2007:

Nightfly Trilogy (4 CD + 3 DVD)

Art Direction: Unknown

The only good thing about Black Friday is that I now have that song in my head.  Welcome to Black Friday, the day that throngs of people assault retail stores in droves for After Thanksgiving Day sales.  If we were to apply the adage that time is money, then I think a sound argument could be made for staying home today, especially if you don’t like the process of shopping in the first place.  For one thing, the extra time spent zig-zagging to clear a walking path and gasping for any extra lingering oxygen in the air might as well equal the amount of money you’re saving, not to mention the added stress of being surrounded by women going apeshit over a sale.  And believe me, they can get vicious.

Don’t get me wrong, I love material goods and beautiful clothes and gadgets just as much as the next girl, but to traverse through crowds of rabid women in primal acquisition mode sounds truly horrifying.  I would rather have hot forks poked in my eyes.   Lest anyone think I’m a detractor of capitalism and free markets, one can always bundle up in a plush robe, pour a cup of hot tea and click away in bed, wrapped in a down comforter to the sounds of Steely Dan’s urbane Black Friday – and still feel just as legitimately American.  Even if you do enjoy shopping, why would any one with fully firing synapses voluntarily choose to subject themselves to the worst lunacy of the season?  Let us hope that what happened last year was our rock bottom.

The draw of Black Friday is, to me, just as baffling as the type of reaction that ensues when Jamba Juice, for instance, announces they’re giving away free smoothies.  Free smoothies!!!!!  AAAAAAAAGGGH!  RUN, do not walk to the nearest Jamba Juice.  I witnessed this recently: news reached the masses that a free smoothie was to be had at Jamba Juice (retail value: $4) and in a matter of minutes there forms a line winding around three corners of the block.  You would think that Robert Pattinson was there signing autographs and holding a raffle for a marriage proposal.  But no, all of this waiting over a $4 cup of sugar. Maybe I’m missing something, but based on the time spent wasting in line is this free $4 smoothie really worth it?  One hour of your life for a free smoothie?  I would rather have the time thank you.  It’s incredible the rose-colored glasses we look through when we hear the word “free” or “sale.”  I refuse to be hypnotized by these words.  Who knows, with all of these bargain shoppers out and about stampeding the streets, maybe my internet connection will run faster as the cyber world becomes a Ghost Town.

For this week’s post, I thought it would be a nice diversion to listen to some tunes. Better yet, to listen to some tunes while watching moving images.  In this sampler we have a couple of music videos and a couple of live cuts from a few of my favorites—hope you find something you like, too.

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Donald Fagen

“Snowbound”

From the album, Kamakiriad, 1993.

Donald Fagen is of course half of the brain trust known as Steely Dan, creators of genius music puzzles for the past several decades. The album was a solo project for Fagen, which thematically explored a bleak, ironic future for mankind. The video was directed by Michael Gondry, the man behind a ton of cool videos and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. Let me also state for the record that Gondry’s film Be Kind Rewind is an underrated gem which you should rent as soon as possible.

 Click here for “Snowbound” Video

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James Taylor (with J.D. Souther)

“Her Town Too”

From the album, Dad Loves His Work, 1981.

Apparently, this album came out while Taylor was simultaneously divorcing Carly Simon and suffering from drug and alcohol addiction. J.D. Souther, a widely-respected writer and musician in his own right, lends a sweet harmony to the song. It’s hard to believe this came out nearly 30 years ago (unless you look at their wardrobes).

 Click here for “Her Town Too” video

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Jackson Browne (with David Lindley)

“Late for the Sky”

From the album, Late for the Sky, 1974.

This clip is from an unknown 2006 folk festival and features a grizzled Jackson Browne and an understated David Lindley.  Not that Jackson Browne has ever needed backup of any kind, but Lindley’s soaring guitar work helped shape Browne’s signature sound when he was a musical force in the 1970’s. If you haven’t listened to some of Jackson Browne’s earlier work, find these records and listen to them through an old pair of headphones. You will be moved.

 Click here for live “Late for the Sky”

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Gillian Welch and David Rawlings

“Caleb Meyer”

From the album, Hell Among the Yearlings, 1988.

I had the good fortune to see Gillian Welch and David Rawlings at Merlefest several years in a row and again at the Town Hall in NYC. The selected song is a higher tempo than some of my favorite Gillian Welch songs, but you get a sense of his brilliant guitar technique and her anachronistic songwriting, like haunted old tunes written in the 1840’s.  The interplay of their voices is an amazing sound to hear live.

 Click here for live “Caleb Meyer”

Grab your Steely Dan t-shirt & get thee to a concert hall…last night this dexterous duo played the Riverside in Milwaukee…if you’ve never seen them live, put this on your gotta-do list.

The show started with the Aja album, played from start to finish, which is what I had been looking forward to. But it got even better after that…I felt like I was transported back to the ’70s. The playlist included Babylon Sisters, My Old School, Kid Charlemagne–even a rendition of Dirty Work. It was obvious that Fagen and Becker were there to make sure everyone had a good time, in stark contrast to their standoffish reputation. Fagen suggested we get up and dance, to which we responded with a collective shake-and-shimmyfest. I’m pretty sure we would have done anything he asked.

Cool glasses, aren’t they? Kind of a leopard thing goin’ on…

The Riverside is my favorite place to see a concert. It’s smallish, so it feels intimate, and you can bring in a camera, as long as you’re not obnoxious with it. It also has a long and storied past. Built for vaudeville in 1927, the theater was restored to its former beauty in 1984 thanks to a generous donation by Milwaukee patron Joseph Zilber. It’s one of the few historic theaters left in Milwaukee, and, amazingly, it looks just about the same on the inside as it did in 1927. I hear that there are “Haunted Riverside” tours given by one of the employees…but I’d rather get my thrills & chills listening to some fine Steely Dan jazz.

