Future Games

Fleetwood Mac - "Future Games" (1971) - Reprise

Hello Friends,

What a weird fucking band Fleetwood Mac is!

Starting out a blues-based rock band that sounded like a slightly more psychedelic version of the Yardbirds and winding up as one of the biggest, most radio-friendly soft rock juggernauts of all time, there's still stuff we're discovering by the band that we've never heard before and it knocks our socks off!

First off, let's take a look at the band line-up circa 1971.  Mainstays John McVie & Mick Fleetwood are present and accounted for.  Founding member Peter Green is long gone--physically and mentally at this point-- as is his "replacement", Jeremy Spencer.  Taking up the lead guitar and frontman duties is "long time" member, Danny Kirwan.

Future Games would be the first Mac LP to feature Christine McVie as a full-fledged member (although she does appear on 1970's remarkable, Kiln House) as well as guitarist-songwriter, Bob Welch, who would take over frontman duties on the next four records as well!


McVie would write and sing two songs on the record: "Morning Rain"-- a song that screams early 70's FM Radio-- and the LP's closer, "Show Me A Smile"-- a pretty & sweet sounding denouement that sounds a lot like early Wings.

The album's lone instrumental, the bluesy "What A Shame" is credited to all five members.

Bob Welch would write the album's AMAZING Floydian title track/epic, as well as Side Two's rocker, "Lay It All Down."

Fucking-A, right?

Kirwan contributes the trippy seafaring-themed, "Woman of 1000 Years", and the pensively-melodic, "Sands of Time", as well as the Burritos-sounding, "Sometimes".  

Fleetwood Mac now had three songwriters with distinctive voices who could all write catchy hooks and killer melodies and who helped usher in the "middle" era of Fleetwood Mac's convoluted career.  An era where song composition became paramount, harmonies became more important than guitar solos and moods got mellowed.  If the Peter Green-era was like The Yardbirds-on-Acid and the Buckingham-Nicks-era was fueled by massive amounts of cocaine, this period of the band was their pot-smoking phase: mellow, warm, hazy and never in a rush!

Smoke 'em if you got 'em kids! 

RATING: 4 real rhymes or reasons for those future games out of 5 

Movie Night: Sound City (2013)

Hello Friends,

Grab your popcorn and pull up a stool, its Movie Night again on Vinyl in the Valley!

Tonight we're watching Sound City, a 2013 documentary about the legendary recording studio in Van Nuys, California.

Directed by Dave Grohl, the documentary tells the story of the rise and fall (and rise again, sort of) of the seminal rock & roll studio that in its heyday produced some of rock's greatest acts including Fleetwood Mac, Cheap Trick, Tom Petty, Nirvana, Neil Young, Elton John, The Dead, Nine Inch Nails, Dio, Slayer, Tool and Rick Springfield to name a few!  

Grohl spends the first two-thirds of his film on the history of the studio, the artists who performed there, and the legendary music created there.  The last third of the film shows Grohl restoring the Studio's one-of-a-kind NEVE 8028 analog mixing console in his private studio (Studio 606) and inviting various musicians who have recorded at the original Studio City over to jam.  

These are some of the best scenes in the movie.  Its a lot of fun to see Grohl and friends write & record with the likes of Stevie Nicks, Rick Springfield, Lee Ving, Josh Homme, Trent Reznor and (especially) Paul McCartney.

In recent years, digital music has really put the screws on more tradtional, analog recording methods.  A song recorded and mixed on a lap top using Pro-Tools regularly becomes a top-selling hit.  Thunderous drums have been largely replaced by heavily-programmed machines; crisp and delicate vocal tracks have been supplanted by Autotune.

Of course, here on "Vinyl in the Valley", we're always suckers for nostalgia and (generally speaking) we prefer the sound and feel of analog over anything digital. We like our music like we like our women: a little rough around the edges, with charming flaws and full of tiny little mistakes.  Give us the crackle and pop of listening to vinyl over the electric hum of a spinning Compact disc (or, worse, the souless silent processing of an mp3). 

