Rejected Album Post-OOTC?
 

I know this has been discussed in past threads, but in the interest of a comprehensive and fully-updated account: Following OOTC, did Lindsey make an album, perhaps co-produced by Richard Dashut, that the label rejected?

If so, what do we know about it and the songs from it?

ioriginal Gift of Screws. supposedly because of changes at the label at the time they told him to hold it back and roll it into Mac when he presented it to WB in 2001. probably his best album ever and biggest mistake to wait and roll parts of it into SYW - and then into additional solo albums when Stevie didn't want to do another FM album and tour in tandem with SYW.

scroll down to "bootleg track listing" here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gift_of_Screws

this bootleg GOS cemented my LB fandom. it's something that's very near and dear to me.

pasting parts of the above referenced wiki article https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gift_of_Screws that refer to original GOS:

Album history
The album title existed as a solo album set for release in 2001 by Reprise Records. Songs were recorded between 1995 and 2000, some of which were performed and recorded live by Fleetwood Mac for their The Dance album and tour in 1997. They also feature contributions from bandmates Mick Fleetwood and John McVie.

Upon presenting the finished album to Reprise, Buckingham was advised to retain some of the material for a forthcoming Fleetwood Mac album. To this end, Buckingham contributed several of the songs towards the 2003 album Say You Will and ultimately his next solo project, Under the Skin, released in 2006.

However, high-quality bootlegs of the Gift of Screws project, which had been mixed but not yet mastered, were publicly circulated for free MP3 download in October 2001.[2]

The title track takes its inspiration from an Emily Dickinson poem. The song was recorded during the sessions for Say You Will but did not appear on the album.
...........................................................

Bootleg Track Listing
"Someone's Gotta Change Your Mind" (released on Under the Skin)
"Miranda" (released with additional overdubs on Fleetwood Mac's Say You Will)
"Steal Your Heart Away" (released with additional overdubs on Say You Will)
"Red Rover" (released on Say You Will)
"She Smiled Sweetly" (Rolling Stones cover) (alternate recording released on Seeds We Sow)
"Come" (released on Say You Will)
"Down on Rodeo" (released on Under the Skin)
"Gotta Get Away" (Rolling Stones cover)
"Try for the Sun" (released on Under the Skin as "To Try for the Sun")
"Shuffle Riff" (released as "Wait for You" on official release)
"Murrow" (released on Say You Will as "Murrow Turning Over in His Grave")
"Gift of Screws" (released on official release)
"Bleed to Love Her" (live version released on The Dance, studio version released on Say You Will)
"Twist of Fate" (released as "The Right Place to Fade" on official release)
"Go Insane" (live version recorded for The Dance, released on The Very Best of Fleetwood Mac)
"Say Goodbye" (released on Say You Will)
"The Singer Not the Song" (Rolling Stones Cover)

Personnel
Lindsey Buckingham - Electric & Acoustic Guitars, Keyboards, Bass, Percussion, Drums, Programming
John McVie - Bass on Wait for You and Gift of Screws
John Pierce - Bass on Twist of Fate
Mick Fleetwood - Drums & Percussion on Wait for You, Twist of Fate, and Gift of Screws

Technical
Wait for You - Produced by Rob Cavallo & Lindsey Buckingham, Mixed by Mark Needham
Gift of Screws - Produced by Rob Cavallo & Lindsey Buckingham
Tracks engineered by Lindsey Buckingham, Ken Allardyce, and Mark Needham

^^^^^Personnel and Technical listed above was pasted from released Gift of Screws album article, and refer to only GOS released songs - not SYW or UTS or unreleased songs.

Christine McVie participated on Bleed to Love Her and Steal Your Heart Away, and Mick and John did too, as well as on the number of other songs (if not all).

and it is very probable that most if not all songs on the bootleg were co-produced by LB and Rob Cavallo, and mixed by Mark Needham.

