![]() |
#31
|
||||
|
||||
![]() I don't think this is the only book that's out of sequence. It was discussed in the Stevie forum how wrong the Wilson sisters were in their book about Heart stating Stevie did tons of coke with them on the Bad Animals tour. Well it was not 1987-88 but their 1985 Heart tour that this happened. People's memory gets foggy with timing.
__________________
|
#32
|
|||
|
|||
![]() Chronology is one thing, but at some point you start to distrust events. When you get the things that are documented wrong, how can I believe what you supposedly witnessed when there is no corroborating evidence at all?
Last edited by michelej1; 12-12-2019 at 03:53 AM.. |
#33
|
|||
|
|||
![]() $tevie always gets her timeline's wrong. I think Christine at one point said she left after the Tango Tour. (Meaning, The Dance)
__________________
|
#34
|
||||
|
||||
![]() What a disappointment. I would have forked over $ for this book because it is such an unusual record and Ken's first-hand insight should be illuminating.
That the book is marred by factually incorrect information and inaccurate timelines is just sad. Sad. "Sometimes the most beautiful things pass us by." |
#35
|
|||
|
|||
![]() Quote:
It's probably not going to sell enough copies to justify hiring a good editor. Ken should have considered getting a few long term FM fans to proof read it. Last edited by Kyle; 12-11-2019 at 11:41 AM.. |
#36
|
|||
|
|||
![]() Didn't Lindsey once say he started Fritz when he was in college?
|
#37
|
|||
|
|||
![]() Now that I am getting into my older years. (to be fair)
I sometimes screw up my timeline. I don't really embellish, however. With this book, it's nearly impossible for me to imagine remembering many of these dialogues. Unless, they have a recording of these instances and someone edited it in the wrong order. Could have some of the conversations been pulled from recordings and then he wrote from memories from those said convos? That's all I got! ![]()
__________________
|
#38
|
|||
|
|||
![]() Quote:
Last edited by cbBen; 12-11-2019 at 07:08 PM.. |
#39
|
||||
|
||||
![]() Ken Caillat is the Los Angeles-based record producer and engineer for the Fleetwood Mac albums Rumours,Tusk, Mirage, Live and The Chain Box Set. He won a Grammy Award (Engineer, Mastering) for Rumours (1977 Album of the Year). Caillat has also worked on albums for Billy Idol, Frank Sinatra, Pat Benatar, Wilson Phillips, the Beach Boys, Herbie Hancock, David Becker and Alice Cooper, as well as Christine McVie on her solo album In the Meantime.
In 2012, he released his memoir on his experiences producing the 1977 Rumours album, called Making Rumours: The Inside Story of the Classic Fleetwood Mac Album. Then in 2019, he authored (with Hernan Rojas) Get Tusked: The Inside Story of Fleetwood Mac’s Most Anticipated Album, which gives a behind-the-scenes look at the making of the band’s epic, platinum-selling album Tusk. “We were all working under duress with Lindsey saying if we didn’t do what he says, he was going to quit, and he was giving us no clear direction. We were almost in a prison camp for 12 months, I feel like.” Caillat is the father of singer-songwriter Colbie Caillat, and he produced her albums Coco (2007), Breakthrough (2009), All of You (2011) and Christmas in the Sand (2012). Smashing Interviews Magazine: Ken, why did you name the book Get Tusked? Ken Caillat: Well, when we were making the album Tusk, somehow the band became very adolescent. Tusk was like a nickname for a male part. So there was all this talk about tusk, tusk, get tusked, and they were always giggling. I said, “What’s wrong with you guys? Are you guys seven-years-old?” At the very end of the record, they made t-shirts for everybody. I got one that said, “Get Tusked.” Stevie Nicks, Lindsey Buckingham, everybody had the same t-shirt, “Get Tusked.” Get tusked basically means get screwed or screw you or go to hell or however you want to think about that Smashing Interviews Magazine: It was a penis joke (laughs). Ken Caillat: Exactly. That’s what I was wanting to say. Smashing Interviews Magazine: You’ve said that making the album Rumours was a lot of work, pain and anguish, but where the partying started was with the making of Tusk. Ken Caillat: Right, yes. Making Rumours was actually an experience of real enjoyment. The band were not superstars yet. They were still pretty much normal people. They could go out to dinner and not be recognized all the