Interview 6/12/08: Hello St. Louis!

[petep9000]

Originally Posted by vermicious knid

Hey, who remembers that interview from a few years back when she said she went to Hawaii (with her friends) to write new songs for an album? Even at the time, I suspected that was crap. Maybe she wrote a little, but you don't go on a best-girlfriends island paradise party if the purpose is really to create material for an album. I will try to find that interview.

Her writing on that trip must have been limited to:

"Dear Mom & Dad,
Made it safe, weather fine, wish you were here. Isn't this the cutest postcard with the hula girl on it?

xxxooo

Teedee"

[GlennGlenn]

Originally Posted by vermicious knid

Hey, who remembers that interview from a few years back when she said she went to Hawaii (with her friends) to write new songs for an album? Even at the time, I suspected that was crap. Maybe she wrote a little, but you don't go on a best-girlfriends island paradise party if the purpose is really to create material for an album. I will try to find that interview.

Now its Mexico to do a MOVIE over the summer, thats why the summer tour is so short!!

[vermicious knid]

Okay, I found it.

"Three years ago Nicks and a couple of girlfriends spent three months in Hawaii brainstorming the Tetralogy with a view to translating it into a musical work. 'It could be a movie. It could be a record. It could be a couple of records. It could be a mini-series. It could be an animated cartoon. There is no end to what this could be, because the stories are fantastic."
link

In addition to there being no end to what that project could be, it also seems there is no beginning as well.

[michelej1]

Originally Posted by Tango

Stevie: It's a rock concert, they sell beer. People have to use the rest room. It's basic physiology. It's not an orchestral setting. If you want that, stop selling beer at your concerts. Do some intimate venues that require shoes, shirts and ties. Play at the Music Box instead of The Event Center at the Borgata. Stevie, do you even know some of venues you select sell popcorn and hot dogs in the stands! You want people "sitting" or "standing" at the front? Then find a way to get the tickets out to your die hard fans without comping them to the casino people. Stop using Ticketmaster. Sell them through "I Love All Access" or some similar control system.

That's excellent advice. You are not going to get your audience's full attention at a casino (where most of them aren't there to see you), at a supper club, or at the Superbowl.

This is from the Riverfront Times (St. Louis):

http://www.riverfronttimes.com/2008-.../stevie-nicks/

During her time as a member of Fleetwood Mac, Stevie Nicks filled many roles: singer, songwriter, muse, tambourine player and main hottie. As a contributor to the Mac's legendary Rumours album, Nicks sealed her place in history as one of the great original rock & roll heroines. After penning some of the band's biggest tunes (including otherworldly classics such as "Dreams," "Rhiannon" and "Landslide"), the 60-year-old went on to enjoy a successful solo career, scoring hits with songs like "Edge of Seventeen" and "Stop Draggin' My Heart Around". These days Nicks is still working the witchy hippie thing, what with her suede boots, shimmery scarves, untamed mane and trademark twirling dance moves. Her infrequent tours command top dollar, as Miss Nicks is still a powerful performer who has grown into her delightfully distinctive voice.

[Steviefan49]

Originally Posted by Tango

Like a lot of you, I gotta wonder how many fans she thinks she has. It took more than 1000 fans to make her Trouble In Shangri-la album debut at #5. That's a respectable showing for someone who hadn't released a new album since 1994, and that last album wasn't anything, by her own admission, to "crow" about. On the other hand, is Stevie saying out of all the fans she has, maybe 1000 of them are weasels and crooks. I hope Stevie's implying MOST of her fans aren't ripping her off. This is the lady who said she's given up "everything" for her fans. Did the internet totally change her perception of who her fans are?

I don't even think fans share her album in the way she is imagining. "Those evil internet people." I think the internet fans here have more than gone the mile in policing people to NOT share anything commericially released. I don't doubt there are people that burn a copy for a friend. They did it with cassettes too, in the past. But if you are really really a Stevie fan, you want to buy it yourself, have the lyrics, the art work, the pictures. You want to open the cellophane. (Okay, that part is annoying.) You want to read the liner notes. You want to try to figure out who the people are that she's thanked and why. You wonder if you'll find mistakes on the thing.