I was the guy who ripped the MP3s and gave them to Sarah, I believe, to post on her fan site. The mixed tracks were burned to an audio CD by an old friend at Maverick who was working with Mark Needham on some other projects. Rob Cavallo and Glen Ballard (Alanis Morisette producer) played a big role in advocating for the album from 1998 to 2000, I do recall.

Oh wow. I had a flashback. I remember hearing about Gift of Screws forever after The Dance and how Lindsey was working on it. Then it sort of went of the radar.

I meant an album completed in (or by) c. 1995.

Post OOTC Work
 

Although Lindsey was undoubtedly working on the unreleased GOS album (as detailed meticulously above by Elle and David) in 1995, he was not working with Richard as they parted company shortly after OOTC was completed. Lindsey did have a song (On The Wrong Side) on the With Honors movie soundtrack in 1994 and a duet with Stevie (Twisted) on the Twister movie soundtrack in 1996.

Original Gift of Screws
 

Thank you!!! That sustained my LB fixation for many years.

Was "Twisted" a trial run to see whether he and Stevie could get along (or at least work together) before one or both agreed to commit to a full FM reunion?

Funny you ask that because I was watching the Dance interviews from 1997 last week. This question was asked and the answer was no. They also pushed back and said the 1993 inaugural ball also had nothing to do with their reunion.

After watching the interview and looking back its obvious it was for the money. Stevie's solo career was floundering and she cancelled tour dates on Street Angel and her album tanked. Lindsey was not making money off his solo career either. Mick always needed money. I think Chris just reluctantly went along to make everyone happy.

Thanks.

So The Dance was for money but what was "Twisted" for?

Why did Stevie choose to work with Lindsey on it?

At the time they decided to collaborate on it, did they already know (or at least expect) they would be reforming FM?

According to Stevie, she wanted to write the song specifically for the movie because she wanted to capture its theme in the song.

Not sure why she actually called Lindsey and Mick at that point (very early 1996), but she did. I have always felt that she had emerged from her depression by then and was starting to get back in serious touch with her career. Things were revving up at the time (much of which never got released), including a live concert filmed for Lifetime on cable, a bio-documentary on Lifetime, some more recording (including Twister and Boys on the Side and the TV series Party of Five), a series of one-up appearances at rock shows that year (Tempe, LA, St. Petersburg, Cleveland, Boston), and lots more press (such as interviews with younger rockers Billy Corgan and Courtney Love). I think she had a new manager at that point, and was just getting eagerly back in the game. She may have felt that she wanted to patch things up with Lindsey and Mick.

I don’t think they had any idea in early 1996 of a band reunion in their future. (If they had, why would it take over a year to pull it together?) I think that the amicability of the Twisted work helped them make up their minds in 1997 — when they were finally discussing a reunion. In other words, had 1996 been fractious and unpleasant, I doubt Nicks would have eased back into the band a year later. But other ledgies, like Steve, are more prone to twisted plots and contrivances than I, and they think that the seeds of the actual reunion idea were planted in 1996 or even in 1995, involving the dismissal of Rick, Billy, and the dismantling of the Dave Mason grouping. I just don’t see it that way. Fleetwood Mac fizzled out in the mid-1990s, Mick and John thought they were permanently finished as a band, and it was only happenstance that the Rumours Five got back together in 1997 (of course, I’m not naive enough to believe that they didn’t know they would make a financial killing by doing what the Eagles had done in 1994).

Don't forget the intro speech of Bleed to love her. I always understood (from that speech) the sessions of Lindsey's solo album, with Mick and John, were the seeds of The Dance. But I don't know if that was before the Twisted recording session, or viceversa. Whatever which one was first, both events I think were during 1996 (The Dance evening was in may 97) and helped the reunion. The most difficult task probably was convincing Christine to come to USA.

According to the Dance interviews that I recently watched (again), the band is interviewed during rehearsals for their recorded show. They claim the reunion was extremely swift and it happened only several weeks before their rehearsal.
So I doubt in 1996 any of them would have predicted the reunion then.

wasn't the reunion supposed to be for MTV unplugged show? those were extremely popular at the time, and done not only by bands popular at the time but also brought back some older acts. the most memorable unplugged shows are probably Nirvana's and Clapton's.

i think the story with FM goes that they were proposed a reunion to do an unplugged show, but once they started rehearsing, they were not happy doing unplugged versions of all songs and that's how we got The Dance.