As Grohl ponders in his film, "How do we get music to sound like people?"  Agreed!

We give Sound City two cocktail glasses up! 

We'll see you next time, friends, until then the Tiki Bar is closed*.  

(* not really)

Kiln House

Fleetwood Mac - "Kiln House" (1970) - Reprise Records

Hello Friends,

Kiln House is Fleetwood Mac's fourth LP and first of the 1970's, a decade which they would eventually dominate.   The album is more evidence that early Fleetwood Mac is one of the most underappreciated and overlooked bands of the late 60's and early 70's.

Kiln House is a transitional album for the Mac.  Its their first without founding member Peter Green, who left the band in May 1970 to pursue a solo career, drop lots of acid and slowly start going cuckoo-bananas.  Guitarists Jeremy Spencer and Danny Kirwan pick up most of the songwriting and lead vocal duties.  This would be Spencer's last gig with the band and soon after the album's release Christine McVie (née Christine Perfect) would become a full-fledged member.  (In addition to some piano parts and background vocals, McVie would also be responsible for the album's cover art!)  This would also be the last Mac album before the Bob Welch-era of the band. 

Confused?  You probably should be!  Its a more complicated family tree than a "best of" episode of The Maury Show!

To add to the charm and confusion, Kiln House has blues and early Rock & Roll in its foundation but nearly every song has a different sound and feel to it, making it sound more like a mix tape and less like a cohesive LP.  Although, one thing that it absolutely doesn't sound like is the more pop-oriented Fleetwood Mac sound that would follow.

• The album kicks off with Jeremy Spencer's rockabilly shuffle, "This Is The Rock" which sounds vaguely McCartney-ish.  Good opening track.   

• The bluesy, guitar-driven "Station Man" sounds like a cross between something by Delaney & Bonnie and The Band.

• "Blood on the Floor" is a tounge-in-cheeky country-blues lament by Spencer that wouldn't feel out of place on Sweetheart of the Rodeo or on a Burritos Brothers' record.

• The Fats Waller / Ed Kirkeby-penned, "Hi-Ho Silver" is a sneering, raucous delight. 

• The crown jewel of the record is Danny Kirwan's awesome, "Jewel-Eyed Judy"--  a soulful pop "gem" which sounds more like something from Big Star or Badfinger.  

• Side Two kicks off with the Buddy Holly tribute, "Buddy's Song" (writing credit here is given to Holly's mother, Ella, but actually its a "Peggy Sue Got Married" cover with lyrics made up of Holly songs titles.)

• Kirwan's subdued instrumental, "Earl Gray" follows.  A nice follow-up their earlier recording of "Albatross".

• The chameleon-like Spencer is back on "One Together" a ballad reminiscent of something on Workingman's Dead.  (In a good way!)

• Electric guitars are back in a big way on Kirwan's hard rocker, "Tell Me All The Things You Do" (as are the wah-wah pedals!)  Can't understand how a song like this wouldn't dominate early 1970's FM Radio?

• On the ghostly final song, "Mission Bell", Jeremy Spencer seems to be doing his best Buddy Holly impression on vocals on this update of the Donnie Brooks rockin' oldie from 1960.  (both versions after the jump)

"Higher than a mission bell... stronger than a magic spell..."  Spencer would leave the band right after this record and join the Children of God cult-- a hippie/religious group formed in Southern California in 1968 by a guy named Moses David.  The cult is still around today, known as The Family International (TFI.)   Here's a webpage in case you're interested.  Sounds like a bunch of weirdos! 

RATING: 4 Jeweled-Eye Judy's out of 5

Fleetwood Mac Attack

Fleetwood Mac - "Greatest Hits" (1971) - CBS

Hello Friends,

Are you ready to hear some "Landslide"?  What about "Go Your Own Way", "The Chain", or "Rhiannon"?  How about some (gulp) "Little Lies"?

