Tuesday, May 13, 2014

Night of 1,000 Stevies, the 24th incarnation of the largest Nicks fan event in the world



Night of 1,000 Stevies: Originality Reigns Supreme
By R. Kurt Osenlund

Stevie Nicks remains the key inspiration of her largest fan event, but the diversity of its talent and turnout proves you can be her disciple and still go your own way.

Tambourines were tossed from the stage into a decadent crowd of hundreds, and ample black shawls were available for sale, but Stevie Nicks’s trademark accessories were hardly a requirement at last Friday’s Night of 1,000 Stevies, the 24th incarnation of the largest Nicks fan event in the world. Held at New York’s Irving Plaza, its sixth—and grandest—venue, the mystical affair attracted fans and performers who each found a way to uniquely channel Fleetwood Mac’s witchy woman.

Continue to the full review at OUT.com

Check out the photos from the event

Here's one of the videos produced for the event... Really well done.

Monday, May 12, 2014

Album Chart Update: Fleetwood Mac


Fleetwood Mac albums on the charts in North America, UK, Ireland and Australia. (Previous week in parenthesis)

UK - May 17, 2014
TOP 100 ALBUMS CHART
# 99 (86) Fleetwood Mac - The Very Best Of

TOP 40 CATALOGUE ALBUMS CHART
# 25 (21) Fleetwood Mac - Rumours

U.S.A. -  Chart date May 17, 2014
TOP 50 CATALOGUE ALBUMS CHART
# 46 (50) Fleetwood Mac - The Very Best Of Fleetwood Mac

CANADA - Chart date May 4, 2014
TOP 150 CATALOGUE CHART
# 36 (33) Fleetwood Mac - Rumours
# 100 (101) Fleetwood Mac - Greatest Hits

IRELAND - May 8, 2014
TOP 100 ALBUMS CHART
# 67 (63)  Fleetwood Mac - The Very Best Of

AUSTRALIA - May 12, 2014
TOP 100 ALBUMS CHART
# 70 (32) Fleetwood Mac - The Very Best Of

TOP 50 CATALOGUE ALBUMS CHART
#  6 (3)   Fleetwood Mac - The Very Best Of
# 32 (R/E) Fleetwood Mac - 25 Years The Chain [box set]

TOP 40 MUSIC DVD CHART
# 18 (10) Sound City - Real To Reel (features Lindsey, Stevie and Mick)

Friday, May 09, 2014

Photos: Lindsey Buckingham spotted in the studio with Empire Of The Sun

"spent the day with one of my heroes Lindsay Buckingham.
I wish all superstars were this cool."
Lindsey in the studio with Peter Mayes and Empire Of The Sun?

Not sure what this is all about... The only info is that the colour photo is from May 8th and the black and white photo is from May 9th. Posted to Peter Mayes instagram account.

Peter Mayes is an Australian musician and producer widely known for being a leading member of dance act Pnau. He is longtime collaborator with Nick Littlemore and has produced and mixed many of his projects, most notably the platinum selling album Walking on a Dream, for Empire of the Sun, and the art-rock act Teenager. He has also done work with Elton John, Mika, Karen O, The Killers, Ellie Goulding, Sia, ESG, Lover Lover and Van She.

"Lindsay Buckingham in the studio again today"

"Happy Times with Lindsay Buckingham and Empire of the Sun"

"Lindsey Buckingham , Will Buckingham , Empire of the Sun and @mosessumney"
Photo: Nick Littlemore


Thursday, May 08, 2014

AUDIO: Christine McVie describes the NEW Fleetwood Mac Sound

While fans have been buzzing about the return of Christine McVie for a tour this fall, most of Fleetwood Mac has quietly been in a Los Angeles studio working on new material.

Here's a short clip of Christine describing the sounds Fleetwood Mac are producing:
 
"There's a whole variety of songs, starting from sort of blues-based songs to very commercial songs, really. It's very, very exciting and very, very...I don't know. We get chills when we hear them."


