Thursday, January 31, 2013

REVIEW + Q&A with Mick Fleetwood on Fleetwood Mac "Rumours" via @uncutmagazine


The game-changing ’70s AOR blockbuster turns 35 with a super deluxe boxset
by Piers Martin
Uncut

“Times were a lot crazier then – anything was possible. Budgets were not important and doing drugs was the norm. In the mid-’70s there was a sense that you could do no wrong.” So said an eyeliner’d Lindsey Buckingham, reminiscing in the 1997 Classic Albums documentary on the making of the ultimate classic album, Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours. Thirty-six years after its release – and with more than 40 million copies sold (so far) in at least 80 official international editions – you would imagine that every last drop, every demo, druggy anecdote and hazy recollection, has been squeezed out of one of the biggest records of all time, the eighth best-selling LP in history. You’d assume that anything worthwhile that could add to the enjoyment and understanding of Rumours must have surfaced by now. For a start, Mac completists and even fairweather fans will already have the 2004 2CD reissue that came with a full set of rough mixes and outtakes from those fabled album sessions at the Record Plant in Sausalito, just north of San Francisco. Worryingly, that same disc is included in this “super-deluxe” 4CD+DVD+LP boxset – a package designed to celebrate the album’s 35th anniversary but which actually turns up, as if stoned, the following year.

Like Star Wars or Snickers, there’s never really a bad time to reissue Rumours. Sooner or later everyone finds a way in to it – or looks for a way out, if your parents raised you on Rumours and Tusk in the ’80s. It’s the evergreen baby boomer blockbuster that eased Bill Clinton into the White House and now finds itself a post-ironic hipster lifestyle accessory; Florence Welch, for one, is an eternal student of Stevie Nicks’ cosmic witchcraft. Today, 45 years after they formed, Fleetwood Mac’s twilight period – commencing with 2003’s reunion for Say You Will and drifting through two further “reunions” for world tours, including one this year – has lasted far longer than the band’s vital, late-’60s incarnation.

And it’s all because Rumours is as near perfect an album as anyone will ever make, and its lurid backstory of emotional turmoil and narcotic excess, endlessly recounted in prurient detail, is never less than fascinating. Though short on wildly revelatory material, this boxset ties up a number of loose ends from 1976-’77, focusing on the period when the Mac set about recording the follow-up to ’75’s Fleetwood Mac, a surprise US No.1 and the first album made by the group’s new line-up after fate had parachuted in two young Californian dreamers, Buckingham and Nicks, in late ’74 to rescue Mick Fleetwood’s rudderless British blues outfit.

The chemistry between the five was immediately apparent. Now there were three distinctive songwriters in the group, Buckingham, Nicks and Christine McVie, who would also complement each other in harmony. Buckingham, the firebrand guitarist and craftsman, began to develop an intuitive musical partnership with McVie on piano that started with “World Turning” and led to them fleshing out McVie’s Rumours cuts such as “You Make Loving Fun”. His lover Nicks cast her spell with “Rhiannon” and “Landslide”. John McVie and Fleetwood, solid but soft, glued it all together.

UK Interview: Mick Fleetwood on Magic 105.4 Magic Breakfast Friday AM TUNE IN!

Mick Fleetwood Scheduled UK Media Appearances

Mick Fleetwood is on a UK Media Blitz next week.
With the 'Rumours' re-issue being released on Monday in the UK - Micks headed over to support the release with a round of interviews and press.  So far he'll be appearing on one TV program and one radio program, there will likely be more.

Rumour has it he'll also be picking up and old friend to bring back to Hawaii for a visit.