Classic Album - Rumours

Searching for (high quality) remasters of favorite albums of mine has been a keen interest for a couple of years now. Notable examples are ‘Mother’s Milk’ and ‘Stadium Arcadium’ from the Red Hot Chili Peppers, mastered by Mobile Fidelity Sound Lab (MFSL) and Steve Hoffman respectively. I also try and hunt down SACD and DVD-A versions of albums and have found much enjoyment listening to Donald Fagen’s ‘The Nightfly’ and Incubus’ ‘A Crow Left Of The Murder’ on these platforms.

So, I was very pleased to find that there was a well-respected remaster of Fleetwood Mac’s classic album ‘Rumours’ carried out in 2004. Now, you have to be careful when selecting remasters of older albums, as many will now follow the trend of ‘louder is better’, sacrificing audio quality and dynamic range for overall loudness through the use of hyper compression. Without going into too much detail, new albums generally follow this rule as well, which could be why I am listening to a lot of older music these days. For a visual and audible example have a look at this video on Turn Me Up.

Anyway, back to Fleetwood Mac. The original master, like many of its time, was fairly quiet and lacked definition in the bass area due to restrictions of mastering to vinyl, in my opinion of course! Having said that the recording quality and engineering skills during the mixing stage gave birth to a beautiful sounding album.

The 2004 remaster addresses the two issues I had with the original without introducing any clipping or sacrificing dynamic range. The kick drum and bass guitar are a lot more prominent in the overall mix, the acoustic guitars sound astonishingly crisp, especially in ‘Dreams’ and ‘The Chain’ and the vocals have a much more defined, warmer sound. Generally the album is much more pleasing to the ear, that is of course not saying that the original wasn’t, but improvements have been made.

There is also the inclusion of the song ‘Silver Springs’ which was left out of the original vinyl master due to time constraints for each playing side. It feels a little odd going from ‘Songbird’ to ‘Silver Springs’ instead of ‘The Chain’ but the song has been well placed and is a great piece of music.

This remaster comes with a second disc containing demo’s, outtakes and jam sessions from the making of the album. It is a great insight into what the raw tracks started out as, songs left off of the album and the talent each member of the band had. If you are a musician and wish to learn certain parts of these songs, this CD may prove useful as many elements were not recorded, leaving the basic tracks.

I will be listening to this version, instead of the original CD pressing from now on, purely due to the depth, transient accuracy and improved bass; it has earned a well deserved place in my remasters collection!

1. Countdown To Ecstasy
2. The Royal Scam
3. Pretzel Logic
4. Katy Lied
5. Can’t Buy A Thrill
6. The Nightfly (Donald Fagen solo)
7. Aja
8. Two Against Nature
9. Gaucho
10. Everything Must Go

Jaja.

NP: Charlie Musselwhite’s South Side Band - Stand Back!

If I my be permitted a bit of revisionist history, I can say with the benefit of hindsight that my favorite record of 2006 is almost certainly Tom Waits‘ Orphans. Talk about an album transcending its modest roots: Originally meant to be a clearing-house for rarities, B-sides, and soundtrack cuts, the album proved such an inspiration to Waits that he ended up re-recording most of the old material along with a huge batch of new, resulting in an impossibly vast and astonishingly flawless three-disc epic that stands as easily the closest thing out there to the quintessential Tom Waits album. It’s all here: Bluesy, barroom rockers; howling, junkyard hoedowns; whiskey-soaked piano ballads; theater pieces and stand-up comedy interludes; and strange experiments of inspired madness. In terms of pure, unfettered creativity, I’m not sure if there’s any album out there that matches this one in ambition or generosity.

At the time, of course, my pick for album of the year was Boys and Girls in America, the blazing breakthrough album from The Hold Steady. That’s the album where the group really found their footing, something less ragged and less prone to bizarre detours than Separation Sunday but more sophisticated in its songcraft, and more ambitious in its fusion of raucous barroom rock, Thin Lizzy guitar heroics, and E-Street mayhem. It’s another profound and complex masterpiece from some of rock’s most exploratory and artful poets– an album about relationships, about addiction, and, as usual, about redemption.

One of my favorite trends from 2006 was that of veteran rockers reconnecting with their muse to make some of their most vital music ever. Donald Fagen did it with his sleek, life-affirming soft-rock album Morph the Cat, and Paul Simon did it with the vivid Technicolor of the experimental album Surprise. And of course, there was Bob Dylan and Modern Times, a profound and mystical blues album that’s a bit more ponderous and less volatile than Love & Theft, but nevertheless a rich work that finds poetry and meaning in the tropes of classic American blues and folk songs.

But one of my absolute favorites of the years– and indeed, of the decade– is Bruce Springsteen’s tribute to Pete Seeger and the canon of great American folk music, We Shall Overcome. A joyous affair that captures the spirit and spontaneity of Dylan’s Basement Tapes and rocks harder than any of Bruce’s albums since the 80s, the set pulls off the neat trick of being not just a tribute to American music lore, but, more vitally, a thrillingly visceral and lively testament to the music’s enduring power, an album of sharp political protest, and a celebration of Christian love and hope.

My favorite performance by a vocalist in 2006 came from Jolie Holland, on a wonderful, low-key album called Springtime Can Kill You. There’s all manner of ghosts rattling around on this recording– those of parlor folk songs, of country-blues, of swinging jazz– but it’s all vivified by Holland’s remarkable, sultry phrasing and her evocative poetry. The album becomes a complex series of symbols and images that speak to love and lust and longing.

