Thoughts on Mick's New Book

[BlueDenim]

Has anyone here bought/received his book yet? I received it a week or so ago and am about 3/4 done. Very easy read but I've been pacing myself.

I did read his first book years ago, but it was from the library and I don't recall much of it, so maybe someone else can compare and contrast the two.

Just finished the Tusk tour and Stevie/Sara triangle parts so they're fresh. Not too much dish as far as his relationship with Stevie, except that it was very passionate and underground.

Some notes so far:

• Misspellings - Waddy's name is mispelled once ("Watchell), Ken is referred to as Ken "Calliat" both throughout the book and in the index. Intentional, I wonder? Given Ken's blistering interviews in the past...
  
• Mick and Stevie's relationship was very on/off, during which Stevie had other relationships and Mick claims he didn't...
  
• He went to Lindsey's house after the Rumours tour to tell him about the relationship. Not much info on the convo except that Lindsey appreciated his telling him.
  
• He broke-up with Stevie via letter.
  
• "Great dark wing" line from Sara - What Stevie and Sara thought his black Ferrari sounded like when it came up the drive to Stevie's house.

[Ali]

Amazon cancelled my order so I'm hoping my local B&N will have it today or tomorrow.

[Lee]

I pre-ordered it yesterday & it's on my phone & tablet this a.m., but I've just started reading it. How did you get it so early? They just released it today.

Lee

[Macfan4life]

Thanks for your thoughts
As I recall from the first book Mick claims he was smoking a joint with Lindsey alone and Lindsey surprised him by confronting Mick about him seeing Stevie.
So he changed the story?

I read recently that Mick says he was out of his mind when he wrote the first book. So does that mean much of it is not true?

I hope he writes much about the post Lindsey era. The band started to decline sales and Stevie was really isolated with Klonopin in those days. But the band played on. There is an interview with Stevie on youtube from 1991 where she claims her management told her to quit Fleetwood Mac because they were a sinking ship and it could hurt her career. But Stevie refused to hurt the band and continued to tour and play with the band. I just find this era interesting because there was so much going on toward what would seem to be the end of Fleetwood Mac.

[mtkad]

In the UK, it's been in my local Tesco for the past 2 weeks, but i'd already pre-ordered the signed edition. At a glance, I found that Christine originally asked to do the full European tour last year at first, but they were obviously doubtful.

[elle]

i pre-ordered it a while ago. hoping that he addressed the band periods after the first book ends. last 15 years in particular would be very interesting to me.

love the info about Christine originally wanting a European tour first, after she came back this year. curious to see whether European tour will happen next year, when and how much of it. if they go with their ridiculous US prices, my guess would be the only country they can do is UK, and they'll just skip the rest of Europe for now. people who live in continental Europe can chime in and correct me, but comparing the prices from last year, i don't see people there fill arenas where most of the seats are between $200 and $250.

[michelej1]

Originally Posted by Macfan4life

Thanks for your thoughts
As I recall from the first book Mick claims he was smoking a joint with Lindsey alone and Lindsey surprised him by confronting Mick about him seeing Stevie.
So he changed the story?

In the first book, Lindsey said that to Mick when Lindsey and Stevie first joined the group. Mick and Stevie weren't sleeping together then (at least they haven't admitted doing so) but Lindsey said something like "it's you and Stevie isn't it?" Lindsey felt a vibe, before Mick and Stevie had even acted on anything.

So, Mick is not changing his story about telling Lindsey once it really did happen.

Michele

[Neal]

Originally Posted by Macfan4life

I hope he writes much about the post Lindsey era. The band started to decline sales and Stevie was really isolated with Klonopin in those days. But the band played on. There is an interview with Stevie on youtube from 1991 where she claims her management told her to quit Fleetwood Mac because they were a sinking ship and it could hurt her career. But Stevie refused to hurt the band and continued to tour and play with the band. I just find this era interesting because there was so much going on toward what would seem to be the end of Fleetwood Mac.

I'd love more info in general on 1987-1996, but I'm not expecting to get it from this book (which I plan on picking up this weekend!).

[Jondalar]

Is this book new or just an update?