MAGIC 105.4FM (Feb 1st)
Mick Fleetwood will be on Magic Breakfast tomorrow morning! He'll be talking about the Rumours re-issue and Fleetwood Mac's 2013 World Tour! (What's interesting about this, is that Magic 105.4 was the station in the UK last weekend that initially posted the 4 UK tour dates along with a contest to win tickets (which they've subsequently taken down).  Maybe Mick will have some good news for the UK tomorrow Morning! Listen Live HERE


The Alan Titchmarsh Show - Friday, February 1st (3-4pm)
The host is joined by Mick Fleetwood, the drummer and co-founder of Fleetwood Mac, and Great British Bake Off judge Paul Hollywood for another edition of the programme featuring music and chat.
The Alan Titchmarsh Show on ITV, STV, UTV  the STV Player will have the show on-line if you miss it

Top Gear - Episode 2 "Reasonably Priced Car" Feb 3rd (BBC 2)
The brand new series of the world's most popular car show continues with an epic road trip across the western side of the United States in three front-engined supercars. With Jeremy Clarkson in a Lexus LFA, Richard Hammond driving the new Dodge Viper and James May choosing the latest Aston Martin Vanquish a glorious soundtrack is guaranteed, as are furious arguments about which is best as the trio head from Las Vegas to Los Angeles and on to Palm Springs. Along the way, the three presenters take in racing circuits, airborne attacks and a race against the police before making a break for the Mexican border with a terrifying penalty for the last car to make it. Meanwhile, back in the studio, legendary Fleetwood Mac drummer Mick Fleetwood is the star in the Reasonably Priced Car.
BBC 2 - Sunday, February 3rd at 20:00

Be sure to catch these interviews... Hopefully Mick will give listeners more details on Fleetwood Mac in the UK and maybe Europe as well... Plus a more definite timetable.


BBC Radio 2 - Monday, January 28th  (2-5pm)
Jo Whiley sits in for Steve Wright in the afternoon on BBC Two, Mick Fleetwood joins Jo along with gardener Monty Don. Re-listen the program on the BBC iplayer here.  Micks bit starts about 36 minutes in.
BBC Radio 2 


The One Show - January 28th 7pm (BBC One)
With guests Cockney comedian Micky Flanagan and Fleetwood Mac's Mick Fleetwood. If you miss the show and you are in the UK, check the iplayer for the repeat.  If you are in the UK you can check out his interview here

Photo by Phillip J Holmes



Wednesday, January 30, 2013

WIN Fleetwood Mac 'Rumours' Expanded Edition from Popdose

WIN EXPANDED EDITION OF RUMOURS
Who doesn’t love Rumours? (The “iconic Fleetwood Mac album” kind, not the “Jeff Giles‘ wedding song was Rod Stewart’s ‘Love Touch’” variety.) This week, Warner Bros. reissued the greatest pop/rock album recorded while its members were enduring painful romantic splits with each other – a triple-disc affair featuring Rumours and non-LP B-side “Silver Springs” on one disc, another disc of live cuts from the band’s ensuing tour and a third disc of demos, early takes and other studio ephemera loosed from the vault for the first time. (None of the songs on that disc featured on the bonus disc from a different expanded edition in 2004, so there’s much less guilt than usual to be had about double-dipping!)


To add this nice little package to your collection, it’s simple! 
Send esteemed Popdose Editor Dave Lifton an e-mail at davelifton@gmail.com with the subject line “Lindsey Buckingham’s Open-Collared Shirts” and provide your best theory as to why the Mac’s iconic 63-year-old guitarist is still able to get away with such an outré fashion choice.

Review: Fleetwood Mac 'Rumours' 41/2 Stars (out of 5)

Album of the week: Fleetwood Mac's Rumours
36 years on, 40 million people can’t be wrong
Herald Sun
By Cameron Adams
★★★★1/2 Stars (out of 5)

ALBUM OF THE WEEK: Rumours is one of those albums where you know every song. Even if you think you don't, they've crept in by soft rock radio osmosis.

The band work on Mac time, so this 35th anniversary reissue actually arrives 36 years after the album was released in February 1977.

Rumours - already in 40 million homes - is one of the most complete albums in history and was fuelled by class A harmonies, class A drugs and beautiful music being made in studios and bedrooms between band members.

