Reading, PA Interview

[michelej1]

Reading Eagle

http://www.readingeagle.com/article.aspx?id=109062

Lindsey Buckingham's 'Gift of Screws' tour stops in Reading
By Tracy Rasmussen
Reading Eagle Correspondent


Reading, PA - If Lindsey Buckingham had been a painter instead of a musician he'd describe his work with Fleetwood Mac as the broad strokes of a painting, while his solo career fills in the subtle shadings of his creativity.

That shading allows his solo efforts to paint a uniquely personal picture, which will be on display when Buckingham performs at the Sovereign Performing Arts Center on Friday in support of his most recent solo effort, "Gift of Screws."

"If you're sitting in front of a canvas and you're slopping paint on the canvas, you may have an idea of what you wanted," he said. "There's far more possibility that you're going to find things that are more surprising - that are more esoteric, certainly."

"Gift of Screws" is surprising in that it's very much a rock 'n' roll album, a departure from the usually more mellow music of his band Fleetwood Mac and Buckingham's four previous solo efforts.

"This is probably the most rock 'n' roll album I've ever made," he said during a teleconference prior to the beginning of his tour. "Consequently, you get the intensity of (Buckingham's guitar playing) style stepped up as well. It probably sounds like I'm getting ready to break a string here and there."

Because of that, Buckingham's show is different.

"Song for song there is no real challenge to doing the material," he said. "We've only been rehearsing for three weeks, and it's great. It's great fun to do the new stuff. The challenge is in how you make a set that doesn't rock too much, that comes down and has a certain breathing point. We're still trying to figure out what that arc is. It's going to be a way more boisterous show. So I hope people are ready for that."

Interestingly, Buckingham got started much more as a player than as a songwriter, a characterization he still embraces. Yet, he's written many memorable songs, including "Go Your Own Way," "The Chain" and "Tusk."

"The one thing that I could have called myself was a guitarist," Buckingham said. "I hadn't really written very much. By the time Stevie (Nicks) and I moved to Los Angeles and started looking for a record deal, I hadn't been writing for more than about a year. I'm still not really a writer. I'm a stylist. I'm not really a singer per se. I'm a stylist, and you can get a long way on that. I've done it pretty much on my own terms."

Working with Fleetwood Mac, he said, taught him not only about songwriting, but also about producing an album as well as a good show.

"It was a complete lesson in adaptation," he said. "You sort of find yourself having to adapt. There's a certain amount of knowledge you gain from that."

On his own, though, Buckingham said he's found a way to grow as an artist.

"There is also the aspect of not being driven to prove anything other than to work on my process," he said. "To not put myself on any particular treadmill."

Because of that attitude, there is a wealth of different material from which Buckingham can choose for his show.

"Obviously there are certain things you need to do because people expect that," Buckingham said. "I think the problem we're having right now is we've got a lot of rock 'n' roll material that we're having fun doing. We haven't quite found the formula yet for how to present that level of energy and to still have it sort of breathe and rest and build."

Buckingham was planning to change things up as much as possible.

"We need to make a stab at something and start running a set and see how it feels," he said. "We are trying to include some stuff that we've never done that's from past solo albums and we're just trying to shake it up as much as we can."

•E-mail correspondent Tracy Rasmussen at [email protected].

[michelej1]

Lancaster Online, October 10, 2008

http://articles.lancasteronline.com/local/4/228543

By Jon Ferguson, Staff Writer

Lindsey Buckingham considers "Tusk" his first solo album.

The follow-up to Fleetwood Mac's "Rumours" (1977), one of the best-selling albums of all time, "Tusk" was considered something of a commercial disappointment, even though it sold about 4 million copies.

Artistically, however, "Tusk" (1979) was a stunning success. The album was ambitious, edgy, experimental and exciting — all those things follow-ups to blockbusters rarely are because the tendency on the part of the artist is to play it safe.

Buckingham would later find out his bandmates were among those who wished they had hewed more closely to the Fleetwood Mac formula in hopes of repeating the numbers generated by "Rumours" (about 30 million sold worldwide).

"The band, in the wake of the comparatively moderate sales, there was a kind of politic that came down and said, 'We're not going to do that anymore,' " Buckingham, 59, said during a telephone interview from a Chicago motel room.

Buckingham, a singer, songwriter and guitarist who also was the architect of Fleetwood Mac's sound during its commercial heyday, got the message. The next two Fleetwood Mac albums — "Mirage" (1982) and "Tango in the Night" (1987) — were both approximations, however tepid, of "Rumours." There was no attempt to break new ground.

