Lindsey Buckingham: C o' D?

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

kind of like the episode of the John Laroquette Show where he discovers a manuscript of his from 30 years ago and it's amazing and he's trying to recreate something new in that vein for publishing, but he can't find the inspiration, so he sends the manuscript to the publisher and it's an Ernest Hemingway novel that he had typed up for his Typing final years ago

I recall about 15 years ago I thought up a really nice, pretty arpeggiated melody over an elegant descending chord sequence

I did this once and it turned out to be "Uncle Tom's Cabin" by Warrant

rocket, rocket, all of my rocket sauce