Steely Dan: "Steely Dan's name has been popping up as a hip musical crush. Remember, this glossy bop-pop was the indifferent aristocracy to punk rock's stone-throwing in the late 70's. People fought

Walter Becker >>>>> Johnny Thunders
AJA >>>>> Never Mind the Bollocks
"Hey Nineteen" >>>>>> "London Calling"

You're incredibly boring and overrated

These bookends to their - original - career are funpacked, not as knowing as what comes in between. Though some may disagree violently.

Great band. Once again, a Pitchdork writer postures but doesn't offer anything in the way of interesting musical insight. But hey maybe one of these days we'll get a "reassessment" of them too.

I saw 'em on the reunion tour as well! I drove three hours to see them in Indianapolis, in fact, because I couldn't get tickets for CHicago. Good show overall, although I will admit to being a bit disappointed at the time, probably just cuz I had built it up so much in my mind.

If you want to insult them, fine, but accusing them of mere "basic competence" is a tad silly.

Where have your favourite bands made their greatest albums? In their kitchens? On a beach in Spain?

Not to mention The Beatles from "Revolver" onwards.....

"By now, Becker and Fagen's pool of musicians had expanded into a veritable orchestra of session players. They thought nothing of flying a guitar player or a drummer -- or indeed both -- across the country to play little more than a few bars of one song which might not even make it onto disc. Expense didn't enter into it; their foremost consideration was to find the right stylistic match and to create as perfect a rendition of each composition as was humanly possible. Within a few years they would take their obsessiveness even further, using the latest technology to create absolute millisecond-perfect drum tracks, using either a drum machine, a computer, a live drummer, or a combination of all three.

"At the sessions for The Royal Scam, Fagen and Becker began to record each tune with six or seven different rhythm sections, switching the players around to try almost every configuration possible. They would record all the songs with Rick Marotta and then record them all over again with Bernard Purdie to see what each drummer could bring to the tunes.

"Bass players, guitar players, and keyboard players would flit in and out of a variety of studios so often they never knew what was going on. Different combinations of musicians were playing all the songs on successive nights and no one knew in advance -- including sometimes Becker and Fagen -- who (if anyone) would end up on the final track. On some frustrating occasions, after countless unsuccessful takes, a song would be dropped because Becker and Fagen decided that none of the multitude of efforts had come close to their vision of the song. Often Becker and Fagen's microscopic fastidiousness bewildered the session players, who thought every facet of the track sounded fine but which for some reason Becker and Fagen refused to accept. And no amount of talking could persuade them otherwise.

"Fagen and Becker took their controlled experimentation further with each album; it would reach its limit on Gaucho when it became increasingly unlikely that they would ever be satisfied with virtually any basic track. During Gaucho they employed an astonishing forty musicians and singers and worked on one song for so long and listened back to it so many times that they actually wore the oxide off the tape."

-from Steely Dan: Reelin' in the Years, by Brian Sweet, Omnibus Press 1994

(xpost)

Feel free not to like them.

LEAVE GOD OUT OF THIS.

This is the first time I'm squarely in Geir's corner! :o

Oddly enough, the only other Dan album I listen to regularly is "The Royal Scam," which I feel has always gotten short shrift. I once heard a DJ mix in "The Fez," and the crowd went nuts. The interview I once did with Becker/Fagen was a hoot, too.

does stewart O like steely dan i wonder?

The Minutemen didn't seem to think so.

Fagan and Becker's liner notes in the re-issue of "The Royal Scam" are funny and go into their way of seeing things during that time. (Do the other re-issues have similar notes? I have old cds or lps of the rest.)

Anyway, is there anything more tired and poked full-of-holes in 2004 than received punk-rock mythology (various prog/punk ilm threads to thread; john lydon use other facts please to thread, etc)

x-post

amen.

what's always amusing to me about folks who use the pistols or lydon as a crutch for bashing stuff like steely dan (or anything else) is that it's doubtful that the crutches themselves were thinking the same way. i mean john lydon was a fan of CAN, NEU!, and CAPTAIN BEEFHEART ... it's not THAT great a leap from those guys to steely dan. do these people who trot out the pistols or whatever class of '77 punk group ever really THINK?

What does this mean? Enlighten me!

Can't Buy A Thrill has been one of the things that's got me through a fairly intense last week. The great thing about them is of course you can listen to them as just a bunch of coke-raddled musos practising their licks and it's very soothing if you do.

70s coke-fueled self-indulgence and I have yet to find a single meaningful lyric in it.

this quote does make them sound very good, sort of like summer 73

Absolutely right Gaz. Actually the only people I can remember mentioning SD specifically around the time did so in positive terms - albeit maybe as some sort of guilty secret!

"does stewart O like steely dan i wonder?"

Indeed I do.

"Haha .. actually I think I got in some stupid bitchy argument with Stewart O on that "Talking Heads vs. Steely Dan" thread (he liked TH)."

Actually I was perfectly clear that I like both bands - the point was that you didn't like TH and seemed intent on starting some stupid bitchy argument because you were apparently unable or unwilling to assimilate the possibility that I (anyone?) could possibly like both!

"Anyway, is there anything more tired and poked full-of-holes in 2004 than received punk-rock mythology"

Very true; the problem is that "received mythology" played such a huge part in the development of punk almost from the word go, that it's almost certainly impossible - and quite definitely pointless - to even attempt to separate the two.

In context, Steely Dan represented everything that punk stood against: major lable dinosaur limo-rock made by people who were technicians above feeling musicians.

Again that's pretty much what SD were seen as representing as far I can recall. Let's remember the crucial role that the word "IN CONTEXT" and "REPRESENTED" are playing in that sentence 'though, shall we?

"john lydon was a fan of CAN, NEU!, and CAPTAIN BEEFHEART ... it's not THAT great a leap from those guys to steely dan."

It may not be that great a leap in many respects 'tis true; but in context, in terms of what those different acts represented at that moment in time, you could have been forgiven for believing that there was a vast, yearning chasm between them.

"the worst thing abt it is that it's reduced some of us to actually 'calling sides' in this nonexistent musical-generational war"

Amen.

On the surface, you might think that because of the backup singers. But listen harder - nowadays I hear the Mothers of Invention more than anything.

Should I (or indeed my former English teachers) be pleased about that... or not?

no, honestly.

Don't you know
There's fire in the hole
And nothing left to burn
I'd like to run out now
There's nowhere left to turn

With a cough
I shake it off
And work around my yellow stripe
Should I hide
And eat my pride
Or wait until it's good and ripe
My life is boiling over
It's happened once before
I wish someone would open up the door

Don't you know
There's fire in the hole
And nothing left to burn
I'd like to run out now
There's nowhere left to turn

BLASPHEMY

People who think great craft and good chops are antithetical to "feelings" (too intellectual? not enough from the heat?) hate Steely Dan. But that's just as silly as thinking great craft and good chops are *necessary* for creating great music. You can't make rules about this stuff. Orbit makes them sound like they're Blood, Sweat & Tears, or something.

That may be true; but what seems to me to be far more prevalent is people who hate Steely Dan ascribing the reason for that hatred to a belief that great craft and good chops are antithetical to "feelings"

I will not take anyone seriously who thinks that "Babylon Sisters" is sterile and unfeeling.

orbit do you hate relaxing?

