Rumours by Fleetwood Mac. Released February 4, 1977
Happy 35th anniversary to one of the greatest albums of all time, Fleetwood Mac’s “Rumours.” If you only know the music (and not the back story) of Fleetwood Mac, you are missing out on one of the most intense Rock and Roll stories of all time about one of the most dysfunctional bands in history.
Fleetwood Mac, a British Rock/Blues band was enjoying success in the late 60s when several of their members left the band. Los Angeles based couple Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham joined the group around 1975 and they released the successful self titled “Fleetwood Mac” album. During the recording of the follow up album that would become “Rumours,” Lindsey and Stevie were breaking up. Also, Fleetwood Mac’s co-lead singer Christine McVie was breaking up with FM bassist John McVie. Should we also mention that around this time, Stevie Nicks and drummer Mick Fleetwood also had an affair? The songs on this record were all written about what was going on in their lives, and that translated into mass appeal and global success.
The lyrics of most every song are jabs at their former lovers such as “When times go bad, if you can’t get enough, won’t you lay me down in the tall grass and let me do my stuff” (about Stevie’s infidelity to Lindsey on “Second Hand News”); “There you go again, you say you want your freedom, who am I to keep you down” (from Stevie to Lindsey in “Dreams,”) and “If there’s been a fool around, it’s got to be me” (from Christine McVie’s “Oh Daddy”). The album also features songs dedicated to drug addiction such as “Gold Dust Woman,” staying together as a unit in “The Chain,” and an inspiring song for the future “Don’t Stop,” and the ultimate kiss off in “Go Your Own Way.”
The book “Storms” written by Lindsey Buckingham’s girlfriend from 1977 – 1984, Carol Ann Harris begins during the Rumours tour and chronicles the massive amounts of sex, drugs, betrayal, love, abuse, rock and roll and is filled with so many juicy stories, you’ll wonder why Hollywood has not yet made a bio-pic of the Fleetwood Mac saga. I highly recommend the book as it will fill in the answers to so man unanswered questions and like I say to people with most biographies – if only one out of every ten stories are true – it’s still enough to make your head explode!
Opinions are opinions obviously, but based on some of the ignorant comments I’ve heard in regards to the singer Lana Del Rey since her weekend appearance on the TV show Saturday Night Live that I’ve heard, I thought I’d offer my two cents about Lana Del Rey. I’m only saying these words as someone who sees HUNDREDS of live acts a year. That might not qualify me as an expert in live music, but I’ll tell you one thing – for some of the shitty things I’ve heard about Lana, I certainly did not see YOU at her show and I’ve certainly not seen YOU going and checking out live music night after night to expand your musical horizons and trust me, I’d remember!
Lana Del Rey became a Youtube sensation in 2011 and based on the strength of two viral videos, many doors have opened for her. She’s gotten international exposure by appearing on many TV programs and up until now, her performances have been pretty solid. She performed two songs on Saturday Night Live, a TV show that everyone seems to say “has lost its thunder years ago,” and yet everyone seems to watch it and complain about how bad it is. So anyone that falls into that bucket, which I’ll conservatively estimate as A LOT of you, deserves to have their words discredited as ALL of the people in that bucket DO NOT STAND BEHIND THEIR WORDS! If you don’t like something, DO NOT SUPPORT IT! Please don’t support it and then complain about how bad it is (that goes for awards shows and reality TV also). It’s a double standard and anyone with half a brain (such as myself) can see right through it! Don’t “watch” train wrecks – GET OUT AND HELP because one day YOU might be on that train!