As far as indie goes, 2006 was all about TV on the Radio and the fractured beauty of Return to Cookie Mountain– an album that sounded something like Radiohead performing Prince songs, by way of Berlin-era David Bowie, and spoke to the confusion and malaise of the Bush years with more poetry– and more genuine, spiritual hope– than nearly any other album I can think of. The Decemberists, meanwhile, mixed history and myth, violence and renewal, in their best-ever album, a song cycle called The Crane Wife, and Danielson cultivated a whole new kind of Christian rock in the hard-rocking, campfire sing-alongs of Ships.

And then there was Game Theory, The Roots‘ pitch-black, righteously pissed-off opus– and the 00s’ equivalent of a great Public enemy album. Few albums released this decade match this one in terms of anger, but the music is anything but despairing; this is cathartic, invigorating music that channels hip-hop street poetry through the weary, dark funk of latter-period Sly Stone.

Meanwhile, Gnarls Barkley had one of the year’s most promising and exhilarating debuts with their pop/rock/hip-hop blockbuster, St. Elsewhere. Alan Jackson released his late-night saloon masterpiece, Like Red on a Rose. Solomon Burke went country with his excellent, Buddy Miller-produced Nashville. Vince Gill went for oversized sprawl with his four-disc epic, These Days, and Rosanne Cash made for pure catharsis with her elegiac, tender Black Cadillac.

So that was 2006 for me. How about you?

See also: 2000; 2001; 2002; 2003; 2004; and 2005.

Experienced a fantastic Steely Dan show at Masonic Center in San Francisco, this past weekend. Walter Becker and Donald Fagen, joined by an all star musical cast, brought the house down in one of the best Steely Dan performances I’ve seen.  I must say, it was a good time.  I’ve seen them a few times in the past, and this was like seeing old friends again, actually.

The prior day, Walter hung out at Pitch Perfect Audio jamming out with a Shindo Aurieges, Shindo Montille and DeVore Nines.. suffice to say.. he loved it. It’s always fun having Walter visit.

Flash back over 12 years ago, when I was living in New York, phasing out a career in painting/full time artist and morphing into the audio sales scene –  I met my wife, Keenya, innocently, under the pretense of loving music, New York’s Central park, Jazz and the group Steely Dan.  It was, in fact, one of the things we first spoke about.  For me to actually have Walter Becker, now, listening to tunes at my store – well – it’s really come full circle.  Funny how that happens.

 It’s another grim day following a night of rain. The sky is gray and threatening but the temperatures are climbing, so it’s as warm and humid as dog’s breath. Wet leaves blow down from the trees and plaster themselves on the lawns and sidewalks. Still, I managed to get out for a walk between showers and returned home only minutes before a new deluge. Here’s what I heard on the iPod shuffle.

 (1) Walter Becker. “Hard Up Case” from 11 Tracks of Whack. A song from Becker’s first solo album, an overlooked gem. Had Donald Fagen been singing the vocals it could have been one of the best Steely Dan albums ever. Becker’s vocals aren’t bad, but they are a bit of an acquired taste. Definitely an album worth checking out. I waited a while before I bought it, and then scored it cheap in a cutout bin in D.C. I got more than my money’s worth. Becker’s follow-up, Circus Money, is also excellent.

(2) Hoodoo Gurus. “Death Ship,” from Stoneage Romeos. I got a review copy of Stoneage Romeos when I was editing a now-forgotten rock magazine in Boston. That must have been back in 1983 or ’84, and I fell hard for it. It was great guitar-oriented pop, with stick-in-your-head melodies, some edginess, and a lot of humor. The band included Larry Storch (F Troop) and Arnold Ziffel (the pig from Green Acres) among the personages to whom they dedicated the album, and the title comes from a Three Stooges short. Obviously not a band that was taking themselves too seriously. I saw them on that tour when they played a place called The Channel, a big, sprawling warren of bars and side rooms in South Boston. (Either the dBs or the Replacements opened.) The Hoodoos put on a great show, even though, as I learned later, they played with borrowed instruments because theirs had been stolen from their van a night or two previously. A couple years later, after I moved to Washington, I got to interview the Hoodoos in the somewhat shabby Hotel Harrington, also home to a bar called The Pink Elephant Lounge. I was impressed when guitarist Brad Shepherd returned to the room after doing his laundry and dumped out a trash bag that seemed to contain nothing but paisley shirts.

 (3) Donald Fagen. “New Frontier,” from The Nightfly. Fagen’s solo album was the first record I ever reviewed for publication. I wrote about it for the Maine music paper Sweet Potato just after I returned East the fall after I graduated from college in California. I didn’t get paid for the review but I got the album for free, which was payment enough.

 (4) Garbage, “The World is Not Enough,” from The Best of Bond. I paid for half of The Best of Bond CD, splitting the cost with my son, who must have been all of seven at the time. We were both Bond aficionados. The first Bond film we all watched together as a family was You Only Live Twice, which I figured was a good place to start because it contained enough gadgets and spectacle to keep the young minds interested. It worked, especially for Sam. I still get emotional whenever I hear the great string arrangements that kick off Nancy Sinatra’s performance of the theme song. Garbage is no Nancy, but this is one of the better songs from the more recent Bond movies. The movie itself is nothing to write home about, though.