[BombaySapphire3]

Originally Posted by Jondalar

Is this book new or just an update?

it's new...one thing I like more about this one than the 1990 book is that it does not seem to be a series of magazine articles pasted together with Mick's still drug addled recollections.

[michelej1]

Originally Posted by BombaySapphire3

it's new...one thing I like more about this one than the 1990 book is that it does not seem to be a series of magazine articles pasted together with Mick's still drug addled recollections.

True. It does seem to be more of Mick's own and original words and thoughts, even if he traverses territory that was covered in the first book.

Michele

[Jondalar]

Is this book worth purchasing? I already have Micks last book which I did enjoy. However how much more could this book add?

[James89]

Originally Posted by Jondalar

Is this book worth purchasing? I already have Micks last book which I did enjoy. However how much more could this book add?

I haven't read his first book but I can say that I think this one is fantastic. I find the early days of FM interesting to hear about and the way the book is written is fantastic with little bits of humour popping up now and then. I don't know how different it is to his first one but I say it's worth a shot anyway.

I'm settling down to read it now actually, I'm half way through. An excellent read.

[michelej1]

The Guardian by Ruth Huntman, November 12, 2014

http://www.theguardian.com/music/201...mick-fleetwood


Mick Fleetwood: ‘I got permission to urinate on the White House lawn’


The Fleetwood Mac kingpin on getting the old crew back together, sharing his feelings about his wife and Stevie Nicks, and his patent method for making lucky wooden testicles

Hi, Mick! Do you remember what you’ve been doing today?

We’ve just finished seven weeks of rehearsals and we’re on tour (1).

Another one of the tours you said wouldn’t happen. And you said you’d never ask Christine (McVie) to come back ...

Bingo! She’s back.

How the hell did that occur?

Good question! Not in a million years did any of us think it was a possibility. When Chris left, she left (2). Stevie (Nicks) was saying the other day that it’s like when you break up with your partner. You always remember the moment when they look at you and you just know it’s over.

You didn’t try persuading her to stay?

I realised there was no point when she held my hand, looked me in the eye and said: “Mick ... don’t ask me.” I promised I’d never mention it. Coming back was her choice. Not to sound like an old hippy, but it’s like she never left. Christine is so happy to be doing it, and it’s powerful, magical, fairytale, mythological stuff.

It’s a myth that you all hate each other, really, isn’t it? (3)

That whole “extreme fear and loathing” thing is a load of bollocks. It’s boring when I have to explain why we still want to be doing this. Some bands admit they don’t like each other, but they can sign a piece of paper and walk on stage. Nothing wrong with that, but we can’t do it. We have to have some emotional credibility to what we’re doing.

Some cynics might say you’re still touring for the money?

I don’t think so, my friend. Elton John and Eric Clapton work more than us, and they certainly don’t need the money. Have you ever thought that we actually like doing what we do?

It’s been almost a quarter of a century since your first autobiography (4) revealed the wonderful tales of excess: hotel rooms redecorated pink, smashing Rolex watches, wife-swapping and drugs. You’ve just written a second one, Play On. What else was there to reveal?

The original book was written in a very different world. I was “out there”. This is about asking “what is this creature Mick in the middle of this band?” I was able to be more constructively reflective.

You’re pretty frank about your feelings for Stevie, and there’s a whole chapter devoted to your first wife Jenny (5).

I’m not sharing anything that anyone’s not going to be comfortable with. I know Stevie’s OK with it. Jenny was hugely helpful, and it allowed her to express how she felt. At the time I had no idea she was feeling the way she was because I was so in my own head. I didn’t see her crying out. It was cathartic for me.

You certainly expressed yourself in the 70s. What’s the most outrageous thing on your rider these days?

We vaguely indulge ourselves. We have a private plane, which isn’t uncommon, and I never lift stuff. On stage I’m like some weird racehorse running the Derby, and I must be in good shape.

Is the plane customised?

That’s one thing we never did. I wouldn’t mind having a Fleetwood Mac decal on the plane. I’ll say, “This journalist from the Guardian gave me the idea.”

Let’s talk about your legendary wooden balls (6).

The originals are deceased.

And the ones featured on the Rumours album cover?