The vaults have been raided for more unreleased demos to show rock classics as works in progress. Lindsay Buckingham sniffles his way through an early take on Second Hand News with mumbled vocals and a runny nose and there's Go Your Own Way with lyrics - and vocals - that were yet to be polished. Buckingham says "That was good" at the end - he clearly hadn't heard his flat vocals back yet.

An early demo of Stevie Nicks' timeless Dreams manages to be acoustic but also intense. The album was so strong gems such as Nicks' Planets Of the Universe were left off - she'd later finish it and release it in 2001. "Did you get that? It wasn't wonderful or anything," Nicks says at the end of this demo. She's wrong. Her early Gold Dust Woman rocks too.

There's Christine McVie's Keep Me There (once called Butter Cookie) which ended up being an album highlight and The Chain (a Nicks solo version of which is a find here).

One of McVie's songs that did make the album (and made the album), Songbird is here in simple demo form - it'd be honed vocally later to become a soundtrack to weddings for decades to come. There's also an instrumental Songbird for Mac trainspotters' karaoke competitions.

Deluxe versions have a warts-and-all, un-airbrushed live concert from 1977 (check out Rhiannon), which captures a band who really loved each other flying high in their prime.

In stores in Australia - Friday, February 1st.

Fleetwood Mac Live in Spokane, WA June 29th - Pre-Sale begins 10am Thursday

TicketWest Pre-Sale for Fleetwood Mac Live in Spokane, WA begins Thursday January 31st.

Code is RUMOURS and tickets begin selling for this pre-sale at 10am local time.  Use this link here.

There is currently an American Express Pre-sale running. American Express Preferred Seating Presale: please enter the number on the back of your card without any dashes, click here

Here's a detailed seating chart

Spokane ticket prices are amazingly low and amazingly all over the place ranging from $27.50 for the Upper Bowl High Ends to $125.5 for Front Floor.

Public on Sale February 2, 2013

High Praise For Fleetwood Mac's song "Tusk" from @TheAVClub


Fleetwood Mac’s strangely savage “Tusk” was the band’s weirdest hit

In Hear This, A.V. Club writers sing the praises of songs they know well—some inspired by a weekly theme and some not, but always songs worth hearing.

For most of Fleetwood Mac’s life, the band has been a hits machine, and it used that reputation to propel a singularly weird song—one vastly different from its usual output—into the Billboard top 10 in 1979. “Tusk,” which is featured prominently and often in the première of FX’s The Americans tonight, is a work of strange savagery, overlaid with jungle sounds and a thudding, endlessly repetitive drum riff that drives everything that happens in the song. The lyrics are simple enough to be a Dr. Seuss exploration of a relationship that’s crumbling, Lindsey Buckingham softly crooning “Why don’t you ask him if he going to stay? / Why don’t you ask him if he’s going away?” over the horrors building up beneath him.

Continue to the full article

Mick Fleetwood Interview TODAY 2pm on Planet Rock UK #Fleetwoodmac


Tune in at 2pm to PLANET ROCK - Join Darren Redick on his show TODAY when he'll be interviewing drummer and band-namesake Mick Fleetwood.

They will be discussing the Rumours reissue, fear and loathing within the band (Mick's words, not ours), the upcoming tour and the possibility of Christine McVie returning to the band.

LISTEN LIVE HERE

updated 1/30 5pm:  Not sure if anyone caught Mick's interview this afternoon in the UK (early morning in North America, but regarding Christine McVie's visit with him in Hawaii, he was bringing her back to Hawaii for a 3 week visit and that she hasn't been back there in 25 years so he was looking forward to spending quality time with her.

See Which Fleetwood Mac's Tracks Are The UK's Most Downloaded


35th Anniversary Of Fleetwood Mac's Rumours Headed For UK Top 10
Contact Music
35 years after it first became a UK number one, Fleetwood Mac’s classic album Rumours is on the right path to re-entering the UK Top 10. 

A statement from the Official Charts Company today (January 29, 2013) read “35 years after it first went to Number 1, Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours is set to re-enter the Official Albums Chart Top 10 this Sunday. Rumours is not only one of the Top 20 biggest selling albums of all time, it is also the most charted album in British history, spending a staggering 493 weeks on the Official Albums Chart.”