Buckingham says the group worked on about eight songs -- whose titles include "Carnival Begin," "Red Sun" and "Too Far Gone" -- and also has material he, bassist John McVie and drummer Mick Fleetwood worked on prior to last year's Fleetwood Mac tours of North America and Europe. Stevie Nicks will also be making contributions, he says, but there are no firm release plans yet:



"There was never really any intention to try and finish this album and put it out to promote on this particular tour that we're about to embark upon because we all felt that maybe the smart call was to go out and have the novelty of Christine being back in the band be the cleaner and more to-the-point place to start, and so to go out and just re-include her songs in the body of work and have that be pretty much the presentation of that set seemed to be the right thing to do, and then to come back and when we're done with that (tour) and finish this up with Stevie, who has...assured us she will be ready to do that then. And then we'll have something to gout and promote with some new music. So it becomes sort of a long-term plan, so we're all very excited about that."

Wednesday, May 07, 2014

Press Release: 2014 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Ceremony Feat. Stevie Nicks Debuts May 31st on HBO

2014 ROCK AND ROLL HALL OF FAME INDUCTION CEREMONY,
DEBUTING MAY 31, BRINGS AN ALL-STAR MUSIC NIGHT TO HBO
Inductees Are Nirvana, The E Street Band, Daryl Hall & John Oates, Peter Gabriel, Linda Ronstadt, Cat Stevens, KISS, Brian Epstein And Andrew Loog Oldham

Nirvana, The E Street Band, Daryl Hall & John Oates, Peter Gabriel, Linda Ronstadt, Cat Stevens and KISS are the performer inductees, and Brian Epstein and Andrew Loog Oldham are the non-performer inductees, in the exclusive HBO special 2014 ROCK AND ROLL HALL OF FAME INDUCTION CEREMONY, debuting SATURDAY, MAY 31 (8:00-11:15 p.m. ET/PT). This year’s ceremony featured an impressive array of guests, including Bruce Springsteen, Lorde, Chris Martin, Carrie Underwood, Stevie Nicks, Glenn Frey, Sheryl Crow, Tom Morello, St. Vincent, Joan Jett, Bonnie Raitt, Emmylou Harris, Kim Gordon, Michael Stipe, Questlove, Youssou N’Dour, Art Garfunkel and Peter Asher.

Other HBO playdates: 
June 04 (9:00 p.m.),
June 07 (4:45 p.m.),
June 10 (2:30 p.m., 4:15 a.m.),
June 16 (5:15 p.m., 2:00 a.m.),
June 22 (8:45 a.m.),
June 27 (1:45 p.m.)
June 30 (8:15 a.m.)

HBO2 playdates: 
June 03  (11:00 p.m.),
June 06  (9:00 p.m.),
June 08  (2:45 p.m.),
June 11 (8:00 a.m., 9:00 p.m.),
June 19 (4:45 p.m.),
June 24 (11:45 a.m.)
June 29 (8:45 a.m.)

The 29th annual induction ceremony took place April 10 at Brooklyn’s Barclays Center, marking the first time the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony has been held in Brooklyn. The HBO special features some of the biggest names in music in celebratory reunions, rousing tributes and heartfelt speeches from both presenters and inductees.


The HBO special features:  Performer Category

Peter Gabriel
Induction: Chris Martin
Performance: Peter Gabriel and Chris Martin perform “Washing of the Water.” Youssou N’Dour joins Gabriel for an uplifting performance of “In Your Eyes.”

Linda Ronstadt
Induction: Glenn Frey
Performance: Carrie Underwood begins with Ronstadt’s “Different Drum.” Bonnie Raitt and Emmylou Harris join her for a sultry “Blue Bayou,” adding Sheryl Crow for “You’re No Good” and Stevie Nicks for “It’s So Easy.” The supergroup closes with a rousing “When Will I Be Loved?”

