50 great things about Fleetwood Mac's "Tusk"

94. but never have I been a blue corn seed

a bit anxious abt self-promoting here, but i just started a blog to celebrate the lost art of the live album, and kicked it off with an essay on the Mac's 1980 live album, from the Tusk tour. http://thefoghatprinciple.wordpress.com/2011/10/23/fleetwood-mac-live/
pls be gentle

Snnniiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiff...

http://thefoghatprinciple.files.wordpress.com/2011/10/mickfleetwood2.jpg

http://thefoghatprinciple.files.wordpress.com/2011/10/mickfleetwood2.jpg

http://content8.flixster.com/photo/10/88/33/10883326_ori.jpg

but never have I been a blue corn seed

first time I heard Tusk, I replayed "Sara" over and over and got really stoned, and so possibly I was too-affected when "Storms" came on but I was a total mess and then I thought this was the line, and got really confused about how that image fit, and then gave up, rationalizing it as Stevie Nicks.

I just found out today from Wikipedia that Peter Green made an uncredited appearance on Brown Eyes.

found a 7" of Tusk (the song) at the Goodwill today, just had to buy it. Picture sleeve and everything. Sounded great, gotta be one of the top five "what were they thinking making that the single" moments.

I dunno, it makes total sense to me, and it sounded great on the radio too.

The solo on 'Brown Eyes' sounds totally Peter Green and wonderful. The problem is it only starts at 4:07 and fades out immediately. It's maybe the most perverse move on the whole record. The instrumental passage in the middle I can't even work out how much is guitar and how much is Rhodes - mostly the latter I think, though there's some Green in there too.

piano/voice demo of "sisters of the moon":

http://youtu.be/lTvWfP2uizE

when someone finally makes the fleetwood mac biopic, how about casting adam scott as lindsey?

http://batlyrics.com/v_images/album/3/26/32674/lindsey_buckingham-out_of_the_cradle-big.jpg

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-f2S1FRaEcvI/Tj8hyViZZhI/AAAAAAAAMPU/0d0UwvYPdk4/s1600/amd+scott.jpg

I'd rather Glenn Howerton from It's Always Sunny, who not only looks more like Lindsey but has the added bonus of coming across as kind of an asshole.

i can sorta see the resemblence, but i hate "always sunny" so i refuse to acknowledge it.

Woah, that demo is fabulous. Her timing sounds so strange at first, poking about with two fingers. If it wasn't about an actual witch, like if the witchery was a metaphor for something, that song would be justly recognised as a total classic.

That New Pornographers cover of "Think About Me" ... I dunno. I respect them for trying something different with it, but a lot of what I like about the original is lost. Dulli did a better job re-imagining "What Makes You Think You're the One."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ypI7CXuoLo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rnBA1IYvS9A&feature=related

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TZADfWJKxYQ&feature=related

Those are both amazing, thanks - 1927 bathrooms!

So just occurred to me ... is the titular "tusk" a drug reference? Like, if someone is doing a bunch of coke, and they leave behind a streak of white - a tusk - sticking out their nose?

iirc, it was Mick Fleetwood's slang term for the male genitalia

I like Josh's explanation better, although jon's probably correct. I've never really known what to do with it contextually, although I really like the anguished/ravenous shouting. More like Where the Wild Things Are than the Muppet Show really.

http://beniceartfriends.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/where-the-wild-things-are-ii-maurice-sendak.jpg

l-r lindsey, mick, stevie

iirc, it was Mick Fleetwood's slang term for the male genitalia

There should be an entry in the "Pieces of Pop Trivia (that are 100% false)" thread about how the album and song were originally called "Penis" and that the switch to Mick's slang term happened only because of objections from Warner Bros., who threatened to lock the master tape of the track away in the same vault they threw the "Rape of Christ" sequence of The Devils into.

Lol, I never heard about it originally being called Penis, just read somewhere about the genesis of Mick's "tusk" thing.

I don't know if Grisso made that story up just now but I think it's not true.

note: "Pieces of Pop Trivia (that are 100% false)" per This Thread

The massive sea of humming harmonies in the middle of 'That's All For Everyone'...

95. The bit in "Sara" where she sings "He was undoing/Undoing/Undoing the laces" into the tape echo right before the mix dries out again is all-time.

Oh, duh, of course Nathan Fake's "Undoing The Laces" in a Fleetwood Mac reference; will have to play it next to Justus Köhncke's "Albatross" one day.

