Lindsey Buckingham – Lindsey Buckingham

 

Lindsey Buckingham – Lindsey Buckingham

By

Jesse E. Mullen

You’ve co-led a massively successful group on and off for 43 years. You’ve written numerous hit songs, spearheaded a change in sound for your group, and have helped influence modern production techniques, while also surviving personal turmoil within your band. But what happens when that turmoil finally catches up with you?

As was the story of Lindsey Buckingham leading into 2018. The guitarist and songwriter was as famous for his chops on his instrument and studio prowess as he was for his breakup with Fleetwood Mac bandmate Stevie Nicks. That breakup inspired the timeless 1977 album Rumours, but it also left a lot of lingering tension.

This tension eventually led to Buckingham leaving the group for 10 years in 1987 but appears to have boiled over in a more permanent fashion in 2018. According to Buckingham, Nicks informed him – via Fleetwood Mac’s manager – that she “never [wanted] to share the stage” with Buckingham again.

This (allegedly) led to an ultimatum – either Fleetwood Mac fire Buckingham or Nicks would depart. The group apparently chose the former. Whatever truth to this there is, the result was the same. Buckingham was out of Fleetwood Mac.

With time to spare – following a solo tour and an excellent greatest hits box set entitled Solo Anthology – Buckingham put the finishing touches on a solo record which he intended to release in either 2019 or 2020. But a pair of issues put the brakes on his plans.

Buckingham underwent emergency open heart surgery in February 2019, which put him out of commission for the better part of a year. Further complications arose when it was revealed that one of Buckingham’s vocal cords was damaged when he was intubated during the procedure, leading to questions about the future of his singing voice.

2020 led to another complication in the emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic, delaying the release of the album further. One must be asking: could anything else go wrong for Buckingham from 2018 onwards? On a more personal level, the answer was sadly “yes.”

Buckingham’s wife filed for divorce in June of 2021. However, it was later reported that the couple were working on their marriage. Personal anecdotes aside, it would be easy to assume that the next Lindsey Buckingham album would be a dour affair. But then again, this was also an artist famous for finding dry humor in his relationship woes – see: “Second Hand News” and “Big Love.”

Buckingham’s new album, the self-titled Lindsey Buckingham was finally released in September 2021. The album artwork certainly would support the theory of a dour affair, with a po-faced Buckingham mugging for the camera in a black and white image – in line with the sepia-toned Gift Of Screws cover from 2008.

The resulting music resembles that album, at least on a surface level. Screws featured Buckingham at his most pastoral to date on “Time Precious Time,” as well as his most chugging melody since “Trouble” from 1981’s Law and Order in “Did You Miss Me.”

Conversely, Lindsey Buckingham also features many of the production techniques which made Tango In The Night a classic. Varispeed (pitch shifted) backing vocals, sequenced keyboards, drum machines, and “uhh-ahh(s)” are all reprised to great success. But Buckingham proves he is willing to update his sound for modern times.

“Swan Song” features syncopated techno beats and staccato vocals looped into infinity, while Buckingham shreds away on one of his glorious, fingerpicked guitar solos. Interestingly, this track originated from a session Buckingham was producing for Medicine’s Brad Laner. Laner – who primarily works within the shoegazing genre – handed Buckingham a copy of demos he had recorded, with hopes that Buckingham would find them interesting – and possibly cover one.

One of those songs intrigued Buckingham enough that he did just that – partially. “Mind’s Eye” was a song from those sessions which formed the basis for the chorus of “Swan Song.” Consequently, Laner has a co-writing credit and a share of all royalties earned. (Life lesson – sometimes it really helps to put yourself out there.)

“Power Down” mixes baggy beats with the new wave pop Buckingham has pursued in his solo career to great success. Buckingham plays the part of a lover left behind, saying he “called your name but no one was listening.” It’s one of a few hints that not all was right in his life at the time.

The other, “Santa Rosa,” deals with distance between a couple, with Buckingham warning his lover “that world is gonna close you” if she leaves. That Buckingham marries his lyrics to a major-key acoustic country groove makes it one of the melodic highlights of the album, even if it is one of the more solemn moments here.

However, not all is doom and gloom. “I Don’t Mind” shares the wisdom of an older man in a relationship – it deals with an aging couple accepting each other’s flaws. It might be the most Fleetwood Mac-like song on the album – Buckingham’s varispeed harmonies even sound a bit like Christine McVie. Layers of acoustic guitars and Buckingham’s drum machine programming add further color to the sonic landscape of the track.

“Scream” features a rising and falling vocal melody and chord progression that manages to recall “Go Your Own Way,” while some of the vocal production resembles the simulated female backing vocals from “Caroline.” It’s chorus of “I love you when you scream” is open to interpretation, as it could either have a sexual connotation or a sexual one – or both.

