Aja Poll

yeahhhh, just watched this! recommended, though i feel like it could be an hour longer. i'd dig just an uncut "commentary" cut of fagen and becker going through the album. bernard purdie scenes are super classic, where he's playing the ridiculous beat for home at last as though it's the easiest thing in the world.

there are a ton of these classic album things on netflix streaming now. my wife is already rolling her eyes at me as i describe such fascinating tidbits as herbie flower's double tracked bass on "walk on the wild side."

Yeah! Purdie was such a highlight.

I'm gonna watch almost all these shits, probably. So far just Aja and Paranoid. Probably 2112 next.

The 2112/Moving Pictures one is really good. I recommend renting the actual DVD as it has some really good deleted scenes too.

I watched the Rio one last night.

Oh man I have to see that! My wife might even agree to that one.

cool, yeah i'll watch all of these.
the lou reed transformer one wasn't particularly amazing, but some good bits. nice that reed really goes out of his way to credit mick ronson with a lot of the album's sound (as opposed to just bowie bowie bowie). ronson's comments on lou are pretty funny.

god this album is great, i was sitting here enjoying the hell out of "I Got The News" for a few minutes when it suddenly occurred to me that oh this is the consensus 'worst' song on the album and it's awesome.

haha yeah, it's pretty astonishing

there isn't a day that's gone by recently that i don't get this stuck in my head

In the corner
Of my eye
I saw you in Rudy's
You were very high
(You were high)

I get that, followed by West side, baby/West side, baby

i got the news is so great bc of the michael mcdonald bit.

the original Katy Lied version of "I Got The News" is pretty good too but i really don't know which i prefer

can never hear the 'you were high' verse without picturing Don doing his lyrical walk-thru on the classic album show

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4nv7Qicg2Og

also classic yeah the Purdie bits. "you done did it, you hired the hitmaker" etc

christ now i'm watching the whole damn show again.

so funny this thread got bumped as i just listened to this album today in my car.

their best but now wondering if i might actually like Gaucho more these days. that doesn't take away anything from this album however.

DRINK THCOTCH WHITHKEY
ALL NIGHT LONG

this album is los angeles for me.

'aja' is the most evocative track because i imagine a cross of the hollywood hills with ojai or something for the chorus and the sex finale. the last minute or so is legit transcendent.

'deacon blues' is viscerally embarrassing because i did a weird-lonely-guy karaoke of it at la cita (and 'life during wartime' by talking heads the same night).

i've still never had a black cow.

josie is maaaaybe my favorite track

(this might have something to do with c0ry skl4r.)

ok, specifically, i remember chaki posting something about that track and then i recognized.

Ojai is a pretty strange and isolated place. I don't know what you mean about Aja. But this album is amazing and I'm glad you sang deacon blues. Deacon blues is the only thing that makes me feel better about the NCAA football championship game

I guess I mean that ojai is strange in a boring way

But c'mon. Peg?

I played "I'm not the same without you" on the jukebox at the James Joyce today. The reception was lukewarm.

i meant 'ojai' in the sense of an apart-y silverlake-y place: "up on the hill / people never stare / they just don't care" and "here at the dude ranch / above the sea." i've never been to ojai and it's obviously not like this.

where is the James Joyce?

I see it now. It is in Santa Barbara.

deacon blues is a fucking masterpiece isn't it?

all of this is prompted by checking out most of the steely dan catalog from the city library and putting it on my computer. because yeah i'm pretty poor.

'i learn to work the sax o phone"

xp yeah!

although when they wrote the song i wonder where it actually was? some hill east of downtown? the hollywood hills? what hill

Dude ranch above the sea can work for ojai. But I feel faaaaaaaar away from the sea there. Deacon Blues is amazing. I learned to play the acoustic guitar chords as an act of devotion, but they are barley audible.

Dude ranch above the sea could work for Santa Barbara, actually.

I think you need to get north of west ho to be in dude ranch territory

i'm co-locating it with zuma just on feel.

ANYONE here ever have a Black Cow? even Don n Walt seemed unsure of the actual recipe but it seems its root beer and milk? sounds revolting tbf.

otm

not sure if it's as bad as this rum and water i'm swallowing atm.

What?

that's the question i always ask after i read everything you post on here to bee really real.

but everyone else seems able to read egyptian english or w/e so i never complain.

I've never listened to the Dan before but this is great! I get what the fuss is about now.

A Black Cow, a.k.a. a Root Beer Float, is usually root beer and vanilla ice cream, though there are regional variations.

drink your big black cow and get out of here

Black Cow can refer to either:
A cow that is black.
A Root Beer Float.
An alcoholic drink (sometimes referred to as a Black Cow #2) featuring Kahlúa, half-and-half, and Coca-Cola.
A 1977 song by Steely Dan on the Aja album, referring to the alcoholic drink.
A candy, a Sugar Daddy bar covered in chocolate.

(c) is more likely

Aja and a lot of steely dans work has a topanga canyon feel, even thought doesn't precisely reflect the music of that area I guess. I feel like the royal scam is the pt of frisson where the 60s dream burns away and melts into late 70s sleaze and Aja and gaucho is the takeover by the survivors who have cashed in but remain fucked up and hanging on to the more base elements of their youth minus the empty idealism. Or at least that's how those albums sometimes sound. Whatever the case they sound like nothing but LA. I feel like I prepared myself pretty well for this city by listening to steely Dan and ice cube, though admittedly the times had changed somewhat since those albums.

I would be tempted to go for I Got The News...not solely because I am contrary but also because it's brilliant.

Aja is my first foray into Steely Dan.

http://devonrecordclub.com/2014/06/17/steely-dan-aja-round-68-toms-selection/

What should I get next?

GAUCHO

nah they're all good

Gaucho

Gaucho, Aja, Royal Scam

Steve Gadd on the outro to the title track surely must rank as one of my favourite drumming moments ever - both the playing itself and how the drums sound. Exquisite.