Continue below for more:


via Billboard Fleetwood Mac Revives Chemistry In Studio: 'We Get Chills,' Says Christine McVie

Fleetwood Mac Revives Chemistry In Studio: 'We Get Chills,' Says Christine McVie

By Gary Graff
Source: Billboard

Lindsey Buckingham and Christine McVie talk about collaborating ahead of the band's upcoming tour. "We've been working very closely together, so there is a freshness"

It appears that Christine McVie will be returning to Fleetwood Mac to do more than play some old songs in concert. The group -- sans Stevie Nicks, who was busy with "some other commitments," according to Lindsey Buckingham -- has just finished a nearly two-month run in Studio D at the Village Recorder in Los Angeles, where Fleetwood Mac made 1979's "Tusk" album, working on a batch of new songs by McVie and Buckingham.

"This has kind of been a project in slow motion, that's the only way I can put it," Buckingham tells Billboard. "We got in the studio not knowing what to expect, and the chemistry was just unbelievable... We got eight tracks very far along, like, 75 percent done. It just played out really organically in a way that seemed appropriate." Buckingham says the new songs came from ideas McVie brought into the band, and coupled with material he worked on previously with Mick Fleetwood and John McVie, the group has "about 14 or 15 things, and some other things we want to get to down the line" even before Nicks begins making contributions. 

"We're all very excited about it. Knowing me, I'm going to be pushing for a double album," Buckingham says with a laugh.

Describing the new songs -- which include "Carnival Begin," "Red Sun" and "Too Far Gone" -- McVie says, "There's a wide variety, starting from sort of blues-based songs to very commercial songs. It's very, very exciting. We get chills when we hear them. They sound really fresh. There's an element, I guess, that hasn't really existed so much in the past although it has been there in the fact Lindsey and I have been collaborating more. We've been working very closely together, so there is a freshness and obviously there are parts for Stevie to sing on all of these songs, which she will do eventually."

When the rest of the world hears them remains up in the air, however. Fleetwood Mac released a four-song digital EP in April of 2013, and Buckingham and McVie say they don't expect to have a new album ready before the group's upcoming tour starts September 30 in Minneapolis.

"We haven't finished what we've done here," McVie explains. "these are just tracks with some overdubs, and they're certainly not finished. I go back to England now until the beginning of rehearsals, which is the end of July, and then we're rehearsing and then we're touring, so we won't really have time to (finish the songs). There's some talk about some time next year. Fleetwood Mac always take a long time to make a record -- you know what."

Buckingham concurs, though he acknowledges that there may be a bit of clamor for the new music once word of the sessions leaks out, which may effect the timetable for the material's release. "We want to plant some seeds of awareness about what we're doing," he says. "We won't want to pretend it doesn't exist. We're very proud of it, and we do want to get the word out. But we'll have to see how much clamor there is by the time we get into rehearsal and we have some time to let these seeds grow and see what kind of interest there is. That may inform our decisions one way or the other."

Buckingham, meanwhile, says he's particularly stoked that making new music is part of McVie's return after a 16-year absence. "It just took on a life of its own for sure," he says. "For years I was telling everybody, 'Y'know, she'll never be in the band again. She's gone.' I really believed that. But right now the whole thing has really got such a circular feel to it. And if you're talking about one more act for this play or whatever you want to call it, I can't think of a better way to do it." 

Fleetwood Mac formally announced McVie's return in January after she joined the group on stage in London last September. McVie -- who released one solo album, 2004's "In the Meantime," during the interim but mostly spent her time as "a retired lady of leisure with the Range Rover and the Dogs" in rural England -- has gone through therapy to overcome a fear of flying that was one of the reasons he left the group. And she promises that she's back in Fleetwood Mac "for perpetuity, yeah. For as long as I'm around. I'm here. I'm committed." And she adds that returning to the studio with the group was like getting back on the proverbial bike.  

"I thought I was going to get nervous coming in the studio, but it's felt very easy and natural," she says. "Before I got to L.A. Lindsey and I had been ping-ponging ideas on computers and that; I'd send him my very, very rough, funky demos and he made some kind of sense out of them and sent them back to me with him playing guitar and they started to turn into really lovely ideas. I really missed playing with them and the chemistry of it all and started to really, really desire to start doing something again, and the only people I could think of that I would have any desire to do anything with would be them, Fleetwood Mac."