That's interesting. So you think it's a rationalization? Just an "I hate this, what's wrong with it, ah, I know!" kind of thing?

I suspect that's a significant factor - particularly for those for whom SD "represent" something (e.g. "everything that punk stood against" or the sort of music that's listened to by your "smarmy yuppie boss").

Hence I suspect why so many people seem to feel it perfectly reasonable to attack / dismiss SD without feeling the necessity to complicate the basis of their judgment by having actually listened to them first; and consequently why so many other people have been made to feel that liking them somehow represents some sort of betrayal of principles.

I like that they're a fusion of "taste" and "tasteless" -- the boho/lit/jazz leanings wouldn't be nearly as fun if they weren't accompanied by this Curb Your Enthusiasm-like hateful-but-hilarious middle-aged industry dickhead sensibility. I love them even more as they're getting older.

This is exactly it for me, at least with the radio station I listened to growing up. They played the same "hits" over and over and over again and I just learned to cringe every time I heard them, no matter how cool I thought it was that they were named after a sex toy. Although: I did love "Hey Nineteen" when it came out, but I'm still not sure if that was the song itself or my adolescent whatnot reacting to the fabulousness of the Solid Gold dancers uh "interpreting" it every week while it was still on the charts.

Maybe I'll come around to the band some day, but it's going to take a lot of time and possibly some therapy.

Becker: "And it was just a quirk of Donald's and my natures that we thought superimposing jazz harmonies on pop songs was subversive in a much more subtler way. But i guess most people writing songs don't look at it that way.. lucky for us!"

Fagan: "I think people who are sophisticated in the sense that they want to hear some kind of substance in the lyrics are musically going to tend to be primitivists. They have that kind of nostalga de la boue, they are into this purity thing of rock'n'roll; they see it as once being the sort of revolutionary teenage thing and they want to maintain that. I don't know why groups who have some good writers as far as the lyrics go don't get bored playing the same old rock'n'roll stuff..."

That's their starting point. That's before all the musicians came in.

To me SD is nothing if not emotional, at their core. Allegedly "sterile" chops played with precise warmth and lyrics that satirize their intended audience.

My roommate hates 'em too, but she thinks Ryan Adams is a genius and I have to hear "Rock and Roll" every morning so fuck her.

Your roommate, Gear!, could be charged for cruel and unusual punishment.

All night long
We would sing that stupid song
And every word we sang I knew was true.

also, one thing that struck me about reading This Band Could Be Your LIfe was how the whole punk/70s rock "war" was largely bullshit anyway (at least for the bands in that book)...I mean all those kids like 70s/60s/classic rock...Ian MacKaye and Rollins worshipped Nugent, the Minutemen CCR, and Gregg Ginn (and I think one of the Sonic Youth folks too) loved The Grateful Dead.

USA Punx were into Blue Oyster Cult and y'all's know it

"Steely Dan's career started self-indulgently in the 70s, and they outdid themselves in the pretension department with each subsequent album. Do It Again, Reeling In The Years, and Rikki Don't Lose That Number may just be the reason punk was born. Twenty years later, their Two Against Nature reunion won four Grammys, including album of the year, largely because fans were stoked to hear some new Steely, and because the boys delivered an album full of the jazzy, catchy songs they were famous for. On their new Everything Must Go, they sound bored and out of ideas. Fagen hasn't much to say lyrically, and Becker has nothing engaging to play. Where are the funky rhythms and contagious solos that made Steely Dan FM radio staples? Save the $18 and head to the nearest elevator."

Also, I refuse to believe that punk "saved" us from anything other than limited high-$$$ majors-only access to the production, promotion and release of music.

FAGEN: Sometimes it frightens me when we get some weird stoned Moonie with these weird ideations about these songs, and he starts talking about taking some kind of ACTION against who knows what.

BECKER: There was a guy living in Las Vegas when our first album came out who thought - his girlfriend had left him I guess - all of the songs were stories his girlfriend had told us. He wasn't asking any questions; he just wanted his girlfriend back. And we didn't know anything about the girl. But he thought every one of those stories was about him.

FAGEN: It's your basic Arthur Bremmer syndrome. We get a lot of letters that are written in very small printing with little pictures in the corner.

MUSICIAN: Well, you're talking about the perverse fringe of "active" listeners.

BECKER: No, this is the heart and soul of our audience, I've got news for you. Those weird people on the street - every hundredth weirdest one has a Steely Dan record at home.

MUSICIAN: People that are essentially out-takes.

BECKER: Right, or just flipped-out. Like that guy who hi-jacked that bus today [a friend of theirs had been hijacked in midtown Manhattan] probably has forty-seven copies of The Royal Scam at home.

haha beautiful.

xpost: I respect the first two records and love the new one, though I know lots of folks who, like Jody, feel the opposite.

xpost Jody is SO FUCKING OTM.

Bingo.

new genre: dragtime

otherwise wtf

Ahhh wait the new Fagen is Joe Pernice! think about it. musically, maybe Sea and Cake (in some ways, they're a lot like Gaucho)

xpost no shit there's no new anything, I just thought I'd go fishing and piss you all off in the process, which I've done yay!

http://myweb.thump.net/995729/ali.jpg

Donald: Aren't they in the "slow" class?

Walter: They're in the LOW class.

Moderator: Don't you mean No Class...

Donald: Well, where's it being held?

Walter: I heard it was going to be the planet Zonar.

Donald: We need more information to make a big decision like that.

HoopsMcCann: It hasn't been decided yet...

Walter: Plus, we haven't even been invited!

HoopsMcCann: You are invited!!!

Walter: Sorry, can't make it.

Horace Silver/Charlier Parker is to Steely Dan as the Fall/Husker Du/whatever is to Pavement. Let each duo be a smart, privileged college kid in the other's era and they come up with the same kinda stuff.

It was about two A.M. on an unseasonably chilly evening in June when the phone rang. Having just put the finishing touches on a rather lukewarm review of the Leo Sayer concert out in Queens, I was anything but ready for the rapid-fire monologue delivered long distance from L.A. by a man who introduced himself as Steve Diener. After a half hour or so, I came to understand that this garrulous gentleman worked for ABC Records and was inviting me out to Hollywood to observe a Steely Dan recording session, the object being to compose an eyewitness account of the proceedings for a posh European publication. Of course, I was delighted at the prospect and perhaps even a wee bit flattered when I was told that the group had specifically requested my presence. I later found out that this was not entirely true. In retrospect, I should have realized the assignment would not be all sweetness and light; in no way has Steely Dan made its reputation by catering to the rock press. In fact, their contempt for pop music critics was well known to myself and my colleagues. As it turned out, a little caution on my part would not have been out of order. By the end of the first session at Producer's Workshop in Hollywood, it had become abundantly clear to me that nobody inthe "group" new or cared who I was or what I was doing there.