Elsewhere, “On The Wrong Side” bolsters a tune that is catchy, singable, and melodic while also featuring a bit of a bard lyric. Buckingham sings that he’s “out of pity” and “out of time.” Could this be directed at his wife? Or at Nicks and his impending removal from Fleetwood Mac? Only Buckingham knows for sure.

Given Lindsey Buckingham’s troubles over the past few years, it’s hard not to read the lyrical tea leaves on these songs. However, their actual meaning doesn’t at all affect the quality of the material. With Lindsey Buckingham, Buckingham (the artist) has delivered some of the finest moments of his solo career.

Reprise/2021

 

 

Jay Bennett – Bigger Than Blue

 

Jay Bennett – Bigger Than Blue

By

Jesse E. Mullen

 

You’re a member of one of the most acclaimed indie bands of your time. You can play more musical instruments than can be counted a human’s fingers and toes. Your mind is overflowing with ideas. And then it all goes away.

So was the story of Jay Bennett in the summer of 2001. He had just finished work on the fraught sessions which gave birth to Wilco’s seminal Yankee Hotel Foxtrot. He was likely looking forward to whatever came next with the group – touring, superstardom – but it didn’t happen that way.

Frontman and co-songwriter Jeff Tweedy summoned Bennett to the Wilco loft one evening in August 2001, and – according to Learning How To Die, Greg Kot’s 2004 oral history of the band – looked Bennett in the eye and strung together a metaphor that still lives on in infamy in Wilco lore: “a circle can only have one center.”

Whatever the truth of that may be, one thing is for certain: Bennett was no longer in Wilco. And while he quickly rebounded from that, releasing a new album with Edward Burch, The Palace At 4AM (Part 1) on the same day as Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, he would soon have more grief to give him inspiration.

First was his divorce, which as Bennett himself said “there is no such thing as a happy divorce.” On a more public level however was his portrayal in the 2002 Sam Jones documentary I Am Trying To Break Your Heart: A Film About Wilco which covered the making of Yankee Hotel Foxtrot.

Whether through editing or slicing together footage from separate days, Jones cast Bennett as the villain. A pompous know-it-all who lacked the tact to deal with intra-band relationships. However, according to a new documentary – Gorman Bechard’s 2022 film Where Are You, Jay Bennett? – this was fabricated by only including footage where Bennett was acting this way and no other members of the band.

With all of this weighing heavily on his mind, Bennett dealt with it the only way he knew how – make another record. Or three. His creativity and inspiration was overflowing to such a degree at the time that Bennett had more songs than he knew how to deal with.

Always a prolific multi-instrumentalist, Bennett turned into a bit of a “mad scientist” during this period. He would frequently record songs with multiple basses, multiple keyboards, and random sound effects generated from vintage toys which he repurposed as musical instruments.

But prolificy is one thing. The real question is, how did all of this music sound? And could Bennett capture all of his sonic glory going it alone? The first album of the trilogy, Bigger Than Blue, was released on April 20^th, 2004. And it shows Bennett in his full glory.

The album begins with the quiet acoustic strumming of “My Little Wicked One.” Bennett sings in his warm baritone to a lost lover – presumably his ex – saying “I owe you everything, I owe you all of my pain,” and asking her “why can’t you control yourself?” It’s a slow, pretty tune which also manages to draw the listener in.

Next up is the irreverent “Charming And Plastic.” A jaunty rocker which manages to sound like The Byrds, Jeff Lynne, and George Harrison, it’s a lot of fun. The lyrics also manage to reference Billy Bob Thorton and Dr. Seuss in the same line.

On a more serious note, is “Let’s Count Our Losses.” A slower country-influenced track, with (more) George Harrison-esque slide guitar and electric piano, Bennett seems to be singing about excesses of a different, non-musical kind. He sings “this rut’s too deep, you’ve cut me down to scale this time,” and that “you could lay your heart down on that line/and I’d still cross it.”

Bennett also questions his sobriety on this track wondering if he’ll ever be so again. However, this seems to have a double meaning, as the previous lyrics deal with the end of a relationship. That relationship seems to be one where neither party is willing to admit defeat, thus Bennett waving the white flag in surrender. “We’ve wasted too much time/Let’s count our losses.”

Back to the Wilco saga, Bennett was heavily involved in the Mermaid Avenue project, where he, Tweedy and English songwriter Billy Bragg selected lyrics from the Woody Guthrie archive to turn into completed songs. As Guthrie dealt with a neurodegenerative disease for the last several years of his life, he was no longer able to play guitar or sing.

However, he wrote hundreds of sets of lyrics, with little notes on them, possibly instructing future songwriters how to “finish” them. One of the most famous examples was “California Stars” where Woody wrote “there’s not a ton of lyrics, so sing em twice.”