Enjoying the Crystal Ark's cover of Tusk, though I still wish there was some sort of Tom Moulton-esque 12" version of the original floating around.

Oh, duh, /of course/ Nathan Fake's "Undoing The Laces" in a Fleetwood Mac reference

They really need to get around to making a Classic Albums documentary of this. I know that Rumours has one already, and that there was a great documentary on Tusk at the time of its release, but I'd really like to hear the real in-depth hindsight perspective on Tusk from the members themselves. The 'Don't Stop' and 'Rock Family Trees' shows on Fleetwood Mac's whole career were both great, but they didn't really go as far into THIS era of the band as I feel they could have done. I still think there's a hell of a lot for them to talk about in regards to this album, and I still think there's shitloads of archive footage of the recording process that we haven't seen. Wouldn't it be great to see Ken Caillat in the studio, isolating the harmonies on 'Walk A Thin Line' or 'That's All For Everyone'?

from the RS cover story:

In a private plane that's passing through a storm somewhere over the Rocky Mountains, Lindsey Buckingham, Richard Dashut and I are discussing Talking Heads' Fear of Music, an album they both like a lot. Across the table, John McVie cringes when he hears the words New Wave. "Is that punk rock?" he asks, feigning horror, then slumps over and pretends to sleep. Buckingham and Dashut have never seen Talking Heads perform, so I am trying to describe what the band is like. The lead singer has spasms onstage, I explain, and the bass player and the drummer are married to each other. McVie wakes up. "Did you say married to each other? You mean, this band has a man and wife, a couple in it?" There is a long, irony-charged silence. In the back of the cabin, Stevie Nicks and Christine McVie are wrapped in blankets, asleep. The plane engines drone. McVie takes a sip of his drink and mumbles something.

"Oh. We ought t

Marcello gets to Tusk.

Every time I read a paragraph of that I felt like I must have missed a paragraph. I'll have to give it another shot later.

I fucking love this album.

^Me fucking too.

I deeply love Rumours, but its beauty has a self-sufficient, perfected quality that can verge on stifling. Tusk brings air, space, and even a dose of ugliness to the table, and this makes the FM universe a much much bigger place for us all to live in. It was an unnecessary experiment, and all the more necessary for that.

Also, I contend that "Over and Over", over time, repeated listens, stretched across the decades, slowly but surely exerts itself as the greatest album opener ever.

Sorry if I sound pretentious. I haven't figured out how to write about things that make me weep.

Disc 1 of the Tusk reissue is the only CD in my car. I usually take the bus, but I'll drive my car once per week to keep it in running condition. I get through the whole album about every 1.5 weeks. It's a bit remarkable that they reissued this on vinyl for $40. You can easily find used copies in record stores for <$10.

Is it actual reissue vinyl, or did Warners merely stumble into a warehouse full of New/Old Stock and was like "Ka-Ching!"?

I believe it is a reissue. The year says 2012, and the vinyl is 140g. That's a weird weight, but I'm guessing it's still heavier than the original pressings.

iirc, they did half-speed remasters of Rumours and the s/t for a recent rsd, but didn't hear about anything re:Tusk. I'd still like to think there's a distributor out there sitting on a load of unsold copies of Tusk, I'm In You and Captain Fantastic.

I doubt Marcello will be getting to I'm In You anytime soon.

That's a nice essay, I reckon it gets somewhere near the heart of things.

version of Over and Over on the Mac's AMAZING 1980 live album contains my favourite Buckingham guitar solo of all time

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gDql-ykPZ-8

gorgeous version; thank you stevie.

I see there's a big box set version of "Rumours" coming out in the new year, 4 cds, dvd and vinyl - the cds are the album, the 2004 extras disc, another disc of out-takes and a live show, the dvd is the Rosebud documentary (sorry, no idea what that is but the report I read said it was "legendary"). Wonder if they'll do a similar box for "Tusk"?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2vrNtkC6rU0

Rosebud contains this incredible outdoor afternoon performance. If there's any more footage from this show I may die of joy. A tracklisting I've seen suggests it goes: World Turning, Rhiannon, Say You Love Me, Go Your Own Way, You Make Loving Fun, I'm So Afraid; but whether the other five are performances I do not know.

I'm fairly sure Rhiannon will be, actually - iirc I've seen a couple of seconds of Stevie singing it outdoors, maybe on Behind The Music.