Several sessions later, after Donald and Walter had been apprised of my identity, there was trouble. To make a long story short, I managed to attend perhaps a dozen sessions at three different studios and, on two occasions, attempted to inter- view the composers. Unfortunately, both cassettes were seized under grievous circumstances by a fellow whom I believe to be in the employ of the reluctant interviewees. The loss was inconsequential considering that fact that, at that point, my relationship with the belligerent song writing duo had become so strained as to produce a dialog that consisted mainly of threats, insults, and rude remarks. This, then was the raw material I had to work with. I had squeezed out about three thousand words when I heard from a friend in London that the afore- mentioned European magazine had folded.

It was not until a year later that I received a second phone call from Mr. Diener, now president of ABC Records, who informed me that the "guys" had specifically requested yours truly to write the liner notes for the new album and that a cassette copy of same would be forthcoming. Putting aside personal rancor, I gave "Aja" a listen. I have listened many times since. When they made their recording debut in 1972, Steely Dan was more or less a conventional rock group comprised of six active members. Almost immediately, the roster began to shrink until, by the time "Pretzel Logic" was released, the two composers appeared to be dependent on the performances of a baffling array of crack session regulars. Thanks to their deliberately vague manner of listing album credits, it became virtually impossible to determine who was playing what on any given track (a practice that has persisted until now). This latest album, following on the hot heels of that depraved and cynical masterpiece, "The Royal Scam", represents a departure from the puerile brooding that has distinguished Donald and Walter's work up to now. In this writers opinion, "Aja" signals the onset of a new maturity and a kind of solid professionalism that is the hallmark of an artist who has "arrived".

Side One opens with "Black Cow", a catchy disco-funk number that defies categorization. Bitterly sarcastic lyrics are underpinned by cloying jazz-crossover harmonies, the whole thing propelled by an infectious, trendy beat. Featured here is Victor Feldman's thoughtful electric piano solo followed shortly by Tom Scott's earthy tenor sax. The tile cut, "Aja", is a rather ambitious work in which a latin-tinged pop song is inexplicably expanded into some sort of sonata or suite. The result is a rambling eight-minute epic highlighted by Wayne Shorter's stately, rhapsodic solo which descends gracefully into a recapitulation of the vocal theme. The sensitive, sometimes explosive performance by drummer Steve Gadd may be his finest recorded work to date. The side closes with "Deacon Blues", an Edge City ballad enlivened only by Pete Christlieb's haunting tenor work and a tasty chart by Scott.

Side Two finds vocalist Donald Fagen admonishing yet another lover in a danceable ditty entitled "Peg". Jay Graydon's electric guitar threatens after the initial refrain. The composer's describe this piece as a "pantonal 13 bar blues with chorus". That's the kind of double- talk they were giving me towards he end. We are now confronted by a stunning feet of pop legerdemain. "Home At Last", on first listening an unpretentious roadhouse shuffle, turns out upon close inspection to be a minor marvel of poetic grace and structural economy. At this late date, it would hardly seem possible for an artist to take Homer's immortal tale, so thoroughly exploited by Joyce in 1922, and educe from it new insights - especially within the narrow scope provided by the medium of popular song. Beneath the attractive, effortless flow of words and music, one discovers a lyric presence and fineness of perception that is a rare thing on disc nowadays. I can't say enough about this lovely rhythm-and-blues poem. "I Got The News", a Manhattan-jukebox thump-along, serves as a vehicle for the coy pianistics of Victor Feldman, whose labors are capriciously undermined by Walter Becker's odd, Djangoesque guitar and pointlessly obscene lyric. The final cut, "Josie", exemplifies Steely Dan's remarkable versatility. Rich with images of random violence, copulation, drug abuse, loitering with intent and other misdemeanors, this sociopathic jump tune is sure to become a classic zebra in the annals of Punkadelia.

Michael Phalen

"Bring me some bandages and there'll be sex" -girl in a Bruce Jay Friedman story

"If the 1960's can be seen as a decade largely characterized by musical alienation, with its more radical manifestations often directed explicity against the status quo, against traditional concert music, and against the concert situation itself, the 1970's represented a period of widespread reconciliation." -Robert P. Morgan,"20th Century Music"

It was the hippest of times, it was the squarest of times - mostly the latter. And while it was certainly true that we found ourselves in the unenviable position of being labelmates with the likes of Tommy Roe and Freddie Fender, we yet aspired to see our own names written on the stars alongside the greats, near greats, and ingrates of jazz, funk, and/or rhythm and blues, depending.

The dim half light of near-quasi-celebrity in which we basked notwithstanding, as the seventies wore on, we found ourselves feeling kind of empty inside - as though driving home from a sodden one-nighter with some eminently forgettable made-for-TV-movie queen, say Sharon Farrell or even Susan St. James. Blinded by the as-always-too-bright L.A. skyscape, at once faintly hungry and vaguely nauseated, we switch on the scratchy car radio to soothe our weary psyches, and lo - we are mocked and assaulted by the tinny bleat of our own recorded music, its every flaw hideously magnified, its every shortcoming laid bare. O cosmic hipsters, flipsters, fingerpopping daddies - ye mighty gods of jump music - why hast thou forsaken us? Well, probably for lots of good reasons, both known and unknown, but we come away from this soul wringing thought experiment convinced of two things - 1) this town is Going Down With The Beast, and 2) these L.A. cats are making us sound like a couple of goddamn pussies.

Having recently relocated in the 457 zone (that's out Malibu way, babies) and as we began work on a new collection of fresh and ultra-hard-hitting material designed to redeem ourselves on the public airwaves, it so happens that on a certain magic night both of your humble narrators had strangely similar precognitive dreams involving a) the Brill Building, b) Larry de Tourette, doorman/mascot of same, and c) fear of lifetime employment at Colony Records, located on the ground floor of same. Even allowing for a brief cameo by an unidentified pair of teenage Eurasian deaf mute babysitters towards the end of Act 3 (Becker) or an extended scenario involving amateur theatricals, a tank of nitrous oxide and a snooty upper eastside middle school for French girls (Fagen), the effect of these apocalyptic visions was much as though we had both drawn "The Hanged Man" during Bard College stoner seance on All Hallow's Eve. In other words, we were, according to these distressing prognostications, well and truly fucked - unless we took heed and reinvented ourselves on the streets of the City of Class, and pronto.

A period of research and reconnaissance ensued, the chief purpose being to determine a) who exactly played the drums on a certain Laura Nyro record (Bernard Purdie? Herb Lovell? Artie Schneck?) and b) whether the EMT echo chambers at A&R Studios on Seventh Avenue were still the grandest in the land. Was the roast beef still rare, the corned beef lean, the skies still blue, the cab drivers loony - in short, did they remember us still on the Great White Way? Was it possible for food to taste other than it did at the Hamburger Hamlet on Sunset Boulevard? Or was it too late for us to reclaim our rich cultural birthright as citizens of the Greater Metropolitan Area? The results of our inquiries were encouraging. Passages were booked, leaves taken, rhythm charts passed around, and the rest is musical history, of a sort (see enclosed CD).

