Lindsey Buckingham delivers "Gift" to fans

By Gary Graff

Reuters

DETROIT (Billboard) - Fleetwood Mac guitarist Lindsey Buckingham is getting ready to hit the road to promote a new album he considers "a little more accessible and familiar" than some of his other solo releases.

"Gift of Screws" (Reprise/Warner Bros.) comes out on September 16, while Buckingham begins a six-week tour on September 7 in Saratoga, Calif. A special promotion bundles a copy of the album with ticket purchases for the tour.

The album marks the followup to 2005's acoustic-oriented "Under the Skin," which peaked at No. 80 on the Billboard 200. But the new set has an interesting history that dates back to the beginning of the decade.

Buckingham was making a solo album with the "Gift of Screws" title in 2001 when Fleetwood Mac decided to reconvene for sessions that led to the band's 2003 album "Say You Will" and subsequent world tour. Buckingham allowed the group to use several of the songs intended for his album -- with, he hastens to explain, no regrets on his part.

"It's happened maybe five other times in the past that the machinery or the politics of Fleetwood Mac moved in, intervened and something was put on the shelf," says Buckingham, who joined the group with then-girlfriend Stevie Nicks in 1974, left in 1987 and rejoined for "The Dance" in 1997.

"So that's been a pattern. It's always seemed to me that's the right thing to do. 'Gift of Screws' as an album wasn't really finished, so I was trying to do the right thing for the good of the whole."

Buckingham's initial "Gift of Screws" recordings have been widely bootlegged, and the current version includes several of those songs, among them the title track, "Right Place to Fade" and "Wait for You." The first single is "Did You Miss Me."

"I didn't really go in there and plan to make a rocking album," says Buckingham, who produced all but two of the 10 songs. "For whatever reason, this seems to hearken back to earlier work, Fleetwood Mac in particular. I think that's something the record company recognizes and feels good about."

The Fleetwood Mac rhythm section of Mick Fleetwood and John McVie, who helped out during the original sessions, still appear on the album. Also on the disc are the musicians who accompanied Buckingham on his "Under the Skin" tour and appear on the "Live at the Bass Performance Hall" CD/DVD that was released earlier this year.

As for Fleetwood Mac, a tour and possibly some new recording loom in early 2009.

Mick Fleetwood in Liverpool

Aug 29 2008 by Dawn Collinson, Liverpool Echo

AT 6ft 6in, Mick Fleetwood has always been head and shoulders above mere mortals.

And now the iconic co-founder of Fleetwood Mac is heading to Liverpool to celebrate his blues heritage with his new band, The Mick Fleetwood Blues Band.

Performing classic original songs like Oh Well, Rattlesnake Shake, Albatross, Black Magic Woman and many more, Rick Vito, Lenny Castellanos and Mark Johnstone will join Mick Fleetwood for what promises to be a musical experience that combines 40 years of excellence in blues and rock.

I caught up with Mick to find out the music that’s getting him through the week.

“I’ve got something of an eclectic taste,” he laughs. “I grew up playing blues, but I love all different types of music.

“Hey Bo Diddly by Bo Diddly has that funny tom tom thing with the maracas. I’ve always been a tom tom maniac and that track really affected my drumming.

“One song that’s always special is Return To Sender by Elvis Presley. I learnt to drum by listening to it and playing along. It was the only record my sister had, and I had nothing, so the choices were limited.

“I also love His Latest Flame (Marie’s The Name) by Elvis. I think that was the next record she got and I loved the breaks in it. I used to mess them up every time. It was hours of torture for me drumming along to that. I still love it though.

“What’s Going On by Marvin Gaye is one of my favourites, and Turn on Your Love Light by Bobby Bland. Great records.

“And anything by George Harrison, particularly from Cloud Nine. I loved George. Like millions of others I was very sorry to see him go, and especially so young. He was the real stuff.

“One last one – Let There Be Drums by Sandy Nelson. I love it.”

The Mick Fleetwood Blues featuring Rick Vito play Liverpool Philharmonic Hall on Tuesday October 28. For tickets and information, see www.liverpoolphil.com.

Rockline - Lindsey Buckingham - August 27, 2008

Lindsey on Rockline August 27, 2008.

Great interview last night with some really interesting questions from callers...

The added bonus was hearing for the first time "Love Runs Deeper" from his upcoming "Gift of Screws". Also played was "Right Place To Fade", which to fans was known as "Twist of Fate".

Accoustic tunes he played in the studio were "Time Precious Time", "Did You Miss Me" and "Big Love".

No Crow...

LocalRythms

Lindsey Buckingham did a roundtable press conference today, on which there will be more in a future article. During the telephone sit-down, he addressed the rumors (Rumours?) about Sheryl Crow joining the band next year, and he didn’t pull any punches:

When Fleetwood Mac was touring [in support of 2003's "Say You Will"], Christine McVie had left, having burned all her bridges, selling her house in L.A. and moving to England. We divided material down the middle. I had a great time because it allowed me to be a guy on stage. In retrospect, Stevie wasn’t as comfortable with that divide. When it came to contemplating working next year… we [thought] bringing Sheryl Crow would be an intiguing idea. We put out the feelers and that’s about as far as it got. Last spring, Sheryl took it upon herself to tell the world she was joining Fleetwood Mac. It was in itself inappropriate - you sit down with a band and announce it. It bothered Stevie a great deal and Mick as well. I thought it was off the wall. There were some harsh words, and she was given her marching orders - not that she’d been in the band in the first place.