But just because Bennett was no longer in Wilco, didn’t mean he wasn’t going to continue the project himself. Bigger Than Blue featured the love song “Cajun Angel.” Set on a shrimp boat in Louisiana, Guthrie wrote a lovely set of lyrics describing a woman with lips like red berries and a voice like an angel.

In Bennett’s hands, the song is poignant and minimal on the sonic landscape, with just a finger-picked acoustic guitar, a national steel guitar, and Bennett’s warm vocal. Bennett also adds a melancholic element – which wasn’t apparent in the original set of lyrics – playing in the key of E minor. A wistful and soothing track.

Speaking of melancholy, perhaps the track which best fits that description is “Songs That Weren’t Finished.” Perhaps recognizing the overflow of ideas for songs that he had, Bennett uses his unfinished works as a metaphor for his inability to save a relationship. Could it be addressed to an ex? Or is this one to Jeff Tweedy himself? Only Bennett knows for sure.

Musically, it’s a sparse tune with keyboards, minor key acoustic guitars, and brush-stroke drumming. Bennett adds high harmonies in the bridge which sweeten the arrangement and make the track an almost-sequel arrangement-wise to “Poor Places” off of Yankee Hotel Foxtrot.

But perhaps the track with the strongest resemblance to that album is the closer, “God’s Coffee.” No Bennett album would truly be complete without at least one track which is draped in a sonic landscape. And this one fits the bill.

Bennett adds mellotrons (which move from the right speaker to the left), intentional audio dropouts (remember those on old tapes?), backwards guitars, and a rising/falling acoustic guitar melody. It’s a lot of fun to hear Bennett back in full “Wilco” mode, experimenting with recording technology and just generally having a blast.

But unfortunately, the good times wouldn’t last forever. Bennett died in May 2009, due to a leaky pain-patch while awaiting hip surgery. He was 45. But even if Bennett’s ending was a tragic one, his body of work and creative spirit lives on in Bigger Than Blue.

Undertow/2004

 

Radiohead ‎– Hail To The Thief

 

Radiohead ‎– Hail To The Thief

By

Jesse E. Mullen

 

You’ve been hailed as the second coming of Pink Floyd. You’ve made three albums which are in anyone’s list of the top 200 of all time. You’ve written songs about trying to disappear, and others about being reborn. Where do you go from here?

That was the question upon Radiohead in early 2003. The Oxford quintet had just emerged from a highly prolific, but highly contentious period. While two excellent albums came out of it – the genre-defying Kid A and the slightly more subdued Amnesiac – the conflict which arose nearly destroyed the band.

In the wake of the smash success of OK Computer, Radiohead completely reinvented their working methods. No longer recording live-to-tape with loud guitars and numerous effects pedals, the band set about recording their parts separately. Entire songs would be recorded without a recognizable guitar, drum, or bass part.

Instead, singer Thom Yorke would loop his piano, while guitarists Jonny Greenwood and Ed O’Brien – as well as producer Nigel Godrich – would sample and manipulate Yorke’s voice. While this left certain group members marginalized – not every member was on every song – it brought Radiohead to new creative heights.

So, when Radiohead decided to blend these influences with their previous “rocking out” style, it was met with a certain degree of skepticism. Had they run out of ideas? Were Radiohead about to become just another band? However, there was one new element which gave Radiohead an edge.

A lot had changed in the world since the last time Radiohead made an album. But all of it influenced Yorke’s lyrics when the band entered LA’s Ocean Way studios in the fall of 2002. The United States response to the September 11^th attacks had been milked completely.

Two wars received bipartisan support from congress. One was with an uninvolved country and enacted without any hard evidence. To make matters worse, British Prime Minister Tony Blair – a member of the social democratic Labour Party – decided to join the ultraconservative President Bush as an ally in the wars, angering his base.

Blending music and politics has always been a messy subject. There will be those who applaud the addition of political themes to lyrics, while others perceive them to be dogmatic and getting in the way of entertainment. To their credit, Radiohead never let the political themes of the album obscure its greatest asset – melodic hooks.

One possible source of these breezy melodies would be the band’s aforementioned trip to LA. No longer confined to the gloomy scene of the converted fruit farm in the English countryside, Radiohead opted for the sunshine of Oceanway Studios.

Los Angeles is a fascinating city aesthetically. It is bright and warm, but also plastic and superficial. Radiohead previously wrote a song about the commercialization of Canary Wharf in London. Now they were making a record in that environment. So how would this change affect the band? Strap in and find out.

The album opens with the sprightly “2+2=5.” Electronic drums tick and burble, as a double tracked Yorke sings in haunted tones about the end of the world. It is clearly a metaphor for the political climate of the day, with leaders such as George W. Bush and Tony Blair joining hands in bipartisan, war criminal activity.