Fast forward to mixdown, back in L.A. Comfortably configured in our customary listening positions at ABC Records Studio C, we find ourselves feeling all fat and sassy. Seretonin receptors sipping at a seemingly inexhaustible supply of whatever, we feel as though we are strolling down a realer-than-real virtual Broadway, past the City Squire and on into the groovingest Broadway nightclub you can ever imagine, with the bugaloo band of your dreams up on the stand wailing away. Instead of the usual make-mine-vanilla scrubbers, we find ourselves rocking out to the soul-stirring sounds of some fiercely funkadelic and deeply righteous Bernard Purdie grooves, Chuck Rainey bass lines, Paul Griffin piano riffs, and the like. Here comes a guitar solo - Larry Carlton, no problem there. Don Grolnick keyboard vamps so solid you could set your watch by them. Background vocals, blaring trumpets, wah wah guitar solos, ha-ha lyrics - it's all there. Our happiness at this particular point in time would be ultracomplete save for one thing - namely, we have not as yet found a cover shot for the album. None of our much-prized souvenirs of Springtime in the Big City - gold faucets from the St. Regis, Polaroids from the Metropole, sixpack of thick terry bathrobes with various hotel monograms, empty pack of Delicado Olivados, hecho en Mexico - our copious stash of colorful Big Apple swag leaves us still wanting for suitable thematic material pertaining to the desperately needed cover art. Luckily for us, we are in Los Angeles where, more than anywhere else in the known universe, bad taste abhors a vacuum, and before long we find ourselves staring into the maw of the most hideous album cover of the seventies, bar none (excepting perhaps Can't Buy A Thrill). Why are those buildings turning into reptilian horrors, or vice versa? What squalid back alley of the human condition is meant to be invoked by this contused nightmare palette? What manner of man - ill-shod, unshaven - dares sleep peacefully through this fearsome and repulsive protomorph?
(to be continued)

Donald Fagen & Walter Becker, 1999

What?

! i'm scared to ask, but who would this be today?

this thread reminds me that i don't have enough steely dan in my collection. sd are one of those bands that conjure warm memories for me like old photos from the 70s.

the phrase "hip musical crush" is so horribly cynical...it's like they're saying, "damn, i'm just upset i didn't get there first." the idea of music as this territorial pissing match just seems so myopic.

Jewel -vs- Bobby Short .. dunno .. I was thinking Wayne Shorter when I read it & don't give a shit about Jewel in any case.

I still can't get Steely Dan but I've learned to respect them. they use the studio as it was designed, as a transparent tool for maximum control over the sound, invisible & seamless: they clearly aren't 'live' performances, but there's no overt signs in the music indicating that they aren't, they still refer to an idealized version of live music. in the early 80's when I started buying records they seemed to be missing the point entirely, I liked people who used the studio as an expressive, intrusive instrument, I wanted the seams to show. 20 years later I'm increasingly sick of blathering self-induglent eno-damage & the SD records now seem like miracles of restraint.

still left slightly cold by the sound though. but anyone who's spent any time in a studio or has any experience in engineering has to give it up for the accomplishment.

Another arrogant moron writing for Pitchfork. No fucking idea what a 'copyist' does but that doesn't stop him from sneering.

really enjoying jody's posts.

i didnt expect my invoking jewel would prompt people to start posting her lyrics

FAGEN: Hell, we steal. We're the robber barons of rock 'n' roll.

MUSICIAN: Well, the only other thing on the record that seems obviously borrowed is "Glamour Profession." The rhythm and feel of it, and the way the synthesizer/horn vamp swings against the pulse sounds very much like Dr. Buzzard's Original Savannah Band.

BECKER: I don't listen to them. Donald listens to them. But I see what you mean though.

MUSICIAN: I'm not saying it was necessarily a conscious act of pilferage.

FAGEN: That song was influenced by disco music in general.

MUSICIAN: Nouveau Swing Disco?

FAGEN: What you're saying is basically valid. There are other things that are borrowed too. The bridge on "Glamour Profession" is a take on the bridge of Kurt Weill's "Speak Low."

BECKER: Which is taken from Ravel.

MUSICIAN: What about popular music? Anything going on that you might be a bit more enthusiastic about?

BECKER: I've had a tough time with the radio lately. It's pathetic.

FAGEN: The Talking Heads are very interesting. They're a top band.

MUSICIAN: That's what happens when you go to the Rhode Island School of Design.

FAGEN: Fortunately, it's mainly their album covers that I like. The covers and the guy's eyes are great. There's at least an intelligence behind them, which is more than you can say for most groups.

BECKER: Further and further as time goes by... they're leaving it in the dust.

FAGEN: I like Donna Summers' records.

BECKER: I bought the single, "Turn Out The Lights." Had to have it.

FAGEN: I did like Dr. Buzzard's first record. But only that one.

MUSICIAN: So I guess it's pretty bleak out there, is that what you're saying?

BECKER: I guess, unless there's something out there that's being suppressed, which is entirely possible.

FAGEN: Oh, you know what I went for in a way, Ian Drury and The Blockheads. More of a comedy thing.

That Musician interview that JBR is quoting is awesome. They have such great, wry rapport. I honestly don't think I'd ever read an interview or heard them speak at length until I saw all those Las Vegas clips promoting the last record. Those were priceless. I think they could carry their own TV show!

I loved Chaki's story about driving on Sunset and hearing "Babylon Sisters". There lyrics have that quality that allows them to insinuate themselves into your life in funny ways. Sometimes I'll be walking around and the line "Here come those Santa Ana winds again" will pop into my head. ANd I don't think I've ever been to Santa Ana! But it's not really the melody that gets caught in your head, it's the sentiment, the feeling .. if that makes any sense.

I just tried to find a link for those clips, but it looks like they must have taken them down :(

No, because they are cold and unfeeling studio technocrats.

Walter and Donald ride around in a taxi in Las Vegas

ha, I'm here - it's just that when someone busts out the "SD is boring"/aor/what-punk-was-against/et al I feel this crushing weight that must be what freshman Survey of English Lit. profs feel when some student who's never read anything pre-20th century comes with the "this isn't pertinent!" etc.: I just want to say, firmly and as calmly as I can: "Have you actually listened to the records?" because Steely Dan is so unambiguously not what their detractors almost invariably accuse them of being ("laid back," "mellow," etc) that there's hardly any point in arguing about it

OK. OK. OK. When you have a band like Steely Dan, whose lyrics put pretty much everybody else's to shame, then it's at best narrow-minded to assume that any aspect of what they're doing isn't meaningful. What I mean: when, say, the White Stripes rock out, I don't think they're trying to engage their rock with their lyrics in any particular way: they're just doing what they like to do, approaching their craft in the way that seems best to them. The lyrics may engage with the music (more aggressive lyrics for more aggressive music, for example) but it'd take some work to suggest that the inverse was ever the case. With Steely Dan, on the other hand: the production, the melodies, the changes, all that stuff bounces off the lyrics (in markedly different ways, I might add; again, if variances in production aren't audible to you, then you're not listening very hard) in ridiculously pointed (and, I'd say, rather obvious) ways. "Glamor Profession" is probably the most obvious example. In a way, the snide "oooh, slick" that they sometimes get amounts to a "mission accomplished" for Becker & Fagen: they have successfully talked above their audience. That this has been their goal all along is perhaps on of the most hilariously cynical things in the history of music.

indifferent aristocracy.....yeah keep dropping those 10 ratings on Radiohead and Modest Mouse, they're positively "bands-of-the-people"

Interesting question, might be worthy of a new thread.... can you explain what you mean a bit more 'though?

