This album is a gift indeed (Review)

by Chris Jones
bbc.co.uk

Lindsey Buckingham, chiselled, unsmiling guitarist with Fleetwood Mac, first began recording Gift Of Screws between 1995 and 2001. In the intervening period nearly half the songs recorded were hijacked for the reunion album by the band, Say You Will, as well as various other projects including his own acoustic album, Under The Skin (2006). Luckily Mr B is a very talented man, and despite what may have seemed the cream of the crop being diverted for the greater good, the remaining ten songs are pure gold dust. This album is a gift indeed.

The title comes from an Emily Dickinson poem. The bulk of the material is self-played and self-produced. (with two songs co-written with wife Kristen and one with brother Will). Oh, and on another three songs some blokes called McVie and Fleetwood turn up to provide the rhythm tracks. It’s one of these (The Right Place To Fade) that Buckingham approaches the classic sound of the Mac, but elsewhere he’s his own man and the results are revelatory.

Most know the stories of Buckingham’s love of new wave bands that seemed at odds with the West Coast fare that his band epitomised. And indeed, Gift Of Screws approaches the avant garde in places. The opener, Great Day is quite some statement of intent. Fuelled by furiously plucked nylon strings it’s a fever pitch dash through whispered vocals and an incendiary guitar solo. Next up, Time Precious Time is no less startling. Over massed strings he intones like some alt folk hero a third of his age. From here it’s a brief (just over 39 minute) ride through pure Californian pop (Did You Miss Me, Love Runs Deeper) gonzo rock (Gift Of Screws), alien folk (Bel Air Rain) and so much more.

His voice is lithe, his fingers insanely nimble and his songwriting chops simply awesome. Really, anyone from the ages of 15 to 65 would find Gift Of Screws exhilarating. Quiet simply, a masterpiece.

This is more than just a Mac album (Review)

By Dave Simpson
The Guardian
Friday September 12 2008

At the height of Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours supernova, guitarist Lindsey Buckingham suddenly started listening to Talking Heads and the Clash. Gift of Screws’ harder moments suggest these influences remain, though Buckingham has returned to the ethereal pop-rock songwriting that spawned the band’s classic hits. With the trusty Mick Fleetwood-John McVie rhythm section giving lots of sonic wallop, this is more than just a Mac album without the female vocalists: Buckingham seems to be rediscovering some sort of idealism. Time Precious Time addresses life’s urgency with virtuoso brilliance. Did You Miss Me, with its uplifting hook and lyrics about dreaming and loss, is the best pop song he has written since Go Your Own Way.

4/5 Stars

Lindsey Buckingham mixes the old and new

Fleetwood Mac legend Lindsey Buckingham mixes the old and new
Timesonline.com

Lindsey Buckingham tells our correspondent how he found happiness after the madness of Fleetwood Mac

Miles beyond Sunset Strip, beyond the Hollywood sign and Laurel Canyon, a familiar sound is coming from a rehearsal stage.

The opening couplet of Go Your Own Way wafts across the Warner Brothers lot in Burbank, California: “Loving you/ Isn’t the right thing to do . . .” The Fleetwood Mac legend Lindsey Buckingham is in final rehearsals for a six-week solo tour. A tour de force of Californian angst, the song first appeared on Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours album – whose smooth curves masked a partner-swapping, drug-snorting epic of dysfunction. Those songs still resonate today – in recent months both Vampire Weekend and Fleet Foxes have covered Mac songs.

“Our first show is in two days, but I don’t feel like we’re quite ready,” he says, but that’s just the perfectionist in him speaking. In truth the show is an exhilarating mix of the old and new, reworked Mac classics combined with lost solo singles and tracks from his new album Gift of Screws. It’s a career-spanning set at a time when Buckingham is, he declares, “the happiest I’ve ever been”.

Buckingham today is a far cry from the hirsute, heartbroken pin-up of 1970s Fleetwood Mac, or even the lone, studio-bound experimental egg-head of the 1980s. He is married to the photographer and LA society belle Kristen Messner (with whom he has three children) and domestic contentment has reinvigorated his erratic solo career. Fourteen years had elapsed between Out of the Cradle (1992) and Under the Skin, and now Gift of Screws appears. His fifth solo album is as dense and engrossing as you would expect.

The best bits are classic Buckingham – mixing arch LA pop with avant-garde touches. The results are even more impressive live. Good Day channels Radiohead’s Idioteque with bluesy licks direct from The Chain, while Love Runs Deeper bops about joyfully, like a reconstructed new wave hit from 1982. His state of mind is reflected in the banter with band-mates. The vibe among the group, he says with a grin, is “camaraderie central”.

We go to chat in his office, which is feng shui-tidy – three identical white shirts are lined up next to three identical black leather jackets. A vintage Beach Boys poster hangs behind his see-through wardrobe. Through the door the bassline of FloRida’s Elevator can be heard.

