Making Rumours by Ken Caillat

[David]

Originally Posted by egg cream

This band is a bunch of babies drunk on their own diminishing power, it's cool, I can believe that.

Les mots justes.

But expecting people you knew 30 years ago to still be as close as you felt they were 30 years ago? Naw, dude. And expecting people who employed you 30 years ago to still take care of you financially? Double naw.

But egg cream, when people get older, they grow nostalgic. They also sometimes become Gatsbys and reach back to the past, trying to make it live again as if nothing had changed. It almost never works, as everyone learns sooner or later.

I'm just not sure Ken wants to be friends with all of them again. (He may even think they're all varying degrees of toxic in person.) I think he just wants them to answer his e-mail when he has a business idea. That's why I wrote what I did about all their various managers and personal assistants, and why I reiterate that those people serve exactly the same function as the mid-managers in the workplace. It's those people--those twits "doing their jobs"--who obstruct the attempts to hook up. Those people--Karen and whatnot--don't even know who he is and don't know that he engineered the albums that ultimately resulted in their own jobs. When I hear ledgies complain about how Stevie or the band never releases a batch of demos or concerts or any of the other ideas that get floated by fans or guys like Ken, and then defend the job that Karen and all the others do, I groan in frustration. Don't you guys realize that all that stuff you want probably never gets released because the personal-assistant/manager never let word of all the demand for it reach the boss?! By the way, there's a company that now owns the footage of the 1982 US Festival and is actively scouting for licensing opportunities. Do you think the Fleetwood Mac managers will ever let their bosses know that there's any demand for this? You get three guesses.

Sometimes the band itself apparently does answer Ken's e-mail. He brought up two examples in his interview (the TV shows about "Rumours"), but he also managed not too long ago to get them to listen to and approve the 5.1 DVD-Audio of "Rumours." So I conclude that when the business proposition appeals to them, they call. As we've all seen, they just don't seem to be interested in marketing their past in a way that's different from rereleasing "Rumours" in some way. They're not interested in live albums from long ago (about 15 years ago, Ken asked the ledgies to compile a list of old concert video and other footage in order to get something pulled together for sale, but that fizzled) or old demos and documentaries. They don't seem to be much interested in books, either.

Wouldn't it be funny if they ever needed his help with marketing their past or their old albums--and he didn't bother answering the e-mail?