Was Mick's Book 'Filled With Lies'?
 

I was thinking this as I was reading, was Mick's book really that far from the truth. I mean I think the only thing that has been officially disputed is the LB slapping SN incident, which no one has flatly denied, except perhaps LB. Everything else seems the truth to me.

Fire Away!!!! :cool:

Well, I read it at a time when I didn't know a whole hellofalot about the situation surrounding the book...i.e.: that many say Mick is full of it...

Sooo...I don't know...whether it was filled with lies or not, I found it to be an entertaining read :nod:

He was coked out of his gourd the whole time, how the hell could he remember anything to write about? It reeks of ****. :laugh:

I think there's a great deal of accuracy in that book. How could there not be, considering the sorry fact that huge chunks of it -- particularly throughout the sections covering the 1975-1987 incarnation -- were either paraphrased or lifted outright from articles in Rolling Stone, Record, Crawdaddy, Hit Parader, Circus & other music mags.

Some of its claims are dubious -- the August 1987 incident with Lindsey & the others, the contradictory stories from Clifford Davis & Mick Fleetwood (& even Dave Wilkinson) about the makeshift Mac -- but there's almost no way for us to know at this point just what went down on these occasions.

It may not be that much of an exaggeration to say that little of the book is actually Mick's anyway. The ghostwriter, Stephen Davis, must have done most of the legwork, which would have included digging up & poring over hundreds of articles & newspaper stories, as well as reading the other books on the Mac & listening to radio interviews. Davis is just a hack, but he knows how to do what he does (recombine published pieces of a band's history into something resembling a new story). For all we know, it may have been more Davis's fault than Fleetwood's that Lindsey's contribution to the group as an arranger & producer was downplayed (which is I think the term Lindsey himself used).

I think a lot of fans just weren't comfortable with many of the personal incidents described in the book (like the strip search of McVie & Nicks in Holland on tour), & their discomfort led them to claim from that point on that the book was nothing but a pile of lies.

In general, I don't understand the practically wholehearted dismissal of the book by so many fans. It's filled with accurate data & facts (again, much of that from newspapers & magazines) & a great deal of Mac lore that we didn't know about before it was published. It also serves up a heap of hearsay & lame psychologizing, but consider all the worthwhile information we got from it! It's information we would never have got from the "official" site. These are the kinds of tidbits for which I value Mick's book -- snapshot-like images of tours that have mostly faded from memory, musings over internal band communications, & long-forgotten facts that reveal essential elements of personality:

"Three shows down the road, in Albuquerque, Sara [Recor] stole the house cat from the venue & had a confrontation with [John] Courage, who didn't want a cat on the plane."

"She [Stevie] also wrote that she had started work on her first solo album. 'Recording has begun, & Rhiannon is afoot.' Then she told me she had moved to a small house by the beach & that I was a cheap bastard, so she was sending the girls in our office an extra $250. Stevie signed the note 'Katherine DeLongpre,' one of her many pseudonyms of the period."

"Peter was so respected, even by the usually churlish music press, for his simplicity & integrity that the monthly newspaper Record Mirror ran a regular feature titled 'The Peter Green Column,' which was dictated in part by Pete. 'Hello again, my flowers,' began one such essay. 'Hope you're all making out all right on nuts & cheese.' "

ITA agree David. I, for one, was thankful for it.

I agree with David. I think much of what's in the book is pretty accurate. Bob Welch in his Q & A here on this website thought that it was, so I'll go with what Bob says. I think some fans don't want to believe some of the things in the book because certain members of the band, especially Lindsey, come off looking terrible. I like the book. It's a very interesting read and I'm glad Mick wrote it, even if he did it for the money.

Nope. I think Stevie is the one who looked the worst. Mick really painted her as an airhead and someone who really didn't care about the band after awhile. We all know that really isn't true, but that was his depiction of her. The only parts I found really derogatory when it came to Lindsey was the whole "Tango" incident, which has never been coroborrated. The only thing that has been said was that Stevie attacked him, no one said that Lindsey slapped her and slammed her over the hood of a car except for Mick. I mean, his told an outrageous tale: Lindsey and Stevie screaming obscenities at each other while they chase each other up and down Christine's driveway, exploding in violence on Lindsey's part. It's a rather big pill to swallow.

