What if I told you this book was full of tech talk, read like a manual and was filled with arcane details…would you read it anyway?

I DID!

Ken Caillat was smart enough to get a cowriter, unlike Carole King. And he’s not afraid to sling shit, some of the stories about Lindsey Buckingham will horrify you, like how he punched his girlfriend in the face. But what keeps you reading are the memories… Of when music was the most powerful medium on the planet, when it drove the culture and the highest personal achievement was international rock star, not banker.

I’m not saying if Fleetwood Mac started today they wouldn’t make a deal with Pepsi, wouldn’t go on "Idol", but it was a completely different era, that stuff was anathema, it was all about the MUSIC!

Ken Caillat remixes a single another engineer flubs and suddenly he’s driving his Audi up the coast to the Sausalito Record Plant, to record a follow-up to an album that’s not yet a hit. Sure, what Ken references as the "white album" had impact, but it wasn’t until after they started recording during the NoCal winter that it went nuclear, and the band’s manager/attorney Mickey Shapiro called and said if they could record just one more hit album, they’d be set for life!

Talk about pressure.

But Mickey was right.

John McVie drinks so much he has to leave early, but determined to get his bass parts right he shows up before everybody else, to rerecord them.

Everybody looks down on Stevie Nicks because she doesn’t play an instrument, not knowing she’d eventually become the biggest of the bunch.

Christine McVie’s got a cutting sense of humor, she’s full of piss and vinegar, she’s female, but she’s truly one of the guys. If this type of macho female appeals to you, she’s the paragon. Furthermore, she can PLAY!

Mick Fleetwood is getting divorced but trying to get it back together, which he finally does, and he lives for "transcension", the late night jam sessions fueled by pot, booze and cocaine that yield no usable tracks but feel so good.

As for Lindsey Buckingham… Over time, it becomes his band. Kind of like John Frusciante in the Chili Peppers. Everyone accedes to his vision. But neither Fleetwood nor McVie is happy he recut their parts when they were on vacation.

So they’re at the Plant, cutting basics. Hell, they replace just about everything on the tapes. To the point where they end up using the safety master, because the original 24 track is losing oxide on the tape heads. And they play as a band. In this dark room.

Meanwhile, Ken tries to pick up the booker and buys a Mercedes convertible with the new money he’s making. And comes home to the house they’re staying in to find two groupies in his bed…who he has his way with and gets crabs from.

Yes, it’s positively the seventies. When a record company lets you spend a year getting it right in the studio, and you do.

We know, because we bought the vinyl and were wowed. You see, "Rumours" just has a sound. Like you too were in the studio with them.

And Ken delineates how they got each and every one of those memorable moments. From hitting drumsticks on furniture to breaking glass in the iso booth. It’s everything that once was and we wish it would still be.

The band’s got a private plane. They fly to gigs between recording. They’re lunching at Martoni’s and other legendary watering holes, all the time trying to get a sound on tape that will be just one step better than what came before.

Meanwhile, John’s depressed Christine’s got a new boyfriend and Lindsey won’t sing his lyrics in front of Stevie for fear he’ll piss her off.

The level of creativity and risk-taking is awe-inspiring. Sure, they ultimately were about getting perfection, but until they fleshed out all the parts, they’d try anything. After all, they were musicians, they were kings of the universe.

And who knows why a certain performance works. And keeping all the parts on 24 tracks is challenging. And they’ve got enough money to live large, but not to live frivolously, not yet.

Lindsey is the mad genius.

But Fleetwood and McVie are incredibly solid.

And without Stevie, the whole thing doesn’t work.

And Christine is the glue between the old and the new.

Imagine I told you to leave everything behind, your job, your family, your house. Imagine I told you we were gonna run away with the rock and roll circus…would you come?

That’s what these people did.

They didn’t give it two years and then go to graduate school. Lindsey and Stevie had already failed, they were broke when they hooked up with the rest of the band, who were true journeymen…they could work, but they were not rich. And then the five of them went on a trip and ended up at a destination none of them could foresee, playing to stadiums of people who just couldn’t get enough.

And I was one of them.

And so were you.

"Rumours" was the soundtrack of our lives. Sure, there were a few other records, like "Hotel California" and even "Boston", but "Rumours" was the only one you heard EVERYWHERE! At the guys’ houses and the girls’. It accompanied you at home, on the road and in bed.

The first half of "The Chain" was rewritten at the very last minute.

"I Don’t Want To Know" replaced the too long "Silver Springs", they cut it, both the new track and the old, without even telling Stevie. You can imagine how that went over.

"Songbird" was cut live, because that was Ken’s job/experience, that’s what he did on the road with Wally Heider.

