Byron Bay Writers Festival, Community Theatre, 6 August 2015
Side 1
Second-hand News ANDY GRIFFITHS
Dreams ERIK JENSEN
Don’t Stop CLARE WRIGHT
Go Your Own Way ZOHAB ZEE KHAN
Songbird EMILIE ZOEY BAKER
Side 2
The Chain HANNIE RAYSON
You Make Loving Fun MARC FENNELL
I Don’t Want To Know SEAN M WHELAN
Oh Daddy KRISSY KNEEN
Gold Dust Woman GEORGE MEGALOGENIS
This is the story of a rhythm section that took over the world. By recruiting clever songwriters, blistering lead guitarists and charismatic singers, and just keeping their heads down, drummer Mick Fleetwood and bass player John McVie managed to play in the biggest band in the world. And the whole thing was named after them, Fleetwood and Mac, and even that wasn’t their idea. And now they live on adjacent Hawaiian islands, wearing matching flat caps, looking like Eric Idle on holidays with a white-bearded John Cleese. Monty Python with mai tais. They’d enjoyed tremendous early success in Britain – they sold more records in the UK in 1969 than The Beatles and The Rolling Stones – and then they duly decamped to the US, taking with them both their winning bluesy rock and the letter “U”, which they deployed to great effect in the title of Rumours. But when they’d moved to the States a series of unfortunate incidents robbed them of guitarist after guitarist, and Mick and John faced life as a chugging back-up band for John’s wife, pianist Christine, formerly of blues group Chickenshack. That’s Christine McVie, née Perfect, which incidentally would be a brilliant name for a Chickenshack covers band, were anyone moved to form one: L&G, Née Perfect.
Meanwhile, a young American woman who was part absinthe-drenched mermaid, part panel-van mural, and a hairy-chested afro-permed ego-maniac fell in love, left their psych rock band Fritz and formed a duo, coincidentally also using their surnames to name their act: Buckingham Nicks. She sang like Janis Joplin after just the first drink, and he slept hugging his guitar. Minor critical success didn’t pay the bills and they lived in a crummy flat. One manager recommended they learn the Top 40 and play steak and lobster houses.
How did fate bring these forces together? In 1975 Mick Fleetwood was looking for a studio to record the tenth Fleetwood Mac album. The band had done well from their transatlantic relocation, but he was hoping to take it up a further notch. The owner of the studio where the Buckingham Nicks album had been recorded chose that album to show off his studio’s capabilities to the lanky Englishman. Lindsey Buckingham was coincidentally in the studios at the time, preening and sculpting his facial hair in the next studio, and they were all introduced. Just one week later the Mac’s then guitarist Bob Welch quit and Mick recalled the blistering guitar solos he’d heard played by that young Lindsey whatsisname, and summoned him to a meeting with the full Mac at a Mexican restaurant.
Stevie, just hoping for a free meal, came with him. They slid into a booth opposite the banquette with Mick, John and Christine squeezed together, as they had been most of their lives. “Join us, Lindsey,” they cooed, their gold-rimmed sunglasses reflecting their two gleaming white limos parked outside. Stevie – still dressed in a 20s flapper outfit from the themed restaurant where she was waiting tables – folded her arms and glared at Lindsey, so intensely he told Fleetwood that the two of them come as a package deal… and there and then, music history was made over cold nachos.
Just three weeks later, the newly constituted Fleetwood Mac spent some two weeks in the studio recording a mix of Christine, Stevie and Lindsey’s songs, for the new self-titled record – referred to by overexcited Mac fans as the “White Album” – and they were rolling in cash before the year was out. With the addition of the folky pop chops of Lindsey, and Stevie’s mystic warbling about Welsh witches, a group that started as an archetypal guitar virtuoso-led British blues band became an archetypal harmonies and studio-obsessed US west coast rock band… They drove their new sound right down the median strip, the epitome of middle of the road. Smooth, slick, wood-panelled… and made for loungeroom-sized stereo radios. (It’s no coincidence the band’s initials are FM.) Fleetwood Mac – now ready to hit the studio for their magnum opus – were flying high. Something had to give, and it was love.