Fleetwood Mac’s Top 10 most downloaded tracks in the UK
The Official Charts
Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours looks set to re-enter the Official Albums Chart Top 10 this Sunday, 35 years after if first reached Number 1 in the UK. To celebrate, OfficialCharts.com reveal the band’s Top 10 most downloaded tracks of all time.  Check them out here

Looking back on Fleetwood Mac's 'Rumours' more than 35 years later  
A new deluxe set drills deep on the classic album
By Melinda Newman
Hitfix

Fleetwood Mac’s “Rumours” came out in 1977, before the internet and tabloid TV.  Instead, all we had to do was listen to the lyrics to get all the drama.  The album, which celebrates its 35th anniversary  (one year late) with today’s release of a four-CD deluxe edition, chronicled the break-ups of three relationships: singer Stevie Nicks and guitarist Lindsey Buckingham were splitting after seven years together, keyboardist/singer Christine McVie and hubby/bassist John McVie had just divorced. Drummer Mick Fleetwood’s marriage to wife Jenny, who was not in the band, was unraveling, in part because she was having an affair with his best friend.
Full Article at HITFIX

Fleetwood Mac To Play UK Shows in Autumn 2013
Mick Fleetwood gives indictation of live plans - which will miss UK festival season
by Michael Baggs
Gigwise

Fleetwood Mac confirm UK shows for September
Digital Spy
by Lewis Corner
Mick Fleetwood revealed that the reformed band will travel to the UK in September, as well as releasing new material online within the coming months.

Fleetwood Mac confirm UK visit for September
Live4ever
Mick Fleetwood has confirmed Fleetwood Mac will be in the UK this September after the completion of a long run of North American tour dates.

“We’re doing a big world tour that starts in April,” Mick Fleetwood has told BBC 6Music. “We’re coming here in September, October and maybe a bit longer. We’re doing a lot of work here so we are coming.”

Tuesday, January 29, 2013

[Pics] Tonight in LA - Lady Antebellum with Stevie Nicks - CMT's Crossroads Taping

Lady Antebellum Joins Forces with Stevie Nicks for "CMT Crossroads" Taping in Culver City, CA

Here are some early shots from the night thanks to attendees, their smarty phones, Instagram and Twitter:  Photos by: Kate OHare, Deva Kehoe, Kristen Kee, Leah Ashley - Thanks ladies!

Lady Antebellum taped their CMT Crossroads performance with Stevie Nicks Tuesday night in Los Angeles 
The show will premiere in the coming months.  While in town for the taping, Lady A is also getting some serious hang time with the rock legend.

The group's Charles Kelley says, "She invited us to her house one night.  So, we're gonna go hang out with her at her house, which I'm gonna die."

It was actually Stevie's idea to do the CMT Crossroads with Lady Antebellum, and they all hopped on a conference call a few weeks back to prepare the show.  The members of Lady A were floored that Stevie is a big fan of their music.  Hillary Scott , who is expecting her first child in July, was very taken with Stevie's spirit in that call.

"I joked, and I'm kind of not kidding, with my husband when I got home after the phone call, I said, 'I really kinda want her to be the honorary godmother of our child,'" Hillary says with a laughs.  "She was just this amazing presence and person to talk to."

Charles cut his musical teeth on Stevie's classic album with her band Fleetwood Mac , Rumours .  He discovered the LP in his parents' record collection, and Charles says, "I just was like, 'Oh my gosh.  Who in the world are these guys?'  Just played it over and over in my room."

Charles adds that performing this show with Stevie Nicks is a real full circle moment for him.  We'll keep you posted when CMT announces an airdate for this installment of Crossroads .