Most of the songs started off with different titles.

And if you’re looking for this book to be a tour de force rendition of those days, you’ll be sorely disappointed.

Maybe those days can never be recaptured. Maybe we just all have our individual memories.

But if you were a fan back then, what you wanted most was to get closer. You wanted to be backstage, you wanted to go to the studio, you wanted to have sex with the band.

Some did.

For those who did not…

You’ll get the idea reading "Making Rumours".

If your idea of heaven is waking up at noon and spending all night in a windowless recording studio, if nodding your head to the right sound is what your life is about, if you want to know how they made this legendary album, which sounded not quite like anything that came either before or after…

Then read this book.

"Making Rumours"

P.S. I have to reiterate this is not a gossipy tell-all of those days. Although you’ll get insight into the personalities and hear a few stories, this is mainly the viewpoint of the producer. If you don’t care what kind of mics were used and how long a delay they put on THIS BOOK IS NOT FOR YOU!

History never repeats
I tell myself before I go to sleep

"History Never Repeats"
Split Enz

They’re testifying online about "I Feel Love", the Donna Summer hit from 1977. So I decided to play it. And instantly realized this sounds just as modern today as it did when it was cut, that this is the sound filling the Sahara Tent at Coachella, making the little kids go wild while their parents stand still in front of stultified rock acts on the main stage.

Yup, we’ve got a white concert business and media marginalizing the exploding EDM scene, ignoring music that has a direct lineage to the hits of twenty five years ago.

Doing a little research, I found out that Bronski Beat covered "I Feel Love" in 1984, that everybody from the Red Hot Chili Peppers to Madonna to Blue Man Group have done the song.

In other words, the musicians know.

But too much of the audience did not.

If you were alive back then, you know the extent to which disco was demonized. The music wasn’t, and the audience was comprised of marginalized men who just didn’t count.

But now, all those dyed-in-the-wool rockers have rewritten the history book. They like this sound.

I certainly do.

So when you say you hate EDM, you’re just revealing your prejudices and ignorance. Sure, not all of it is good, then again, not all of disco was great either.

But "I Feel Love" survives. Hell, it was one of the main inspirations for the never to die "Blue Monday" by New Order.

Then again, "I Feel Love" went to number one in the UK, and stayed there for four weeks, in a country where everybody still listened to the big station. There was no disco sucks movement across the pond, hell, these were the people who picked up our dying blues scene and revitalized it in the sixties. And kept electronic music alive all these years.

Yes, EDM is nothing new in the UK and on the Continent.

So it’s time to get off your high horse and listen, and realize it’s not all mindless drivel. That electronic music is the opposite of what we’ve been selling for so many years. It’s not mass-produced cheese made by usual suspects more interested in bank accounts than music. Rather it’s peopled by limit testers who bond with their audience all in service to the beat, the groove, inspired to have a good time. You do remember fun, don’t you?

We didn’t see it coming.

But we should have.

Because it’s the exact same thing that happened thirty five years ago.

Like I said, Donna Summer doesn’t get enough credit. She and her compatriots, Giorgio Moroder and Pete Bellotte, invented this sound.

Tell me all about the innovation in the Foo Fighters…

Spotify link

P.S. Oh, don’t get your knickers in a twist, Dave Grohl did test limits with Nirvana, but the point is you can’t point to the innovation in rock because there is none. Whereas in EDM…

P.P.S. The EDM artists understand the new game, just read this post by Deadmau5:

some advice on rollercoasters and shit

XM’s got a better buffer, but Sirius has better audio quality.

So, usually I’m on XM, because I abhor the dropouts.

Then again, my XM receiver lacks one feature, the button that would allow you to climb up the band station by station. I only get that with Sirius. And every once in a while, I decide to explore…when I’m burned out on my usual XM presets, when Howard Stern is in reruns, I run up the Sirius dial.

Which is how I found myself on the Pulse last night.

Yes, I’ve got both XM and Sirius in the car. A relic of the ancient days when their programming was different. Still, you tend to listen to the usual presets. And stumbling upon something new is thrilling. Especially when they’re playing unfamiliar music, that you like.

"Bully"
Shinedown

The station said 10, but I thought the hard rock station was further up the dial.

I’d like to say that Shinedown is breaking the formula, doing something completely new. Alas, the band is not.

But this is fully palatable.

It’s an amalgamation of hair metal and Linkin Park rock/rap and if you’re a twelve year old male or a matron who’s got tats and once rocked out, you’ll dig it. Especially the dynamics, from loud to quiet and back again.

