Steely Dan

I just saw them two nights in a row. First night was Aja in its entirety (plus assorted other songs), and the second night was (supposedly) fan requests. In practice, they were fairly similar sets, just in a different order. Still a lot of fun, though, esp. since I'd never seen them before.

Kind of surprised you didn't get "Black Cow," Dr3w, since they played that one on both nights. (They did "Deacon Blue" only on the Aja night.)

yeah they teased us with "Black Cow" during the encore but didn't actually do it

"Aja", "Peg", "Reeling in the Years", "Babylon Sisters", "Dirty Work", "Bodhisattva" all present and correct tho

Hey I was at that Merriweather show too! Great show, and I had never seen 'em live so I didn't know what to expect. Was surprised they were as friendly as they were - not to say that they were overly talkative, but they seemed happy to be there, happy to play. Really like the changed-up version of "Showbiz Kids" they did.

i was at Merriweather too! brought my Dan-loving dad to the show, which really made his day.

there's really nothing bizarre about SD playing big outdoor venues, though; any acts that had a gang of AOR hits and gold albums in the '70s can do that these days.

The idea of SD touring AT ALL is weird

kinda, but they've been doing it for almost 20 years now, so i can't pretend i can remember a time when they were still studio-bound recluses

caught the rarities show in nyc last night. they played "second arrangement," "the bear," "this all too mobile home" and perhaps the deepest cut of all, "american lovers" from the thomas jefferson kaye album that fagen and becker did some writing on. didn't much care for "american lovers" but it was def a treat to hear the outtake stuff.

they also played some hits that they got sick of and rarely do live. "rikki don't lose that number" (eh, whatever) and "reelin' in the years" (don't remember if they do this one live much, actually). but my fave rare/not rare jam was def "doctor wu."

becker also looking pretty fat these days.

aw damn, i didn't know they were doing a rarities show! that's the only thing that could possibly make me feel like the show i saw this summer was less perfect. "This All Too Mobile Home" an "Second Arrangement" are all-time favorites.

i wonder if this indicates any chance that they may actually someday give official release to all the studio outtakes that still only exist in bootleg form -- a SD vault compilation or box set would be so great.

agreed and I was wondering the same thing but who knows with fagen and becker behind the wheel. kinda feel like fagen would prob rather spend his time writing weird smartass letters to the nytimes or whatever.

holy shit that show sounds amazing

yeah, it was pretty special. any problems I can think of are pretty minor compared to hearing "second arrangement" live.

really can't imagine that a recording won't surface sometime soon...

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

still blows my mind that they left "here in the western world" off of the royal scam, could have cut "the fez" IMO

lol

Truly, an almost spiritual feeling.It blew my mind! Thanks for being there,and posting this.
SteelyDon1 1 day ago

"Here" is a good song but Royal Scam is almost perfect to me and i don't think it would have been any better with it, or if there's a song on there i'd happily swap out for it

the drummer the dan are touring with right now is pretty sick btw. killed it on "aja".

yeah "Aja" was nuts at the show i saw, really finally won me over to properly appreciating that song

yeah, that was the last one off of that album to click for me as well. strangely, it was this house track that did it (linked from another dan thread):

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

"aja" really is all about the drums and the buildup to that amazing outro in particular.

^^^track is brilliant btw

yeah after the SD show i remembered listening to that track the first time it was posted and really wanting to hear it again and didn't know where it was, so thanks!

still blows my mind that they left "here in the western world" off of the royal scam, could have cut "the fez" IMO

yep

"the fez" has its charms but gets old pretty quickly imo

"Here" is a good song but Royal Scam is almost perfect to me and i don't think it would have been any better with it, or if there's a song on there i'd happily swap out for it

― some dude, Tuesday, September 20, 2011 1:56 PM (16 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

yeah i mean i'm not throwing shade on the royal scam, probably my fav or 2nd fav SD record...but to me it's the darkest most despairing steely dan record and western world fits better to me...though maybe they thought it would make the album way too dark

really? "Dark" and "despairing" are often used about RS but to me those adjectives best describe Gaucho. To me The Royal Scam sounds like party that goes mad at 1 a.m.

there's obviously plenty of darkness in Steely Dan but 'despair' for me conjures a level of wallowing and seriousness that i don't associate with them at all

"Third World Man" comes closest to your definition of despair.

even that has such an abstract (afaict) narrative that i never get through the layers enough to hear despair -- some lines even seem hopeful

yeah i guess i just kinda typed despair and didn't really think abt it that hard

it's ok, dude

http://mediacdn.disqus.com/uploads/mediaembed/images/147/9676/original.jpg

really? "Dark" and "despairing" are often used about RS but to me those adjectives best describe /Gaucho/. To me /The Royal Scam/ sounds like party that goes mad at 1 a.m.

lol @ steely don - gives me an idea to start a band called Steely Din, a Steely Dan cover band that only uses steel drums

Steely Djinn

hey I started a SteelyDanLyrics Twitter account - follow if you like getting Steely Dan lyrics sent to your via Twitter!

http://twitter.com/#!/steelydanlyrics

I'm gonna follow the shit out of that.

Also, I don't really follow the display names threads, but I appreciate the shit out of yours.

thank you sir!

i support this twitter account

love's not a game for three

I know this super highway, this bright familiar sun

this is basically a great excuse to listen to the citizen steely dan box set on spotify every single day of my life

http://twitter.com/#!/CrankyFagan

started by my friend after i told him about the lyrics twitter

haha yeah i saw that! we've already tweeted! hope this doesn't turn ugly

cranky fagan and steely dan lyrics twitters are dead :\

Amazon's got all of their remastered studio albums on CD for dirt cheap (most in the $4.99-5.99 range).

I think Billy Joel's "Los Angelinos" is not quite SD class but it's pretty close

get out.

should I see these guys in july for $100 y/n

y

K thx

It's sad that Don and Walter can't just be anonymous and walk around gramercy park and smoke weed and then go persuade the strand. Who knows, maybe they do

"persuade the strand" sounds like a euphemism for something. i guess not smoking weed, though, since the sentence also contained the phrase "smoke weed."

walk about gramercy park and get blazed, smoke weed, toke up, burn doobie, and then go persuade the strand,

Bryan Ferry would never go halfway and just persuade the strand.

Would anyone actually enjoy to persuade the strand while high after toking mad doobies? That sounds like a thrill I wouldn't want to buy.

Fucking spell check. Peruse was the verb I was going for there. But persuade is more steely or whatevah

Bad Sneakers

Doesn't anyone else feel like The Dukes of September ought to be touring every September? Maybe mix it up every year, lose an old Duke, throw in a new Duke...

Get literal: Hire Duke Robillard.

https://expandingdan.substack.com/p/second-arrangement-steely-dan-roger-nichols-tape

Fuck dudes, "Second Arrangement" is good shit.

Feel like rhe lyrics are a little half baked but w/e