In Which Doctor Casino Listens to Classic Rock Classics for the First Time

moving from one side of new york to a very, very different side of new york while slowing down the tempo just a hair. #1 in ilm's steely dan artist poll. #145 in ilm's classic rock countdown.

SONG #27: Steely Dan "Deacon Blues"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g4d8XrDyArE

have debated a "deacon blue" tattoo for a while now

Deacon Blue: Smooth opening, sounds like other Steely Dan I know (particularly "Peg" without the zippier game-show lead), good 70s TV scene-setting music. We're zooming in on the marina where the crime has taken place, and the detective is getting out of his car. Already lost track of the lyrics but it sounds like a horror or superhero story about an "expanding man" who's turning to silly putty or something. People don't believe him - that'd be the mayor and the chief of police, I imagine. Cool. Wait. "Learn to work the saxophone?" Maybe his expanding lips, though a curse, give him an edge with reed instruments. And now he takes up his showbiz name, Deacon Blue. I can work with this. Laid-back loungey 70s tunes about guys taking up musical careers - One-Trick Pony rock. Kinda amazed there could be eight minutes of this but it's fine background.

Starting to doubt my Plastic Man story, guy is sounding a little too successful. Not sure how I feel about him drinking Scotch whiskey all night behind the wheel; Steely Dan seem arch enough that I guess this could be building up to a dark climax where he kills a bunch of kids, and they reveal how your musical icons are actually quiet, grainy-film-stock TV-drama monsters. This long chill-out sax break doesn't seem to be quite taking us in that direction. I dunno, this is all very pleasant, can't imagine thinking of it as my favorite song or anything. Not much of a hook, just nice musicianship.

Okay, the Night of the Expanding Man. Definitely horror movie then. One of those grand tragic unveilings where this blob guy is like, they'll see me and they'll love me for my music! and then everybody is shocked and retching at this terrifying sight. Or maybe, I guess, he's just a sad sack: "call me Deacon Blue," he said ironically, knowing nobody will ever call him anything; quietly self-destructive alcoholic saxophonists are a dime a dozen these days... but I'll play for you anyway, what difference does it make? In all seriousness: this is basically "Piano Man," right? But with a saxophone and long instrumental breaks meant to demonstrate his skill? Pleasant, kinda borderline elevator music, don't regret having heard it, don't have any particular desire to play it again.

borderline elevator music,

lol this soft jazz instrumental version of deacon blues (with a flute playing the vocal melody) came on in the grocery store i was in yesterday

Heads up to fcc: I recently heard "Let My Love Open the Door," thanks to the closing montage/credits of Look Who's Talking. It's chipper and lovely!

General Casino listening update: today I acquired The James Gang's Rides Again, based on all the love on ILX, but specifically on the logic of Well, if VegemiteGrrl likes them so much... The dude at the store called it out by name in my stack and said "Hey, you've got good taste!"

There was a Creem Magazine review that said something like "Let My Love Open the Door" playing from behind a closed bathroom door sounded exactly like a McDonald's commercial. Made my nine-year-old self convulse with laughter though I guess it wasn't really all that funny.

Fun fact: LMLOTD matched the Who's biggest singles chart success in the US (#9 in Billboard, same as "I Can See For Miles" 13 years earlier).

i was surprised when "deacon blue" won the steely dan poll. i've always liked the song, but it never seemed like the standout track from aja to me, never mind from the whole steely dan catalog. i would like it more if it was in fact about an "expanding man" silly putty dude whose superpower gave him a preternatural ability on reed instruments. best alternate reading of a pop song i've read in a long while.

this is basically "Piano Man," right?

more like a spinoff from "piano man," starring one of the characters from one random line in one random verse in "piano man." someone should record a full album of "piano man" spinoffs along these lines. maybe rufus wainwright.

to be clear, it won the poll because it appeared on the most ballots.

it also rules

ironic that a song about being a loser should come in first place

They call Alabama the Crimson Tide
Call me "My Old School."

this is basically "Piano Man," right?

You're really tryin' to hurt us, aren't you?