Yes, Lana Del Rey’s appearance on the TV show was nowhere near as good as her videos and was disappointing, but suddenly, the same people that watched Lana’s videos and made her an internet sensation are doing everything in their power to tear her down. If you believe what you hear on the internet, there has never been anyone ever in the history of music as bad as Lana Del Rey! That makes NO sense! Before you utter another bad word about Lana, PLEASE remember that the world has allowed someone as talentless and tone deaf as Katy Perry to break records set by someone truly talented like Michael Jackson. Please remember that the world has allowed pop auto-tune and lipsynching icons such as Britney Spears and Rihanna to be hugely successful and sell out stadiums across the world! Let’s see them perform acoustically!? It will never happen because it will expose their lack of singing talent. It will prove that they are frauds and that the world is filled with idiots who are incapable of making decisions for themselves!
It’s been avoidable to hear reports that she bought her way into stardom or slept her way to get where she is. SO BE IT if any of that is indeed true. It sure worked for Madonna and look where she is now. We’re not going to get into Madonna’s preaching to the masses about destroying your ego while she maintains one of the largest egos on the planet either, because that’s a diatribe for another day. I’m not on Lana Del Rey’s payroll, but UNLIKE YOU at this point in the game, I’ve seen her perform a full set and I found her songs to be great. Certainly she’s not the best singer in the world, but she’s certainly not the worst either. I found myself intrigued to hear more, and I think that her recent performance was an off night instead of a lack of talent as the armchair critics of the world are condemning her for. Her album will be released at the end of the month and time will tell if the old adage that all publicity is good publicity is still true in 2012.
So with that in mind, revist a live performance of “Video Games” that I recorded from a small club show in December 2011.
Conrad Murray was found guilty today of involuntary manslaughter in the death of singer Michael Jackson. Everyone around seems to be rejoicing! Not me! I am getting more disillusioned with people.
In the last two decades of Michael’s life, what was the first thing people thought about? Paedophilia. People did not separate the man from the music and it was almost a joke to enjoy his music. Whether or not he did any of the things he was accused of is besides the point. There is plenty of evidence to show that his love of children was creepy to say the least. When MJ died, suddenly, he became a saint in the public eye and everyone did a 180 on all the harshness that definitely played a role in his death. It was as if the world had a selective memory. Why didn’t people come to his rescue and celebrate his life when he was alive? It did not happen.
Michael Jackson was a drug addict. Plain and simple. Sure he went through a ton of really bad shit, both physical and verbal, that led to his addiction to drugs, but in the selective memory of the general public, people think his death was an accident! Anyone that’s experimented with drugs knows the following before they get high: every hit could be the last. The more you do drugs, the greater your chances of dying. You don’t have to be a mathematician to realize this. They in fact teach this in schools along side Economics. Heroin and/or cocaine use is often a common drug related cause of death. Have you ever heard of someone dying because they took too much Propofol, a drug so strong that it’s only given out at hospitals? That’s not an “accident,” that’s a deliberate game of Russian Roulette. By comparison, it makes the drugs that Kurt Cobain took seem like aspirin!
Conrad Murray is an unfortunate victim in the world’s need to place the blame somewhere. Convicting him will not bring Michael Jackson back. It will not make MJ less of a drug addict. It does not solve anything. It gives his family and the media and the world at large some weird since of vindication so they can continue to live in a reality tunnel that is very narrow. This is not to say that Conrad Murray was not involved in shady activities, because he was. Any doctor on MJ’s staff was paid to do as they were told, regardless of the consequences. If you buy cocaine off a drug dealer and you take it all and die, why place all of the blame on the drug dealer?! It takes two to tango, as they say. The only thing Conrad Murray is guilty of is being at the wrong place at the wrong time. If it wasn’t him, it would have been another doctor. This type of overdose was inevitable as evidenced by the fact that Jackson was taking this stuff not for a buzz but just to go to bed at night!
It makes me really nervous how the public at large seemingly forgets logic when it comes to these matters. They also forget the staunch stance they initially took and suddenly are changing their tune for no apparent reason. When George Bush dies, I really hope people realize what a fucking bastard he was and don’t sing his praises. It doesn’t matter in the case of Michael Jackson, because his life and death were way too insane not to be surrounded in chaos. What worries me is that great change is taking place in the world right now in the form of #OccupyWallStreet and the fact that the masses are starting to wake up from a deep sleep that has lasted for many generations. I hope people will remember what they stand for and not change their stance willy nilly as they have done here. Our safety is at stake and with this kind of wishy washy attitude, many people are going to die for nothing.