As the track continues to build, so does the tension. When the crescendo hits towards the end, it is a blast of catharsis. The guitars wail as Yorke accuses those around him – and by extension, the listener – of not paying attention. A falsetto command to “go and tell the king that the sky is falling in when it’s not” ends the track in dramatic fashion.

“Sit Down, Stand Up” is propelled by a slow but steady blip of electronic drums and grand piano. Yorke is now singing from the point of view of an oppressive dictator, saying “we can wipe you out anytime.” Much like “2+2=5,” “Sit Down, Stand Up” builds into a hypnotic crescendo of the band jamming and Yorke singing “the raindrops” ad infinity.

On “Sail To The Moon,” Yorke imagines his young son as president. A sparse piano ballad, which builds into a spacy ambiance, it is an absolutely gorgeous track. The insertion of minor key seventh chords into an otherwise major key track gives the song a “trouble in paradise” vibe.

“Backdrifts” is a return to Kid A-styled electronic territory, with nary a guitar to be found. A glitchy, syncopated beat predicts what the band would later do on “15 Step,” while Yorke sings about “rotting fruit” and “damaged goods.”

The track has no explicit political references until Yorke sings that “all evidence has been buried” and “all tapes have been erased.” He seems to be describing a political cover up and subsequent scandal.

With “Where I End and You Begin,” Radiohead – and guitarist Jonny Greenwood – reintroduce one of the most famous elements of their early 2000s sound. The Ondes Martinot. An early 1900s electronic instrument, Greenwood took a liking to it during the Kid A sessions.

Here, Greenwood shapes the siren-like wail into a sound resembling a Moog synthesizer. He wraps musical figures around Ed O’Brien’s e-bow guitar and Yorke’s frantic rhythm guitar. The lyrics, while initially having no discernable literal meaning, borrow a line from Kid A’s “Optimistic.”

That line, “the dinosaurs roam the earth,” could deal with the end of our world through environmental decay – which would make sense and give the title an ascribed meaning. Yorke previously touched on the apocalyptic effects of climate change on Kid A’s “Idiotique.” So, it makes sense that a lyric which draws from that period would have a similar theme.

Things slow down momentarily for the creepy, Halloween-esque piano ballad “We Suck Young Blood.” Yorke sings from the point of view of a vampire, as hands clap in 12/8 time like a zombie on valium. Midway through, the tempo and volume increase rapidly, as if the monster was woken up by an episode of sleep apnea.

Lyrically, the track seems to be a metaphor for how major labels use predatory contracts to “suck” the life out of young bands. Radiohead were about to end their relationship with musical giant EMI/Parlophone, so the timing of such a track is fitting.

Common practices in the industry have included: not paying the bands for record sales until the recording bill is “covered” by said sales, owning the recordings “in perpetuity” (forever), and refusing to release entire albums of material. However, none of these were issues for the group.

The rights to their back catalog reverted from EMI back to the band in 2016. And EMI stuck by the group and their unconventional Kid A era, whereas American band Wilco had trouble with their label when they went experimental a year later. So, the origin of the song is puzzling.

The pounding krautrock anthem “There, There” has built up quite a reputation live, often being used as a show opener on the 2006 tour. It had it’s debut in a skeletal arrangement on a Radiohead webcast in February 2000. But here is where it first gained its spark.

Guitarists Jonny Greenwood and Ed O’Brien join drummer Phil Selway on kits of the own, pounding out primal rhythms to the gods. Yorke, usually a rhythm guitarist, churns out a feedback heavy lead on semi-hollow body guitar. Midway through, Greenwood joins him, and the tempo shifts towards a swirling finish.

Described by Yorke as “the angriest song [he’d] ever written,” “I Will” is a slow, Beatles-esque ballad which deals the evils of Western foreign policy. The line where Yorke sings “little babies’ eyes” refers to a bombing during the Gulf War where the victim’s faces were imprinted on the walls of the concrete shelter they occupied.

While it wasn’t finished until September 2002, the track actually has its origins during the OK Computer era. Yorke can be seen performing it acoustically at a 1998 soundcheck in the film Meeting People Is Easy. As the events detailed in the song go back to the early 90’s, it’s possible the track is even older.

On the penultimate track “Scatterbrain,” the band seem to be at peace, with Greenwood playing a gentle electric part, and Selway ticking the rims of his snare and tom in twos. Yorke sings about a force ten gale, “yesterday’s people,” and headlines being “blown by the wind.”

He could be talking about the way sensationalism and propaganda have infiltrated the news media. Or maybe he’s referring to what Noam Chomsky once called “the bewildered herd,” meaning people who are only used by politicians during election cycles, and then discarded like trash. Either way, it’s a compelling song.

The early 2000s were not easy on anyone. The cultural changes and ill-advised combat were reflected in music and art. As the world changed around them, so did Radiohead. While Kid A remains their high watermark, Hail To The Thief showed the group could match their sound with a message and heart.

EMI/2003