Why is it forever being brought up in a "I like insert name of group or genre even though Punk was all about destroying re-inset name of group or genre " sense? All those endless "liking Prog is more Punk than hating Prog" threads. I remember being embarassed when Sonic Youth started going on about Punk Rock like they'd just invented it and that was in 1987 or something.

It would be tempting to suggest that maybe punk somehow resolved itself in the UK in a way that it didn't in the US.

I imagine if I was a young US punk I might write that as something more like "punk got beaten in the UK but it didn't in the US"!

To be honest I strongly suspect that "Punk" in the UK and "Punk" in the US have / had only the most superficial similarities anyway.

Unfortunately I don't know enough about the US punk scene to even attempt to defend any of those statements.

The only connection to Yes I can think of is after Sid and Jah Wobble had their altercation with Bob Harris at The Speakeasy, Rick Wakeman jumped on the bandwagon, threw his rattle out of his pram, and wrote to the Board of A&M telling them that if the 'Pistols weren't thrown off the label then he'd quit (I believe Elton John was involved in that too IIRC).

Even then, I think A&M were far more worried about the possibility of losing Peter Frampton (who had the same Agent as Bob Harris) than they were about losing Wakeman.

this thread needs Jody to put it back on the rails.

I like Steely Dan because they're virtuosos (same goes for the Dave Matthews Band, though lotsa folks around here would disagree with me on that one). Amateur guitar music is not in itself a bad thing, it's just that there's SO GODDAMN MUCH OF IT.

Dammit, somebody out there's gotta make music nobody else can play, right? Music that you just listen to with your mouth open and think, "Jesus! How the FUCK can ANYBODY play that fast?!"

Does "Do It Again" or "Ricki Don't Lose That Number" do this for you?

Well, no, but those are exceptions. Those are both from their first album, and they hadn't really developed their chops yet. Still rule, though! Steely Dan rules!!

Charlie Freak had but one thing to call his own
Three weight ounce pure golden ring no precious stone
Five nights without a bite
No place to lay his head
And if nobody takes him in
He'll soon be dead
On the street he spied my face I heard him hail
In a plot of frozen space he told his tale
Poor man, he showed his hand
So righteous was his need
And me so wise I bought his prize
For chicken feed

Newfound cash soon begs to smash a state of mind
Close inspection fast revealed his favorite kind
Poor kid, he overdid it
Embraced a spreading haze
And while he sighed his body died
In fifteen ways

When I heard I grabbed a cab to where he lay
'Round his arm the plastic tag read D.O.A.
Yes Jack, I gave it back
The ring I could not own
Now come my friend I'll take your hand
And lead you home

Used to play a pogo-ized cover of that.

I listened to 'Gaucho' tonight while doing dishes; it's my favourite, along with 'Countdown to Ecstasy' and 'Everything Must Go'. 'Katy Lied' is close.

I still haven't gotten over 'Pixeleen'. The bass line moving into the chorus.. i used 'luxury sedan' to describe this one before; so sleek and powerful, 'symmetrical and clean', but maybe limousine is better? and in the best, most evil, sense, not the bullshit up thread. I still can't get at what level of exploitation this song is about, and whether any laws are being broken. maybe that's not the point.. i'm swooning, regardless. No kidding; I've just listened to the damn song 4 times over while writing this. Everything about me is different/Symmetrical and clean

oh, hey, construction of the feminine in 'Green Book' paired with 'Pixeleen' Now where'd we sample those legs/I'm thinking Marilyn 4.0 in the Green Book // She's kinda cute but a little younger/She got the mood and the moves segue into my three times perfect ultrateen // my sleek and soulful cyberqueen, and always, ever Everything about me is different/Symmetrical and clean

"Rikki" is from the second album, and the "chops" issue is irrelevant because most of the flashy playing in the early years was done by Dias/Baxter/various session guys.

Oh yeah. My bad. I got that confused with "Reelin' in the Years."

what's up with the snide comments after the song titles, though? some make sense ("Only A Fool Would Say That" - A message cha-cha), but some i can't figure out ("Fire In The Hole" - How's my little girl?).

"Steely Dan: band/source of good vocabulary words"

Been listening to "Everything Must Go" a lot recently. Pixeleen is one of the best things they've ever done, surely?

http://www.numbertwopencil.net/graphics/withdonaldfixed.jpg

http://www.berklee.edu/commencement/2001/images/Fagen_podium2.jpg

"...spilled their seed on baren ground." indeed. I love all from the first to Aja, but thought Gaucho was pretty hollow. I should get back to it because a lot of people like it. Haven't got either of the new ones, because they seem more Gaucho than pre-Gaucho.

Here's another way to read this contrast between Fagen's vocals and the music: A Steely Dan album is a trip through the warped mind of our unreliable narrator (as played by Fagen), and the ultra-polished instrumentals reflect the idealized soundtrack that he hears in his head as the stories and fantasies unspool. (Don't we all, at certain times, to some degree, amble through life with a soundtrack playing in our heads, lending rhythmic drama to the random humdrum?)

As evidence for this interpretation, I direct you to The Nightfly, Fagen's 1982 solo album, not just one of the great pop albums but one of the great pop album covers. The front cover shows Fagen as a disc jockey at 4:09 a.m., chain-smoking Chesterfields, a Sonny Rollins LP on the turntable. The back cover shows a suburban house, one of a row of identical houses, except in this one, a light glistens through an upstairs window. The sky shows the hint of dawn. By inference, it's 4:09 a.m., and the kid upstairs—the only person awake in the neighborhood—is listening to the disc jockey. Fagen's liner notes suggest that The Nightfly is autobiographical. It's about the adolescent Fagen listening in the wee hours to cool jazz on the radio—while also imagining that he's the DJ, "Lester the Nightfly" of "WJAZ," as the album's title song calls him, spinning "sweet music/ … till the sun comes through the skylight." Or maybe it's about Lester, spinning records while reminiscing about the all-night listening sessions of his youth. Either way, the covers (both in gleaming black-and-white) present an image of music as the perpetual soundtrack and the creative fount of an imaginative life.

I would also cite the technical credits (clearly written by Fagen, Becker, or both) on Steely Dan's 1975 album, Katy Lied: "Steely Dan uses a specially constructed 24-channel tape recorder, a 'State-of-the-Art' 36-input computerized-mixdown console … some very expensive German microphones … a Neumann VMS 70 computerized lathe equipped with a variable pitch, variable depth helium cooled head." There's a deliberate stratagem to these gushings. They convey the clear impression (even to a reader who doesn't know what they're talking about) that the boys of Steely Dan get to play with dream-fantasy gear in a dream-fantasy studio: the hi-fi geek's equivalent of driving an Audi TT, lounging in a comfy Eames chair, or dating a girl like Tuesday Weld—to name a few dream-fantasies mentioned by the narrator in some Steely Dan songs. It all reinforces the sense, if only subconsciously, that this record you're listening to is a dream-fantasy, the inner soundtrack to an ordinary guy's secret story, for else how could a voice like Donald Fagen's—in other words, like yours or mine—get backup from a band that sounds so damned impeccable? 

http://patstjohn.com/Graphics/Gallery/Donald_Fagen.jpg

this was me from the moment I became infatuated with Becker-Fagen until about 3 months ago. I *still* think it's my least favorite of the original seven (I only wish Darn1elle were around to give me hell for it) but the title track has slowly become one of my favorite tunes ever. Great lyrics, if oblique (but, hey, that's one of SD's primary charms, right?). Is it a gay love triangle? What the hell is a Custerdome? Whatever, it rules.

