EQ Magazine - April 2009 - (Page 24) Let the Right Sounds In “I don’t know,” says Lindsey Buckingham, Fleetwood Mac’s musical mastermind and noted studio hound when asked about the technical aspects of his recording equipment. “I just put stuff down.” Buckingham’s carefree attitude toward the tools of his craft seems diametrically opposed to his painstakingly layered production approach. Despite his sometimes lo-fi applications, Buckingham consistently turns out musical projects of sonic richness and lyrical depth that reflect the clarity of the conceptual mastermind behind the console. With releases such as Fleetwood Mac’s left-of-center Tusk, the Fairlight-laden Tango in the Night, and his own Go Insane, Law and Order, Under the Skin, Out of the Cradle, and the recent Gift of Screws [Reprise], Buckingham has built a reputation as a studio experimentalist. He meticulously details every tune with multiple bluesy, folk-inspired, and slightly distorted guitar tracks that dart in and out of the stereo image; blossoming multi-part vocal sequences; and magical, yet almost unidentifiable sonic particles. Now, if only we could corner him on the specifics of how he does it. . . . and its predecessor Fleetwood Mac (with the band and Keith Olsen). “Making a record like Tusk was challenging the status quo. I was following my heart as a producer and writer. With Tusk, I was doing what I wanted to do, as opposed to what the machinery around me would have liked me to do.” Today, Buckingham enjoys a safe and sane distance from the Big Mac juggernaut, despite bassist John McVie and drummer Mick Fleetwood appearing on Gift of Screws, and tours with the band (sans Christine McVie). Buckingham’s new life— which includes his wife and three kids—has infused a “sense of possibility into everything,” and this attitude has spilled into his work. At the same time, Buckingham appreciates the unique perspective on the music biz he is afforded as a member of THE LONG ROAD TO GIFT OF SCREWS Aside from being one of the most popular records of the 1970s, Fleetwood Mac’s Grammy-winning Rumours was a milestone in highfidelity recording. Yet, it was the successor to Rumours, 1979’s Tusk, that transformed Buckingham from international pop star and fingerpicking guitar hero to quirky, Brian Wilsonesque studio maven with an almost reckless disregard for music-industry commercialism. “I was engineering a lot of stuff myself during the Tusk album,” says Buckingham, who cut his teeth coproducing Rumours (with the band, Richard Dashut, and Ken Caillat) John McVie, Christine McVie, Lindsey Buckingham, Mick Fleetwood, and Stevie Nicks of Fleetwood Mac in the late ’70s. 24 EQ APRIL 2009 www.eqmag.com http://www.eqmag.com
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