Please think about that while you are rejoicing tonight.
It’s not my style to talk shit, but because I am exposed to this tuna when I walk out on the street, here’s my 2 cents:
I don’t watch TV so I actually have no idea what Kim Kardashian is famous for. I am being 100% serious. From the photos I’ve seen, I assume she’s popular because she has big tits, has probably shown her pussy to the world somehow and is pumped full of collagen and has been under the knife at least once (but probably many times). What I do know is that she spent a ton of money on her wedding – 10 Million Dollars in fact. The E! Network apparently fed into it and paid $14 Million to air a special about it. The media is equally to blame for giving her ANY air time, but that’s the society we live in. Put it on TV and people will watch. Why doesn’t someone just video tape a big pile of dog shit and put that on the air. I’d personally rather look at that for 30 minutes. It would probably smell better too.
In a time when it’s been made abundantly clear that homosexual marriage is not happening across the board any time soon, how dare this waste of a human life have the nerve to announce her divorce 72 days into her marriage?! If you don’t want to make gay marriage legal, fine. Why don’t they make divorce illegal? If you make a dumb decision – tough shit! Think it through next time. That would put an end to all this crap once and for all.
Of course I personally think the idea of marriage IN ANY WAY is absolutely ridiculous – tradition or not – because the second you put a label on an infinite concept such as “love,” you’ve just made it finite, but that’s a discussion for another time.
Back to Kim Kardashian. I am going to have to be exposed to hearing about her so much now, and believe me, I try SO hard not to look at or listen to mainstream media, but when you live in a walking city such as New York, you cannot help it. I resent a person that could have easily spent less on herself (when we are talking millions for a 1 day event) and donated the money to people, charities, groups that could have really used that money. People like Kim Kardashian are actually making the world worse! And anyone that supports them is enabling their bad behavior to continue!
Though people will give the excuse that they watch her TV program because “it’s like a train wreck,” that is the LAMEST excuse in the book. I personally think that watching a train-wreck hurts my heart and I don’t want any part of it. That’s the only way these people will lose their sponsorships – DON’T SUPPORT THEM IN ANY WAY. Don’t read websites that mention these types of people on a regular basis. Don’t buy magazines that feature these people and don’t waste your valuable time and money by paying to see these people on the big or small screen. The only way for this to work is a 100% total boycott of offenders. Any support you give these outlets is the approval they need to continue. Change starts with you!
Peru Ana Ana Peru has been X’ed out! There’s a site reference to PeruAnaWTF.com but it appears that perhaps this is all a joke. One thing that is not a joke is a growing sense of hostility within the street art community. Both in person and on-line, I’ve been seeing lots of capping going on. For those not so immersed in the world of street art, this means an artist is covering up the work of another artist. The reasons for capping vary – sometimes they are personal, sometimes they are done in retaliation, and sometimes there’s no rhyme or reason for it. Of course, this kind of thing is going to happen whether I offer my two cents or not, but I would just like to let logic be my guide for a quick second and offer the following observation:
The street art community is pretty small. An unfortunate fact of street art is that authorities will do whatever they can to silence and suppress artists from leaving their work in public places (sometimes for good reason and sometimes not). It is what it is. With all that negativity from the authorities and law enforcement, it seems silly to me that the street art community wouldn’t want to put aside petty differences and look out for each other instead of sabotaging a fellow artists’ work. Let me just point out that some of the greatest art of all time has been the result of a nasty squabble with someone else and the genius often lies with the outlet the artist chooses to express it.
Take my advice or not, but please – save your issues for the magazine rack and keep the drama on the silver screen!
I’m a lover, not a fighter (and I can provide references from satisfied customers that demonstrate I am a damn good one too).
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