They’re retired, but they always hang in my dressing room in what I call my mojo bag.

So where do your current pair come from. Do you have a personal wooden bollock-maker?

The ones I wear on stage now are about 18 years old and custom-made by me.

Talk us through the process.

I get two wooden lavatory balls, then I get a leather thong and attach them with a little hook. I rub them in the earth, then comes a ritual where they end up getting buried and resurrected. If ever I’m near the sea, I take them swimming …

OK ... well I have to move on because we’ve only got 30 minutes …

Well you asked, so I’m telling you. There’s always one ball lower than the other, right? That’s skilfully measured out by me before hanging them on the thong. And I rub them in linseed oil, which not only smells great but feeds the wood. How’s that for an explanation?

Full! Bet you had some explaining to do after relieving yourself on the White House lawn, feet away from your friends the Clintons (7).

Please don’t make it sound like I’m prone to weeing on people’s lawns! I was dying to pee and I didn’t have time to go back to the house before we appeared.

The White House doesn’t have a portable loo?

I was surprised, too. I was saying to my manager: “What the **** am I going to do?” I was dressed like Mr Rumours, in knickerbockers, with my wooden balls hanging out. The security guys must have heard because suddenly this fella with an earpiece said something like “permission granted to urinate on the lawn”. One of our musicians took a picture of me doing it.

I don’t suppose we could borrow that picture?

Yeah, right. Actually, I should have put it in the book. I don’t think Bill and Hillary knew about it, but they’d forgive me.

What’s the most outrageous rumour that you’ve ever read about yourself?

That over the years, the amount of cocaine I’d used stretched to the moon. It’s funny now, but for a while it got out of control. One article said I’d spent $60m on it. As if. I’ve never earned that much in my life.

And finally … the rumour that the Mac will be playing Glastonbury in 2015?

Not happening.

• Play On: Now, Then and Fleetwood Mac is out now

Footnotes

(1) The On with the Show tour reunites the classic lineup of Mick, Stevie Nicks, Lindsey Buckingham and John and Christine McVie.

(2) A fear of flying was a big factor in Christine’s decision to leave in 1998. She’s since overcome it with therapy.

(3) During the recording of Rumours, Lindsey’s relationship with Stevie was crumbling, Mick was divorcing his wife and embarking on an affair with Stevie, and John and Christine were divorcing.

(4) My Life and Adventures in Fleetwood Mac.

(5) In the book Mick refers to Stevie as his “unfulfilled love”. He married and divorced his first wife Jenny twice in the 70s. Her sister Patti was married to George Harrison.

(6) Wooden balls from a toilet chain Mick had stolen from a club. They’re his lucky charm.

(7) The Clintons are fans, and Hillary asked them to play as a surprise at Bill’s leaving party.

[michelej1]

Review: Return of the Mac

THE father of the Mac Mick Fleetwood tells our reporter how his bohemian childhood still inspires him and the band

http://www.express.co.uk/entertainme...twood-Mac-band

By: Clair Woodward Published: Tue, November 18, 2014, The Express

Mick Fleetwood and I are taking tea in a stylish hotel overlooking London's Hyde Park. We are talking about his father Mike, who died in 1978 aged 62. Suddenly, Mick spots something out of the window.

"See the horses?" he says, looking out of the window and leaping out of his chair to point them out to me.

"It's so cool, talking about Daddy and there he is!" Knowing the somewhat colourful background of Fleetwood and his eponymous band (past issues with cocaine and alcohol, for example), you could be forgiven for thinking the drummer had flipped.

But no. What we are looking at is the Household Cavalry crossing the park in the autumn sunshine, breastplates gleaming.

"He was a Royal Horse Guard and he used to make that same ride. Mummy (his mother Biddy, now 97) used to sit in the building that's now the Mandarin Oriental Hotel over there when she was a young woman," he points, "and she watched those men on the horses crossing the park and she ended up being with my dad. So cool."

Fleetwood, now 67, is obviously still in awe of his late father, who ended up buying himself out of the Army, and joining the RAF for the duration of the Second World War. The pair were remarkably close; certainly closer than you would usually expect an upright Air Force man and his academically ungifted musician son to be, and it is to Mike's sense of leadership and understanding of personality that Mick attributes the fact that he has been the father figure of his band Fleetwood Mac through 47 years of personnel changes, musical differences, illnesses and romances.