Buckingham — who is married and the father of three children, ages 4, 8 and 10 — would save his more adventurous music for his solo career, which he kicked off in 1981 with "Law and Order."

"The only place to explore the left side of one's palette at that point was to make solo albums," Buckingham said. "By virtue of the fact that they are the left side of the palette, generally speaking, I don't think you reach as many people. So given that as a basis for what I've done in solo work, I have never necessarily expected big commercial success nor have I enjoyed it.

"I do these things for the validity of doing the work and for keeping myself alive as an artist and getting out and doing the shows."

Buckingham, who will perform tonight at Reading's Sovereign Performing Arts Center, is touring in support of "Gift of Screws," his latest solo album which was released last month.

The album is getting a big promotional push from Warner Bros., and it might be the best of Buckingham's career. Impeccably produced, "Gift of Screws," which takes its title from a poem by Emily Dickinson, shows the full range of Buckingham's talent.

The guitar playing and singing are first-rate throughout but it is the songs that set the album apart from most of his earlier work. Buckingham has had a tendency in the past to write songs that never sounded fully formed, as though they were musical fragments inspired by a guitar solo or a catchy riff that never flowered into a complete tune.

That's not the case with "Gift of Screws," where every song counts. There's not a stinker in the bunch and some can compete with the best in Buckingham's catalog.

One of the standouts is "The Right Place to Fade," a rocker that closes with a ferocious guitar solo that can take its place alongside the one on Fleetwood Mac's "Go Your Own Way."

"That song does in a strange way hearken back to some Fleetwood Mac references," he said.

Another is "Treason," a thoughtful ballad that closes the album.

"It isn't necessarily about treason in any sort of political sense, although you can certainly overlay some sensibility that would apply to what's going on in America today and how the country is being run," he said.

Buckingham, a notoriously slow worker, has picked up the pace considerably in recent years. "Gift of Screws" follows on the heels of "Under the Skin," which was released just two years ago. He also figured mightily in the making of "Say You Will," a Fleetwood Mac album released in 2003.

After touring behind "Say You Will," Buckingham said he told his bandmates about his plans to make a pair of albums for himself.

"What I had to do to get two albums out in fairly short order and tour is to say to the band: 'Look, don't bother me for three-plus years and let me do this and then we'll talk about Fleetwood Mac again, Buckingham said. "Maybe that's something I should have done before."

He said plans call for the members of Fleetwood Mac — Buckingham, singer Stevie Nicks, drummer Mick Fleetwood and bassist John McVie (singer-keyboardist Christine McVie left the band a number of years ago) to reconvene next year.

"We're talking about touring first and then we're talking about making an album after that," he said. "I'm good with that. We have to have a different sort of mantra this time, which is something more to do with enjoying each other more as people and letting the musical agenda take a back seat so we can just sort of appreciate each other and have fun with each other as people."

That's hasn't always been the case within the band as the personal dramas that brought the bandmates together and drove them apart have often threatened to upstage the music.

Buckingham left the band after making "Tango in the Night" because he needed to regain his sanity. The other members tried to go on without him but it quickly became an untenable situation and the band fell apart.

Buckingham, Nicks, Fleetwood and the two McVies were reunited by former President Bill Clinton, who brought them together to play "Don't Stop" at his first inauguration in 1992. The band reunited for real later that decade for a tour and the live album "The Dance" (1997).

Buckingham said he plans to remain an active member of Fleetwood Mac.

"There doesn't seem any reason for me to remove myself, because it's a great band and it's a whole other scale," he said. "I don't think I will ever have that kind of an audience as a solo artist. It's just nice to have both."

Lindsey Buckingham, today, 8 p.m., Sovereign Performing Arts Center, 136 N. 6th St., Reading, $36-$46, 610-898-7299.

[MacMan]

Thanks for these Michele!

[MacMan]

Not worth starting a thread over this, so I'll stick it here... But there's like a 30 second video clip of tonights show in Reading at this WFMZ-tv site:

http://wfmz.com/view/?id=557793

A Rock and Roll Hall of Famer is a hit in Reading. Lindsey Buckingham -- one of the members of the group Fleetwood Mac -- performed at the Sovereign Performing Arts Center Friday night. He's playing shows across the country to support his new CD "Gift of Screws." It was released last month. He has a handful of East Coast dates left on the tour.

[michelej1]

Originally Posted by MacMan

Not worth starting a thread over this, so I'll stick it here... But there's like a 30 second video clip of tonights show in Reading at this WFMZ-tv site:

Thanks for that. Great Day! I'm glad he made the evening news. He seemed to be wearing blue jeans instead of his black. Change in costume. How shocking!

Michele