Lindsey went on to say that Fleetwood Mac is contemplating doing a “long term thing” beginning in early 2009, which included making a new record and touring. He wasn’t certain that Crow understood that a commitment of 3-4 years was what he had in mind. “Probably in January, the band will start rehearsing, then see what happens,” he said.

No guarantees, but it sounds like the Mac is back.

The press conference was done as part of the promotional effort for “Gift of Screws,” which drops September 16, It’s harder-rocking follow-up to 2006’s “Under the Skin,” featuring contributions from Mac alums John McVie and Mick Fleetwood. Buckingham says the boisterous title track lifted its’ chorus from an Emily Dickinson poem. “I’m always looking to rip off things that are public domain,” he joked. Lindsey went on to call the song, which sounds more like circa-1978 Elvis Costello than anything the Mac ever did, “Mick’s favorite drum track ever. I played the album for him the other day, he came to my house, and he wishes it could have been on a Fleetwood Mac album.”

“Gift of Screws” was conceived way back in 1995, and shelved over the years due to Buckingham’s many (mainly Fleetwood Mac) commitments (he called them “interventions on solo work”). Several cuts from the oft-bootlegged disk, including “Peacekeeper” and “Murrow In His Grave,” ended up on other records. The new CD has only one surviving song from the original “Gift of Screws” - the title track - along with bits and pieces of a few others.

It’s a solid, electrified effort - lyrically mature, well-rounded and tight. It might not be Buckingham’s most successful record ever - the music business has changed too much for that - but it’s among his best. Lindsey’s Mac fans will feel right at home with songs like “Love Runs Deeper” (co-written with Buckingham’s wife) and “The Right Place To Fade,” which is reminiscent of a revved-up “Monday Morning.”

Lindsey Buckingham’s tour to support “Gift of Screws” begins September 7 in Saratoga, California; he’s in Lebanon, New Hampshire October 12, and Northampton, Massachusetts on October 14. There are also shows in Boston and Ridgefield, Connecticut. The tour ends October 19 in New York City.

Will They Dance Again in 2009?

August 24, 2008 by Katherine Epstein

We’ve all heard the Rumours—and I’m not talking about the album. Word on the street is that one of the greatest and most controversial rock ‘n roll bands of all time, Fleetwood Mac, will return to the stage in 2009.

With a tumultuous history, they are a band who defies the term sex, drugs, and roll ‘n roll—add a side of adultery and alcoholism. Ravaged by in and outs with over 15 band members over the course of 40 years, somehow they managed to create some of the best music of all time.

The most popular combinations of artists includes Lindsey Buckingham, Stevie Nicks, Christine McVie, John McVie, and Mick Fleetwood who created the 1977 Rumours album, the sixth best-selling album of all time and compilation that is adored by even those of my generation.

After two decades of touring, more band member additions and departures, some stints in rehab, and solos careers, the fivesome returned in 1997 recording a live album The Dance which brought Fleetwood Mac back to their superstar status—becoming the fifth highest-selling live album of all time in the United States.

Shortly thereafter, Fleetwood Mac was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. This was the last breath for Christine McVie, who “officially” left the band in 2003, when they recorded Say You Will (even though she lended backup vocals for the album).

Since 2006, Buckingham has been chatty about a reunion tour which has left critics buzzing and Fleetwood Mac lovers wondering. Stevie Nicks gal pal Sheryl Crow was said to be joining—other sources report that Crow would be replacing Christine McVie. Additional media say Nicks would not tour again without McVie. So I can’t help but wonder, will Fleetwood Mac be back for another dance?

Buckingham told Billboard magazine earlier in the year that Fleetwood Mac was definitively talking about touring with the possibility of new material; he also denied that Sheryl Crow would be joining the lineup. He says that the band would most likely record again after the tour, as he thought touring would reunite them artistically.

Meanwhile Buckingham is busy touring and will release a solo album in mid September, and Nicks just finished a tour. However, when I saw Nicks perform this summer (who looked a fabulous age 60 and sounded not a day older than Bella Donna), she mentioned nothing of a Fleetwood Mac reunion.

So what’s a Fleetwood Mac junkie to do in the meantime? Only time will differentiate fact of the Mac. After all, aren’t rumors and mystique what kept this band going for so many years?

"Outside The Rain / Dreams" Video - Stevie Nicks Jones Beach 06.28.08

Allan Brown at Rumours

Glasgow's new Malaysian eatery serves up a beguiling mix of unusual offerings

Why has a new Malaysian restaurant in Glasgow named itself after a Fleetwood Mac album?

Life is infinitely strange and crammed with tantalising mysteries. If Jerry Hall had married Bryan Ferry, for instance, would she have traded under the name Jerry Ferry? Is it reasonable to assume that time travel will never exist because nobody has as yet come back from the future to tell us if Lenny Henry will ever say or do anything that’s in the least bit amusing? Most pertinently, why has a new Malaysian restaurant in Glasgow named itself after a Fleetwood Mac album?