time. But for Tusk, they had already experienced the wealth of Rumours, and they all had their favorite champagne or liqueur or cocaine, and they all had somebody to do their bidding. I thought the band had grown up. But I was working with a band with a lot of politics and a lot of problems. We were all working under duress with Lindsey saying if we didn’t do what he says, he was going to quit, and he was giving us no clear direction. We were almost in a prison camp for 12 months, I feel like. We were all sequestered in this room making a record that Lindsey Buckingham didn’t even know what kind he wanted to make. Lindsey thought he had fans that wanted him to be more aggressive, more punk. I think the most interesting part about it is that every one of his songs on the record are full of distortion, anger and just rebellion, while at the same time, if you listen to his work on the girls’ songs, there is some of the most beautiful guitar work he’s ever done. So I think that’s kind of a dichotomy. Smashing Interviews Magazine: Lindsey actually wanted Tusk to be darker than Rumours? Ken Caillat: Right. Smashing Interviews Magazine: And he didn’t ask for input from the band? Ken Caillat: No. As a matter of fact, Lindsey built a little studio at home, so no one would have input. He was particularly annoyed with me. He was in love with me during Rumours because I made everything sound great. He loved how I made him sound. Then he turned on me. I think he decided that I must be the cause of him not being punk enough, aggressive enough. On the first day we were getting sounds, he said to me, “Turn all the knobs in the opposite direction you’ve already got.” Lindsey knew that would just destroy his sound, and he wanted me to basically baseline the record on that. So I did. He didn’t give me much choice about it, but we made it very aggressive sounding. He would do things like lay a microphone on a tile floor, kneel over it and scream into it, scream as hard as he could into the microphone to distort. He did everything he could to make it as grunge as possible. Smashing Interviews Magazine: There is a Beach Boys theme with Christine having a relationship with Dennis Wilson at the time and Lindsey being influenced by Pet Sounds during the making of the album. Ken Caillat: Oh, yeah. If you listen to the background vocals on all of the girls’ songs like “Beautiful Child” and “Sisters of the Moon,” they’re very Beach Boy-esque. So he’s a genius at creating vocal harmonies and orchestrating them. We would sit at the piano, and Lindsey would play each of the notes that people were singing in chords, so then he would play the chord, and he would hear what the vocal sac would sound like when it’s played on the piano. We did that to make sure everyone is doing exactly the right thing. That’s exactly what Brian Wilson used to do with the Beach Boys. That part was very clever. I want to give Lindsey so much credit for doing some of this. As I said toward the end of the book, in hindsight, I now realize what he was trying to do. I feel like if I were more mature and realized what was going on, we could’ve all walked up to him, given him a big hug and said, “Listen, we know you’re searching for something, and we’re going to give you as much space as you need so you can fly with it. We’ll help you as much as we can.” But he didn’t know how to ask for it, and we didn’t know he was asking for it. Smashing Interviews Magazine: If Lindsey had explained his ideas in the beginning, there would have been a different process and atmosphere? Ken Caillat: Right. I think part of it, too, was that cocaine was involved, and pot was involved. He smoked a lot of marijuana. He had a girlfriend who was really into cocaine more, and she was pushing him to be more aggressive. She said, “You need to start wearing eye makeup, color your hair and be more edgy.” So he kind of followed along, and I wanted it to be about the music. The music’s terrific, and it’s different, and it still survives after all these years. Smashing Interviews Magazine: Compared to 1977’s Rumours, which sold 10 million copies by February 1978, Tusk was considered to be a commercial failure by the label, selling 4 million copies. What was your prediction during the time you were producing it? Ken Caillat: I thought we were going to get slaughtered. There were a couple of unfortunate circumstances. Back then, we had so many songs. At one point, I told Lindsey that