new... donald fagen... solo album?!?

http://www.jordanhoffman.com/archives/2006/03/the_great_pagod.html

i know that guy!

Due to illness, the Donald Fagen show this evening, Thursday, March 9, 2006 at Boston's Opera House has been rescheduled for Saturday, March 11, 2006. All tickets for the Thursday night postponement at the Opera House will be honored on Saturday night, March 11, 2006, including those arranged through the VIP fan program "I Love All Access."

Lame, now I may not be able to go.

After a long wait, Gaucho was released to an eager audience. ...it should be noted that, drum-wise, this album is much simpler than previous ones. Except for a Purdie shuffle on "Babylon Sisters" and Porcaro's odd-meter forays on "Gaucho," the rhythms are all 8th-note grooves. No cranking shuffles like "Black Friday" or jungle grooves like "I Got The News." Part of this might have been Becker and Fagen's desire to fully explore their WENDEL, a sequencing tool that could quantite, sanitize, and generally sterilize a drum track.

"That was Roger Nichols and the computers," says Marotta, who played on "Hey Nineteen" and "Time Out Of Mind". "WENDEL wasn't perfected then, so occasionally it was a little stilted. They were experimenting, taking little snippets of what we played and looping it."

According to Porcaro, "That's at a point when drum machine technology was just rearing its ugly head. There was a lot of talk about the future of quantizing and sequencing in real time. To a perfectionist, that was all really cool stuff. The title track was done to a Urei click. In fact it was all Urei except 'Hey Nineteen,' which is WENDEL."

from http://www.granatino.com/sdresource/md1.htm

In 1978, Roger pioneered the technique of "digital drum replacement" by inventing the Wendel sampling drum machine, which was used to provide drum and percussion sounds on Steely Dan's acclaimed Gaucho album. This technology is now commonplace in music production around the world.

DNOALD FAGEN DO U LIEK REGGAETON???

um...there are "fundamentals of music" that work a particular way? news to me.

but yes, in fairness, fagen's argument is subtler and more specific than any that geir has ever made. however i still think he's misapplying a kind of "best practice" argument to a genre of music he probably isn't terribly invested in.

is the concept of two plus two making four also novel for you? 'cause if so I got all kindsa news you'll love

but i do think i see where jody is coming from.

thomas tallis's comment...well, explain yourself dude!

(as an aside: it doesn't take wisdom, ninja hollered, just slight bit of intellectual curiosity)

Some negative criticism: Security Joan seems more like a late Steely Dan tune than a Fagen solo one; the production feels really airless, so I was begging for some reverb to be plastered on something by the end; and the codas of some tracks go on and on without any building of tension or clever variation.

There's a lot of apocalyptic themes in the lyrics: the chorus of The Great Pagoda of Funn especially. Some of the lines in there really seize my attention, since they kind of tear at the edges of the slick little SD jazz/pop envelope by being disturbing.

One good review (mostly of the lyrics), by a pro writer, but not a musician at:

http://www.wrongturnjournal.com/ here's an excerpt (probably in violation of some copyright or something) :

Toth:

Which explains my disappointment with his new record and, to some extent, with the whole Steely Dan project these days. Don't get me wrong. There's lots to love on Fagen's latest, and the latter-day Dan recordings generally tremendous fun. But all of them show a much duller edge than the early work, musically and lyrically. Listening to Fagen's back catalog in concert, even throwaway B-sides like Here at the Western World are creepy and suggestive enough to keep me grinning. As Walker Percy used to say about Kafka: He would read his friends all those stories about alienation and misery, and they'd be rolling on the floor because it was all so true. (End of Toth excerpt)

Back to *my* post. I'm amazed to have to agree with a neo-con, but what he says is right.

Since I've been in the music biz and the music-ed biz for over 30 years, with a specialty in tuning systems and synthesizers, I do feel qualified to comment on a few things that Fagen says.

On the one hand, he's right that stretched tuning can be out-of-tune with un-stretched equal temperament. On the other hand, stretched tunings have been available for a long time on synthesizers, even old and humble synths like the Roland D-50. (available since the mid-80's.) So there's something a little funny about this way of thinking. Also, stretched tuning is really important on acoustic pianos, but doesn't necessarily apply to situations without them. Every different kind of ensemble has a slightly different way of tuning, with out-of-tuneness being very important to the sound of some of them. (Marching bands don't sound like marching bands unless they're out-of-tune by upwards of 50 cents...)

Same sort of response to the issue of timing using sequencers and/or computers. For a while in the infancy of MIDI, timing delays and software limitations were a real problem.
Not anymore.

Fagen hears what he hears--he's not just making it up, but there's a point where having an accurate ear becomes sheer neurotic fussiness and a refusal to "try new things". A failure to get the big picture.

Anyway, the main problem with Morph is the drumming and the rhythmic interaction of the other parts. Becker seems to have contributed greatly to making the hocketing really *springy*--the grooves in previous efforts have a lot of lift or bounce. (Even lazy grooves like My Rival from Gaucho have more *sproing* in them than do the new tunes on Morph.
New stuff doesn't rock, swing, or groove. It plods.

There's also very little lift or release in the choruses.

A different kind of complaint about the new stuff is about the music as setting for the scenario created by the lyrics. I mean something like tone-painting or film-scoring. In almost every Dan tune from the past, there was something brilliant about the relation between lyrics and music. Now, it feels like you could amost interchange the lyrics of one song with the music of another--with a few adjustments--and come up with something that makes almost as much sense.

Random comment--Pagoda, if I'm not mistaken is in D Lydian. Cool to have a pop tune in Lydian. But give me the darker Phrygian of Babylon Sisters any day. I mean, Pagoda has a nice long line, but it still _plods_. And the guitar solo is dutiful but uninspired--not nec. the fault of guitarist--he had some hard changes to pick his way thru.

Anyhoo.

Has he ever sounded more beautifully knackered and bored than on "What I Do?" It should loop on for eternity as he croons away to himself and the backing singers gently take the piss.

I found it quite good, but obv. no "The Nightfly", which IMO is even better than any Steely Dan album.

"I'm Not The Same Without You" streaming in Rolling Stone. Good piano and harmonica parts.

i'm evolving at a really astounding rate of speed
into something way cooler
than what i was before

a+ lyrics

i don't need sleep anymore
but if i closed my eyes
i'd sleep the sleep of the gods
i'm not the same without you

yesssssss

lol brad

this is REALLY good man

really feelin that groove at the end

"I can hold my breath
for a really long time"

lol love this song

got a nice hook too!

this fucking rules and I had no idea it was coming. thank you based fagen

Oh right -- he dipped his mustache into a tomato bisque.

!