Christine had tired of John’s drunkenness, and possibly his tiny cut-off shorts, and finally decided to end their marriage. Mick was separating from his wife, Jenny Boyd, sister of Pattie, George Harrison and Eric Clapton’s first wife. She’d had a relationship with one of the band’s earlier guitarists, and then Mick’s best mate. And the love children Stevie and Lindsey were at each other’s throats. Arguments raged, tears were shed, the bottoms of bottles were closely examined – everyone’s relationship was falling apart. So they did the only thing you could do under the circumstances. They trundled a wheelbarrow full of cocaine into a recording studio and hated on each other for months on end, until they released one of the greatest albums of all time.
The fuel for this bonfire was that they wrote the songs about each other, in an orgy of confession and therapy, and then had to look into each other’s eyes across the microphones as they sang them. Mick later said, “We spoke to each other in clipped, civil tones, while sitting in small airless studios, listening to each other’s songs about our shattered relationships.” It was said that, now-divorced, John and Christine spent six months in the studio not talking to one another, other than to say “What key is this song in?” Stevie said: “It lasted 13 months and it took every bit of inner strength we had. It was very hard on us, like being a hostage in Iran – to an extent, Lindsey was the Ayatollah.”
They’d become a big-hair soap opera in real life. Dynasty with guitars. Dallas with a felt top hat and tambourine. And so doing, they delivered the 1977 songbook of passive-aggression that is the founding document of AOR – adult-oriented radio – as they sang about making and breaking up while making and breaking up with each other.
The band were estranged, but listeners fell in love. The soft rock album shot to number one on both sides of the Atlantic, and to date has sold over 40 million copies worldwide, the 7th biggest selling album ever (just ahead of Shania Twain’s Come On Over).
And thus, the old hams, Mick and John, had done it again. There they were, up the back, tapping away at drums and bass, wearing solid gold pants and disbelieving their luck. I’m not suggesting they weren’t talented… there’s a great bit in the Classic Albums documentary about Rumours where the engineer is pulling the faders up and down on the original tapes, as they do, and he isolates John’s bassline to “Dreams”, closes his eyes and says, “Signature John McVie bass…” And it’s just, dum dum-dum, dum dum-dum. Then he brings in Mick’s drums: “...the Fleetwood Mac rhythm section…” And it’s dup, dit-dit dup. But you’ve got to hand it to Fleetwood and Mac. They live in Hawaii. And we don’t. The Thin White Coot, and his little mate Baldrick.
So time now then to rewind to 1977, the year punk spat in disco’s face as Soft Rock sidled up to them oblivious, drinking whisky and TAB cola, and said, ‘Hi guys. Have you see the stars tonight? I think they’re telling our future. D’ywanna sing about them in close harmony…?’
Toff in Town, 6 November 2011
Side 1
Second-hand News JOSH EARL
Dreams CARRIE RUDZINSKI
Never Going Back Again ALICIA SOMETIMES
Don’t Stop LAWRENCE LEUNG
Go Your Own Way EMILIE ZOEY BAKER
Songbird GEORGE DUNFORD
Side 2
The Chain CATE KENNEDY
You Make Loving Fun BEN POBJIE
I Don’t Want To Know SEAN M WHELAN
Oh Daddy EVA JOHANSEN
Gold Dust Woman OMAR MUSA
Melbourne Writers Festival, Toff in Town, 4 September 2010
Side 1
Second-hand News JOSH EARL
Dreams CLARE BOWDITCH
Never Going Back Again ALICIA SOMETIMES
Don’t Stop CHARLIE PICKERING
Go Your Own Way EMILIE ZOEY BAKER
Songbird GEORGE DUNFORD
Side 2
The Chain HANNIE RAYSON
You Make Loving Fun BEN POBJIE
I Don’t Want To Know SEAN M WHELAN
Oh Daddy EVA JOHANSEN
Gold Dust Woman OMAR MUSA