Rumours off West Nile Street is the restaurant in question. There is, admittedly, some precedent in the city for eateries to name themselves after long-players released by the fractious Californian soft-rock combo who were at their height in the mid-1970s: Stefan King has a place on the south side named Tusk. Nobody, however, has so far staked a claim, as far as I know, to Tango in the Night, or indeed to Pious Bird of Good Omen.

It hardly helps that none of Fleetwood Mac’s album titles are particularly memorable (Kiln House anyone? Penguin?). Which only makes the mystery all the deeper. By contrast Fleetwood Mac contemporaries Little Feat possessed a far catchier hamper of food-related album titles: Dixie Chicken, for example, or Let It Roll; Blondie had Eat to the Beat, Talking Heads had More Songs About Buildings and Food; even Frank Zappa had the albums Thing-Fish and Lumpy Gravy, though for obvious reasons the latter is self-excluding, unless it was being used for a transport cafe.

So we are at even more of a loss to explain the connection between Malaysian cuisine, which is essentially Chinese food in a better mood, and Fleetwood Mac’s multi-platinum-selling account of marital infidelity among the cheesecloth-wearers of Laurel Canyon. Normally Malaysian restaurants tend to have the terms sun and moon and palace and satay in their names. Whenever rumours attach themselves to restaurants of south-eastern Asian origin, they’re usually malicious, unfounded, and posited on the speculation that the kong pao beef used to wear a collar, bite postmen and go by the name of Rex.

In the absence of enlightenment we mused that perhaps Rumours had adopted a Fleetwood Mac theme, with the staff in long, flowery chiffon skirts á la Stevie Nicks and the waiters in voluminous flared denims and Zapata moustaches. Perhaps they took days off because they occasionally found catering to be “like, one big plastic hassle, dig?” Maybe the staff degenerated frequently into acrimonious fisticuffs and split apart to found solo restaurants? Ill-focused solo concept restaurants that nobody liked as much as the old restaurant?

As it turned out, this wasn’t wholly fanciful; like Rumours, the album, which concerned itself with romance as seen from both the male and female perspectives, Rumours the restaurant observes gender demarcation. The waiting staff are exclusively female, while the chefs, glimpsed occasionally through a hatch in the back wall, are male. Located in what was patently once an old solicitor’s or notary office on the ground floor of a block of still-operating businesses, it’s like an unusually elaborate canteen crossed with an Asian travel agents.

Continue...

Lindsey on Rockline - August 27, 2008

ROCKLINE - AUGUST 27, 2008
Lindsey will be the featured guest on the nationally syndicated radio show ROCKLINE on Wed, Aug. 27 at 8:30pm PT / 11:30pm ET.

He will be discussing his new CD Gift of Screws. Fans are encouraged to call to speak with Lindsey at 1-800-344-ROCK (7625). For a listing of stations near you and for information regarding how to listen on-line, go to rocklineradio.com!

ROCKLINE is the only nationally syndicated radio show where fans can directly help interview their favorite Rock and Roll stars live and on the air. It is believed to be the longest running uninterrupted radio show in Rock history.

I'll post the interview once I've recorded it.

Delay Delay Delay... More Delays for Soundstage

This is starting to be laughable already... Not sure what the deal is, what the hold up is or what the problem is, but Stevie's Soundstage DVD has been delayed yet one more time... This time it's delayed another month to October 28, 2008.

I'm sure there's a valid reason for the delay, but what gets me is that PBS offered it for sale THE DAY it premiered on their stations across the US and Canada, that being July 17th. Why offer it up for sale if you don't even have the DVD to mail out? Doesn't make any sense and frankly, it's just pissing fans off.

Luckily I recorded the show, so it's not a complete loss... I just hope they don't wait 2 years to release it like they did with Lindsey's Soundstage back in 2005.

"Love Shines" by Fleetwood Mac

Taken from the 1992 Box Set "25 Years - The Chain"

European Single Release Only: December, 1992
Charts
UK: Peak - 83
Germany: Peak - 51
Netherlands: Peak - 54


Online Videos by Veoh.com

Warner/Reprise 50th Anniversary Cocktail party

On the day that Lindsey Buckingham played the KBCO Radio Station Studio C On-Demand (August 8th)... He also attended the Warner/Reprise 50th Anniversary Cocktail party that was part of the R&R Triple AAA Summit in Boulder, Colorado at the St Julien Hotel.... Here are a few pics.

No idea what he sang, but by the looks of the pictures it was an accoustic set.

Pictures Courtesy of: videoqueen (click for more)

Lindsey Buckingham Live in Studio C KBCO On Demand

On August 8th Lindsey was in Boulder, CO at KBCO Studio C On-Demand. It was a live internet stream.... Here's the audio that includes 3 songs played acoustically with short interview segments in between playing live.

The first two songs are from Gift of Screws to be released on September 16, 2008.

Songs played in order:

1. Did You Miss Me
2. Time Precious Time
3. Big Love