To the Editor:

In his review of Hendrik Hertzberg's ''Politics'' (July 4), Richard Brookhiser reveals what seems to be multiple personality disorder. Brookhiser the writer can't help praising Hertzberg's skill (Hertzberg is ''amusing, insightful''; he delights the reader), but then Brookhiser the right-wing hit man pops up with the condemnations (''bland'' and ''boring to read''). Brookhiser's giddy oscillations make him sound like the Nutty Professor and deny your readers a serious review of Hertzberg's book

Donald Fagen
New York

http://www.numbertwopencil.net/graphics/fangen.jpg

Nothing wrong with liking either approach to making records. Or both. I certainly do.

That's basically how I see them, though I have heard a few of their songs (because my dad likes them). It really just doesn't sound like something I could get into. Maybe someday...

Holden: You're in a desert, walking along in the sand when all of the sudden-
Leon: Is this the test now?
Holden: Yes. You're in a desert walking along in the sand when all of the sudden you look down-
Leon: What one?
Holden: What?
Leon: What desert?
Holden: It doesn't make any difference what desert, it's completely hypothetical.
Leon: But how come I'd be there?
Holden: Maybe you're fed up, maybe you want to be by yourself, who knows? You look down and you see Donald Fagan crawling toward you-
Leon: Donald Fagan, who's that?
Holden: Know who Walter Becker is?
Leon: Um, yeah.
Holden: His partner.
Leon: I've never seen Walter Becker. (pause) But I understand who you mean.
Holden: You reach down, you kick Donald Fagan over on his back, Leon.
Leon: Do you make up these questions, Mr. Holden, or do they write them down for you?
Holden: Donald Fagan lays on its back, his belly baking in the hot sun beating its legs trying to turn himself over but he can't, not without your help, but you're not helping.
Leon: What do you mean I'm not helping?
Holden: I mean, you're not helping. Why is that Leon? (pause) They're just questions, Leon. In answer to your query, they're written down for me. It's a test, designed to provoke an emotional response. (pause) Shall we continue? Describe in single words, only the good things that come in to your mind about... robotic, steam-powered stainless steel dildos.
Leon: robotic, steam-powered stainless steel dildos?
Holden: Yeah.
Leon: Let me tell you about dildos... (BANG!)

Mary is strapping on a rubber penis: "Steely Dan III from Yokohama," she says, caressing the shaft. Milk spurts across the room.

"Be sure that milk is pasteurized. Don't go giving me some kinda awful cow disease like anthrax or glanders or aftosa..."

"When I was a transvestite Liz in Chi used to work as an exterminator. Make advances to pretty boys for the thrill of being beaten as a man. Later I catch this one kid, overpower him with supersonic judo I learned from an old Lesbian Zen monk. I tie him up, strip off his clothes with a razor and fuck him with Steely Dan I. He is so relieved I don't castrate him literal he come all over my bedbug spray."

"What happened to Steely Dan I?"

"He was torn in two by a bull dyke. Most terrific vaginal grip I ever experienced. She could cave in a lead pipe. It was one of her parlor tricks."

"And Steely Dan II?"

"Chewed to bits by a famished candiru in the Upper Baboonsasshole. And don't say 'Wheeeeeeee!' this time."

"Why not? It's real boyish."

"Barefoot boy, check thy bullheads with the madame."

ame: Razor Boy
joebj@compmore.net
Location: Kanata, Ont Canada
Date: Wednesday, March 25, 1998 at 21:27:00
Comments:

The talk about the Oscars show tweaked my memory to that most gruesome of Steely Dan moments, when Donnie Osmond sang the first two verses of "Peg" during some Miss Teenage America Pageant in the late '70's. It made me a touch numb, and my mother asked me what the fuss was all about, after I lost my sense of decorum and uttered the most graphic of expletives. I told her that she wouldn't understand, and sucked it up and listened to Donny butcher the song.

http://www.retrocrush.com/archive2003/costumes/osmonddonny.jpg

My God, what I wouldn't give for that tape. Incidentally, all of that message board seems about this tightly wound.

I'm serious -- half the time all I want to listen to is "glossy bop-pop."

I was gonna write a review for this on the Rock Discipline thread. Maybe I still will...

At work we have this really crappy radio station that plays nonstop; New York's "chill"-- whatever that's supposed to mean; but they play Deacon's Blues every once in a while and it's hugely refreshing.

That is all.

I find it doesn't really affect my enjoyment of the album--like nate said, they're still great songs.

-- Matos-Webster Dictionary (michaelangelomato...) (webmail), March 2nd, 2005 8:29 PM. (M Matos) (link)

haha!

in dave marsh's heart of rock and soul or whatever it's called, he reviews A RECORD ON WHICH DONALD FAGEN IS SINGING and writes something like "boy, this palmer guy sucks--he's no donald fagen!"

My sister said that some people can be really blind yet they believe they can see. Is this true?

Yours sincerely

Caitlin 

***

Dear Caitlin

It's true, though it's a very rare condition.

If a person is blind, of course they can't really see. But there is a part of the visual system in the brain that can make up pictures that aren't really there...like when you imagine things or dream.

There's another part of the brain that gives you a feeling that what you are experiencing or thinking is real, or true. If these two parts of the brain don't work together properly (which is very unusual) then you can believe you are seeing things when, physically, you aren't.

If a blind person has this problem then they will 'see' what they expect to see.

For instance, if they are in their living room they think they can see the lounge suite, the coffee table, the TV, etc. But it doesn't feel to them like they are imagining it. They really believe it. They can't help it. No amount of arguing about it with them will convince them, even if they make mistakes.

For instance, someone might have moved the coffee table and the blind person walks into it. They wouldn't think that they hadn't seen it. Instead they would make up (and believe) an excuse. 'I just kicked that coffee table to see if it was made properly. You can't be too sure about the quality of workmanship these days.'

There is a famous case of a woman who wasn't blind but who had a similar problem with the part of her brain to do with location. No matter where she was she always believed she was in her own home. Once she was taken to hospital for some tests. While she was waiting in the foyer she looked at the row of shiny stainless steel elevator doors in front of her. She was most upset. She complained about the workers who were doing the renovations in her living room. She hadn't ordered elevators. They would have to take them out again. She was damned if she was going to pay the extra cost for their mistake...etc.

You see, the poor lady had to make up a reason to explain to herself what felt to be true to her--that she was always at home in her own place.

It just goes to show that so much of what we think is real is actually happening in our brain.

Of course, most of the time it is real. At least it is for me!

