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

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!

my retirement plan is to stay after closing time at the guernsey fair until I detect the el supremo

43rd anniversary of the release of Gaucho

"Hey Sixty-Two"

Here is every food and drink Steely Dan have ever mentioned in a song. pic.twitter.com/hbAgl1O9WO

— Joan Ocean . Com (@Joanocean) August 3, 2023

It depends if you think the "fine Columbian" is a reference to peanut butter

https://intelligence.coffee/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/image2-1.jpg

I mean, they did name an album after pretzels.

Christgau's latest Substack newsletter is a review of a book about SD (with references to several others) and man, if you thought he was a shit writer in short capsule form...he really has disappeared entirely up his own ass.

poll

hard not to vote for szechuan DUMPLINGS!

I can't decide whether an SD cookbook or SD drinking game would be more enjoyable. SD themed edition of Great British Bake Off?

Breadisattva?

Reelin' in the Yeast?

Katy Fried?

three piña coladas sounds nice

libations

Deacon Blueberry

Charlie Crepe

The Royal Ham

The Royal Scampi

Countdown to Eggstacy

Everyone’s Gone to the Mochi

Pretzel Lobster

i just got this email TODAY

https://i.imgur.com/YAa2514.png

Barry Town obviously

Wish they had gone into Steely Dan solo projects as well, if only to nab the mango cooler from Morph the Cat.

If you wanted to see the killer "Show-Biz Kids" Midnight Special clip in its original context:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C0PLCH0TYB0

BILLY PRESTON! BO DIDDLEY! NED DOHENY!

They play My Old school at the end too