The people that got a gratis "copy" from a friend would have never bought the album anyhow. I'm guessing if you had to "share" an album with someone, it was probably because you were dragging someone against their will to a concert and you wanted to get them up to speed. You more than made up for it by paying the cost of shelling out for your friend's ticket at the show. Besides, you probably only made a sort of "best of" album, incorporating the gems of Fleetwood Mac and her solo career that you figure they are going to hear at the show. You already KNOW the chances of Stevie incorporating any new songs into her act at this point are slim, and she'll drop 'em at the end of the opening show. (WHY do these artists feel that we have to be on our feet and singing along to every song to PROVE that we are listening and enjoying ourself?) Getting back on topic, if your friend liked what they heard from your promo, if they liked what they saw at the show, and you made a fan, you probably stimulated another sale of her work, or at least a coffee mug at the show. Record companies give out gratus "for your listening" promos all the time.

As others have said, her fans buy MULTIPLE copies. I had to laugh reading someone- I think it was michelej 1- who said you need one for the car, one for the house, one for work, and one kept in the wrapper "just in case." I've done that with a couple of my Stevie/Lindsey/Chris or FM albums.

No one is asking Stevie to drop all her basic staples or hits. Don't you just wish you could have a conversation with her? Stevie's die hard fans just want one or two more songs--something that's a surprise. NOT a Dave Matthews song or Bob Seger's stuff. As I read though the comments, we are all saying the same thing. We've all been saying the SAME thing for the past two years. We just can't seem to get the message through to Stevie.

Stevie: It's a rock concert, they sell beer. People have to use the rest room. It's basic physiology. It's not an orchestral setting. If you want that, stop selling beer at your concerts. Do some intimate venues that require shoes, shirts and ties. Play at the Music Box instead of The Event Center at the Borgata. Stevie, do you even know some of venues you select sell popcorn and hot dogs in the stands! You want people "sitting" or "standing" at the front? Then find a way to get the tickets out to your die hard fans without comping them to the casino people. Stop using Ticketmaster. Sell them through "I Love All Access" or some similar control system.

Stevie, use your "official" fan website more to communicate with your fans, and make it a two way exchange. You said that's what you wanted, before you decided the internet was all evil. At least let the fans vote for TWO SONGS they want to hear on the tour. You can give fans a list of the songs you are capable of singing and find out what your fans have to say. They'd go NUTS for something like that. Finally, stop villifying your fan base. We've been supporting you and your band for years. Many of us stood in the whipping winds and in 6 inches of ocean water at Jones Beach just to see you, risking electrical shock and who knows WHAT was floating in the water there. Others have stood in miserable heat in HOTLANTA and in Texas. We've traveled to Arizona to see "your friends" or to Las Vegas, because it was supposed to be something "ultra." Your fans have been there in the lean years and the thick, the drug years and the sober years. We've been ripped off by the fan clubs that have come and gone over the years. And we're still here. This website proves it.

Amen Tango! Very well stated on all counts! Wouldn't you love to be able to tell all of this to Stevie? Sheesh, if I could only sit down, and add up ALL of the money I've spent on cd's, t-shirts, mugs, programs over the years at various shows, memoribilia, CONCERT TICKETS.. (which I've paid dearly one show to be in the Orchestra pit "JUST" to shake Stevie's hand for the Edgewalk).. and I can go on and on.. - and would love to tell Stevie.. "And you have the heart to sit here and say how I- as a fan rip you off here"? AM I missing something??????? LOL

[trackaghost]

Originally Posted by David

I hate to say it, but her powers of reasoning aren't that great, either (although this might not surprise anyone). It isn't only new studio albums that are downloaded illegally or traded around illegally. It's also all those "best of" & "very best of" CDs that Stevie & Fleetwood keep putting out.

David, that's a brilliant point. It also pains me that we, the people who do buy her albums, are basically being sold the same old crap time and time again because apparently we don't deserve a new one.

Also, since she's apparently given up on albums and record sales, maybe she should take comfort in the fact that younger fans might actually discover her music on the internet and go and spend money on a concert ticket, since that's the only thing she does these days, and, god forbid, a t-shirt!

Originally Posted by David

A long time ago, it occurred to me that Fleetwood Mac (as a unit) didn't distinguish, in any aspect of its outlook, between "audience" (anyone present at the concert or any album purchaser) & "fan." The club idea that fans have always mentioned as a legitimate way out of the problem Stevie cites is excellent, but Stevie must not consider it viable or desirable. She has played enough clubs in her lifetime -- even touring clubs in 1999 & 2000 -- to have decided for or against the idea of taking her act out of the impersonal arenas, where she feels she has to please 10,000 people for two hours, & she has apparently decided against it.