The rest of the book? Eh. Not only was it badly written, but many of the details were hazy because he couldn't remember anything. He had Davis research all the stuff because he couldn't put pen to paper and write down the stuff because the coke rotted his brain. Not only was the book disrespectful to the people he had been together with for years, but it was just a blatant attempt at making money. It's a piece of trash.

As for the many other incidents that Mick described in his book, bleh. He made himself out to be the one who smelled like a rose after wallowing in ****. He painted quite the pretty picture of himself while casting a dark shadow onto almost everyone else. It's simply a tabloid rehash written in the first person.

I disagree about Mick portraying Stevie as not caring about the band. He specifically says she came back to FM after Bella Donna when she cleraly did not need to. Also, he says they were lucky to get her and she came back out of loyalty, etc. He also says she came back after the post-RAL detox and gives her credit for that. :cool:

A question for the ages isn't it? I often find myself wondering about this too. I can't believe that it was ALL fabrication, but the choppy style in which it was written (like he was in a hurry to get it published), coupled with the fact that he was "remembering" things that happened a long time ago (and in a coke haze mind you) lead me to believe that it's not too accurate. I don't know, I guess I would have to speculate that the books is mostly fabrication heaped on top of "little truths." I also found myself wondering while reading certain parts of the book, how can Mick remember specifically what people said in conversations 10 or 15 years ago? That makes me question the validity of a lot of it.

This is the book that reasserted my fandom for Lindsey in a very strong way. I had become very enamored of Lindsey's work on Go Insane and Tango, and by reading articles about him, came to realize just how important his contribution to the band has been. Then comes Mick's book, which takes every possible chance to downplay Lindsey's contribution and portray him in a negative light. Stevie, meanwhile, was put on a pedestal, even though her Mirage and Tango studio presence had been minimal.

It was a hack job, at best. Yes, there is a lot of interesting factual information, but the whole tenor of the book is venal in regards to Lindsey. Mick himself admitted in the Lindsey Behind the Music that the book was "disloyal." Yeah, that's putting it mildly.

Ever since the book, I have found it very hard to have any kind of respect for Mick as a human being. I love his drumming, even though on SYW it sounds like he was phoning in it in. Regardless of what Lindsey says, Mick's drumming today lacks the vibrance of his earlier work, especially some of the stuff he did before Lindsey and Stevie joined.

Mick's book is a travesty. Unfortunately, that type of trash is all too common these days.

And let's not forget that the person who complained the loudest about the book was Stevie. The revelation of her affair with Mick evidently was something that she would rather have kept under wraps.

I agree with you on this, Strand. I wanted to gag when he praised her contributions to the latter albums. Out of Mirage and Tango, in my humble opinion, on song stands out: Gypsy. The other Mirage contributions are decent, though not stellar. Yet, to Mick, they were the cat's meow. And he consistently downplayed Lindsey's work, even going so far as to say Lindsey was jealous of the ladies because they had the most hits. Let's say it's true, since it really isn't that far a leap; it still is grossly disloyal to the man who, without him, Mick probably would never have been able to snort as many millions as he did.

I was mostly referring to the way she was written about in the Tango era. I agree with Carne that she was put on a pedestal throughout the rest of the book. Lindsey had left the band by the time it was written, so of course he was going to butter up his meal ticket.

Don't forget the way he portrayed Lindsey when he wrote about Lindsey talking to John about playing bass. I rolled my eyes when I read that and could certainly understand why Lindsey was furious. The coke he did for so mnay years rotted his brain and he never realized that Lindsey was his meal ticket all along.

Dissention, I'm a little vague on that part. Was that when Lindsey told John to play simpler?

Yeah. And Mick wrote some really snide remarks about Lindsey being the new kid and how had no right to say anything to the god that is John McVie. :o

Ugh, where's the bucket?