My Little Vent Thread

[SortaSavageLike]

Earlier today, I found myself in an odd sort of situation.

I was browsing through my Photobucket gallery, and saying things to myself like "I'm really getting frustrated with you" and "you know, I think somebody ought to have a word with you about this whole business."

Okay, now that I've creeped everyone out, I need to get some words out. Yeah, I could have just posted this on the St. Louis thread, but I'm just a thread-starting fool.

I'm really frustrated with Stevie right now. Not really pissed off, but my poor insignificant mind can't really begin to fathom some of the things she's said lately. Every time I gain some respect for her, she says something that makes me lose respect, and the cycle repeats in an endless loop. What irritates me the most is that I have a hard time saying what I should be saying, for a really shallow reason: Stevie is one of the few singers whose songs have ever had an emotional impact on me. Christ, the first time I heard BATB, I just hid in my room and cried for 20 minutes. Really embarrassing...but why would I want to put down someone whose songs have touched me deeply?

Well, perhaps I should be thinking about that. Here's a laundry list of things that are frustrating me right now:

1. In all the years I've been actively interested in music, I've never seen a singer or musician as creatively stagnant as her, or one so complacent about their state of stagnation and so stubborn in their unwillingness to change it. I wouldn't even consider myself a "hardcore" fan, but I can think up a dozen songs that could be added to her set list, perhaps enough to temporarily offset the fact that she's probably never going to make a new album.

2. How hard is it to get an album made these years? I'm sure there are a hundred producers who'd be willing to provide their services to Stevie, and since so many of her songs are actually more interesting in stripped-down demo form, it's not like it'd take months to hammer out the production process.

3. If her songs are so damned personal, why won't she perform them in a more personal setting? For example, it's kind of hard to take EO17 as being a really private, intense song when it's being belted out to a stadium with 15,000 people in it.

4. She really needs to take some kind of personal responsibility. We've all come to expect Stevie and Lindsey to blame each other for the same things and put on the "it's all your fault!" act, but Stevie is starting to come across as a Carol Ann Harris type. "I didn't know cocaine was bad for me, I didn't know Klonopin was addictive, I didn't know that the fans want to hear new songs, it's all their fault that I'm doing greatest hits and covers, and I'm just a poor girl from a poor family, spare me my life from this monstrosity!"

5. Her voice is in the best shape it's been in years, but she refuses to take advantage of the opportunity to record anything new. Or maybe that just goes with Point 1.

6. The Lindsey/Stevie thing is getting old. Yes, it was a traumatizing breakup...which happened during the second year of the Ford administration. One wonders what Chris and John, who actually managed to remain as professional music partners without letting their past relationship get in the way, are thinking right now about those two irritating Yanks and their endless fights.

7. A brief retirement/extended vacation to some exotic locale or meditating place in late 2004/early 2005 would have giving an opportunity for her to take some time to think about the future, perhaps giving us some new material instead of an endless mobious strip of nearly-identical GH tours. But the time to strike is long past, unfortunately. She should try doing this after the current tour is over. There's a reason why many musicians take long periods of semi-retirement; continuous touring just saps the mind the soul!

Okay, I'll just shut up for now.

[michelej1]

You know, I'm not really frustrated about this last interview. I think it's funny. But Stevie has gotten on my nerves pretty constantly since the SYW tour ended and I think it's almost more frustration with myself, rather than her, because I thought she had changed and she hasn't.

Really, she seemed to have matured so much from 1997-2004. She was so rational and objective in interviews, able to see things in perspective and laugh at herself and I really thought the whole band had grown. I guess I drank the Dance koolaid. They were all running around saying how much they'd mellowed and changed and I believed them. It seemed to be true from what we saw on the surface.

But then, starting with the interviews she began doing for the Vegas show about 3 years ago, it seems like Stevie has reverted since that Dance Evolution. It's like she's taken 2 steps backward (or 10 years backwards). She sounds the same self-centered way she used to sound in the eighties. I mean, she's not self-centered horrible. She can be self-centered funny and cute, but it's a girlish, tunnel-visioned, shallow personna that I thought had been shed. I feel like I dreamed that I had gotten over the hump and then I woke up to find that tired, thirsty, and wild-eyed, I was still climbing the hill. The change was all a mirage.

I mean, think of the woman on Destiny Rules calmly explaining that people aren't sitting around smoking drugs anymore. They have house notes to pay. They can't spend their money on a double album. She sounds so rational and like she sympathizes with the hard-working fan. Contrast it with the latest fan comments that sound delusional and accusatory.