The fact that she mentioned The Eagles is proof enough of that.
She obviously thinks very little of her audience that they can't take and enjoy a song that hasn't been played into the ground and has a well-worn, totally unspontaneous routine to go along with it.

If audiences can't deal with new or different material, how come stadium-filler, crowd-pleasing Bruce Springsteen still manages to wow audiences each night with varied sets that include, not just album tracks, but obscurities. How come Bob Dylan manages it, hell how did Lindsey manage to change up his sets if audiences are hanging out at t-shirt stands all through the boring, non-hits?

Originally Posted by David

Yep, yep & yep. I was going to say, Why should she be so preoccupied with that (which happens at every rock concert regardless of what's played)? What does it matter to Stevie's bottom line? Admission is already bought in every case.

I think Stevie's ego has gotten so big she can't stand to think people aren't paying attention to her the whole time she's on stage.

Originally Posted by michelej1

Exactly. I have to emphasize that it's not just the covers that bother me (and they bother me a LOT), it's also the choice. I haven't heard this Bob Seger one, so I won't judge, but her renditions of Circle Dance, Rock and Roll and Crash are beyond uninteresting. I'll forgive Circle Dance, because it may have been chosen because she realized her father would not be with her very long. So, she gets a pass there.

I don't think her casual fans know Sorcerer or How Still My Love, but she knows she is on fire on those songs. She knows the audience doesn't run to make pit stops during those songs. She can't think of any others in her own repertoire that she can knock out the ball park like that? Well, that's says she has a rather sad view of her own career. Michele

I can't work out if she has a sad view of her own career of us the fans, the people who attend her shows. But this interview very much sounds like the latter.
She has absolutely no clue what's she's talking about here.

[BombaySapphire3]

LA Nicks is kind of the anti-Tori Amos ..both of these women have a sizeable hard core .cultish following .Amos has chosen to cultivate this group and happily ask for their input on setlists etc whereas La Nicks is treating her most devout fans that have bought anything she 's done over the years as red headed step children and instead catering to casual fans who probably only ever bought Rumours and Bella Donna.Very perplexing.

[jwd]

I say we burn her at the stake. She is a witch after all!

[Tango]

Originally Posted by jwd

I say we burn her at the stake. She is a witch after all!

Indeed.

[trackaghost]

You can make fun of it if you like, but she really is a fool to start criticising her fans in interviews, especially as an artist who hasn't released a new album in seven years.

[jwd]

Ooooh, that's really creepy. I don't think she burned too well.

[Tango]

Originally Posted by trackaghost

You can make fun of it if you like, but she really is a fool to start criticising her fans in interviews, especially as an artist who hasn't released a new album in seven years.

Trust me, trackaghost, I do agree with you. I just couldn't help laugh at jwd! I think it's careless to almost seemingly bait your supporters. This whole money thing-- it's kind of like Ed McMann's mess.

Perhaps they've all spent more than they've earned, and they've all made a heck of a lot more than we'll ever see ourselves. They still have royalties. They've been living in la vida de loca. It's the fans that have made them wealthy. They should all be well off at this point, including The Eagles.

[jwd]

Originally Posted by bellagypsy79

And yes, that bothers me when people want to get up to go to the bathroom in the middle of a song. Take a pee before the show! That bothers me too.

Have mercy child! Stevie's old and so are a lot of her fans! Incontinence is not something to scoff at. You'll understand one day, yup!

[BombaySapphire3]

Originally Posted by jwd

Have mercy child! Stevie's old and so are a lot of her fans! Incontinence is not something to scoff at. You'll understand one day, yup!

Hey great idea for another concession stand item The Wild Bladder adult diapers ..you'll never have to miss the extended drum solo or "Crash " again.

[jwd]

Originally Posted by BombaySapphire3

Hey great idea for another concession stand item The Wild Bladder adult diapers ..you'll never have to miss the extended drum solo or "Crash " again.

I like it. Do I get a cut?! Gives a whole new meaning to the song "I Can't Wait"! And you thought you'd never hear it again at a Stevie Nicks concert. HA!