No it was never an unplugged. It was always a WB produced, Burbank soundstage, 7 camera, full blown reunion show.

interesting. i have no clue how accurate or not the unplugged story was, except that it fits the era and the pattern at the time. quick google search does land some credibility to Unplugged thing, but it may have just been a made up story - https://ultimateclassicrock.com/flee...ance-turns-15/:

Fleetwood Mac was coming off one of their more disappointing eras. That led the band's most well-known lineup to put aside past differences and reunite for The Dance, which arrived in stores Aug. 19, 1997.

The vocal trio of Lindsey Buckingham, Stevie Nicks and Christine McVie all agreeed to one more run that would be highlighted by an MTV Unplugged special. Wanting to take advantage of a rare opportunity when they were all together, Fleetwood Mac also created a number of new tracks that would intermingle with their classic songs.



Read More: How Fleetwood Mac Reunited for 'The Dance' | https://ultimateclassicrock.com/flee...edium=referral

Wear You Down
Come
Try For The Sun
Someone's Gotta Change Your Mind
Miranda
Gotta Get Away
Down On Rodeo
Bleed to Lover Her
Hit & Run
Steal Your Heart Away
My Little Demon
She Smiled Sweetly

Above is a 1999 circulated track list

I think I remember hearing that. Although during the interview they don't mention doing only an acoustic set (and they were not asked about it either).
But that makes sense how quickly they decided to do a recorded show, tour and live album.

What I remember is that a lot of us casually referred to any sort of concert in that MTV or VH1 setting as an "unplugged." We started using it like a brand name, like Kleenex. "Oh, Fleetwood Mac is doing an unplugged, now."

The original idea of the unplugged was, of course, an acoustic rendering of a band's traditional set. But then Springsteen came along, somewhere in the early 1990s, and mixed acoustic with electric (like Dylan?).

I think that "Say You Love Me" and "Big Love" and "Go Insane" were Fleetwood Mac's way of honoring the tradition of "unplugged" in the nineties - except that John wasn't playing an acoustic, upright bass on SYLM. (He should have tried that!)

of course, LB was doing those same "acoustic" versions of Go Insane and Big Love since 1992. and the same was always with Landslide. so it's really only SYLM.

I don't think the SYLM arrangement was done to mimick the unplugged era. I always got the impression that the SYLM arrangement was done to mimic the Eagles Hell Freezes Over show where they played a couple songs more mellow, bringing everyone front and center for a couple songs. FM is always following the Eagles.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v5MOvVnetbw

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WKnfGqYOdrw

They even both start out with the thumb picked intro change.

Even recorded the concert at the same venue.

Back to the original question, there has been some small info leaked about a mid-nineties rejected album that had the alleged title of ‘Smile’, I added a page to the Still Going Insane website a while ago that tried to cover this era and the GOS era from info captured from trawling through the old Fleetwood Mac newsgroup that was active in the early days of the internet.

- http://www.fleetwoodmac-uk.com/still...90s-album.html

There is also interviews with the cradle live band about them going into the studio with Lindsey post tour, maybe this is where the song ‘Come’ came from as the songwriters are Lindsey and Neale Heywood. Would really like to understand the post-cradle era better and why LB and Richard Dashut did not work on any other projects, but Richard seems not to want to discuss this. Richard did produce the Time album, but by The Dance he was completely gone, not even a thank you on the album credits if memory serves.

yes, i asked Janet about it once, to try and compare songs OOTC band recorded while in HI to what was on leaked GOS1. she was not completely sure but thought some of those might be it.

weren't those Rob Cavallo's exact words about it?

This is what I was asking about. Thanks.