Would be cool if he yelled "ALL RIGHT RICO!" before each sax break, not sure if that guy really qualifies as an "expanding man" though

http://www.bignoisenow.com/images/artistphotos2012/richiecannata4_bnpic.jpg

Oh no, oh no, oh no oh no no no no

http://i.imgur.com/o3VrRWU.jpg

it's deacon blues not deacon blue

http://static.comicvine.com/uploads/original/10/108959/2465028-daddylonglegs14.jpg

btw pretty sure my reading of this song is heavily influenced by this guy: http://www.marvunapp.com/Appendix3/daddylonglegskole.htm

I could likely write a really long and boring critical review of why this really long and boring song is so fucking awesome, but I'll spare you all. It's an erection of impotence. A viper who crawls. Some whisky drunk rambler aiming for the horizon, hoping he arrives home at last.

Plus, it ensures that Steely Dan gets played at every homecoming in Tuscaloosa. Who would've saw that coming after Katy Lied?

Would be cool if he yelled "ALL RIGHT RICO!" before each sax break

tbf, would be cool if someone yelled ALL RIGHT RICO before every sax break in all songs ever.

in honor of your acquisition of your first james gang album:

SONG #28: THE JAMES GANG "WALK AWAY"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ICmD8P0x8_M

God "Walk Away" rules so much...so glad to discover James Gang from the classic rock poll thread

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l_4iQDYDVNo

^^^much prefer that version to the LP version

Nice little song Pete Townshend wrote about a barbecue with the James Gang on tour:
http://youtu.be/ZUASUTR8Nv0

Aw that song is so great.

Yeah, it's so perfect. He only ever played it live once, on the Who's Cleveland stop on their 1996 tour. Pete and Joe had a mutual admiration society going on for a while: Joe gave Pete the Gretsch guitar and Fender amp that Pete subsequently used on Who's Next and everything thereafter, and Pete gave Joe the ARP synth Joe would use on "Life's Been Good."

Great Townshend quotes in here: If there's a better rock song than Joe Walsh's "Life's Been Good," I don't know what it is

Didn't Walsh also give Page the guitar that you can see in the Albert Hall show and which he used throughout LZ?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xLSz5vD9Dho

http://iconicaxes.blogspot.com/2012/12/jimmy-pages-number-one-gibson-les-paul.html

Page bought this guitar from Joe Walsh of the James Gang, and later of the Eagles, in April of 1969 while he in San Francisco on a tour of America. Jimmy recalled the transaction in 2004, "Joe brought it for me when we played the Fillmore. He insisted I buy it, and he was right." In the May 2012 issue of Guitar World just released, the magazine did an interview with Walsh where he told the story of the transaction: "Jimmy was still playing the Telecasters that he played in the Yardbirds. He was looking for a Les Paul and asked if I knew of any, 'cause he couldn't find one that he liked. And I have two. So I kept the one I liked the most and I flew...with the other one. I laid it on him and said, 'Try this out.' He really liked it. So I gave him a really good deal, about 1,200 bucks. I had to hand-carry it; I flew there and everything. So whatever my expenses were, that's what I charged him...But again, I just thought he should have a Les Paul for godsakes!"

thanks, Elvis!

Wonder if Walsh would be considered cooler these days if he'd never joined the Eagles

DON: Well, yeah

I suppose he'd also be a lot less wealthy tho

Walk Away is so, so alltime

also: I can remember being with my friend Che when we heard on the radio that Joe Walsh was joining the Eagles and we both just blurted out OH NO JOE WHY

(sorry y'all - on the road, which is very classic rock, but without a lotta listening time, which is not!)

Ha, I heard a "Karn Evil no. 9"/"Lucky Man" twofer at the gym tonight.

sorry y'all - on the road

note to self: queue up jackson browne's "the load-out."

i saw Jackson Browne last night. he told a story about giving the finger to a guy who had a video camera at one of his shows, made me think of Sandy's story.