I don't think she really thinks that albums are not selling because we're downloading songs. I know she knows it's more complex than that. I think she was just talking off the top of her head. So, it's not that I really care that she said that. I just thought for awhile there that she had changed and she hasn't. She's still Stevie of 25 years ago -- and that's not a bad thing. It can be quite a charming thing. It's just that I had been lulled into thinking there was something different there for a few years and I see I was wrong. Michele

[petep9000]

She's clearly back on the pills. I keep telling this to everyone, and no one believes me.
Well, it will all come out in a few years.

"Nobody told me that Valium was bad for me. I thought it was only Klonopin that was bad. It's the doctor's fault. When he said take two, he should have said take TWO and not winked his eye. I thought he was kidding. Ohhh, Tom can you write this for me?"

[vermicious knid]

Originally Posted by michelej1

I don't think she really thinks that albums are not selling because we're downloading songs. I know she knows it's more complex than that.

I also suspect that was just a cover. And as long as she is not telling us the real reason for the lack of new music, minds will wander trying to find an explanation that is not so bogus. Self-doubt? Laziness? Writer's block?

[Stephanie]

Originally Posted by petep9000

She's clearly back on the pills. I keep telling this to everyone, and no one believes me.
Well, it will all come out in a few years.

"Nobody told me that Valium was bad for me. I thought it was only Klonopin that was bad. It's the doctor's fault. When he said take two, he should have said take TWO and not winked his eye. I thought he was kidding. Ohhh, Tom can you write this for me?"

odd you say that, because i was thinking maybe that was the case in biloxi. she kept squinting and giving theses odd wry grins...but i hope its not the case!

[Musicman408]

Originally Posted by Stephanie

odd you say that, because i was thinking maybe that was the case in biloxi. she kept squinting and giving theses odd wry grins...but i hope its not the case!

I don't know if this could be added on, but I did seem to notice that when she talked and sang, in Alpharetta, she seemed more nasal.....I don't know if that means anything or not....I mean, I LOVED the show, but I did notice this~


But I mean, i do agree with you guys to a point. It would be very nice if Stevie would do a new album, then tour for that album, with a couple of the new songs on it, then do a new album and tour.... yadda yadda. If I were ever a famous musician, I mean, in a rock and roll band, this is how I would be, because I am always writing, and hearing my stuff recorded if always exciting, and that first playback never gets old. Granted, I haven't been doing it for 40 years, but if she wants to stop, I think she should just....stop, I guess.

[GODDESS6]

can i add to your vent?~

what the hell does stevie have against the midwest?!?!?!?!?~ she never has any dates here~ oooowwww she played here in lincoln, nebraska in'86 & the mac was here for the tusk tour & say you will, but...wtf?!?!?!?!?~

i have a kid now & it is not as easy as it was to just pick up on a whim to do a road trip & follow stevie~
we took our son to see he mac in vegas when he was 4~

alot of people don't like the setlist, she's playing the same things, but people out here in the heartland would love to see/hear it~

i mean i love the woman, i have been to many shows over the years, but 98% of them i've had to travel & i'm not talking an hour away travel either~ & happily i did~

she has fans here, tons of them~ out local head shop/record store worships her & always has stevie music, t-shirts, posters & of the like, they carried crystal visions on vinyl~ our biggest dj on our biggest radio station worships her too, he met her when fm came here for syw~ fm & stevie are the band of the month all the time on this station~ my hubby listens to it in his shop at wrk & they play stevie multiple times a day~

i mean i live in omaha, it's not peanuts, we have a new arena that fm helped break in during 2003~ we have a smaller venue which fm played in during the tusk tour~ we have outside venues, a performing arts venue & right across the missouri river like 5 miles away council bluffs, iowa has many places she can play, even casinos~ so as i said wtf?!?!?!?!?~

she hates me~

[Liza]

Well for those of you that feel she never comes near to where you live, she hasn't been to the UK for a very very long time!! Every year her fans in the uK just keep hoping that this will be the year she comes back.

[Tango]

Originally Posted by Liza

Well for those of you that feel she never comes near to where you live, she hasn't been to the UK for a very very long time!! Every year her fans in the uK just keep hoping that this will be the year she comes back.

Maybe so, but there's artists in Europe that don't come to the USA either. Have you seen this dude:
http://canecorso.com/lorenzo.htm


No unicorns, either.

[Liza]

Yes I expect there are artists in the UK who don't come to the US - you only realise when it's the artist that you are crazy about. And yes I have seen that - really fantastic!

[pixiedust]

Just out of curiosity...how do they decide what cities she plays in?