they all wouldn’t fit on one record, and that if we kept doing this, we’d have to release a double record. He said, “Okay.” I said, “No. That’s not okay. It’s bad because double records sell for twice as much, and people don’t want to spend $16.00 for a record.” Records at Tower Records used to sell for $3.98 back then. So we all said to him, “Let’s do enough songs for a double record, but let’s put out two single records separately.” Mick talked to the label and came back and said, “Okay. The record package is going to contain one album, and we’ll drop the next record six months later. When the record comes out, it’ll slide into the double album cover of the first one and complete the picture. So when both records are finally placed together in the same package, they will make a nice picture of something.” So we thought that was terrific. But when it came down to it, the record company got greedy in thinking how many records Rumours sold, so they said, “Why don’t we release it all at once?” So the record company changed their minds at the very end and released a double album instead of two singles. Secondarily, we used to make cassettes for everybody every night, so they would take it home. Stevie was notoriously forgetful about where she put her cassettes. Anyway, on the day of the release, all the radio stations were about to play the new album, and somehow the RKO Radio Network had gotten a copy of the cassette from somebody and decided to play the album at midnight the night before. So all the radio stations thought we had given RKO an exclusive, and they refused to play the record. All everybody was playing was the controversial song “Tusk” that they decided to make the first single. The buying public was faced with buying a double album, and the only song that they could hear was “Tusk” on the radio, and the double album would be $16.95 retail. The sales started off really slow until they fixed the radio station dilemma. When the radio stations started playing the nicer songs, people started warming up to it. But I think it would’ve sold for twice as much had it gone out the way I said. Smashing Interviews Magazine: What did you think the first single should’ve been? Ken Caillat: Probably “Sisters of the Moon,” or one of Stevie’s or Christine’s songs. That’s what I thought. Smashing Interviews Magazine: Maybe “Sara”? Ken Caillat: Yeah. “Sara” or a more up-tempo song would’ve been “Think About Me” because usually you want to lead off with an up-tempo song, and “Sara” is too long. We tried to edit that song down, but it was still over four minutes, and the norm was kind of a three-minute single. But again, the label said, “No. We’re just going to go for the money. Let’s release a double record.” So the weird “Tusk” was released as the first single. It didn’t make a lot of sense. I thought having “Tusk” as the first single was the biggest mistake that we made. Smashing Interviews Magazine: Many people speculate that the song “Tusk” was about sex. Ken Caillat: It’s not about anything. It’s just stupid. The road crew used to just sit there and giggle, and Lindsey would get all excited that he made the road crew giggle. He thought he was one of the guys. It’s not the first single. Maybe it’s somewhere down the line, you know. We had to solve a lot of technical problems to make that record like the live horns in Dodger Stadium. I came to the stadium in a recording truck and said, “Okay. Here’s all the mics. You guys stand in front of these mics, trumpets stand over here.” They go, “Wait a minute! We’re a marching band.” I said, “Yeah?” They said, “We don’t play unless we march.” I said, “No. Stand in place and march.” They said, “No. We can’t do that. We have to move.” I said, “So how do I make my microphones move?” It was hysterical. I had to figure out how to record a marching band that had to march. Anyway, the double record and the “Tusk” lead off were the biggest mistakes. Smashing Interviews Magazine: What is your relationship with the rest of Fleetwood Mac? Ken Caillat: Well, I have a relationship with Mick. The band was not really high tech, so they don’t keep their same phone numbers and emails, and I don’t have any way of connecting with Stevie. Stevie’s got a big entourage of people that are paid to protect her from strangers, and I would be considered a stranger in their eyes. The last time I talked to Christine, we were good. I produced a record for her in 2005. But I talk to