 (5) Stevie Wonder. “Joy Inside My Tears” from Songs in the Key of Life. It must have been 1977 when a local radio station awarded my friend Bob the opportunity to do a “record run” at the Sonnet and Song. That meant he had a minute or two to go through the record store and grab as many records as he could. In the days leading up the big event everyone in school advised Bob about what he should grab. I think all the coaching just confused him, because he didn’t snag that many albums, certainly not as many as previous record run winners had scored. He gave me a bunch—or sold them to me, I can’t remember—and I went to various department stores around town and exchanged them for albums I wanted. Anyway, I noticed that before the record run, the owners of Sonnet and Song had taken all the copies of Songs in the Key of Life and hidden them away. I guess they didn’t want Bob getting any copies of that mammoth three-records-plus-bonus-disc set for free. At some point I bought the vinyl version (when my daughter was born my wife and I used “Isn’t She Lovely” for our answering machine message), but I recently found the CD version in the library and burned it. Stevie used to be Godlike, the kind of artist who appeared on the cover of Time magazine when he released an album. He doesn’t have that stature anymore, but who does?

 (6) Belly. “Feed the Tree,” from Stolar Tracks Volume 2. I first heard this song on Maryland’s WHFS back when that station was still great. I was driving down Connecticut Avenue in D.C. at the time. The song’s from Belly’s debut album, Star. I bought the CD, but I loaded this on my iPod from a great collection I ordered sometime around 1993 from Stolichnaya Vodka for some nominal charge to cover shipping. Stolar Tracks Volume 2 was a superb collection with songs from Eleventh Dream Day, Dinosaur, Jr., School of Fish, Pure, the Pooh Sticks, and a bunch of other bands who have faded into obscurity. The song by Eleventh Dream Day, “After This Time Is Gone,” turned me into a fan, even though I had already seen them live, when they opened for the Meat Puppets at a show I caught in Chicago. The Pure song, “Blast,” is also a classic.

 (7) Louis Armstrong. “S.O.L. Blues.” Shortly after getting my first CD player (a gift from my brother—I was a stubborn CD holdout because I resented the way the record companies were shoving them down our throats with the obviously false claim that they would last “forever”) I bought a cheap Laserlight collection of early Louis Armstrong stuff, recorded with the Hot 5 and Hot 7. As a former trumpet player myself, I felt I had to have some Armstrong. Man, that cat could blow!

 (8) Hoodoo Gurus. “Good Times,” from Blow Your Cool. The Hoodoos again! This time they’re helped by members of the Bangles, who used to be great, before that “Walk Like an Egyptian” crap. I saw them once in Boston and I swear Susanna Hoffs was batting her eyes at me. I bet all the guys in the audience through that. I remember buying Blow Your Cool in DC and heading off to a friend’s house to listen to it. We played side one and then he decreed that everyone else in the room would get to play the side of an album before it was my turn again. I was pissed. It’s not the Hoodoos best, but it has a few great tracks, especially “What’s My Scene?”

 (9) Stevie Wonder. “All in Love is Fair,” from Innervisions. Stevie again! This turned out to be a great song to hear on a gray, dreary day with the leaves falling all around. The guy had a great set of pipes.

(10) Henry Mancini. “Pink Panther Theme” from some Best of Mancini disc I got from the library. We used to play this song in my high school dance band. The sheet music had the best tempo direction I’ve ever seen: “Groovy mysterioso.” If I ever form a lounge band that’s what I’ll call it. We’ll play strange, David Lynchian cocktail jazz. I used to have the soundtrack album to The Return of the Pink Panther, still my favorite movie of the series. I remember when it came out in 1975 I was reading a Time magazine review of the movie out loud to my parents and I was laughing so hard I couldn’t get through it. And that was just a review! I think it was the description of the blind man and his “minkey” that got me. Peter Sellers was a genius. Several years ago I watched this movie with my kids and young Sam was choking with laughter when Clouseau fights with Cato. Good times. Don’t even mention the Steve Martin travesties.

 (11) Frank Sinatra. “I Get a Kick out of You,” from Sinatra and Swingin’ Brass. I could go on for a long time about Frank. Some day I will. This is from one of his more overlooked albums, a Reprise release that was arranged and conducted by Neil Hefti. That’s another high school dance band connection—we used to play Hefti’s song “L’il Darlin’,” but at a funereal pace. It was neither groovy nor mysterioso. The Swingin’ Brass album, though, swings with a vengeance and Frank sounds great. You know it must swing hard because they had to drop the“g” from “swinging” in the title. (Why was Hefti hoarding all those gs?) Hefti, who did a lot of arranging for Count Basie, died recently. He also composed the theme song for TV’s Batman. He belongs in some Pop Culture Hall of Fame.

 (12) Al Stewart. “Palace of Versailles.” This song was originally from Time Passages, but I got this version from a live 1976 concert that I found on the web. There’s a skip in this song on my vinyl copy of Time Passages–I guess you could say that’s kind of a time passage itself.  Weird. Strangely enough, just before I set out on this morning’s walk WXPN played an Al Stewart song, “Sleepwalking,” from his most recent album. I had never heard it before, but it sounded pretty good. My love for Al Stewart betrays the geek side of my musical tastes. At some point today I might throw my vinyl copy of Modern Times on the turntable and give it a whirl. Maybe Past, Present and Future too.

 (13) Sinead O’Connor. “You Do Something to Me,” from Red, Hot and Blue. I’ve added a few songs to the iPod from this Cole Porter tribute album, which was recorded to raise money for AIDs research. Sinead does a pretty good version of this Porter tune. She’s a little breathy, perhaps, but not bad. I like to think she’s singing it to the Pope.