“Is thatus?” he asks, half-joking, as the track blasts from the adjacent sound stage where the high-octane reality TV show So You Think You Can Dance? is being shot.

He is impressively well preserved for a 58-year-old rock survivor. The “blue-grey” eyes that his former paramour Stevie Nicks longingly sang about in Blue Denim radiate a fresh Californian glow. In conversation he’s forthright and relaxed. Interviews in the past have reflected the self-help books that saw him through the turmoil of Fleetwood Mac. But there is no trace of that now.

A Californian boy through and through, Buckingham was born in Palo Alto. There were early ambitions to be a professional swimmer (his brother Greg won a silver medal in the 1968 Olympics) but he was galvanised by music after hearing his brother Jeff’s copy of Presley’s Heartbreak Hotel.

“I was eight when I first started playing guitar,” he recalls, “because Jeff would bring home all these records. Not much later I got into acoustic, finger pickings, but I couldn’t read music.”

After meeting Stevie Nicks at high school (“I was playing California Dreamin’ and she came along and harmonised”), the two formed a duo, first with the band Fritz (“We opened for Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin”) and then on their own as Buckingham Nicks.

A chance encounter with Mick Fleetwood followed and he asked them to join his faltering British blues band, with Buckingham as lead guitarist. His predecessors had either fallen into drug-induced schizophrenia (Peter Green), left to join cults (Jeremy Spencer) or became violent alcoholics (Danny Kirwan). Was he worried about being afflicted with the “Curse of the Fleetwood Mac Guitarist”?

“I knew about it, it was almost a joke,” he laughs. “I loved Peter’s work but when I met him . . . Well, let’s just say that he was less nice than he could have been. As for me? I’m still here – I didn’t join a cult and I didn’t go crazy. At least I think I didn’t . . .” His solo work has always been an escape from the debauched, multi-platinum madness that Fleetwood Mac involved. He cites Tusk, the eccentric follow-up to Rumours in 1979, as the “lightning bolt” moment.

“I consider it to be my first solo album – I recorded things at my home and brought them in to the band,” including, he says, percussion parts banged out on Kleenex boxes.

“With that album I was trying to accomplish stuff to the left of what Fleetwood Mac had become.”

Today, there is no tension between his solo work and working with Fleetwood Mac. “Being a father and a husband I realised that there are more important things than music. Solo work is a boutique effort for me; it’s a labour of love. I long ago gave up the idea that it would be appreciated on a commercial level. Fleetwood Mac is the golden carrot and my solo work is kind of indulged by the record company.”

And, he says, unlike Nicks, the needs of Fleetwood Mac always came before his solo records. “Stevie was always able to pull back from the Fleetwood Mac machine and say ‘OK, now I’m doing my solo stuff.’ But I wasn’t in a position to do that, nor would I have felt comfortable to do that and call myself a band member – possibly because of my role as an arranger in the band.”

Indeed, Buckingham was twice poised to do albums that became Fleetwood Mac projects instead. “It happened with Tango in the Night [1987] and in 2000 with Say You Will. But this time I put my foot down and said I wanted three years when I’ll make a solo album, tour, then make another solo album.”

So after this six-week solo tour, he is due to reunite with his main band for a tour in 2009 and then possibly an album. “In Fleetwood Mac nothing is certain until you actually see it,” he notes wryly. “But it’s up to us to not shoot ourselves in the foot.” The band is still very much a “work in progress”, by which he means both emotionally and musically.

“Happily they are still part of the fabric of my life,” he says. “I’ve known Stevie since I was 17, which is something to cherish – and why it’s still worth working on getting rid of all the bulls*** between us. Because there still is after all this time, would you believe.”

Bel Air Rain, a song from Gift of Screws, looks back at the decadence of Fleetwood Mac and contrasts it with the relatively calm life he is living now. “I lived in Bel Air for a number of years as a bachelor with some crazy girlfriends. I also built a house there when I started my family. Fame is really funny, it gives you lots of freedom but then at the same time it takes away a lot of yourself.”

After all the madness, it’s good to see that he has managed to retain what made him so special in the first place.

Gift of Screws is released by Warners on Monday 15 September 2008

How Fleetwood Mac can save Obama

[too funny]

by demiowa

Fri Sep 12, 2008 at 01:25:04 PM PDT

In 1992 Bill Clinton had a secret weapon. It wasn't a stagnant economy. It wasn't an inept response to a major hurricane. It wasn't a press that treated him fairly.

It was Fleetwood Mac. In 30 seconds they reminded America about how we as a nation always move forward because we "Don't Stop Thinking About Tomorrow."

The stars have aligned again for Fleetwood Mac to save America....

demiowa's diary :: ::
Music has the ability to break down the most complicated issues into an easily understandable refrain. I believe Fleetwood Mac would once again be able to explain what is at stake in this year's election.