John. I talk to Mick. I wish John a happy birthday every year, so I think I’m fine with everybody. I’d probably be fine with Lindsey if I ever saw him. But he’s just got so much hatred now with the band for firing him when he’s the one that brought it on himself. He again demanded that they would delay their world tour for a year or a year and a half while he finished his solo record, and his solo records never sell anything. He gave them the ultimatum that he would quit, so the band talked and said, “You know what? Why don’t we just fire you? You’ve pulled that trick one too many times. We don’t care.” Smashing Interviews Magazine: And along came Neil Finn. Ken Caillat: Right, and he was the solution. Smashing Interviews Magazine: So no one thinks Lindsey may rejoin the band in the future after a reconciliation? Ken Caillat: Well, Lindsey had a heart attack, and they apparently damaged his vocal chords. I don’t know anything, but people I know who are very close to him don’t know whether he’s able to sing anymore. It’s too bad. Lindsey was a very angry man, and I believe he still is. Most of my comments about Lindsey are based on when I knew him. Smashing Interviews Magazine: Of course. What’s going on with you now, Ken? Ken Caillat: I’m still making music. I have a company called ArtistMax, and we try to develop young artists. We try to provide a pathway to stardom and avoid most of the speed bumps in Hollywood, so we try to give the artists the tools for a successful career. I tell them that it’s a lot easier if you get your vocal lessons, learn to play an instrument and get allyour fundamental stuff. It makes it so much easier. Most artists, when they try to find their paths, make a number of mistakes. They may have to change their minds and directions a number of times, and by the time their may be ready to make it in the business, they’re almost 30 years old. So ArtistMax can take off about 10 years of that path. We put them together with choreographers, vocal coaches, songwriters and publishing attorneys so they learn the ins and outs of the business. That’s what we do. I’m looking for new artists and working with new artists. I feel very fortunate to be able to still be making music with the best of them. Smashing Interviews Magazine: How’s Colbie and her band Gone West? Ken Caillat: Colbie’s great. I think she was very brave to leave her successful solo career to create a career with a group. The reality is she’s not the boss anymore. It’s not a one-man band. She’s now one of four people, and I think she’s having a little bit of a challenge to be a team player. But she’s writing great songs. Smashing Interviews Magazine: Will you be helping her plan a wedding in the near future? Ken Caillat: She’s been engaged for 10 years to her fiancée Justin Young. She said that she has no plans on getting married and that if she decides to get married, she doesn’t want a big church wedding and might even elope. Smashing Interviews Magazine: Whatever makes you happy is what I always say. Ken Caillat: Yeah. That’s all I care about. I just want her happy. Smashing Interviews Magazine: Is there anything you’d like to add about Get Tusked? Ken Caillat: I’m always concerned that I’m maybe too negative. I certainly want to say that people should read it if they want to know how real records are made. Fleetwood Mac were ultimate professionals. As professionals, they had to solve a lot of problems on the fly, and many bands have issues. Each of the Fleetwood Mac songs are usually about one or the other band members, usually about breaking up and usually hurtful. That was something I never realized until I wrote the books. So these artists are listening to their counterpart saying something negative about them every day and trying to sing pretty harmonies to it. I respect Fleetwood Mac for the job. It’s just like if you go to work with different people. You may not like everybody, but you’ve got to get along with them. Making this record was a labor of love, especially with the girls. They cared very much about what they did, and Lindsey was a big enough guy to display some of his most beautiful music onto their music. So I’m going to say to read the book if you want to know how Fleetwood Mac makes records. https://smashinginterviews.com/inter...sk-a-nightmare |
#40
|
||||
|
||||
![]() Wow--Ken has a real beef with Lindsey. So much so that his point of view sounds distorted. Or, as he says, "too negative."