[Steviefan49]

Originally Posted by GODDESS6

can i add to your vent?~

what the hell does stevie have against the midwest?!?!?!?!?~ she never has any dates here~ oooowwww she played here in lincoln, nebraska in'86 & the mac was here for the tusk tour & say you will, but...wtf?!?!?!?!?~

i have a kid now & it is not as easy as it was to just pick up on a whim to do a road trip & follow stevie~
we took our son to see he mac in vegas when he was 4~

alot of people don't like the setlist, she's playing the same things, but people out here in the heartland would love to see/hear it~

i mean i love the woman, i have been to many shows over the years, but 98% of them i've had to travel & i'm not talking an hour away travel either~ & happily i did~

she has fans here, tons of them~ out local head shop/record store worships her & always has stevie music, t-shirts, posters & of the like, they carried crystal visions on vinyl~ our biggest dj on our biggest radio station worships her too, he met her when fm came here for syw~ fm & stevie are the band of the month all the time on this station~ my hubby listens to it in his shop at wrk & they play stevie multiple times a day~

i mean i live in omaha, it's not peanuts, we have a new arena that fm helped break in during 2003~ we have a smaller venue which fm played in during the tusk tour~ we have outside venues, a performing arts venue & right across the missouri river like 5 miles away council bluffs, iowa has many places she can play, even casinos~ so as i said wtf?!?!?!?!?~

she hates me~

LOL.. No she doesn't hate you Jill! LOL.. I do have to say that I SOOO feel what you and Savage are saying.. and have to agree on some of this.. I also feel that musically, I guess I just don't understand WHY she hasn't released some of her demo's, or her other stuff, and instead, we keep getting "The Best Of" or "Greatest Hits Packages" instead of new- or old un-released demos?? And why do other people's covers? Yes.. I understand, musically, they sound good with her voice, but won't her OWN songs sound good too, and have more meaning?? I don't know.. I guess I feel that maybe she is thinking along the lines of pleasing the "masses" - as she knows she already has us hooked.. but she ALSO needs to know, somehow- that we- the fans who got her where she is today- would ALSO like to hear "HER" own stuff!

[gold_dust]

Originally Posted by Liza

Well for those of you that feel she never comes near to where you live, she hasn't been to the UK for a very very long time!! Every year her fans in the uK just keep hoping that this will be the year she comes back.

That frustrates me as well. I'd love to see her perform.

My only real gripe with her, is that she is very narcissistic and, I feel, she still lives in the past and can still be quite angry. I can't recall much material of her's where she isn't hurting or bitching or promising to haunt someone or feeling haunted herself. She's 60 now for godsakes, can't she do an album, if she's willing to, or do concerts that include some positive material? I get she had a tough deal with coke and Klonopin and Lindsey and whoever else, but can't she look forward instead of backward? I presume she lives in a beautiful beach house now, did/does the whole US soldiers iPod thing, she's still as popular as ever, she should feel, as a poet, inspired everyday, and I feel she'd much rather lament and bitch about the past than write positively about the here and now.

[michelej1]

Originally Posted by Steviefan49

And why do other people's covers? Yes.. I understand, musically, they sound good with her voice, but won't her OWN songs sound good too, and have more meaning?? I don't know.. I guess I feel that maybe she is thinking along the lines of pleasing the "masses" - as she knows she already has us hooked.. but she ALSO needs to know, somehow- that we- the fans who got her where she is today- would ALSO like to hear "HER" own stuff!

And I don't know how the covers please the masses, because no one expects her to do them. Well, I guess they would if she put out an album of covers and became known for that -- thankfully she's not to that point yet.

Of course, when she sings someone else's songs, whoever is reviewing the show that night usually notices, especially when it's Seger or Zeppelin (as opposed to Bonnie Raitt). So, I wonder if she likes the publicity slant the covers bring her. Whatever, it's frustrating. Michele

[David]

Originally Posted by michelej1

Of course, when she sings someone else's songs, whoever is reviewing the show that night usually notices, especially when it's Seger or Zeppelin (as opposed to Bonnie Raitt). So, I wonder if she likes the publicity slant the covers bring her. Whatever, it's frustrating. Michele

I think her decision to add some covers to the set stems from her longtime personality. She's always been a cool cover cat. She sang covers in Fritz, in Buckingham Nicks, in Fleetwood Mac, & throughout her solo career. Some of her favorite songs have "inspired" her to record songs by the same writers as well as to write songs of her own in that style. We have studio tapes of her kicking back in a great mood, belting out covers of this or that. She has a history of popping up onstage at clubs as a guest, just to sing a bunch of someone else's songs (from Todd Rundgren to John Stewart to Tom Petty to Walter Egan).

Stevie's a cover girl.