By Michael Swanger michael@dmcityview.com

Buckingham going his own way

“Reading the paper, [I] saw a review, [they] said I was a visionary, but nobody knew.” So begins “Not Too Late,” the first track from “Under the Skin,” Lindsey Buckingham’s first solo album in 14 years. Music fans are familiar with Buckingham’s other group, Fleetwood Mac, but his solo material remains an anomaly among music fans. At the core is Buckingham’s voice, one that has graced some of the best selling albums in the history of popular music, and his signature finger-picking guitar playing. But the songs show an artist who is still striving to grow and experiment.

“After ‘Tusk,’ where we [Fleetwood Mac] did take a lot of chances, and because it didn’t sell 16 million albums, I was basically told ‘We want you to produce but you can’t do that [experiment] anymore.’ I began making solo albums, and it became a kind of schizophrenic existence in terms of what I was looking for to nurture myself and what I was doing to be part of a band,” Buckingam says.

“Schizophrenic” would be one way to describe Buckingham’s journey to writing and recording “Under the Skin,” an album that was primarily written on the road supporting Fleetwood Mac’s 2003 album “Say You Will.” He wrote most of the songs in a hotel room long after the band had played its last notes for the evening.

“There had been songs that had originally been ensemble pieces [like] ‘Big Love’ [and] ‘Go Insane,’ Buckingham says . “They had made their way to the stage as single guitar and voice pieces, the reaction that they had gotten onstage got me thinking about paring down and just focusing on that style.

“… [Also], certain things have happened since the last solo album I did. One of those was I got married and had some kids,” says Buckingham, 57. “I was coming into a more intimate environment than I had been in quite some time, and a lot of questions that had been hanging out there for a number of years had gotten answered finally.”

The results of “Under the Skin,” however, aren’t songs about mortgages and 401(k) plans. Instead, the album shows Buckingham in a familiar yet vulnerable place. This is, after all, an icon, even one of rock’s underrated geniuses. And yet we’ve never quite heard him like this. The feel is as intricately confessional — like anything put out by your average oh-so-hip, indie songwriter du jour. Like those artists, Buckingham is still willing to take risks.

“I just feel that you get to a particular point where you earn the right to make the music you want to make, if you are lucky enough not to have been corrupted [or] you haven’t experienced a loss of perspective,” Buckingham says.

Judging from Buckingham’s live performances, he hasn’t experienced a loss of perspective. The tour supporting “Under the Skin” has the veteran rocker performing in smaller, more intimate venues than most of his fans are used to seeing him. In concert, he is in guitar hero mode, showcasing his virtuosity while at the same time playing the songs that endeared him to a generation of music fans, including some classics from the Fleetwood Mac catalogue, as well as his solo hits.

“[W]e are doing seven or eight songs from ‘Under the Skin,’” he says. “You’d probably have a lot of unhappy people if you didn’t do ‘Go Your Own Way’ and some of the other older songs… You have to include those. When you are done with that, hopefully it all hangs together.”

Though a number of familiar hits have endeared audiences to Buckingham, he says he continues to grow as an artist

“If [I] were a novelist, you’d probably start calling it [my] ‘late style,’” he says. “[Like] when [James] Joyce would start writing things that some would say were unreadable.”

So does Buckingham, a member of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and a seller of millions of albums think of his current artistic output as “unreadable” or “unlistenable”?

“I haven’t gotten there yet,” he says with a laugh. — Jason Bugg
(Jason Bugg is a freelance writer from Asheville, N.C.)

CMA series set
The Civic Music Association, which has a long tradition of hosting classical and jazz concerts in Des Moines, hosts its 83rd season starting this fall. All performances will be held at Sheslow Auditorium on the campus of Drake University. For season tickets, call 280-4020 or visit www.civicmusic.org. The lineup includes the Borealis Wind Quintet (Sept. 23), the Turtle Island Quartet (Nov. 10), Joe Lovano and his Nonet (Jan. 26, 2008), Ruby Hinds (Feb. 22, 2008), Dr. Michael White’s Quartet (March 7, 2008) and the Ahn Trio (April 11, 2008).

Scene notes

The Monday night jazz jam, hosted by Iowa Jazz Hall of Fame organist Sam Salomone, has moved to Raccoon River Brewing Co. following a seven-year run at Court Avenue Brewing Co. that ended last week. The Monday night swinging soiree will maintain the same hours at its new home — 8:30 to 11:30 p.m. Admission is free. … The 2007 Iowa Blues Challenge opens on Thursday at 9 p.m. at Zimm’s for the first of two rounds of competition between four local bands. Admission is $6…. The Soul Searchers, stalwarts on the Des Moines blues scene, recently recorded their long overdue debut album. The band is now mixing and producing tunes from a two-day session at Drake University. … Southern California alt-country pop rockers Limbeck are on tour to support their new self-titled album and play the Maintenance Shop in Ames on Monday at 8 p.m. Tickets are $10. Hot Rod Circuit and The Forecast open the show. … Speaking of the M-Shop, Nathan Granner and Beau Bledsoe’s April 14 show “Mozart was a Punk” has been cancelled and will not be rescheduled. … Two shows coming to Wells Fargo Arena: WWE’s “Smackdown and ECW” on May 22. Tickets, $21-$61, go on sale April 21 at 10 a.m. Gospel music icon Bill Gaither on Sept. 21. Tickets, $19.50-$36.50, are on sale now. … Social networking Web sites like MySpace are the rave with unknown and independent bands, but they are limited in their ability to help take them to the next level, including signing a record deal [which may or may not be a band’s ultimate goal]. What’s missing is a direct link between the online fan buzz and the record industry. But the creators of ShowcaseYourMusic.com, a Web site that allows bands to showcase themselves by posting videos, music, pictures and bios — for free — might be one way bands can garner some attention from record industry big shots. … Lest we need further proof that pop star Paul McCartney is motivated by money, the former Beatle is the first artist signed to the newly formed record label by Starbucks Entertainment and Concord Music Group. McCartney will release a new album this summer for the coffee conglomerate. We’ll give you three guesses where you might be able to buy it and the first two don’t count. CV

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