 (14) Benny Goodman Quartet. “The Blues in Your Flat” from The Legendary Small Groups. The first swing music I listened to, back in high school, was Glenn Miller. When I read books about the swing era, though, writers usually disparaged Miller and said that Benny Goodman was better, which made me resent Goodman for a while. The only Goodman we had in the house was my uncle’s LP of music from The Benny Goodman story (Steve Allen played Goodman) . It had the live Carnegie Hall version of “Sing, Sing, Sing” on it, and I played that cut over and over, mainly for the Harry James trumpet solo. (I got to see James perform a concert in Augusta, Maine, in 1977 and still have an autographed ticket stub. The concert, a “cabaret dance,” cost a whopping three bucks. At the intermission James, whom I remember as a somewhat morose old man, sat at a table in front of the stage and quietly signed autographs.)  I eventually came to realize that, yes, Goodman was better than Miller. These small group recordings are terrific.

My Harry James ticket.

 All in all, not a bad set list.  There’s nothing particularly new on it, I realize, but you can’t have everything. Because, as Steven Wright asked, where would you put it? Certainly not on an 8 gigabyte iPod.

Steely Dan (New York, USA)
Countdown to Ecstasy
ABC, 1973

Discovery: Countdown to Ecstasy is the last (not chronologically speaking) of Steely Dan’s first six albums that I’ve yet to hear.

History: Donald Fagen met Walter Becker in 1967 whilst the two were studying at Bard College — Fagen heard Becker playing electric guitar in a cafe and immediately asked him to be in his band. The two formed a group with Chevy Chase (who went on to become a hugely successful comedian) playing covers of bands such as The Rolling Stones, alongside a few originals. The two would stay up all night, chain-smoking cigarettes and joints, encapsulating the Beatnik lifestyle.

“We had a lot of common musical background. Donald and I had listened to the same jazz radio stations, we had all the same records, and there weren’t that many jazz fans around at that time in our particular age group. Making rock & roll that was more sophisticated harmonically and more jazzlike was something that we had a common interest in.” - Becker.

After Fagen’s graduation in 1969, they moved to Brooklyn where they caught the attention of Kenny Vance, a member of the pop group Jay and the Americans, which led to them scoring work on the soundtrack of a low budget movie called You’ve Got to Walk It Like You Talk It or You’ll Lose That Beat. When a friend of Vance’s, Gary Krantz, moved to Los Angeles to become a staff producer for ABC Records, he took Fagen and Becker with him as staff writers. Upon realising their songs were too complex for current members of the ABC roster, he convinced them to form their own band, with two extra guitarists, a drummer and another singer, David Palmer (Fagen wasn’t happy singing on-stage and the label felt his voice was not commercial enough.) The band took their name — Steely Dan III From Yokohama — from the William Burroughs novel Naked Lunch.

Their first album, Can’t Buy a Thrill, was released in 1972 and was a big success, with two singles charting at 6 and 11 on the Billboard chart. During the band’s first tour, it became apparent that Palmer’s interpretation of the songs wasn’t optimal, and so he departed the group before the recording of the band’s second album, Countdown to Ecstasy.

Walter Becker and Donald Fagen

Although this album failed to achieve the commercial success of its predecessor, the songs ‘Show Biz Kids’ and ‘My Old School’ continue to be hailed as favourites by both fans and critics. The contempt expressed towards Bard on ‘My Old School’ stems from an event that occurred in 1969. Fagen had fond memories of college, a place where the most popular hangout was one to which members of The Rolling Stones and Bob Dylan would often pay visits. Across the street from the now legendary ‘Adolph’s is the pump mentioned in Dylan’s ‘Subterranean Homesick Blues’ (“The pump don’t work ’cause the vandals took the handles”) However, this changed when Becker, Fagen and his girlfriend were all arrested on false charges in a raid which was part of the “war on longhairs”. The school was complicit in the arrests and it was thought that they had allowed an undercover policeman to be planted on the campus. “Toilets were flushing everywhere to get rid of any pot that you had. I threw mine out the window. All you had to do was say to the cop, ‘What are you doing?’ They’d say, ‘That’s it, resisting arrest.’ Somebody would say, ‘What the hell is going on?’ ‘Oh, profanity! Arrest him.’” Following this, Fagen did not attend his own graduation.

The album was originally released in both stereo and a special quadrophonic mix, and was produced by Gary Kratz.

Review: The intro to ‘Bodhisattva’ with the double-tracked harmonised guitars! And then the handclaps! I aspire to be the solo at the end of ‘My Old School’. And then when that slide guitar comes in on ‘Pearl of the Quarter’ after the “Voulez voulez voulez” part, oh man. The vocal harmonies on ‘King of the World’ with the wah wah guitar in the left channel! The drumming on EVERYTHING! YEAH! I’m going to cut myself off there.

There’s no way I’m finding words to describe this feeling within the next 6 hours, so screw it. I know I’m playing my ‘get out of jail free’ card early here, but there’s my review. I’ll choose something bad tomorrow, so expect a return to our regular programming soon.

Practical information: ‘My Old School’ live.

All the Baby Mammoth reminded me of Steely Dan.

Donald Fagen, half of the duo that made up Steely Dan, released one of those very rare albums, just about perfect in every way, including the turntable on the cover.

Try

Info

Donald Fagen and Walter Becker, more familiarly known as Becker/Fagen in this regard, account for almost one hundred percent of Steely Dan’s composing credits. One of the few exceptions exists on the title track of the band’s 1980 release Gaucho, which includes the addition of piano player Keith Jarrett. The thought of a collaboration between Steely Dan and Mr. Jarrett probably makes more than a few fans drool, but unfortunately the song was not written on amicable or cooperative terms.

Steely Dan, “Gaucho”:

MUSICIAN: Are you familiar with a Keith Jarrett record Belonging, particularly a tune called “Long as you know you’re living yours”?

BECKER: Yes.

MUSICIAN: Have you ever listened to that up against “Gaucho”?

