Polled At Last: STEELY DAN - ILM Artist poll #50

it's like you read my mind
http://open.spotify.com/user/1219464571/playlist/3WxVfruSRGjCsxQsrtZNuG

although it just occurred to me that I'm going to be super busy all day tomorrow, so I made it collaborative, people are welcome to add songs if I'm not keeping up w/ it.

Soooo...Parker's Band! Like that one!

wow that's low. though i love "parker's band" a wee bit less than i used to (the arrangement is a bit fussy, and i could do without the sibiliant S's in that first line), i still love it as both a joyful tribute to music itself and as a statement of purpose for these particular musicians: "if you can't fly, you'll have to move in with the rhythm section" would have been a good note to leave on the steely dan studio door, though by the end, of course, if you couldn't fly they wouldn't even let you into the rhythm section.

perfectly sequenced after "East St Louis" (bop after hot jazz): Pretzel Logic is the Dan at their most earnest, jazz-nerd-wise, in its way.

always loved the "parker's band" early version/demo:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JfY0q7FA4H8

(who's that guy singing with fagen in that demo? is that becker?)

The "We will spend a dizzy weekend" section really catapults this song.

It may sound odd, but Parker's Band reminds me a bit of "Down on the Corner." Similar subject matter, but obviously Creedence left out the bizarre bridge.

"Parker's Band" was my #20, and

The "We will spend a dizzy weekend" section really catapults this song.

this is why

I like how "Parker's Band" is about the incantatory power of Steely Dan's own music.

https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-frrNr49ncrQ/Uz3OMAiU0qI/AAAAAAAAAH4/6G7T04Fzv40/w640-h320-no/The+Second+Arrangement.jpg

57. The Second Arrangement
Unreleased
90 Points, 5 Votes

hahaha

"The Second Arrangement" had been a favorite of producer Gary Katz and Nichols. In late December 1979, after weeks of working on a particular recording of the track, approximately 3/4 of the song was accidentally erased by an assistant engineer who had been asked by Katz to ready the track for listening. The band attempted to re-record the track, but eventually abandoned the song entirely.

Steely Dan biographer Brian Sweet has written that the group abandoned the song in favor of focusing on "Third World Man." "The Second Arrangement" was never played live by Steely Dan until a rarities show on September 17, 2011; a studio recording of the song remains unreleased. However, a handful of demo and outtake recordings of the song exist in bootleg form.

In addition to "The Second Arrangement", a number of songs were written for the album, but ultimately left off Gaucho. A number of these songs were included on a bootleg titled The Lost Gaucho, which represents recordings from early in the album's sessions. Song titles include "Kind Spirit", "Kulee Baba", "The Bear", "Talkin' About My Home," as well as "The Second Arrangement". An early version of "Third World Man" with alternate lyrics is included under the title "Were You Blind That Day." This recording dates from the Aja sessions.

so happy "The Second Arrangement" made it (with my help!)

here's the studio bootleg:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KgugMZI18pc

and here's a live version from a 2011 'rarities night' show:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=filvJyO89EI

i remember the engineer story (never heard this song though). man "accidentally erasing 3/4th of an obsessively-worked-on Steely Dan track" is up there with your all-time bad days at work

The horror that engineer must've felt as Katz kept saying, "Go ahead and pot it up, we're ready. What's happening back there?"

I like how "Parker's Band" is about the incantatory power of Steely Dan's own music.

― Bryan Fairy (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Thursday, April 3, 2014 5:19 PM (13 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

um how on earth is that song anything but a Charlie Parker tribute?

yeah but it's also a comment on their own music; that's how it reads to me

Tributes and homages are by nature acknowledgments of limits or showing how far you've matched or outperformed the subject imo

lol can you imagine Donald and Walter on album 3 going "welp, we're as good as Bird now, if not better"

I can imagine them thinking that around album 6, true or no

on the fine Colombian, sure

xpost

the existence of that 2011 rarities night show really gives me a little hope that someday SD will loosen the reigns of perfectionism enough that they may do an archival project with unreleased songs. even new re-recordings of some of those old rarities would be cool.

this poll is already making me look at the songs that have placed so car in a new light. that fuzzy little bass or low guitar line in "Monkey" is so cool.

(xp) i'm not sure all tributes/homages are specifically acknowledgments of how you've matched or not matched the subject, but i do think all tributes/homages are at least as much about the author as they are about the subject.

how the hell can Becker toss off a solo as precise and awesome as the one in that "Second Arrangement" clip? Cuz he's Walter Becker.

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-hp6LjbRalf8/Uz3VWyoszoI/AAAAAAAAAIo/SNtocPFlNHU/w640-h320-no/Everything+You+Did.jpg

56. Everything You Did
From: The Royal Scam
Released: May, 1976
101 Points, 5 Votes

turn up the eagles
the neighbors are listening

^^ the highlight of Side B

my favorite on royal scam, and a very late drop for me. i want an office/listening room that looks exactly like that image.

also, how did "turn up the eagles..." not win the lyrics subpoll?

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.

Later that year in a nod back to Steely Dan for the free publicity, and inspired by Steely Dan's lyric style, 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."

Timothy B. Schmit, who played bass on The Royal Scam and two other Steely Dan albums, would later join the Eagles.

which is still, you know, a penile metaphor

well, yeah.

This seems like a good spot for the Steely Dan/Eagles episode of Yacht Rock:

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

Didn't want to embed it and clutter the thread.

could some audiophile ID that setup? I presume it's historically accurate (1976)?

imagining Becker-Fagen floating in a space capsule is makin' me chuckle over here

http://i.imgur.com/xdAyLkt.gif

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-kuPf-3ZGxDI/Uz3ZLKhvINI/AAAAAAAAAJQ/riBpKtpBVTU/w640-h320-no/Throw+Back+the+Little+Ones.jpg

55. Throw Back The Little Ones
From: Katy Lied
Released: March 1975
132 Points, 7 Votes

Holy crap is that image unsettling.

a neat template for Kate Bush's first three albums

https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-a2fGCkWGJXU/Uz3eJ5ogkjI/AAAAAAAAAKA/sbKChBgbd_0/w640-h320-no/Through+With+Buzz.jpg

54. Through With Buzz
From: Pretzel Logic
Released: February 20, 1974
143 Points, 7 Votes

as noted above, the string section adds to the general fucking weirdness

feels like it began a something Fagen and Becker had written as an exercise or dare--can we write a song that has one-line verses?---and then managed to turn into this wonderfully bizarre little song. love it

i feel like those short verses and the general structure is very much like a lot of blues songs, but obv the song isn't especially bluesy and they did away with anything like solos or extra repeats of anything and stripping it so bare is a big part of its appeal.

https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-w4EnXtWV8aw/Uz3jcO0XLLI/AAAAAAAAAKs/yVYKSfMNxss/w640-h320-no/My+Rival.jpg

53. My Rival
From Gaucho
Released: November 21, 1980
156 Points, 7 Votes

this would have been like 22 or 23.

pplains, these images are awesome

xp
Huh?

we only turned in a Top 20 but if it was say a Top 30 then it would have placed somewhere around there.

my least favorite Gaucho song