As a Single LP 2: Fleetwood Mac, Tusk

A recurrence of a segment! Other than Dave's parody, that is. I do have a number of these truncated albums stored as Spotify playlists, but they each need a bit of backstory. (If only someone would abridge Whitney's backstory like he does the music...) So let's dig into the next one. 

Artist: Fleetwood Mac

Album: Tusk

Released: October 12, 1979

Length: 1 hour, 14 minutes

Vinyl Discs: 2

Backstory: By now, the saga of Fleetwood Mac is well-worn, overly-trod ground. But what a story is theirs! It really has it all... short of a murder, perhaps. 

On the surface, the Mac story is simply:

• Blues band forms in London in '67 
• Named after drummer Mick Fleetwood and bassist John McVie

• 

  The orig

  Some records, some repute, a couple of surprise hits 
  
• Founder/leader Peter Green departs three years later
• Blues no longer, pop all the way
• Additions, subtractions; Bob Welch and Mac's wife sustain them
• Some records, some repute, a couple of pop hits
• More lineup changes and disarray, until...
• Lindsey and Stevie join the band in 1975!
• The rest is pop history.

Oh, wait. That's when it got really crazy. Chart-toppers, international stardom, millions upon  millions of dollars, cocaine, drama, bad breakups within the two intra-band couples, cocaine, in-fighting, resignations, expulsions, cocaine, affairs within and without the band, time off, comebacks, everyone banging everyone, and cocaine. And that's the tip of the iceberg.

One year ago, Apple Original Films announced that there was a Fleetwood Mac documentary in development. One of those "definitive" ones. Seminal. All that. [Not a single piece of news on that rock doc in the year since. Oh well. My guess is that the loony Mac-ers make any such endeavor... difficult. ] But we shall see. Until then, you have this. 

One story about Fleetwood Mac:

• 2 weeks into their 1973 tour, the band found out that guitarist Bob Weston was sleeping with Mick Fleetwood's wife Jenny Boyd.
• Jenny Boyd's sister is Pattie Boyd, George Harrison's former wife. George wrote "Something" and other songs about her. 
• ...but Eric Clapton, one of his best friends, was in love with her and wrote "Layla" about her. 
• She eventually left the Quiet Beatle for Slowhand, and he wrote "Wonderful Tonight" about her. 
• Can anyone claim to have more rock hits written about them? What a muse. 
• The '73 US tour was immediately cancelled whilst in Lincoln, NE. And it wasn't just that Weston was sacked; the band was done. With a couple of dozen tour dates unfulfilled. 
• Then... amazingly... Mac manager Clifford Davis "claimed that he owned the name 'Fleetwood Mac' and the right to choose the band members." And so he threw together a band of randos to go out and play Fleetwood Mac songs at those shows. 
• That lasted... not very long.
• Fleetwood and the Macs had to sue to play as Fleetwood Mac. Took a year to settle. This strikes me as even more insane than when John Fogerty was sued for sounding too much like himself. 
• That lawsuit debacle gave them time to clear their heads and forced them to relocate to California. Which led to the intro of Mick Fleetwood and Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks... as highlighted in the music doc Sound City. Reviewed expertly here. 

Another story about Fleetwood Mac:

• 
  During this Tusk era, the band was partying so hard that when Christine McVie started dating Beach Boy Dennis Wilson -- a partier legendary on this plant and maybe several others -- those close to Wilson later said that the extreme coke life that FMac had going on trampolined him into a next-level state that continued until his terrible wasteful and sad demise in 1983. If you can one-up a friggin' Beach Boy with your drug habit... Jesus, man. 
  
• #shouldabeenmike

So... Tusk. 1975, the renewed Fleetwood Mac lineup comes out with an eponymously titled record. Massive hit. Two years later, after the romantic implosions could've ripped the band apart actually made them creative wellsprings, Rumours. Which made the prior album look like a Random Idiots release. There are big hits and then there is this one.

As sober as 1977 got

Two more years of touring, cashing checks, and Tony Montana facedives, but then it's time for a new album. How do you follow-up a megasmash?

By basically fucking off and dicking around in the studio and having little splintered factions of the full band get together here and there! 

For other acts, this would be catastrophic, but when you are a band of ace songwriters and seasoned players at the top of their game... even a misstep sells 4 million copies and has some good shit on it. 

It was certainly categorically rougher than the smewthe mewsic on Rumours. And it lacked the catchiest of melodies and wicked sharp FU heartbreak lyrics. But mainly, it was just too damn long. You try to rein in a band that just sold 10 million copies with their last go at it. Double album it is!

There were stories about using studio trash cans as percussion instruments and such. And tracks rough-cut at home studios, then brought into the fancy digs and... kept pretty much as is. There was a sense of being more new wave and... well, not punk, but with a somewhat punk DIY approach. (As much as this band could muster that.) Plus band members generally hung over or messed up all the while, and a plethora of guests stopping by, and the usual madness when a high-profile rock and roll band does anything. 