BECKER: No.

MUSICIAN: I’m not casting any aspersions now, but in terms of the tempo and the bass line and the saxophone melody it’s pretty interesting.

BECKER: Parenthetically it is, yeah [uneasy laughter]

MUSICIAN: At this point the reporter traditionally asks the cornered politican or athlete to “go off the record.”

FAGEN: Off the record, we were heavily influenced by that particular piece of music.

BECKER: I love it.

Keith Jarrett, “Long as You Know You’re Living Yours”:

Beethoven “expanded upon” Mozart: The influence of Mozart on Beethoven was documented by the latter composer himself in sketches and notes. He even copied an entire section from Mozart’z 40th symphony and used it in his own 5th symphony. The eventual overshadowing of the 40th symphony by the 5th in the classical music canon shows that such unintended collaborations contribute to both the further development and increased popularity of music.

Ravel “drew influence from” Debussy: In 1903 Ravel debuted his String Quartet in F Major. Like his older contemporary, Debussy, it would be the only string quartet he ever wrote. When it emerged, many rejected its significance because of its obvious similarities to Debussy’s 1893 String Quartet in G Minor. Blair Johnston explains this:

The similarities between [the two] can hardly be avoided or ignored. During the early years of his career, Ravel was frequently and sometimes vehemently criticized for having copied Debussy, and it was only later that musical society began to realize that, in the realm of piano music at least, it was equally possible that Debussy had imitated his younger colleague. With the String Quartet in F, composed in 1902 and 1903 and then revised up to 1910, however, Ravel seems more certain to have relied on Debussy; as emotionally, psychologically, and even structurally different as the two works are, one could never accuse them of having a language barrier.

Yet despite the cries of musical heresy, there was one person in particular who appreciated Ravel’s Quartet for what it was: Debussy. In a personal letter, he told ravel “In the name of the Gods of music and in my own, do not touch a single note you have written in your Quartet.” It remains one of the most often-performed string quartets of the last century.

Bebop pioneers “developed contrafacts” from the Great American Songbook: Open the Charlie Parker Omnibook and you’ll find dozens of original songs that were staples of the bebop era. The only catch is that Parker and his contemporaries didn’t exactly compose the songs themselves, the chords were borrowed from “pop” songs of the day. To avoid the same legal action that later cost Steely Dan over $1 million, artists like Parker, Bud Powell, Miles Davis, Dizzy Gillespie, Horace Silver and Tadd Dameron, among others, constructed new songs out of the works of Cole Porter, Irving Berlin, Harold Arlen, George Gershwin, Johnny Mercer, and more of their contemporaries, as well as from traditional songs. These contrafacts exist today as staples of the idiom, as an invaluable base to an ever-developing style.  

Hip Hop producers “sample” anything and everything: Hip hop production is based almost entirely on sampling. What started as DJing and spinning turned into modern beat-making: pioneers such as Prince Paul, RZA, Dr. Dre and DJ Premier composed beats for MCs that were comprised of parts of any vinyl they could get their hands on. What started as a combination of sometimes even more than 15 often unrecognizable samples in a song paved the way for instrumental artists such as DJ Shadow and Cut Chemist, who more overtly used samples to create their pieces. In more recent years, the style of sampling has become legally accepted, and after certain rights are obtained, producers like Kanye West create singles that are little more than exact copies of the songs they sample.

Cut Chemist, “The Garden”:

Despite the ominpresence of mutual influence in today’s music, however, some artists still decide to take it to heart. The Rolling Stones sued The Verve for 100% of the royalties for their biggest hit, “Bittersweet Symphony”, claiming that the entire song is based on a previous arrangement of a Rolling Stones original. Asked to comment, Keith Richards said “If the Verve can write a better song, they can keep the money.”

In the most absurd example to date, Yusuf Islam (formerly Cat Stevens), Joe Satriani, and the band Creaky Boards are all seperately claiming that Coldplay’s hit single “Viva La Vida” was a copy of their own. These accusations (some requesting royalties, some not) exist despite the fact that “Viva La Vida” is an extremely simple melody that bears similarities to not just these other examples but also to the standard “Everything Happens to Me” and the them from Zelda.

A professor of mine once scoffed at a famous musician’s claim that he was “self taught.” No one is self taught, he argued, we all get our influence from somewhere. And in most cases, even when it is blatantly obvious, it is generally understood and accepted. But sometimes, money becomes more important. The truth is whether it be stealing, adapting, drawing from, interpolating, interpreting or even blindly and unintentionally copying, drawing upon other artists for influence is the way music develops. Those who accept and admit this fact are essentially just admitting that they are real musicians, and the ones who deny it are only proving that money becomes more important than the art itself.

Such a distinction separates artists like Steely Dan and Keith Jarrett. Asked whether he thinks Keith Jarrett is happy with the royalties he ended up receiving from Steely Dan, Walter Becker replied “I certainly doubt it, but I’m fairly happy with mine.”

Silence is a Rhythm Too Report:

Click here to go to SIART check Steely Dan “Kid Charlemagne”, “Babylon Sisters”, “I Got The News”, and “The Fez”

“This Brother is free” – wenn man jemals einem Musiker in einem Song seine ganze Lebensgeschichte ansehen konnte, dann hier. Und wenn man jemals mit seiner “Attitude” Probleme bekommt, ist dies das Beste, was man sich anhören kann. Dieser Song begleitet mich jetzt seit 20 Jahren. Und er ist NICHT traurig (auch wenn Fagen selbst singt, er habe beim Schreiben des Songs geheult). Ganz im Gegenteil. Aber wahrscheinlich muss man Musik selbst gemacht haben, um das zu verstehen.