Throughout it all, as well as keeping time for the supergroup, he has kept the band together. He has now written a second autobiography, Play On, about his life. This is still entwined with the Mac, who are currently on a world tour coming to Britain in May, rejoined by songwriter and keyboard player Christine McVie after a break from the band of a mere 16 years.

Mike and Biddy already had two daughters when Mick came along, and were not the 1950s parents you would expect. "None of us had conventional careers," remembers Mick. "My parents knew that none of us were destined for cookie-cutter jobs. They already had a blueprint with Sally (who became a sculptor and clothes designer) and they sent her off to art school. Then Susan wanted to be an actress and then they had this little lad who wasn't getting anything from school, so they let me go off and live in London with Sally and pursue a music career."

Mike Fleetwood was the sort of chap they do not make any more; a self-made man from Liverpool who travelled to Germany before the war, witnessing gatherings that would see Adolf Hitler rise to power; becoming a soldier and then an airman and then, before entering the world of Civvy Street and bringing up a family, pursuing a career as a writer.

"Dad was not all the huff and puff of the RAF; there was this dreamy, poetic thing there for sure. It was the perfect template for me. He had an attitude of 'as long as something gets done, it doesn't matter who gets the kudos. That serves no purpose other than to say me, me, me'."

Fleetwood Mac are arguably one of the most interesting mega-bands. From a blues outfit at the start, with John McVie still in the band which bears his and Mick's names, Bob Brunning and the extraordinary guitarist Peter Green, the band has gone through several incarnations until arriving at the current, classic line up of Fleetwood, McVie, Stevie Nicks, Lindsey Buckingham and Christine McVie.

The band are back together again for a new album and tour, and Fleetwood is clearly delighted. He draws a large circle in the air, and says: "It is, as I say on stage, the completing of a circle. Christine returning to the band; well, that was a door that was never closed, and that has always been the better choice for me.

"I don't write people off and I would much rather leave the door open than push people away, no matter what has happened. I would rather prefer to work at being liked than to be cynically truthful with people all the time and closing the door in their face."

I'm amazed when Fleetwood says that he has never really thought about the band as one where men and women are on an equal footing as performers and songwriters; one of what I think is the band's strengths. "I've never been that Superman creature, all huff and puff, and making a delineation between us. My parents and my sisters were the perfect template of being in touch with your feminine side. And it's fun."

Being Mick Fleetwood, it has to be said, does look like more fun than several barrelfuls of monkeys, despite the aforementioned brushes with substances that were doing him no good, and a bankruptcy. Now living on the Hawaiian island of Maui, where his mum Biddy also lives, he exudes rangy elegance, with a dress sense also influenced by his father.

“He always loved clothes; the military makes you learn to turn out, and at my boarding school you learned to turn out. If you don’t spit and polish your shoes, or press your shorts at night under the mattress, you’d be in trouble.”

Today, he looks every tall, slim, tanned, Bohemian rock star dresser, in white skinny jeans, a mango-coloured shirt worn under a buttery-soft light brown suede waistcoat. Fleetwood admits that he loves shopping, but it wasn’t so easy as a teenager, despite living in cool Notting Hill.

‘Being gangly and tall and having no money was a huge problem, so when I came to London, I started dressing myself like so many others, from secondhand stores, with Liberty fabric jackets, jeans, all that kind of stuff that actually fit. I loathed shirt sleeves as they were always too short; I ended up looking like David Byrne from Talking Heads in Stop Making Sense!”

Being a tall teenager has been a bizarre help in Fleetwood’s showbiz career. “Being six foot six, thin as a beanpole, probably looking quite odd –‘Is that a boy or a girl?’,” he mimics, in the way our parents baffled generation did. “And you’re walking around Notting Hill Gate in blue jeans, with a pair of wooden balls hanging from your belt and hair down to your bottom, you get used to being looked at for being different.”

• To order Play On by Mick Fleetwood and Anthony Bozza (Hodder & Stoughton), £20, call the