Yours sincerely ,
Virginia R. Claire

I've noticed that the lyrics have gotten much less willfully obscure (I think they cited Pynchon as an influence early on) and tell a coherent story now. Musically they're completely unchanged from what they used to do.

funny, i was just thinking about this thread.

one of my favorite things anyone wrote about a record is Christgau on David Palmer, the other vocalist on Thrill: "He fits in like a cheerleader at a crap game."

who's more yacht rock, palmer or fagen?

nuff said huh?

LOGGINS!

Author: William Burroughs

“I’m a Steely Dan fan so naturally I wanted to read the book they thought compelling enough to name their band after an element of.”

they admitted once in an interview that "glamour profession" MIGHT have been a conspicuous ripoff of "cherchez la femme."

Fagen: Your music has always had a life here in America apart from the films. In the past few years, though, your influence has surfaced in a lot of rock music and in the works of "avant-garde" composers. Why is this music from 25-year old Italian westerns the talk of the town?

Morricone: I don't know. You tell me.

Fagen: Well...

Morricone: But I have a hypothesis. When I begin a theme in a certain key, say, D minor, I never depart from this original key. If it begins in D minor, it ends in D minor. This harmonic simplicity is available to everyone.

Fagen: But isn't it true that the Leone films, with their elevation of mythic structures, their comic book visual style and extreme irony, are now perceived as signaling an aesthetic transmutation by a generation of artists and filmmakers? And isn't it also true that your music for those films reflected and abetted Leone's vision by drawing on the same eerie catalog of genres - Hollywood western, Japanese samurai, American pop, and Italian Opera? That your scores functioned both "inside" the film as a narrative voice and "outside" the film as the commentary of a winking jester? Put it all together and doesn't it spell "postmodern", in the sense that there has been a grotesque encroachment of the devices of art and, in fact, an establishment of a new narrative plane founded on the devices themselves? Isn't that what's attracting lower Manhattan?

Morricone: [ shrugs ]

Fagen: What about your use of unusual solo instruments? You've hired Zamfir, master of the pan-flute. You've featured whistlers and the human voice. Do you hear a specific color when you watch a scene?

Morricone: When I write a passage, I find out who's available. If the violinist I want is out of town, I'll use, say, a great flute player who is on a day layover in Rome. Sometimes its even simpler. In The Mission, the character in the film plays the oboe, so...

Fagen: After scoring so many films, it must be hard to come up with fresh ideas.

Morricone: I saw The Untouchables on Monday, I thought of the main theme in the cab back to the hotel and played it for De Palma on Tuesday.

Fagen: You've worked with many directors, each who must present a different set of problems for the composer. I have a list here. What was it like working for Bertolucci?

Morricone: Bellisimo!

Fagen: Pontecorvo?

Morricone: He is my old friend, bellisimo!

Fagen: John Boorman?

Morricone: Bellisimo!

Fagen: Terence Malick?

Morricone: A man with bad luck but bello, bellisimo!

Fagen: Roman Polanski?

Morricone: Bellisimo!

Fagen: Brian De Palma?

Morricone: Bellisimo!

Fagen: Leone?

Morricone: Bellisimo!

Fagen: Your scores for Leone in particular had a very sly humor. Will you be composing for any comic or semicomic films in the near future?

Morricone: If they offer. I can only choose from the films that are offered me.

Fagen: Maestro, are there days when you wish you were still playing the trumpet?

Morricone: The trumpet was exhausting. I have always wanted to compose.

i guess fagen did a few columns for them at some point!

http://www.vpoc.info/vpmaestro/6.JPG

P.S. Guess why the UK's car industry is dead

I'm computerizing to Pretzel Logic today!

I like it (first listen), but is it possible to love this band if you're a total non-musician?

I seriously doubt everyone who bought "Aja" was a musician.

Aww innocent times, when I was just getting into this... As it happens, I bought today the Reelin in the Years biography. Oh, and I don't play anything.

http://static.flickr.com/30/98011702_f1b7e0729a_o.jpg

Is this just a sign that I'm closer to 30 than 20? Am I becoming more of a true ilm-or?

I've said this before but I suspect the fact that my parents never liked any rock ever has given me a different relationship with classic rock than many North Americans my age.

I think you could do a lot worse than the compilation A Decade of Steely Dan. It's not perfect -- it omits "Any Major Dude Will Tell You" or "Everyone's Gone to the Movies" or "Barrytown" in favor of the inessential "East St. Louis Toodle-Oo" -- but it's got a lot of the classics, and it'd help you figure out which era of the Dan you like best.

i started listening to them when i was 17!

-- jaymc (jmcunnin...), March 17th, 2006 11:07 AM. (jaymc) (later) (link)

haha i awkwardly hooked up with some cornell u. hippie chick in college while we played 'aja'.

I still have a hard time figuring out my personal heirarchy, but it's more or less Countdown>Royal Scam>Pretzel Logic>Aja>Can't Buy>Katy Lied>Gaucho.

-- Le Baaderonixx de Benedict Canyon (baaderonix...), March 17th, 2006 10:35 AM. (baaderonixx) (later) (link)

And with those two statements, I have a new addition to my Netflix queue.

Reviewer: GREENHOUSE EFFECT CLARK "KLAUSE" (SAN DIEGO)
We've all heard these songs 1000 times on the radio but it is for a reason.........to get to the song called; "DIRTY WORK"....ITS a good one, then theres "Any major dude" and lots a' other good clean listening fun here....This band is comprised of great musicians and quality songwriting that can get tedious and old ...but only after 1000 plays so..if yer not familiar with this, then I HIGHLY recommend you get INTO IT...IT WILL CHANGE YOU...IF YER STUCK ON 90'S PUNK ROCK, THIS IS THE BEST WAY TO BREAK FREE AND GROW UP STUPID and get out OF IT...THIS IS STEELY DAN...THIS AIN'T DIRE STRAIGHTS OR MTV OR STING...GET INTO THIS ...and get into Chicago...MAKE THAT BREAK NOW FROM LAME ALTERNATIVE ROCK WHILE YOU CAN ...before it destroys yer life and turns you into a 'life time boy" ...and you wake up at 40 where you WERE AT 26...UPSTAIRS IN YOUR BEDROOM NEXT TO YOUR MOTHER'S ROOM !

i saw steely dan with my mom, once. she likes them.

As much as I love Steely Dan, it's just of archival interest to me...

xpost

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0000011AA/104-8171844-8508707?v=glance&n=5174

I don't "Everthing Must go" well enough yet.

...until about a year ago. It started sounding good. I just didn't get it before. This is a really interesting thread and a good starting point for me to start exploring their work.

i grew up listening to Steely Dan; my dad was a big fan. I've gone through periods of listening to them less, but they've been an official 'favourite band' since i was 12 or so. a number of songs have a lot of childhood associations for me. i.e. asking my dad what 'Charlie Freak' was about, and learning all about drugs!

The Yacht shall rise again.

I honestly don't think I will ever like this band. Lord knows I've given them chance after chance, usually upon having someone recommend one song or another as the one that stands out above the pack. I remain unconvinced. Others on the board have managed, at long last, to help me begin to understand what they appreciate about them, but SD sounds deeply, fundamentally wrong to my ears. But I suppose that much of the music that I enjoy would likely provoke that reaction in others. To each their own, yeah?

quit being such a hater.

love,
music

I love you. I truly do. And it is with love that I ask: exactly how much Scotchgard did you huff before giving birth to that flipper baby that you call Steely Dan?