Den Text sollte man vielleicht nicht ganz so wörtlich nehmen:

Learn to work the Saxophone
I play just what I feel
Drink Scotch Whiskey all night long
And die behind the wheel.

Hier ist auch noch die Studio-Variante.

Rock God Cred Report:

Click here to check Steely Dan’s “Kings”…this tune would be in my personal top five Steely Dan cuts of all time.

Buy “Can’t Buy a Thrill”…an essential Steely Dan album…hey kids, you need more than the greatest hits.  This is where you start.  A worthy buy indeed!

By MARGIE SZAROLETA, Associated Press Writer

CHICAGO – To prepare for their current tour, Steely Dan had to relearn their own music.

The band will perform one of three albums — “Aja,” “Gaucho” or “The Royal Scam” — in its entirety on select dates of their Rent Party tour. On other dates, they will play requests that fans submit through their Web site. That means Steely Dan had to do some homework.

“We had to learn a lot a whole bunch of stuff we haven’t been doing, just trying to guess what people might vote for,” said singer Donald Fagen.

Guitarist Walter Becker found the idea intriguing because some of the songs they had never performed live.

“We had stopped performing in the ’70s when we recorded these three albums, so we never really went out to perform the tunes from these three albums,” said Becker.

Full story: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090806/ap_en_mu/us_music_steely_dan

Star Maker Machine Report:

Click here to go to SMM to check Steely Dan “Deacon Blues”

Paddy McAloon se autoproclamaba en su día como uno de los mejores compositores del mundo. Y lo cierto es que era un arrogante sin abuela. Pero también es cierto que una vez pasan las modas, con la perspectiva del tiempo, las canciones se despojan de casi todo su envoltorio para permanecer su esencia. Las producciones nos pueden parecer rancias. Los abusos de tecnología en música chirrían al cabo de una década. Por las mezclas de un tema puedes localizar con bastante precisión la época a la que pertenecen… Pero las composiciones permanecen. Son como el esqueleto que puedes vestir de múltiples maneras ¿Cuantas versiones se han hecho de Yesterday? ¿Cómo puede ser que Chris Cornell pudiese ser un compositor de estándares de jazz?

Conforme me hago mayor me intereso más por la composición. No se si será un síntoma habitual de la edad o -como suele sucederme- se me pasará con el tiempo (lo más probable). La cuestión es que cuando escucho a Donald Fagen (o Steely Dan. El paradigma del ChordMan. Me cuesta cansarme con el paso del tiempo), a Fito Páez, Ben Folds, Sean Lennon, Elvis Costello (una de mis composiciones favoritas de todos los tiempos), Djavan, RadioHead, Herbie Hancock, Todd Rundgen, Milton Nascimento, Robert Wyatt, Stevie Wonder (este hombre lo tenía todo), Miles Davis, Jobim (que delicia. Cada acorde es una sorpesa del atrevimiento), (…) Me rindo ante las estructuras que han sido capaces de construir, probablemente ellos solos en un cuarto y con tan solo un instrumento. Y eso que no presto apenas atención a las letras.

Aún así no deja de fascinarme de cuando en cuando alguna producción, aunque no como antes, en especial las de los pioneros como Curtis Mayfield o Brian Wilson; técnicas que se empezaron a desarrollar en los años 50-60 con la distribución a nivel popular de la música, bien a través de la radio o el disco; justo cuando el artista es consciente de que su canción va a escucharse multitud de veces permitiendo su análisis minucioso. Bach no pensaba en la producción sino en la composición y los arreglos ya que sus temas apenas serían reproducidos varias decenas de veces por una orquesta durante su vida. Pero la música es hoy día un producto y como tal es “producido”.

Todo porque me he encontrado con un disco extra de versiones acústicas -guitarras acústicas, voz y algún detalle más- del Steve McQueen de Prefab Sprout que deja al desnudo las excelentes perlas que componían uno de los que a mi parecer, forma parte de los mejores discos de Pop.

pd: Buscando una portada me he topado con este blog donde se recopilan algunas de las peores portadas de discos habidas: http://www.2spare.com/item_92946.aspx
Sin desperdicio.

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70′lerden beri jazz-rock’un öncü gruplarından Steely Dan’in  Avrupa turnesi kapsamında verdiği Roma konserini yerinde izledik ve sizinle paylaşalım dedik. Arka sıralardan duyar gibiyim: “Bu Steely Dan de neyin nesi?”

Echoes In The Wind Report:

Click here to go to EITW to check Steely Dan “I Got The News”

Meine bereits traditionsreiche Reihe Plattenteller, die mir übrings trotz oder gerade wegen der derzeitigen Dominanz des Themas Politik auf meinem Blog sehr am Herzen liegt, wird mit dem fünften Studioalbum von Steely Dan fortgeführt. Waren die ersten vier Alben schon besser als so ziemlich alles, was ich zuvor gehört habe – die beste Phase beginnt 1976 mit “The Royal Scam”!

“The Royal Scam” ist ein gutes Album für Einsteiger. Ich würde es sogar eher empfehlen als diverse Best-Of-Compilations, die meistens einige für den Einsteiger doch weniger eingängige Nummern enthalten. Auf “The Royal Scam”, das ist mein subjektiver Eindruck, ist die Musik etwas eingängiger als zum Beispiel auf dem Vorgänger “Katy Lied” – während ich “Katy Lied” erstmal eine Zeit lang im Regal liegen hatte, sprang der Funke bei “The Royal Scam” sofort über. Ich weiß noch genau, wie ich nach Lieferung die ersten beiden Titel vor völliger Begeisterung immer wieder abwechselnd hören musste, weil sie mir so gefielen. Dabei habe ich den Jazz-Gitarrengott (das könnte Jeffrey Baxter sein!) angefleht, er möge mir doch für den Rest des Tages, ach was, den Rest meines Lebens, einen Ohrwurm von einem der beiden Titel bescheren. Das klingt jetzt vielleicht völlig abgehoben, verdeutlicht aber dann doch nur die Begeisterung, die ich diesem Album entgegenbrachte und noch immer entgegenbringe.

