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

Carne fajitas
Now that the deal
Has
Been done
I'm the one

http://www.rollingstone.com/music/features/steely-dan-donald-fagen-coachella-tour-diary-part-one-20150407

crying tears of joy rn

Tonight we're supposed to play a private party, the fiftieth birthday bash of a prominent film actor who in the last few years has become a colossal movie star.

RDJ?

oh duh maybe I should've read the next sentence lol

wonder if we'll get a Los Angeles Plays Itself style take down of Santa Barbara

suppose he might stop after Coachella, but I hope it carries through the San Diego shows

I didn't want Eminent Hipsters to end so this is a treat. "I know, it's not the French Legion d'Honneur, but, OK, thanks, buddy."

I'm always amazed when these rock stars play private parties but I guess I shouldn't be. I know someone who went to a wedding on a private island and the music was provided by Elvis Costello (their fallback was Bryan Ferry)...

they pay well and ime playing to hostile or indifferent audiences can be really fun and challenging

I'm sure the audiences receive them rapturously...just money, I'm guessing

I think I remember them saying Elvis got a million

parts 2 and 3 up

Last night some of the guys in the band were talking about that movie, Whiplash. After watching this cloddish potboiler about an aspiring drummer's experience in jazz school, the jazz players I know either go berserk with indignation and/or howl with derisive laughter. Many jazzers, including pianist Ethan Iverson and Richard Brody of the New Yorker, have written about this ignorant and mendacious film, so I won't belabor the point.

Suffice to say that Whiplash has nothing to do with actual jazz unless you consider it to be a species of martial arts, as Buddy Rich often did.

there should be a most disturbing SD song thread. does anything even come close to "everyone's gone to the movies?"

was reading this great rev of Fagen's bk: http://www.city-journal.org/2014/bc0119ip.html

gotta love rock critics who are older than they realize. From today's LA Times review of the Coachella show:

"Becker and Fagen most definitely seemed to be intentionally passing up the chance to win over any teenagers who might've been nearby. Why else would they skip 'Peg', one of their most recognizable songs thanks to De La Soul's prominent sample of it"

Yes, teens today totally into Three Feet High & Rising because it isn't from quite as long before they were born as Steely Dan is.

Critic goes on to blast Steely Dan's old guy worldview using 'Reeling in the Years' as evidence, I kid you not.

still weird they didnt play Peg - it just seems like one of their most immediate songs, one that would go well with a festival crowd.

it would have reminded the teens of Peg Bundy on Married With Children, their favorite sitcom

I confess I have no idea how often they've done Peg live before, but doesn't the record feature like 27 layers of Michael McDonald singing absurdly close harmonies with himself?

Crazy how Hall & Oates didn't play "I Can't Go For That" at Bonnaroo since most of the teens there know that song from "Say No Go".

(O and: I saw KC and the Sunshine Band at a private corporate event a few years ago and it was its own kind of magic - clearly I need to start moving in much better circles if I am to catch private parties featuring Elvis Costello or Steely Dan.)

they play peg at every show. the setlist for coachella still hasn't surfaced

oh wait nvm

Bodhisattva
Black Friday
Aja
Daddy Don't Live in That New York City No More
Hey Nineteen
Show Biz Kids
Josie
My Old School
Reelin' in the Years
Kid Charlemagne

love that they did Show Biz Kids

that's a pretty ace setlist

haha yeah i saw show biz kids and lol'd

setlist is so good
what's the likelihood they'll play in the uk or even europe sometime?

I will walk out of their Wednesday show if they play Show Biz Kids

lol they play that at every show too!

http://www.rollingstone.com/music/lists/coachella-2015-best-things-we-saw-20150413/best-banter-steely-dan-20150413

"We came here tonight for — well, there were some financial considerations, I'm not going to deny it," Steely Dan guitarist Walter Becker told the crowd, many of whom were young enough to be his grandchildren. "We're still here, we still got it, if you want it, come and get it." Although he expressed some anxiety about playing to a younger audience, the band delivered a triumphant set, from "Bodhisattva" to "My Old School." Becker and his partner Donald Fagen (author of our Coachella diary), joined by a dozen other crack musicians, delivered an hour of acerbic Steely Dan classics like they were driving a luxury sports car from 1975, immaculately maintained and immensely powerful. The overall level of musicianship was crazy: When there was a trombone solo at the end of 1980's "Hey Nineteen," for example, it was sly and funky and just about perfect. And some younger concertgoers found a way to reach out to "Uncle Wally and Uncle Don" (as Fagen introduced Becker and himself): during "Show Biz Kids": They slam-danced, but slowly and gently.

dear god

They slam-danced, but slowly and gently.

did someone snap a photo of Uncles Wally and Don dancing?

also, in the Miami episode of Layover I watched last night, Anthony Bourdain says something about how Miami reminds him of steely dan. he then says something like "great lyrics. awful arrangements." fuckin guy.

Miami is a Flo rida song.

1 quality of Coachella diary drops off significantly after 1st installment, too bad

2 Anthony Bourdain, defining middlebrow in a postpunk world: "It's wrong that dark, literate lyrics like Steely Dan's were set to dentist office music."

RIP Anthony

I would listen to a Steely Dan song about Anthony Bourdain

is there gelee on the lamb/yes there's gelee lamb

*sigh* fucked up my own joke :(

no worries, I'll distract them with idiocy:

that Bourdain song should be called:

Kid Char-la-lame

(duh huh, duh huh)

ouch, guys (no, I love it actually)

they really do play Show Biz Kids every show, huh?

played Dirty Work in Vegas on Saturday

I was pleasantly surprised by the inclusion of "Daddy Don't Live in that..." - every other song is pretty high profile.

played Dirty Work in Vegas on Saturday

surely Do It Again would be more appropriate

The set seems to be

Cubano Chant (Ray Bryant cover)
Black Cow
Aja
Hey Nineteen
Black Friday
(Rikki or Deacon Blues)
Show Biz Kids
Time Out of Mind
(typically something from the last two albums)
(Dirty Work or Razor Boy)
Bodhisattva
Daddy Don't Live in That New York City No More
(Babylon Sisters or FM or Home at Last)
I Want To (Do Everything for You) (Joe Tex cover)
Josie
Peg
My Old School
Reelin' in the Years

Encore:
Kid Charlemagne
Sound Track song (Last Tango in Paris or The Untouchables)

I'd take the Deacon Blues and Razor Boy options for sure. Can't really choose between Babylon Sisters, FM, and Home at Last.

just discovered that you can take google maps the whole way up to center stage of the santa barbara bowl. just in case anyone wants to pretend to be Donald walking out this Wednesday:

https://www.google.com/maps/@34.433541,-119.693609,3a,75y,338.29h,81.24t/data=!3m4!1e1!3m2!1sYegFfjmLo93jJSx7HCEjjQ!2e0

https://soundcloud.com/austinboogiecrew/brian-ellis-peg-abc-002

http://i.imgur.com/mTmZJmr.gifhttp://i.imgur.com/mTmZJmr.gifhttp://i.imgur.com/mTmZJmr.gifhttp://i.imgur.com/mTmZJmr.gif

http://sfist.com/2015/07/20/san_francisco_show_and_tell_steely.php

very enjoyable read, ty