Well, if so, you've come to the wrong place!  On tonight's "Vinyl in the Valley" we're listening to Fleetwood Mac's Greatest Hits-- greatest "hits" before they became super successful megastars of the late 70's.   And this stuff rocks!

Fleetwood Mac started out as a British blues band in the late 1960's and this compilation LP captures some of their best bluesy & psychedelic tunes from 1968 to 1971.  Fronted by guitarist, songwriter & vocalist, Peter Green, the early Fleetwood Mac was in the same league as late-period Yardbirds or bands like Ten Years After.  Just listen to the opener, "The Green Manalishi (With the Two Prong Crown)" and you'll see that this band couldn't be more different that the Lindsey Buckingham-Stevie Nicks version of the band!



Founding & perennial members, drummer Mick Fleetwood & bassist John McVie are present here; as is a piano-playing Christine McVie on a song or two.  But by 1970-- due in part to the large amounts of LSD he was taking--  Peter Green would leave the band, find religion and basically drop out of the rock'n'roll life for a while.  He would later be diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia, undergo multiple ESTs and spend much of the decade in and out of psychiatric hospitals!  Sounds like a party!!     

Also included on this LP are great forgotten classics like the incomparable "Oh Well", "Shake Your Moneymaker" (by Elmore James), "Need Your Love So Bad" (by Little Willie John), "Rattlesnake Shake", the heartbreaking "Man of the World" and the original version of "Black Magic Woman", which was covered by Santana in 1970.  (The Santana version is a bit "smoother" sounding, but we definitely prefer The Mac's original!)

Here's a clip of the band performing their instrumental, "Albatross", in 1970.  Supposedly, John Lennon has said this song influenced his song "Sun King" from Abbey Road...

RATING: 4.5 Green Manalishis with the Two Prong Crowns out of 5    

Pass the jazz salts...

Fleetwood Mac - Tusk (1979) - Warner Bros.

Holy crap!  I'm not sure what just happened!  After listening to this double-album I feel like I've been on a 3 day speed binge... my hands are shaking, my eyes are bloodshot, there's half naked bodies all over my living room floor and my kitchen is absolutely spotless!

This is the album where you realize the 70's have really gone too far. 

After the hugely successful (and amazing) Rumours, Tusk is like being hungover while listening to a coked-up friend talk about his recent break-up: its tense, indulgent, rambling and largely incoherent.       

The album opens with the relatively sane-sounding, Christine McVie tune, "Over & Over".   I think to myself, "Alright cool, let's dim the lights and open that bottle of wine, its gonna be a relaxing evening!"  

WRONG! Its right after this that the train speeds off the tracks with Lindsey Buckingham's "The Ledge".  With its spazzy vocals, guitar line and drum beats I begin to feel panicked.  Should I lock the door?  Turn off the lights? Who's in here with me?  Its not until Stevie Nick's "Sara" that I can even sit down again.  

The calm doesn't last long when Side Two opens with the crazed-sounding, "What Makes You Think You're the One?" and I begin to empathize with the dog on the album cover who's growling & angrily pulling at someone's pant leg! 

Just about every song is steeped in paranoia, loneliness, jealousy and general unhappiness.   For an hour and fifteen minutes, the listener is invited into this world of over-indulgence and heartache that never really lets up!  Its quite a ride!

Everything comes to a head on the albums penultimate track, "Tusk".      

With a driving beat, marching band, buried vocals and ultra-paranoid lyrics, "Tusk" is the sound of a heart-exploding at a high school pep rally!  Somehow, at this point, it all comes together and makes sense. The party's over kids!    

The album concludes with the McVie song, the short & sweet,  "Never Forget" with the repeated line "Oooh ooh we will never forget tonight!"  You can say that again!  As the needle lifts off the record and the cracks of dawn shine through the curtains, I notice the time and wonder if I should try to get some sleep or stay up and listen to one more record?  


RATING: 4 out of possible 5 weeks in rehab