LYLAS,
Deric

Oh, now that was just unfair of me...

how exactly do they sound deeply, fundamentally wrong?

(Now before anyone shows up to pummel me with anecdotes about Fagen and Becker's eternally sunny dispositions and how this informed their music ironically, please note that I'm operating from a non-fan perspective here. By which I mean that I don't know a lot of the background details, but that I'm simply relating what seems to me to be the case.)

In short: (almost) everything of theirs I've heard sounds like elevator music. Which is not the type of thing I enjoy listening to. I'm still willing to be convinced otherwise, but the Dan Fans are batting a big fat goose egg in that arena thus far.

I think that I can at least respect them on the basis of their obsessiveness, which is something that often fascinates me and attracts me to music/art in general. There's something in the quality of their obsession, though, that seems to suggest that they don't know when or where to quit (much like myself w/r/t this thread). Just because you can achieve a high-gloss sheen through obsessive attention to detail doesn't mean it's necessarily advisable.

I think that the latter part of the paragraph shows the writer was at least a little self-deprecating about punk rock and its cultural strength. That said, Steely Dan is pretty cool.

Wait til summer. Find a nice place outside, then go there with a portable listening device, Aja and a fattie. Smoke it, press play, and sprawl out on the grass.

Then everything'll be clear-- Steely Dan are fucking awesome.

Actually, I think the notion that most of their stuff is completely couched in irony is a mistaken one; I mean, there is definitely irony present quite often in the lyrics themselves as well as in their delivery; but that doesn't subtract from the fact that even on what is considered their "slickest" records, Aja and Gaucho, lotsa the material is actually pretty dang down-to-earth...to give just two examples, Black Cow is a pretty straightfoward kissoff song, and Hey Nineteen is pretty much about precisely what the lyrics state: "we got nothing in common..." Yah, I guess there's something to be said about the fact that the latter is a song about sexing and coking it up with near-jailbait which musically happens to fit pretty comfortably into a smooth jazz format, but if that kinda thing bugs you about Steely Dan, it's kinda like objecting to the Beach Boys because you don't like falsetto singing-- the pattern of wedding lyrics about kinda-transgressive stuff to loverly jazzy music is sorta unavoidable throughout their stuff...at least from Pretzel Logic onwards. Anyway, for what it's worth, I think the narrator as well as Fagen himself's emotions in those two songs are genuine and easily identified with...I don't think that they're smirking at either of the narrators in those songs or looking at them from some far, far remove-- the first one is basically "see ya- i'm not gonna stick around any longer to endure any more of the grief that you've been giving me" (a pretty universal sentiment for most of us at one time or another) and the second one is "i'm disillusioned by the results of my pre-midlife crisis quest for nubile flesh" (a revelation most dudes likely undergo at some point)

I love Steely Dan's music, but the one thing that always bugged me about them is Do It Again. For a band which has a reputation for making use of sophisticated chord changes and other complixicated stuff one associates more with jazz than rock, they sure managed in that one to come up with one unbearably monotonous song. I always want to clunk Fagen over the head when I hear that one in hopes that he'll spice up the vocal melody a bit. It doesn't help that the verses seem to go on forever! Eleventeen and twenty bars or so...

What does peoples think of Razor Boy? I think that's a great one that no one ever seems to mention. Totally beautiful haunting lonesome pedal steel and all...there really needs to be more songs that incorporate both vibraphone and pedal steel guitar. Man, that's a good 'un.

I said in another thread something to the effect of Steely Dan's music reminding me of the hairdos on Knots Landing. It recalls the sterile tastelessness of the eighties that always makes me cringe when I see it. I concede that this may be for entirely personal reasons that have nothing to do with the relative quality of Steely Dan's music.

But I continue to sample songs as you folks recommend them, figuring surely I'll find a diamond in the rough. Vibraphone and pedal steel certainly does sound like an enticing combination...

But alas, therein lies the error of your displeasure, o writer of stilted prose. For Steely Dan be smooth jazz only inasmuch as Silver Jews be folk music of the singer/songwriter variety.

she finally said she still didn't like them but my defense of them was "poetic." i went home alone and the cab driver made fun of me.

and then we did in fact have to go back to school for our classes after lunch break.

This calls for a little detective work,
Miss Batersby.

"Fucked by Monty." indeed!

Men died! Died!

Maybe the problem is that I'd been listening to real jazz right before it, but the smoove was overpowering. Pleasant, and I don't have any hate for it, but like baby food. Like jazz pre-chewed.
I liked Deacon Blues OK, and I thought Josie was pretty cool. I like the bass sound that they've got, warm and mid-'70s. But things like the disco-ish beat on Black Cow and the endless vapid crooning (I know, I know, everyone loves the lyrics. But Home At Last is pretty damn empty, at least to me). Too much pretention in this yacht rock. If I'm going to listen to smoov, I want something a little more fun and a little less late night AM radio. Too much REO Speedwagon. Too much Hall and Oates ballad. And I know, I know, those guys didn't do it as meticulously (or something). And Steely Dan passes on the practical scale— you can tell that they succeeded at putting out albums that sounded like they wanted them to sound, even if that meant saxophones so slick that they glisten like slug trails. And if the argument is going to be that you simply need to be a musician to comprehend their consumate skill, well, I'll cop to feeling a little more populist on that front (while acknowledging the contradiction between that and eschewing 'smooth,' 'accessible' music).
I'm not even going to bother with the real/memorex distinction about whether or not anyone here's crush on Steely Dan is genuine/backlash, except to say that the endless hype did make me expect something more. Sorry, I'll take my Sex Pistols album over Aja any day, and rating the other way seems to be more contrarianism than conviction.
Weirdly enough, the "slick disco" isn't as much of a problem for me as the slick jazz. I've been tussling with my dad (also an ILMer) over Donna Summer and my growing appreciation for her this last week, but he loves Steely Dan in a way that I don't get. It sounds too much like the theme from 'Taxi.'
And, given the choice of studio lunacy, I'll take 10cc any day. At least they seemed like they were having fun, rather than placing a coke-fueled chrome polish onto Randy Newman song suites. Out of 10, I'd put it Aja at 5.5 or so, a bit above "I'm Your Captain." Maybe I'm wrong, and maybe I'll listen to it again in five years.

this is almost a Steely Dan song in itself... of the four Dan albums I have Aja is far and away my least favorite (don't give up js)

just going through the steely dan archive site upthread; it's amazing how perfectly formed these songs all were. the piano/bass demos for Gaucho are nearly identical to the final versions.

Not sure this is necessarily a bad thing. Even kind of clever, if you think about it.

Congratulations! You've written the dumbest thing I've ever read.

And this is a bad thing?

my dad (also an ILMer)

What?

http://www.nanopac.com/images/Victor%20Reader%20Vibe%20Talking%20Book.jpg

yeah, bob james was no slouch. go find another tv theme to pick on.

Perhaps I do not give a shit about and/or understand music.

I've been trying to force-feed myself Katy Lied and it's really not working out for us.