Then again, the hair metal bands never tackled serious subjects…

It’s 8 AM, this hell I’m in
Seems I’ve crossed a line again
For being nothing more than who I am
So break my bones and throw your stones
We all know that life ain’t fair
But there’s more of us, we’re everywhere

Alienation is the essence of rock and roll. Because that’s the human condition. That’s what Shinedown has right.

And on one hand, I don’t think you can ever eliminate bullying, but calling attention to it is still good. Once upon a time, the nerds executed their revenge in a film, hopefully they can do that again!

Meanwhile, isn’t Robert Carradine a great actor?

HA!

"Wind It Up"
Barenaked Ladies

So they’re doing so much construction, I’ve got to shoot past the Mulholland exit and go all the way to Whole Foods, down in the flats of Sherman Oaks, before I double-back to my destination.

Which is when I heard this.

Which once again flummoxed me. This rocked too hard for the teen pop stations inhabiting the lower reaches of the Sirius/XM dial.

And I was still in the Shinedown mode, pedestrian rock executed well.

But accelerating up Woodcliff, I got hooked. I liked this even more than Shinedown. This was better than pedestrian. Who was it?

I looked down at the readout, one of the many advantages of satellite radio, and saw it was BARENAKED LADIES?

Forget the novelty hits. This is an intelligent band which writes music with great changes and harmonies. Doubt me? Listen to "Baby Seat"!

That’s how I got hooked. About a decade ago.

Then the band went indie too soon, leaving Reprise and releasing the album "Barenaked Ladies Are Me", which contains this track.

I love the lyric about the "mobile phone", these acts are all evanescent, why worry about your lyrics being timeless when you’re not gonna be.

Still, it’s the almost metal riff that hooked me initially.

And then the melodic verse with the stringed instruments working out underneath.

Then the anthemic pre-chorus before the explosive chorus itself.

Listen for the exquisite guitar work.

Don’t be too hip to like this.

To say it’s infectious is to be uncharitable. This is better than most of the hard rock you listen to.

And there’s even a wailing guitar solo!

I’m also including the live take which sounds like a modern day Doobie Brothers, and that ain’t bad!

"I Won’t Give Up
Jason Mraz

Jason’s last hit, "I’m Yours", was ubiquitous. But most hits don’t penetrate society to the degree the insiders in this business think they do. In other words, you can ignore not only Selena Gomez, but Justin Bieber and the rest of the hit parade.

So I never heard this before, from Jason’s new album. I was waiting for the buzz to reach me.

And I’ve got to applaud Jason for not repeating himself. Everybody’s too afraid to march forward these days, they play it safe, recording the same damn song until no one cares anymore and then going on an endless oldies tour.

I won’t give up on us
Even if the skies get rough
I’m giving you all my love
I’m still looking up
Still looking up

Are you macho in the bedroom?

Everybody’s a child at heart. The only route to intimacy is openness and vulnerability.

These lyrics might look unremarkable on the page, but Jason doesn’t sing them with smug confidence, but a heartfelt desire to connect. He’s closer to the singer-songwriters of the seventies, Jackson and Joni, than the hacks of today’s hit parade.

It’s so simple. Yet when he amps it up at 1:47, it’s like Lloyd Dobler outside of Diane Court’s window, pleading.

And you know John Cusack is always cool.

I don’t want to oversell this. But if you’re someone with more questions than answers, who desires a magical relationship, you’ll relate.

And when the rest of the voices come in at the end, it’s like that Foreigner song "I Want To Know What Love Is" without being bombastic. Yes, love is a religious experience.

P.S. I’ve also included the demo, which is included on the album, to show you where the song came from.

P.P.S. I’ve also included the Bonus Commentary, which is a bit too stultified, and in days of yore, I wouldn’t recommend doing this, but today you’ve got to come down off your pedestal and connect with your fans, give them everything that you’ve got. Distance, intrigue, mystery…that paradigm rarely works anymore.

So this morning, I looked up the Pulse, I wanted to see what it was, what kind of station played stuff that rocked and soft stuff too in an era where niches never cross.

Turns out it’s one of those weird stations that not only plays a breadth of material, it’s not all brand new, it can go back a decade.

You can see a playlist here:

sirius thepulse

And I’m still not exactly sure what the station is.

But I will tell you that I love being exposed to new music and finding out it’s good, that’s what life is about, new experiences.

Then again, I’d be even more interested in a station that featured music just as winning that was testing limits.

Spotify playlist

Previous Rhinofy playlists

The first time I heard Donna Summer I was living in Utah. We stopped by Al’s cousin’s house. She played "Love To Love You Baby".

I hated it.

I had to.

Back when rock still mattered, disco sucked.

Which makes it hard to explain why I loved Prince’s "Dirty Mind", but before that, I ended up doing legal work for writers on Donna’s "Bad Girls" album.

