Lindsey Buckingham: C o' D?

Pretty awesome - outstanding job Alfred!

thanks all!

I've noticed that cheap concert tickets have been surprisingly easy to come by in NYC. It must be COVID that's impacting the demand but I took a risk on Buckingham's show tonight as the side areas were pretty empty and I found a pair on the outer edge that someone wanted to unload for about half their face value after fees. Excellent, excellent show, I've never seen a performer of this level more happy and grateful to be on a stage. Only downside was hearing some misogynist douchebag yelling an insult about Stevie Nicks.

haha "swan song" has breakbeats!

something really funny about him getting into late 90s drum loops 25 years late

"Power Down" is my jam.

Marc Maron interview with him: http://www.wtfpod.com/podcast/episode-1248-lindsey-buckingham?fbclid=IwAR3BOMbdMsY4IDy6fm11Z0Wrr33M1w3oPYYA68ForYAtHPfeQFieyLQyuqY

Snarky remarks on the Kirwan-Welch period, what he calls "the non-sequitur" years.

i.e the best ever

I concur with everyone, great album, first half in particular. On first listen I thought it might be feel like there were FM ghosts on it, that I'd want to hear these songs played by them, but that didn't wind up being the case.

he's got every play in the manipulative abuser handbook down pat

https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/lindsey-buckingham-suggests-stevie-nicks-still-in-love-with-him-fleetwood-mac-191258119.html

“I Don’t Mind” is pretty undeniable. It’s also pretty clearly a track he wrote for FM – the background vocal oohs and flutters are tailor-made for Nicks and McVie.

As for him getting the boot from FM, my theory has been that Nicks came to the realization post-MeToo that she shouldn’t live with an unrepentant abuser in her life any longer, no matter how good the music they make together is. Her recent statement pretty much does nothing to dispel that theory.

Based on re-reading this thread and Alfred’s appreciation for it, I listened to Out of the Cradle this am and was … not super moved by it. For one, despite being 48 minutes it feels like 70, with all the interludes and whatnot. A lot of the tracks sort of bleed together as well – with fuzzy, aggressively fingerpicked guitars, similar tempos and a very early 90’s production polish. It feels like a record that took five years to finish. All that said, I think it’s a decent record – but it lacks the hooks and production zigzags of a Go Insane.

A few other things:

1) The “Lindsey only goes back to FM bc he is unjustly ignored as a solo artist” argument feels wrong footed. Despite the fact that most of his records aren’t particularly commercial (see above), he’s had a handful of hits (“Trouble,” “Go Insane”) and doesn’t seem to lack for label support. Per the “his best solo stuff seems to have Mick on it” comment above, it does feel like his best solo material would have made great Mac tracks – from the whole first side of Go Insane to “I Don’t Mind” on his self-titled this year.

2) To that point, the Buckingham McVie record has some pretty fun FM moments on it – “Sleeping Around the Corner” is fucking great (the fuzz bass from John is great). The documentary about the making of it is kind of hilarious bullshit in light of Lindsey getting canned a year later. Anyway, they probably should have just made this a FM record without Stevie and called it Say You Won’t.

3) Some of the commentary upthread about Stevie not wanting to record new music seems critical. I am pretty on record as saying Lindsey seems like a horrible person (kudos to Alfred for tucking in the abuse stuff to his review in Pitchfork). But when you get beyond what a bunch of overgrown children all of the members are, Stevie’s series of actions toward Lindsey really does feel consistent with that of an abuse survivor: feelings of codependency (relying on him—or other collaborators—for arranging her work), a guilty sense of comfort within the confines of abuse (touring and recording together because it pays the bills described upthread), a last straw that brings all those feelings to a head (being mocked while she spoke at an awards show). It’s hard for me to see it any other way.

finally listened and new album is impressive

though there's definitely backing vocals (autotuned?) stuff where it's clear it should have been fleetwood mac songs and those parts were meant for stevie or christine

I don’t believe the background vox are so much “autotuned” as sampled, manipulated and sequenced into little melodies. He’s been doing this on most of his records since the mid-80s – and it’s probably most heavily featured on Tango In the Night, where I gather everybody (okay, mostly Stevie) was so drugged out it was the only way he could get them on the record.

it should have been fleetwood mac songs and those parts were meant for stevie or christine

But wasn't this record completed (as a solo album) before he was kicked out of the band? I'm sure he feels he can do Fleetwood Mac on his own anyway(except maybe for the drumming).

But wasn't this record completed (as a solo album) before he was kicked out of the band? I'm sure he feels he can do Fleetwood Mac on his own anyway(except maybe for the drumming).

That's what I heard. I went through his solo records and I would go with Out of the Cradle and the new self-titled album as his two best and most fully-realized albums. More than the others, they both sound like they could've been Fleetwood Mac albums, or at least a "modern" continuation of the 1975 Fleetwood Mac LP and Rumours. I wouldn't say that's why they're the best - there's quite a few solo cuts that I like which don't sound like that - but it does make them more accessible as a whole, and it's possible making something more accessible means making something more cohesive and even from end-to-end.

Yeah, this album has supposedly been done for 4 years. I want to say his songs from his original unreleased "Gift of Screws" were more or less identical to the ones from that album that ended up on "Say You Will."

Yeah, it looks like (afaict) four tracks from the then-unreleased "Gift of Screws" ended up on "Say You Will" more or less unchanged, and two or three were released on that album with "additional overdubs."

Josh, what do you think of the original Gift of Screws? Great lost album or at least Buckingham's best?