He obv. likes to do that!

ha ha it seems like there should be lots of photos of Jackson flipping off the camera

In the song "Everything You Did," a lyric says, "turn up The Eagles, the neighbors are listening." Glenn Frey of the Eagles said, "Apparently Walter Becker's girlfriend loved the Eagles, and she played them all the time. I think it drove him nuts. So, the story goes that they were having a fight one day and that was the genesis of the line." Given that the two bands shared a manager (Irving Azoff) and that the Eagles proclaimed their admiration for Steely Dan, this was more friendly rivalry than feud.[3]
Later that year in a nod back to Steely Dan for the free publicity,[4] and inspired by Steely Dan's lyric style,[5] the Eagles penned the lyrics, "They stab it with their steely knives but they just can't kill the beast" in their hit "Hotel California". Frey commented, "We just wanted to allude to Steely Dan rather than mentioning them outright, so 'Dan' got changed to 'knives,' which is still, you know, a penile metaphor."[6]
Timothy B. Schmit, who sang background vocals on "The Royal Scam" would later join The Eagles.

Frey commented, "We just wanted to allude to Steely Dan rather than mentioning them outright, so 'Dan' got changed to 'knives,' which is still, you know, a penile metaphor."[6]

Henley added, "Well, yeah." [7]

A+

Walk Away: oooh, a classic rock opening if I ever heard one! Jagged and crunchy. Bra-DANG! Dunk dunk, Bra-DANG! I like this thing about his socks not wanting to come off, neat way of saying he's tempted but not quite tempted. I have the faintest, faintest memory of this chorus - possible I've heard it at some distant point but not anything that made a surface impression. This is good though. Got the "drivin' that train, high on cocaine" rhythm to it, your basic highway rock and roll. The guitar break/solo is a little less compelling than the kinda post-Byrdsy/Beatlesy country rock chorus - could be a little more lively or inventive, though I like it when it does sound distinctively Walshian, on the high notes. Dunno what it is I like about those notes so much, in his playing generally - they connote something a little mournful, a little removed, which in some cases starts to feel like a distant sneer back at the main body of the song, but here it's more a flourish, the extra confident shimmy in the walk away. The wah-wah not so much, but the psychedelic mess it's starting to reach when the fadeout happens is interesting - would be down with more Eagles songs or "Life's Been Good" going that way. But of course the fact that they didn't is one of the things that distinguishes smooth-polished cocaine corporate rock from your turn-of-the-seventies rock shamble.

Chorus is still stuck in my head ten minutes later, a good (?) sign. Thumbs up.

Love this tune. The James Gang are maybe my favorite power trio ever. Jim Fox's drum breaks on this song are so great!

This still rocks pretty good. Maybe a little too hard and drivin' for this fucking muggy, humid, limp-along end of summer. A difficult but key itch for classic rock to scratch - sometimes you want stew, sometimes you want jumping beans, but sometimes you want a huge pitcher of unsweetened ice tea and nowhere to be. "Drift Away" is key here as I've said before, but if I had to pick from the above, feel like Call Me the Breeze fits the times best (and not just because of the title) (though it'd be cool if he was trying to summon a breeze to himself). This is also a good time for the 80s things, which generally are "cooler" in palette - "Your Love," "Stand Back" and "You Got Lucky." And oddly, "Roundabout" has the right kind of freshness - a cool brook wends its way through the western forest of the elves. "Eminence Front" might also work; its iciness would cool the room, and the heat of the day might give the song a different story than I'd imagined - less New York in the fall, more LA in the summer, but still with the phonies.

"walk away" is probably my favorite song that we've done so far another excellent review, dr. c. "bra-DANG dunk dunk bra-DANG" pretty much covers it, i think! though i'm not sure it quite captures how fantastic those guitars sound.

and, yeah, please go away, september heat. 95 today according to my car thermometer today, but felt like 97. "call me the breeze" does indeed work well in these situations, though of course another approach is to just go with it and play "the fire down below" as loud as you can.

in honor of both doctor casino's recent road trip and the imminent end of the cosmic arena rock show known as summer 2014:

SONG #29: JACKSON BROWNE "THE LOAD-OUT / STAY"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aqdWNBqyxcA

Thread that didn't take off: Lines from the 2014 version of Jackson Browne's "The Load-Out"