Stevie Nicks and Lady Antebellum Team for 'Crossroads' Taping
Ten-song set includes Fleetwood Mac and solo hits

By Steve Baltin
January 30, 2013

When rock icon Stevie Nicks and country trio Lady Antebellum convened at L.A.'s Sony Pictures Studios Tuesday to tape an upcoming episode of CMT's Crossroads, the most excited people in the room of a thousand or so were clearly Nicks and the Nashville trio.

In fact, it was hard to tell who was the bigger fan, with both consistently praising the other's work. It started from the very outset: after Nicks apologized for flubbing the opening lines of Lady Antebellum's "Love Don't Live Here," Charles Kelley let her know all was forgiven by shouting "Stevie Fucking Nicks!"

100 Greatest Singers: Stevie Nicks

Though no one in the audience seemed to mind starting off with five Lady Antebellum songs, Kelley commented at least three times on the format: "You're gonna have to suffer through a few Lady A songs first," he joked.

Nicks certainly did not mind. She told the audience she spent three months listening to the band's songs in preparation for this show. "These songs are amazing," she said. "These songs make you feel like you're in love."

Her biggest praise came for the new ballad "Golden," a song that Kelley explained is on their forthcoming album, which they sent to Nicks in hope of doing it on this night. She said that after a half a minute of listening to the song she was crying. She called it "their 'Landslide.'" To which Kelley responded, "Now we might cry."

When a piano was rolled out, while Kelley was tinkering around with Billy Joel's "New York State of Mind," Nicks hung over the piano. "This is every man's fantasy – Stevie Nicks draped over a piano," he said. "I would like a picture of this."

After Nicks left the stage for the upbeat "Downtown," she and her band returned for her turn. Kelley let everyone know the cultural significance of these songs by introducing "Gold Dust Woman": "If you don't know this next song, you suck."

Swept up in the night, Kelley had several humorous moments, from his attempt at the trademark Nicks twirl to recounting listening to Fleetwood Mac records in his bedroom at age 10. "Now we're hanging out. We're besties," he quipped.

Maybe they're not besties yet, though Nicks did tell the audience she had gifts backstage for Lady Antebellum's pregnant frontwoman, Hillary Scott. "Edge of Seventeen," one of her biggest solo hits, is a song she doesn't like to share with anybody because it is so personal, she said.

"I'm proud to share it with Lady Antebellum, because they're good enough to do it," she said.

Nicks took the time to recall the stories behind each of her songs, like how she wrote "Landslide" in Aspen, Colorado in 1973 and how she felt "a twinge of something, that this song is gonna be super-important in my life." She called it "the foundation of Fleetwood Mac," while Kelley called it "the greatest song ever." After a sublime rendition, Scott said, "Makes me cry every time."

Before a raucous "Stop Dragging My Heart Around," a song she originally performed with Tom Petty, Nicks told of producer Jimmy Iovine's insistence on finding a single for her debut solo album, Bella Donna. If it hadn't been for that demand, she said, she might not have had a solo career. She learned a lesson, she said, about listening to others and not letting pride get in the way. To which Kelly added, "Every person at our label has a huge smile right now." So did everyone in the venue by the time they finished "Rhiannon."

Set list:
"Love Don't Live Here
"Need You Now"
"Golden
"Cold As Stone"
"Just A Kiss
"Downtown"
"Gold Dust Woman
"Landslide"
"Edge Of Seventeen"
"Stop Dragging My Heart Around
"Rhiannon"


Photos by John Shearer






Mick Fleetwood has a feeling Christine McVie will sing live with band in UK

Rumours from past retold, revealing how the magic unfolded
The Sydney Morning Herald
January 30, 2013

We ALL know that history, or indeed any life, turns on seemingly random moments of fate. Take the way Fleetwood Mac went from a moderately successful blues-based band from Britain to the quintessence of California pop rock in the mid-’70s.

There are various factors that could be said to have influenced the band’s destiny, from the break down of one guitarist and religious weirdness of another, to the alcoholism of a third. But one key moment was the decision by drummer and co-founder, Mick Fleetwood, to drop in on a friend at Sound City studio in San Fernando Valley, in late 1974.