Since we're talking about this era, does anyone know when and under what circumstance "Someones gotta change your mind" was recorded...thanks

Seems it's part of the "Isn't that weird" sessions Lindsey said at The Dance show:

GUITAR WORLD ACOUSTIC. November 2006
Mick Fleetwood played percussion on "Down on Rodeo" and "Someone's Gotta Change Your Mind," John McVie played bass on "Down on Rodeo" and David Campbell did some orchestration on "Someone's Gotta Change Your Mind." those two songs were recorded quite a long time ago, almost 10 years ago, at Ocean Way Studios in Hollywood, and they were under consideration for [the 2003 Fleetwood Mac album] Say You Will. But that's really it. The other songs are all from the last three years. I recorded them by myself, either at home or on the road with Fleetwood Mac, and they're mostly guitars and vocals with a little rhythmic support. And lots of echo.

The link:
http://fleetwoodmac-uk.com/articles/...06-10_016.html

With Down on Rodeo it sure seems like while they may have put a master track together years earlier that the cut on UTS was a discard from SYW sessions.

But SGCYM is clearly recorded live, it's not fine tuned enough to be a studio track with just a crowd added. Or are my ears that naive?

When might this have been recorded?

You know it's a studio track because the backing tracks from it are used as samples on the Soundstage DVD. Besides, other than with FM, Lindsey didn't play any live shows with a band between 1994 and 2003 (when he performed the Soundstage show).

Someone's Gotta Change Your Mind is absolutely not recorded live. What you hear are samples of sounds of little children playing - auditory allusion to the opening lyric. The song has an enormous amount of VG-8 guitar synth, they brought into orchestrate and arrange the synthesizer strings that LB played on it, Mick with overdubbed percussion and of course plenty of vari-speed vocals.

Found the bootleg a few days ago on a blogspot site and discovered that the setlist was longer than the well-known one, which appears on Wikipedia. It included Wear You Down and a few others, and said that it saw the light in 2000, not 2001. :shrug:
Would be really interesting a studio version of My Little Demon!!
Was Wear You Down a song from the Out Of The Cradle days? For its sound, style and rythm, it seems to be from those years, and maybe the oldest song from the Gift Of Screws bootleg.
OMG I would pay for demos of the OOTC songs!!

I didn't search for this before!!! :distress: Thanks!! :thumbsup:
Of course I expected something more like The Dance version -blame it on the sound of the recording-, but of course not. And once again, I have no doubts that is one of the oldest records on this demo. I guess...

The heart of the story of "Twister" was the intense relationship between the two main characters. Nicks wrote the song "Twisted" describing that, so I can see her thinking it made sense to do it with Buckingham, as it mirrored their own intense on/off relationship.

Not twisted, just common sense. The Eagles and Page/Plant had amazing success with reunions in 1994 and Smashing Pumpkins had a minor hit with “Landslide.”

OOTC tanked, “Street Angel” tanked, and Fleetwood Mac was opening for CSN or touring as part of oldies packaged tours without any of the vocalists from the classic lineup.

By the time “Time” was finished, Lindsey was already back in the picture. He makes a cameo and Neale is mentioned in the liners. “Time” was DOA. Even Dave Mason said that they knew the “Rumours” lineup was getting back together while they were making the album. Four months after its release, Mick announced he was working again with Lindsey Buckingham (which obviously had been going on for a while). A month later, Dave Mason’s bassist confirmed Fleetwood Mac had split up, followed by a statement by Mick a few weeks later. A little over a month after that, Mick, John, Christine, Stevie, and Steve Winwood (in for Lindsey) showed up at the Kentucky Derby, with Mick explaining Lindsey was at home recording. And then a week after that, “Twisted” was released. “Twisted” was released six months after “Time.”

Given the failures of OOTC and Street Angel, the failed attempt by Fleetwood Mac to relaunch without Stevie and Lindsey and not having Christine on the road, the changing of the guard at WB, the success of the Eagles and Led Zeppelin reunions, and success of Smashing Pumpkins with a Fleetwood Mac song, the wheels for a reunion were obviously in motion as early as 1995. “Twisted” was a test run for the three with the most drama between them.