I'll be honest, I've never really listened to it too much, not as an album, mostly because just about everything associated with it ended up on another album anyway, more or less.

He finished this album in 2017.

I don’t believe the background vox are so much “autotuned” as sampled, manipulated and sequenced into little melodies.

Otm. He's a master at this.

pic.twitter.com/6BM5o0vy2F

— SNL Hosts Introducing the Musical Guest (@snlhostsintro) October 10, 2021

COBURN!

L Buckz a lil keyed up…

https://videopress.com/v/nyhChSvF

like neil young in crazy horse mode but the backing band is actually tight.

That performance reminds me that "Trouble" is built on the same two-chord progression and the same tempo as "Dreams". This can't have escaped him, I wonder if it was an intentional statement: "See what I can do with this pattern!"

Yeah, or "See what I can do with this cocaine!"

Better quality:

https://vimeo.com/442118162

Plus even bigger coke energy:

https://vimeo.com/442118899

xxpost They're not the same chords at all, though, are they?

That performance reminds me that "Trouble" is built on the same two-chord progression and the same tempo as "Dreams". This can't have escaped him, I wonder if it was an intentional statement: "See what I can do with this pattern!"

― Halfway there but for you,

Well observed

https://vimeo.com/442118899

Ah, the power of coke! Man, if would've unnerved the shit out of me if he was making the same crazed faces at the show I went to.

It's hard to tell from the mix, but it sounds like he tweaked "Bwana" into a Chuck Berry-style rocker - probably would've been better if the studio version was like that.

I tend not to credit coke with Buckingham's flights of fancy. He was by all accounts a rather unhinged guy in the studio without drugs.

OTOH these performances were on SNL in '81, so I wouldn't rule out cocaine being involved in this particular case.

Actually '82: https://bronwynjoan.com/blog/2010/09/12/classic-snl-review-february-6-1982-james-coburn-lindsey-buckingham-the-cholos-s07e11

Buckingham's backing band is mentioned in the montage as "The Cholos"; this is actually an early version of Mick Fleetwood's Zoo, who would appear without Buckingham in November 1983. Most episode guides list just Fleetwood with Buckingham on this appearance, but they also mention Buckingham in the 1983 show. Perhaps the confusion comes from this appearance.

...

Buckingham seems pretty twitchy and agitated in these performances, almost as if he were on cocaine.

Apparently "Bwana" was the first song!

He also seems kinda ... puffy.

in the studio without drugs

According to the making-of-Tusk book, no Buckingham-focussed session could begin without a multiple-joint-rolling ceremony.

I read that too in the memoir by the ex.

I don't credit coke with Buckingham's creativity, but it's hard NOT to credit it to his physical behavior in those clips. That could've been the template for the coke-up werewolf (sans fur) on Late Night with Conan O'Brien.

Anyway, on another topic, I have to say I'm really digging his new album more and more. I'm tempted to say it's his most listenable album, partly because it's so compact and well-crafted - only 36 and a half minutes, but not a moment is wasted IMHO.

Techie interview in the latest Tape Op magazine is great.

I was excited for it, and they do their best, but it's quite remarkable how hard it seems to steer Bucky away from the same old stories/drama.

tape op has the best interviews imo

"i don't mind" is nice

I dunno. I found that Larry Crane (Tape Op head and interviewer) expertly steered it away from a potential rundown of how dysfunctional things got in FM yadda yadda back to righteous talk of home studios, consoles and production techniques. They seemed to vibe well and I'm glad, for one, that most of the talk stuck to studio stuff.

Oh, it's definitely a good interview! Crane did the best he could steering the conversation in interesting directions, even when Bucky dangled out the familiar drama as bait. I wish there was time/space for an even deeper dive, because I'd love to know about his work with the Fairlight, with pitch shifting vocals, speeding his guitar up, and so on. Or why he's done so relatively little production for others.

ilx-adjacent musician brad laner wrote swan song on the new record! https://www.spin.com/2021/11/jordon-zadorozny-brad-laner-lindsey-buckingham-swan-song/?fbclid=IwAR3URcrasLJ7D_1jES0lb-u_x-PU4kVoSDJ71kICDTbrrbOD0q5uXgM8qA8

LMAO, a lot of times you'll see a longtime musician like Dylan, McCartney or Prince discuss decades later how they amaze themselves when they look back at their work (i.e. "where did this come from?" or "how did I write this?") It's funny how this plays out with Buckingham stumbling on a demo he recorded 20 years ago and whoops, I guess I DIDN'T write that!

I have to imagine this sort of thing is a common occurrence amongst songwriters. I recall about 15 years ago I thought up a really nice, pretty arpeggiated melody over an elegant descending chord sequence - I was in the shower at the time but thought it was so good I threw on a towel, jumped out, and wrote down the chords and recorded myself singing the melody so I wouldn't forget it by the time I was dried off. Around the time I was working out the lyrics a few weeks later, I heard "my" song playing on the piped-in music at a McDonalds I occasionally stopped at on the way home, then realized the song I thought I'd written was something i merely heard at a previous fast-food stop when I wasn't paying much attention. To this day I don't know what song I unintentionally almost copped; this was pre-Shazam.

Greil Marcus really likes the new album too. He's always been a huge FM fan (of the Peter Green era, of Christine McVie's songs, and of the Buckingham/Nicks-era), but IIRC he's never cared much for their solo work. A search of his complete Real Life Rock Top 10 albums reveals no entries on anything Buckingham's done on his own.

Top 10 columns, not albums