That night Fleetwood listened to tracks from an upcoming album by an unknown and unsuccessful duo, the photogenic couple Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks. While it took weeks and another band disintegration for the idea to germinate, by year’s end the two Americans were part of Fleetwood Mac, alongside the expat Brits, Fleetwood, John McVie and keyboardist Christine McVie.

The remastered and expanded version of Fleetwood Mac’s 1977 album, Rumours, will be released this week. From his home in Hawaii, Fleetwood is pondering the nature of fate, but also the nature of a group that rode its fate further than any could have predicted.

Yes, he concedes the band’s third or even fourth life could be seen as having ‘‘unfolded as God’s plan’’ but there is another way to look at it: this was a band suited to evolution and revolution.

‘‘We wouldn’t conform to a formula or have to have someone play like [original guitar star] Peter Green or a rock’n’roller who could get in front of an audience and do X, Y and Z,’’ Fleetwood says. ‘‘Maybe that’s how we started but we were the types of people who would allow other people to express themselves freely within the framework of a band that happened to be called Fleetwood Mac. That’s why that magic unfolded.’’

It was magic powered by Fleetwood and McVie but driven by three singer-songwriters – Buckingham, Nicks and Christine McVie – who were creatively peaking at the same time. While Buckingham and Nicks – whose collapsing relationship was a central lyrical and emotional catalyst in the writing for Rumours – garnered the bulk of attention then, and in the 35 years since, it is also true that McVie’s best songs (also addressing the end of her marriage and the start of another relationship) are at least their equal, if not superior.

Fleetwood remembers that even as one of three ‘‘leads’’, the former Christine Perfect preferred to see herself as part of the rhythm section. ‘‘In truth, Christine had more famous songs than any of us but she stood behind the piano and wasn’t outspoken.’’

His affection for someone he describes as ‘‘a sister’’ is strong, regularly referring to how essential she remains to the fabric of Fleetwood Mac, some 14 years since she left the band.

‘‘The lovely thing about looking back on Rumours and the albums we made, as accessible as they seemed to be and were, there is a darkness to them and there is an emotive sadness often which allowed our music not to become saccharine,’’ Fleetwood says.

‘‘As happy and upbeat as Christine would get in her song writing, you look back at the catalogue of her songs – and Lindsey’s and Stevie’s – there is a darkness and sadness. Something that makes it feel real, like the blues well delivered. That became Christine’s legacy.’’

A legacy and a role that is not entirely in the past tense it seems. Fleetwood reveals that during a coming visit to Britain, where McVie nowlives, he will push her to honour a recent promise to travel back with him to Hawaii. It means she will be in town at the same time the band will be in rehearsal for their next tour.

‘‘Of course my fantasy is that she’ll write some lovely song that at some point can go on an album, and I’m really hoping that when we perform in London this time she’ll grab hold of the courage to come up and sing with us,’’ Fleetwood says. ‘‘And I’ve got a feeling that she will.’’

Rumours remastered is out on Friday in Australia.

Photos: Mick Fleetwood Arriving at the BBC & Alan Titchmarsh Show

Mick Fleetwood Arriving at the BBC in London on January 29th
For Interviews on the Rumours re-release


Mick arriving at ITV Studios for the Alan Titchmarsh Show
(More below)

John Courage, is to reveal behind-the-scenes stories from Fleetwood Mac Tours

John Courage (far right)
Former tour manager - John Courage - to give unique insight into Fleetwood Mac
The former Fleetwood Mac tour manager, John Courage, is to reveal behind-the-scenes stories from the band’s tours at a special event at a record shop. The tour manager worked with the band for more than 30 years and helped guide them through their solo ventures. He will be recounting his experiences at the Betterdaze Record and Juke Box in Northallerton on Saturday, March 2. Tickets are £5 each and can be bought directly from the shop on Zetland Street, or from its second outlet at the Hand Picked Hall in Ripon. Alternatively email better.daze@virgin.net or call 01609-773475 for tickets and information.

Darlington & Stockton Times

Well... I hope he's tactful!