Archive for category: Behind the Mask

“Wanna join a Fleetwood Mac tribute band endorsed by Mick Fleetwood?”

The words seemed unreal. My mind needed extra time to calculate. 40 years of Fleetwood Mac + Lindsey Buckingham fandom and now this? It was a totally surreal moment.

The next thoughts quickly flooding in were wholly dedicated to what needed to be done equipment-wise, playing-wise, vocally; each one a tall order. Since I’d been following LB and FM all these decades I had a pretty good idea about what would be needed but upon rolling up my sleeves, I quickly discovered the ‘devils in the details’.

Lindsey’s live guitar sounds are split between his electric and acoustic work. On the electric side he’s been playing a Turner Model 1 since about 1979 when Rick Turner brought a prototype to an FM rehearsal. At that point in time, Lindsey was looking for something that had both Gibson Les Paul and Fender Stratocaster qualities (both fat and bell-like tones simultaneously) and the Turner Model 1’s ultra unique design hit the nail on the head and has been used ever since. It has become an iconic part of any FM or LB show and is a huge part of LB’s live tone.

I phoned Rick with the news, and he graciously agreed to build me one to the exact 1979 prototype specs. It completely delivers and has ‘the sound’! Thanks Rick! Lindsey’s used various effects in the past but none to great depths – he likes to keep his sounds pure and simple. In the past, he’d taken the guts from his old Ampex 4-track analog tape recorder and had them modified into a stomp box he could use on stage.

Saturating tape decks became a known thing mostly thanks to The Beatles. But the Ampex 4-track guts created the most wicked fuzz tone I’ve ever heard bar none (it can be heard on the Tusk tour videos of Sisters Of The Moon, The Chain, and other songs from that tour). However, it broke eventually and he moved on. Today, he uses Boss products; the SD-1 for overdrive and DD3 for delay, and it all goes through vintage Mesa Boogie Trem-O-Verb amplifiers with 6L6 tubes.

The acoustic side is more complex. Lindsey uses Taylor 814ce steel strings (made between about 2006 and 2012) with a Fishman pickup system, Rick Tuner Renaissance acoustics, and a modified Gibson Chet Atkins nylon string guitar to perform songs like Never Going Back Again, Landslide, Big Love, Go Insane, Say Goodbye and others. Those are routed though separate acoustic guitar amps on stage. It’s a large touring rig overall and one that is a challenge to emulate.

Vocally, what can you say? Lindsey’s voice is instantly recognizable and has a wonderful tenor tone. One can see he puts his all into every note which is apparent when listening to tracks or viewing live performances. This is all to say he’s created an extensive labyrinth of sonic dynamics over the years of touring and recording that is wholly his own; a musical visionary, a renaissance man, an artist’s artist. To say it’s an honor to attempt these efforts is an understatement. And, is an ongoing journey as one would imagine, always ‘peeling the onion’, always discovering new elements he’s so adeptly hidden within the music he creates in the studio and on stage.

So the sonic quest continues onward on all fronts, and what could be a better thing to do?

For a deeper dive, see these links:

http://www.timbradleyallwrite.com/uploads/1/1/3/9/11394859/lindsey_buckingham_guitar_world_interview.pdf

Happy Reading – Christopher Zerbe (Lindsey in Fleetwood Mask)

As the new member of Fleetwood Mask, I’ve been doing a bit of historical research in addition to the musical due diligence required to learn all the songs. Perusing rollingstone.com, whose “artist” section is like a vintage shop full of decades-old articles ripe for dusting and re-evaluating, I ran across this gem: Article about Rumours on RollingStone website

It’s a routine review of a hot-off-the-presses release called Rumours by Fleetwood Mac. I would imagine that writer John Swenson received an advance copy of the album, which makes him one of a few who heard it early, and had no clue this thing on his turntable would spin into the phenomenon it is today. His take? While he rightfully sings the praises of Christine McVie and Lindsey Buckingham, he seems to miss the mark completely when it comes to Stevie Nicks, giving him a kind of blind spot regarding the album’s enduring strengths. I’d love to chat with Swenson and hear what he has to say now, forty years later.

So what did he get right? He describes Fleetwood Mac in terms of a California pop tradition that includes vocal-harmony-rich bands like the Byrds, Buffalo Springfield and the Eagles, arguing that Mac’s transition from Peter Green-era blues rock to the ’77 version was not contrived or unexpected. “The early sixties blues scene in England had as much to do with rural American folk music as the urban blues sound,” he writes, adding that Christine McVie as songwriter “moves easily into the thematic trappings of the California rock myth.” He compares her with Sandy Denny of Fairport Convention, both high praise and a compelling point. He calls Buckingham’s contribution “the major surprise” on the album, and cites the role of the acoustic guitar in “Go Your Own Way” as representing the influence of the Byrds.

The highlighting of Christine McVie is where fans of Buckingham and Nicks may take issue with the review. Not only is she the leader of the three vocalists, in Swenson’s view, but also “only (her) voice has much character.” Now I can understand calling McVie the bandleader in 1977– she claims the most writing credit on Rumours – but come on, if there’s anything one can say about Stevie Nicks’ voice it’s that it possesses a distinctive timbre in evidence going back to the Buckingham/Nicks record. Sure, it’s not for everybody, but I wouldn’t call it characterless. And Lindsey Buckingham’s vocal tone cuts glass on “Second Hand News” and “Never Going Back Again,” period.

Which brings us to this howler: “Nicks has nothing on Rumours to compare with ‘Rhiannon,’ her smash from the last album. ‘Dreams’ is a nice but fairly lightweight tune, and her nasal singing is the only weak vocal on the record.” Wait, what? Cue needle screeching on vinyl! In retrospect it’s hard not to see this statement as a first-degree pop culture commentator fail, even though Swenson could never have predicted that “Dreams” would one day be the soundtrack to a generation’s backseat-of-the-station-wagon upbringing, and sell more copies than just about any single ever.

In any case, nothing excuses his lack of even mentioning “Gold Dust Woman,” which for my money ranks among Nicks’, and Fleetwood Mac’s, greatest songs. I should point out here how daunting it was for Fleetwood Mask to try and play the whole Rumours album live because it ends with this number that, while a masterpiece, isn’t exactly a rah-rah, goodnight-everybody party anthem. Lyrically it hearkens back to that earlier British blues period, to Peter Green’s “Black Magic Woman,” but a decade on. Where Green’s spooky girlfriend was dabbling in witchcraft, Nicks’ updated version has been steeping in the seedy underbelly of the L.A. scene so long she has emerged just downright evil. Nicks doesn’t get due credit for her lyric writing; the opening couplet, “Rock on gold dust woman/Take your silver spoon and dig your grave,” is one that Pulitzer Prize winning poet Bob Dylan would be proud to call his own. It’s our entrance into a haunting piece that builds to Rumours’ ambivalent and ingenious finale, a roiling cauldron of dobro and buried screeches and Nicks chanting about shadows and dragons.

It’s too bad this was all overlooked by Swenson, who focused on the band’s “bright little three-minute singles with a hook in every chorus.” Of course those singles and the pretty California-style harmonies are a crucial part of Rumours, but so are the melancholy and darkness evident throughout. For every songbird singing there’s loneliness like a heartbeat driving you mad, and the seamless interplay between the two is what makes this record linger in the brain long after the needle has lifted from the final groove.

But that’s just my take. Read the review. What do you think?

Best, Jason