It was my first job in the legal business. These musicians were flustered. Donna had fired everybody, and in the process, their royalties stopped. The Bogarts were out, her affairs were a mess, and they didn’t want to say a single negative word about their boss, but they needed the money, they wanted the money, because even if you have just a piece of a song on "Bad Girls"…it’s a lot of bread.

And one day one of these guys delivered the album.

And I listened.

I was blown away.

Sure, you had that disco beat, but "Hot Stuff", the album’s opener, was every bit as hot as the opening cut on a Stones record. And she was just as sexy as Jagger. All attitude, all sultriness, and when she sang HOT, HOT, HOT, HOT, STUFF, you got all energized, your hormones began to rage, you ran out the door and started looking for action.

And then the segue into "Bad Girls"… This was the sound Quincy Jones perfected with Michael Jackson, but every bit as good. Layered with horns and whistles Donna wasn’t a diva, but purely embedded in the track.

And unlike too many of today’s acts, it was not a one note album. Donna penned "Dim All The Lights", which sounded exactly like that, an after work, early evening live for the night life story. Primping and then dancing, going from slow to fast to back again, it just felt right.

And "Sunset People".

If you gave Donna Summer a chance, she was just as good as everybody said she was, if not better. I was instantly closed, I became a fan.

That’s the power of music. No amount of publicity, no amount of social networking can penetrate our souls and attach themselves to our DNA like music.

And when the brouhaha blew past, when my guys started getting paid, Donna made an album with Q. She’d signed with Geffen, as part of the initial triumvirate of Lennon, Elton and her. But the original Giorgio Moroder album disappointed and the second was rejected. Needing something bigger than the business Quincy and Donna made a record that was neither fish nor fowl, it satisfied neither the dancers nor the rockers.

But that didn’t mean it wasn’t great.

It took me years to understand the genius of the initial single "Love Is In Control (Finger On The Trigger)". Its magic was subtle, and Donna’s hits were always directly in your face.

And maybe that doomed the album’s commercial success.

But if you played the album, you heard…

"State Of Independence". A track that seemingly everybody knows, but you never hear on the radio, that no one ever talks about. Written by Vangelis and Jon Anderson of Yes, it’s an almost six minute tour de force. From disco to church, by time they’re done it’s like your whole neighborhood has been infected with joy and is out testifying in the streets.

But my favorite has always been "The Woman In Me".

Dancin’ close, feelin’ restless
It’s a slow sultry night
It’ll be a lifetime ’til sunrise
If you don’t stay with me tonight

We’re preoccupied with intimacy, with sex. We want to be close, we want to exchange…talk, touch, fluids.

I feel your breath caress my shoulder
As your heart reads my mind
You don’t have to tell me anything
I can see everything in your eyes

This is the essence of life. The closeness. The bonding. It doesn’t matter if the economy sucks, if the Yankees lost, when you feel this connection, you feel positively alive, you tingle.

It’s so easy with you
I don’t need an excuse
To be the woman in me
It’s so hard to believe
That I’m feeling so free
To be the woman in me

Half of our population is repressed. They don’t want to have sex and they don’t want you to get any either. Women are supposed to be demure, subservient and led by men.

And on the other side of the street, especially in this pre-AIDS era, there was a plethora of women who were questioning everything that had come before, they wanted to be free to not only dress how they wanted to, to do men’s jobs, but feel free.

And this is what Donna Summer embodied. Gloria Steinem led the intellectual charge, but no one exuded the liberation of women more than Donna Summer. She was in control of her career, her instrument, and she didn’t need to be more than men, but she needed to be equal.

To make money, to make love.

Baby there’s so much
No man has ever touched
Of the woman in me

Females can’t do it alone. Love is a partnership. They want to be met halfway. They want to be able to flower and explore. They want to be sensual, they want to have an orgasm, like Donna Summer.

Like the dark side of the full moon
Never shown what I’m showing to you

Finally, women could cut loose. Give it all. Be every bit as demonstrative as men. Donna not only gave them permission, she pointed the way.

Since her original audience was gays and females, despite all the accolades, Donna Summer has still not gotten the kudos she deserves.

Unlike today’s acts, she grew, she took chances, she did not operate on only one note. And unlike the melisma milkers, she did not sit above the song, but was positively inside.

And sure, she said some silly things as she got older. Don’t we all.

But she survived.

Which is hard to do when you’re the biggest star in the world.

I’m not sure her music lives on. I’m not sure anything lasts besides Frank and the Beatles.

But if you were alive in the era, you remember.

It’s a sad day indeed.

She didn’t O.D. She played it out.

Which is what we’re all trying to do.

Before we’re gone.

"The Woman In Me"