Auftakt des Albums ist das fantastische “Kid Charlemagne” – in den Charts landete es nur auf hinteren Positionen (US #82) – völlig unverständlich, enthält es doch das legendäre Gitarrensolo von Sessionmusiker Larry Carlton, welches der Rolling Stone seinerzeit als drittbestes Gitarrensolo aller Zeiten krönte. Lustig: ich habe irgendwo gelesen, das sich die Kritiker einig sind, das “Kid Charlemagne” auch die schlechteste Textzeile eines Steely Dan-Songs enthält: “Is there gas in the car? / Yes, there’s gas in the car.” Ist witzig, hat aber auf die Bewertung des Albums keinen Einfluß! Danach das wunderbare “The Caves Of Altamira” – der textsichere Hörer muß da einfach mitsingen: “I recall when I was small / How I spend my days alone / The busy world was not for me / So I went and found my own / I would climb the garden wall / With a candle in my hand / I’d hide inside a hall of rock and sand” – einfach traumhaft gereimt. Außer Becker und Fagen weiß kein Mensch, was das bedeuten soll. Aber wen kümmerts? Gute Laune abseits des Mainstream.

Dann “Don’t Take Me Alive” – ein weiterer Song, bei dem ich keinerlei Ahnung habe, was er bedeuten soll. Aber warscheinlich geht es wie eigentlich immer entweder um Drogen, Sex oder Impotenz. Als ich den Song das erste Mal hörte (das war nicht am Tag des Erwerbes, weil ich erstmal vor Begeisterung die ersten beiden Titel in mich aufgesaugt habe!) kam mir das Gitarrenintro für Steely Dan-Verhältnisse ungewöhnlich hart vor – da kann ich mich noch genau dran erinnern. Es folgt “Sign In Stranger”, das getragen wird von einer wunderbaren Keyboard-Linie, die auch gleich den Unterschied zu “Don’t Take Me Alive” deutlich macht. Super Frage: “You zombie / Be born again my friend / Won’t you sign in stranger?”. Daran schliesst sich “The Fez” an – auf sehr hohem Niveau einer der schwächeren Dan-Songs. Irgendwie zu sehr auf Disco gemacht und immer das Gleiche – trotzdem wurde die Nummer als Single veröffentlicht und erreichte immerhin Platz 59 in den US-Charts! Das es bei wenig Lyrics auch wesentlich besser geht, beweist auf eindrucksvolle Art und Weise das dann folgende “Green Earrings”:  zwei Mini-Strophen und ein Refrain, der mich immer an Frauen erinnern, die in Sachen Styling ein bißchen über’s Ziel hinaus geschossen sind: “Green earrings, I remember / The rings of rare design / I remember / The look in your eyes / I don’t mind”. In Wirklichkeit soll es wohl um einen Juwelendieb gehen. Passt auch gut. Aber bei Dan-Texten, die dem gewöhnlichen Hörer nur selten sinnvoll erscheinen, stellen sich eben manchmal ganz abenteuerliche Assoziationen ein! Die Nummer hat jedenfalls Schmiß für das ganze Album – mindestens. Yeah!

Aber dann: “Haitian Divorce” (GB #17). Nicht nur der größte Single-Hit in Großbritannien, sondern auch textlich ein absolutes Highlight. Allein die ersten Textzeilen: “Babs and clean Willi where in love they said / So in love, the preachers face turned red” – dafür musste es schon einen Grammy geben! Super!! Aber dann trifft Babs zum Leidwesen von Willi ja leider Charlie (with the lotion and the kinky hair) und die Dinge nehmen ihren Lauf. Dann kommt “Everything You Did” – da geht es eindeutig ums fremdgehen (“Turn up The Eagles, the neighbours are listening”) – die Eagles haben sich dann später in “Hotel California” revanchiert: “The stab it with their steely knives”. Wunderbar! Zwei Ausnahme-Kapellen spielen sich die Bälle zu. Wie ich gelesen habe, ging es darum, das Steely Dan mit den Eagles in den gemeinsamen West Coast Rock-Topf geworfen wurden und Donald Fagen da wohl immer eine Art Running Gag draus gemacht hat. Die Platte endet mit dem längsten und auch namensgebenden Titel: “The Royal Scam” – ein Keyboard wieder. Hört mir auf! Wenn ich den Text mal abwandeln darf, dann würde ich eine Botschaft an alle zum Besten geben, denen diese Platte noch unbekannt ist: Hear the glory of the royal scam!

Was für eine Scheibe! Walter Becker und Donald Fagen in der Hochzeit ihrer Karriere. Doch es ging noch besser – der Nachfolger “Aja” legte noch einen drauf. Kaum zu glauben, bei dem was dem geneigten Hörer auf “The Royal Scam” entgegen schallte. Die Reihe wird fortgesetzt!

Weitere relevante Rezensionen:
=> Plattenteller: Steely Dan – Katy Lied (1975)
=> Plattenteller: Steely Dan – Pretzel Logic (1974)
=> Plattenteller: Steely Dan – Countdown To Ecstasy (1973)
=> Plattenteller: Steely Dan – Can’t Buy A Thrill (1972)
=> Plattenteller: Donald Fagen – The Nightfly (1982)