Review by Bokonon Nippertown, June 26, 2013
http://www.nippertown.com/2013/06/26...-center-61913/
“Go Your Own Way.” “Second Hand News.” “Big Love.” “Never Going Back Again.” “Not That Funny.” These are songs for boys. “Gold Dust Woman.” “Landslide.” “Dreams.” “Sara.” “Silver Springs.” These are songs for girls. Songs for boys are quirky, hiccupping and driving. Songs for girls are swirly, gossamer and spinning. Songs for boys are better. Get over it.
Rejoice in the fact that many of the songs for girls have cool guitar riffs, too. Guitar riffs pinched out in clawlike fashion, or down-strummed with naked fingers like Lightnin’ Hopkins playing the clawhammer banjo. Dig that news, Lightnin’ on the five-wire. Not exactly the image folks had in 1977 as they scooped up bajillions of “Rumours,” but it’s right there, in the grooves. Lindsey Buckingham is the mind behind the Big Machine. His tall, famously leather-testicled drummer pal so much as said so at the Knickerbocker Arena last week, citing the younger man as mentor in as hushed a tone as an old Englishman can muster in a barn like the Pepsi Arena. Truth. Buckingham is an alchemist, fusing nickel-plated steel, raw flesh and high wattage into a spare, fully tricked-out blues-meets-the-future style that shakes hands with The Big Machine’s history while still pushing it forward even these many years on. The girl singer did her twirling am-I-on-MTV? thing at The Times Union Center. Sometimes it clicked, sometimes it clowned. But it always stood in the shadow of the boy songs. “Tusk” is as gloriously stupid, brilliant and whacked as ever. It felt like a **** you then, it feels like one now. In its heyday, The Big Machine was that rare convergence of commerce and art, and Buckingham felt like an interloper, a crazed, coked-up kid let loose in the hallways of the record biz. The Big Machine isn’t rare or even relevant anymore. But Buckingham is. I want to hear more of his songs for boys. -
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