway.

Just hearing that they *wanted* to go along and were told they couldn't is annoying to me. Fans who are mainly into stevie wouldn't have gone to those shows anyway, but for fans like some of us (who kind of prefer the other four lol) it would have been terrific.

--Lis

Just comments they went out of their way to say. Taku and Neil were in 2018 (and I can’t find those now that search engines completely suck).

Mike and Steve Ferrone made a point of trashing playing along to click tracks when I saw them. (And, Shannon, the opener, closed her set with GDW, with Mike playing guitar, and then the makeup girl singing “I Need To Know”, so it wasn’t especially hard to read between the lines.)

The Wallflowers bailed on that tour too. They were supposed to be the opening act but only did a few shows and bailed on the tour.

Colbie Caillat or Natalie Maines would have been better choices anyway.