John McCain says Obama is Sexist.."Tell me lies"
Sarah Palin says No to Earmarks..."Tell me lies"
Palin says no the Bridge to Nowhere..."Tell me sweet little lies"
McCain says Palin is experienced..."Tell me lies"
Palin scoffs at rape kits..."Tell me lies"

By now you get the idea. If Obama doesn't want to do this, we are destined to lose. While he may have the ground game. While he may have historical indicators on his side. While he may have the enthusiasm of his historic campaign. He needs the Mac so we make sure America remembers...

Don't Stop Thinking About Tomorrow!

Gift of Screws Tour - Tour Stop #1 (Saratoga)

Lindsey Buckingham opened his Gift of Screws Tour at the Mountain Winery in Saratoga, CA on September 7th (pictured right).

20 song set:

Great Day
Love Runs Deep
Trouble
Go Insane
Tusk
I Know I'm Not Wrong
Gift of Screws
Never Going Back Again
Big Love
Shut Us Down
Under The Skin
Did You Miss Me
Come
World Turning
So Afraid
Go Your Own Way

Encore:

Second Hand News
Don't Look Down
Treason
Time Precious Time

Lindsey Buckingham Q&A

by Michael Senft - Sept. 8, 2008
The Arizona Republic

Stevie Nicks may be the most recognizable face in Fleetwood Mac, but the mad genius behind the band’s massive hits is Lindsey Buckingham. Since he and Nicks joined Mac in 1975, Buckingham has placed an indelible stamp on the group’s pop sound, from hits like Go Your Own Way to guitar workouts like I’m So Afraid and the acoustic Big Love. But right now the gifted singer-songwriter, who visits the Orpheum Theatre on Thursday, Sept. 18, is concentrating on his solo career. After his critically acclaimed 2006 album, the subdued Under the Skin, Buckingham has returned with Gift of Screws, which hits stores on Sept. 16.

We recently spoke with Buckingham about his solo career, as well as the future of Fleetwood Mac:

QUESTION: Gift of Screws seems to encapsulate your entire career into a single album. Some parts echo the sound of older Fleetwood Mac albums like Tusk or Rumours , while others have the acoustic feel of your last album, Under the Skin. Can you talk about the recording process for the disc?

ANSWER: When I did Under the Skin, I was planning on doing a bit more fuller arranged second album, although not necessarily as rocking as Gift of Screws turned out to be. I just started recording with my road band from the last tour and Gift of Screws came naturally. There are also a few tracks on it that go back a few years, like the title track and Wait for You. They were songs that I had cut with Mick Fleetwood and John MacVie that were intended for a solo album that I had planned for 2001. I looked back at some of those straggler tunes that were looking for a home and they fit perfectly. There was no method to it, but everything seemed to come together.

Q: The disc does sound remarkably cohesive considering its diverse sources.

A: Especially spanning such a long time period. I probably wouldn’t write a song like Wait for You with the mindset I have now. But even more interesting is that there are songs that are new like Love Runs Deeper that somehow reference back to familiar Fleetwood Mac songs and styles from the ’70s. And I think that’s why the record company is so excited about it as well. They liked Under the Skin but they were scratching their heads about how to market it - it’s sort of a boutique, artsy album.

Q: In the past there have been decade-long waits between your solo albums. Did the positive response to Under the Skin lead to the short period between it and Gift of Screws?

A: I was happy with the way the album turned out, as well as the response for it. The tour was one of the best experiences I had, as well. And it left us in a really positive, creative space. But there were other reasons.

The pattern in the past has been when I get started working on a solo album, Fleetwood Mac swoops in and takes the songs. It’s happened three or four times. The bulk of the songs for that planned 2001 album ended up getting turned into the last Fleetwood Mac album, Say You Will. And I don’t really object to that - I’m a member of the band and have responsibilities to the group

But this time I put a three-year boundary around my time and asked Fleetwood Mac not to come knocking. That was how I was able to get the two albums out in a relatively short time. Had I not done that in all likelihood Fleetwood Mac would’ve come in and said let’s do something.

Q: So what is the status of Fleetwood Mac right now?

A: We’re getting together in the middle of January to start rehearsals. We’re planning on doing some dates starting in April. We decided it would be better to go out and do some dates, to hang and get to know each other again, rather than just go into the studio cold. I think the mantra this time is to relax and enjoy ourselves and see what comes naturally. It will give us a chance not only to get to know each other again, but also to shoot some ideas around in anticipation of going in the studio.

Q: Is the band going for more collaborative songwriting? In the past, Mac’s albums have had the Nicks songs and the Buckingham songs, and it was easy to tell who wrote what.

A: Well I don’t think we’ve really defined it on a musical level. Right now we’re really looking at the personal level. For a long time, Stevie’s and my dynamic was somewhat guarded, but we’ve been having a lot of positive conversations lately. I can only define it on those terms. I don’t know how it will play out in the studio yet.

In the past, there have been a multitude of agendas going into every Fleetwood Mac album. The politics tend to be pretty convoluted. We want to cut through that and acknowledge that we’ve been down a rather profound road together and we do actually care about each other.