He's bought into the initial story about Lindsey being fired for wanting to delay the tour by one year, which we now know is false. Has he learned that was false and is just holding onto that excuse because it serves his purposes? This section of the interview is awful and fascinating: Smashing Interviews Magazine: What did you think the first single should’ve been? Ken Caillat: Probably “Sisters of the Moon,” or one of Stevie’s or Christine’s songs. That’s what I thought. Smashing Interviews Magazine: Maybe “Sara”? Ken Caillat: Yeah. “Sara” or a more up-tempo song would’ve been “Think About Me” because usually you want to lead off with an up-tempo song, and “Sara” is too long. We tried to edit that song down, but it was still over four minutes, and the norm was kind of a three-minute single. But again, the label said, “No. We’re just going to go for the money. Let’s release a double record.” So the weird “Tusk” was released as the first single. It didn’t make a lot of sense. I thought having “Tusk” as the first single was the biggest mistake that we made. Smashing Interviews Magazine: Many people speculate that the song “Tusk” was about sex. Ken Caillat: It’s not about anything. It’s just stupid. The road crew used to just sit there and giggle, and Lindsey would get all excited that he made the road crew giggle. He thought he was one of the guys. It’s not the first single. Maybe it’s somewhere down the line, you know. We had to solve a lot of technical problems to make that record like the live horns in Dodger Stadium. I came to the stadium in a recording truck and said, “Okay. Here’s all the mics. You guys stand in front of these mics, trumpets stand over here.” They go, “Wait a minute! We’re a marching band.” I said, “Yeah?” They said, “We don’t play unless we march.” I said, “No. Stand in place and march.” They said, “No. We can’t do that. We have to move.” I said, “So how do I make my microphones move?” It was hysterical. I had to figure out how to record a marching band that had to march. Anyway, the double record and the “Tusk” lead off were the biggest mistakes. Smashing Interviews Magazine: What is your relationship with the rest of Fleetwood Mac? Ken Caillat: Well, I have a relationship with Mick. The band was not really high tech, so they don’t keep their same phone numbers and emails, and I don’t have any way of connecting with Stevie. Stevie’s got a big entourage of people that are paid to protect her from strangers, and I would be considered a stranger in their eyes. The last time I talked to Christine, we were good. I produced a record for her in 2005. But I talk to John. I talk to Mick. I wish John a happy birthday every year, so I think I’m fine with everybody. I’d probably be fine with Lindsey if I ever saw him. But he’s just got so much hatred now with the band for firing him when he’s the one that brought it on himself. He again demanded that they would delay their world tour for a year or a year and a half while he finished his solo record, and his solo records never sell anything. He gave them the ultimatum that he would quit, so the band talked and said, “You know what? Why don’t we just fire you? You’ve pulled that trick one too many times. We don’t care.” There's a lot to unpack here. 1. I always thought having "Tusk" be the lead single was an instance of genius AND deliberate sabotage. It made total sense to issue the strangest song on the record as the lead single, a song with sexual overtones that ultimately doesn't mean anything but has a lot of character. A song that is as iconic as GYOW in its own way. 2. I never heard of the initial plan to stagger the release of the two discs, so that the second of the two would come later and fit into the packaging that came with the first disc. Interesting and ultimately problematic--how many people would have declined to buy the second disc? If I were one of the songwriters, I wouldn't want half of my material in limbo with the hope that the initial purchasers would complete the purchase down the line. Moreover, how would the two discs have been reviewed? Would Rolling Stone, for example, devote equal space to both discs. As an artist, I wouldn't want to take that chance. I'm glad WB got greedy and issued both at the same time. This makes TUSK the excessive, spectacular success/failure it is. 3. "The road crew used to just sit there and giggle, and Lindsey would get all excited that he made the road crew giggle. He thought he was one of the guys.--Ken is suggesting that the road crew were laughing AT not with Lindsey. Even if this were true, why would he want to bring this up? It's hurtful. And anyway, time has shown that Lindsey was RIGHT. We're still talking about TUSK in 2019 because it is what it is. 4. "I’d probably be fine with Lindsey if I ever saw him. But he’s just got so much hatred now with the band for firing him when he’s the one that brought it on himself."--clearly Ken would NOT be fine with Lindsey if he ever saw him. He still has a lot of anger over him and lashes out by saying spiteful things. Of course I enjoyed reading this, but I enjoyed reading this the way I might enjoy the bitchy private camera testimony of a SURVIVOR contestant who may or may not be delusional and is smack-talking the others who have a greater chance of winning the game. Mind you: I have a lot of respect for Ken's work. I really enjoyed how he made IN THE MEANTIME sound and credit him for helping Dan Perfect allow Christine to sound as great as she did on that solo effort. I also think he probably has a real basis for claiming that working with Lindsey was traumatic--or at least exceptionally difficult. But....But. |
#41
|
|||
|
|||
![]() Tony ^^^^ You are 100% spot on.