Tusk era... yikes

But they pulled off what is mostly an unsung but worthy effort. Give it a listen... as reduced to a single LP!

My story: My folks didn't have Tusk in the record collection, the one I raided routinely from 1982-1988 (and later inherited). The self-titled and Rumours, of course. But I never heard this sprawling set back then. 

In college, you got access to exponentially more music, and freshman year someone lent our buddy Hightower Tusk on CD. (Let's face it, he "borrowed" it and still has it somewhere.) With the aid of Milwaukee's Best, we blared the title track ad nauseum on the hall. The story of the USC marching band at Dodger Stadium was phenomenal. (Check out Stevie's baton twirling.)

Fast forward to 2003. Camper van Beethoven had just reunited after a decade of dormancy (and Cracker spawning), an event worthy of saluting with my attendance at a couple of their live shows. Soon thereafter, a new CD of theirs appeared on shelves... Tusk. A note for note rendering of Camper van playing the Mac. Weird. 

(The liner notes said they'd uncovered the tapes from a snowed-in weekend in 1986. Not true, it turned out -- this was done when they got together in 2002 to bone up on their CvB tunes after reforming and just went ahead and did this. Weirder.)

I bought it, predictably. Oh, the disposable income back then. It's a mess, but fun, sort of. Kind of. I mean, it's Lowery belting out the Buckingham./Nicks/McVie lyrics without the benefit of their vocal prowess and strewn together instrumentation. It's reasonably cool. 

And most importantly, it made me go back and dig into the original for the first time. Like Mikey, I liked it! But it was long and sprawling. Not cohesive and taut. 

What if, though...?

   

Last rec: as always, listen to it loud. 

Fleetwood Mac, Tusk on One Record

Side A (22:08)

1. The Ledge 

This is my second-favorite rock song called "The Ledge," I really dig this loose sound. This is not the high-production gloss of the Mac that you hear on albums that immediately preceded or followed Tusk. It is layered only with Lindsey Buckingham's madness. He got rid of everyone else's takes at his song and kept his home studio output on all instruments and vocals. Well, the official lineup on this song is: 

    Lindsey Buckingham – guitars, bass, drums, lead and backing vocals

    Mick Fleetwood – possible snare drum

Awesome. Punkish rock anti-pop and the perfect way to start this insane record. 

2. Think About Me

Veering right back into the expected F-Mac production... albeit with a wee touch of muscle and some cool Christine McVie lyrics. She is missed.   

3. Sara

Now this sounds like Fleetwood Mac. Stevie lilting over Lindsey's electric and acoustics. Some ethereal back vox. A song either about Nicks' baby with Don Henley that never was, or her best friend Sara who slept with Mick Fleetwood while Stevie was doing the same. Either way, it's the one real hit from this mess of a release.

4. That's All for Everyone

Yep, everyone. Well, not everyone -- Buckingham was responsible for lead and backing vocals, electric guitars, charango, kalimba, additional bass guitar, piano, drums, and percussion. The rest of his mates chimed in where they could. It's the "fun" in "dysfunctional."

5. I Know I'm Not Wrong

This one didn't even have the trimmings of Stevie, Christine, John, or Mick helping out. LB plays everything, including harmonica. And yet with a chorus: "Don't blame me / Please be strong / I know I'm not wrong." Effffff you guys. No song was ever more Lindsey Buckingham.  

6. Sisters of the Moon

We will round out our Side A with some more Stevie. A haunting little number thanks to her crooning and Lindsey's Strat work. A good tune released as an unsuccessful single. (A theme.)

Side B (18:44)

1. What Makes You Think You're the One

We'll start the second side of the record just like we did the first. Loose and rude Lindsey B. Tusk producer Ken Caillat claims that Buckingham took aim at his ex-lover in this song and "imitated Stevie's distinctive vibrato, giving it a bleating, goat-like quality, and her rudimentary piano quality, which he knew made her self conscious." Not very nice. 

2. Over & Over 

Again, we slide back into the lovely Christine. Silky. This song led off the double-album Tusk. What a head fake. I won't do that to listeners!

3. Not That Funny

Wait. Wait a minute. Is this Lindsey Buckingham singing "Don't blame me" yet again?? In not even a distant cousin relative of "I Know I'm Not Wrong," but more of a half-sister kind of way? Unreal. Apparently someone felt like a pariah in 1979. This amuses me greatly. 

4. Walk a Thin Line

A much sweeter sound than lyric. According to Wikipedia, "Walk a Thin Line" was inspired by a Charlie Watts drum fill on "Sway", from the Rolling Stones album Sticky Fingers. This drum fill caught Buckingham's interest, and he intended to feature the part on one of his Tusk songs. Now ya know. 

5. Tusk

This is one of my favorite rock songs of all time, just for the pure fun of it. A great album closer. Should've been, now it is. 

Enjoy.