__________________
|
#42
|
|||
|
|||
![]() Quote:
THere's such a weird mix of contradictions in everything he says. He starts off saying basically what a dictator Lindsey was and then five minutes later that LB was a genius. And both those things can be true (and maybe probably were). But he doesn't say it with that sort of detached perspective one gets after a lot of time has passed; he says it like he's still living it now. And it's been 40 farking years! It's also weirdly passive aggressive in that he has all this anger at LB but you get the very real feeling if LB actually called him and said "hey thanks for what you did on the album" Ken would get all soppy and happy and suddenly have interviews about how great LB is. He so desperately wants a hug from Lindsey that he just isn't going to ever get. And it still sticks in his craw. His vicarious thrill at LB getting fired is creepy. The problem with Ken, and to an extent Richard also (though Richard came into the band with S&L and had a much closer personal connection to them esp to LB) is they think *they* were members of the band. Like Ken talking about the WB decisions on how to market the album and saying "we"... that putting it out as a double album was the big mistake WE made. He didn't make it. He was hired to do a job in the studio. He wasn't in any position to make decisions about how to manage or market the band. He has MEGA issues about Lindsey and just spews them all over the place. THEN STOP WRITING AND TALKING ABOUT HIM FFS. Very weird. Maybe some therapy would help. And he seems to have some sour feelings about Stevie but is more careful how he says it, and makes it more like it's the fault of the people around her, who keep her from people. I immediately read a lot of that as Karen, but you know, if Stevie wanted to talk to you, she could. People like to forget that stars often hire people to be the "bad cop" so they can seem like the "good cop" but really the bad cop is just doing what they were hired to do. Stevie does come off like someone who lives in a very small bubble and has for a long time. But she chose that. Not everyone who works together stays best friends. In real life I've worked with people that I was close to coz I saw them everyday and a big part of the bond was that we were in the same place dealing with the same sh*t every day. Once one of us left to go to work somewhere else, it got harder to maintain that same relationship; we were dealing with different daily realities etc. I'm still friendly with them but not close friends, as most of the stuff we shared together is in the past. I don't know why this is so hard for Ken to deal with. I think maybe because he doesn't feel he ever got I dunno properly acknowledged somehow by the band for his contributions? Listen, he got paid and still gets those royalties. Get over it already.
__________________
|
#43
|
||||
|
||||
![]() I just read this comment Ken posted on fb. He must be getting a lot of **** for that interview:
“This is the last thing I’m going to say about this I don’t hate Lindsey and he doesn’t hate me it was just a job, my job was to make the best record I could for Fleetwood Mac, his job is to push the envelope as far as he could. I guess I was the envelope I was trying to tell a story about how one of the greatest records ever made was made. I went on to make three more records with them. Lindsey is a great musical genius!” |
#44
|
||||
|
||||
![]() Quote:
|
#45
|
|||
|
|||
![]() Quote:
2. As he's explained elsewhere, between Mirage and Tango Lindsey learned to engineer, which rendered Ken redundant and no longer needed. Don't know whether that's truly the reason for his lack of involvement, but it at least makes sense. Last edited by cbBen; 12-12-2019 at 05:22 PM.. |
![]() |
|
|
Stevie Nicks Shirt Fleetwood Mac Shirt Retro Stevie Nicks T-shirt All Sizes
$20.95
Stevie Nicks Concert Shirt Stevie Nicks 2024 Tour Merch 2024 Stevie Nicks Live
$26.99
Stevie Nicks Tour 2024 Shirt, Stevie Nicks Tour Live In Concert Unisex T-shirt
$23.95
Stevie Nicks Poster White Winged Dove Bob Masse Classic Hand-Signed Silver Ink
$39.99
STEVIE NICKS Legendary Goddess Of Rock Magazine March 2024 New
$10.99