Couple of last comments about the harmonic sound of Aja before we get to Groucho I mean Gaucho. Fagen and Becker really focused on how they voiced the chords in their progressions. It was another aspect of how they got a sort of unity to many of the songs on Aja. They used stacked (open voicing) fourths and fifths more than ever on the Aja album. They are used on Black Cow and Home at Last. Also, they are on here at the Western World in the verse at "Lately he spends his time here". The use of those chords is what helps define the Steely Dan sound. They used the chords brilliantly to change the mood to fit the lyrics. Their use of the chords is IMO unmatched in rock music.
Always thought it rhymed with Raja. Must have been the Indian restaurants I was frequentling at the time. A hot vindaloo is enough to exclaim AJA that's hot.
So - here's my Aja review - and my Steely Dan history that you didn't know you wanted - but you definitely needed. I had very traditional parents. They only liked big band swing and Andy Williams. They forbid my brother and I from listening to modern "rock" music. They called it "Acid Rock" and thought that anyone who listened to the Beatles or Jimi Hendrix became instant drug addicts. No - I'm not kidding. Anyway, in 1974, I was 9 years old - and an avid AM radio listener. We didn't have FM in my house back then - another weird story. I remember hearing Rikki Don't Lose That Number on the radio and loving that song. I didn't know it was Steely Dan at the time, and for some reason, neither did my parents. Flash forward to 1977 and 12 year old me - now in Junior High School - had started listening to music of his own choosing. I remember thinking Fleetwood Mac's Rumours was amazing, but my parents banned it because of the lines "I never did believe in the ways of magic" in the song "You Make Loving Fun". (I guess they thought we'd become Satan worshippers instead of drug addicts?) All was not lost - at least they bought me a copy of Willie Nelson's Stardust. I remember hearing the song Peg on the radio and thinking it was amazing. A friend had the Aja album, so I made a cassette copy - because that's what I did back then to kind of get around my parents. I remember listening to it with my weird music background, and thinking, "Well Peg is great. Shame about the rest of the album, though." I quickly moved on to the next albums I convinced my parents to buy me - Barry Manilow's Even Now, Al Stewart's Year Of The Cat and Christopher Cross's Christopher Cross. Throughout high school and college, I became a huge Beatle-head - frightening my parents - then moved into prog rock, then new wave & punk. I played in a Goth Band - heh-heh take that parents! - then got into music engineering school and played in a Seattle band. (We were more R.E.M. than Nirvana - but hey - it was Seattle, and you could get away with that here for a while.) At some point, I started collecting the odd Steely Dan album here and there - on vinyl! I have an MCA Countdown to Ecstasy, a quad Pretzel Logic, and the Don'n'Walt demo collection The Early Years from back in those days. Then - as mentioned earlier - I heard that Joe Jackson cover of "King Of The World". That really flipped my whole Steely Dan perspective around - and so I avidly started collecting all the Steely Dan I could, starting with the 2000-era CD re-masters. As part of this - I rediscovered Aja. So - my Aja review. It's definitely part of the "last phase" of the original Steely Dan 7®. The "rock" bits that were still present in the Katy Lied/The Royal Scam twins were completely excised at this point, in favor of a more jazz/pop direction. It took me a while, but I finally realized that "Peg" is not the only Amazing Song On Aja®. The title track "Aja" is a tour de force. When folks here mention that it might be their pinnacle, I find it very hard to disagree with them. "Black Cow" and "Deacon Blues" are almost like mini-movies - long-form, yet still melodic. Side 2 - with shorter songs - seems more Beatle-esque. I still love "Peg" - and keep finding new bits every time I really listen to it. (i.e. I just noticed the little shouty bit of "PEG" during the fade out.) I love the literary allusions to Greek myths in "Home At Last" - even the Retsina is a call back to Greek culture. I will admit that I hadn't really paid attention to all of the double-entendres in "I Got The News" until recently. I just liked the angular melody, the groove and the kind of "boppy" feel. Finally "Josie" wraps up the album in grand style - all flashing eyes and fire. It's still not my favorite Steely Dan - that remains Countdown To Ecstasy - but it's really, really good. When I'm in a more "jazz" mood - it really hits the spot. Intense, yet laid back. Quite possibly the most fully realized album Steely Dan ever made. Unfortunately, Aja also pointed in the direction that Steely Dan would follow on their next albums - more reliance on groove - less on pop hooks. A continuation of the trend @Rose River Bear noted on The Royal Scam: "harmonic and rhythmic hooks instead of melodic and lyrical hooks". But - for this album - it seemed more like a new direction than an eventual dead end. Cheers, Paul
Well, no sense in putting off the inevitable... From Wikipedia: Gaucho is the seventh studio album by the American jazz rock band Steely Dan, released on November 21, 1980 by MCA Records. The sessions for Gaucho represent the band's typical penchant for studio perfectionism and obsessive recording technique.[1][2] To record the album, the band used at least 42 different musicians, spent over a year in the studio, and far exceeded the original monetary advance given by the record label. During the two-year span in which the album was recorded, the band was plagued by a number of creative, personal and professional problems. MCA, Warner Bros. and Steely Dan had a three-way legal battle over the rights to release the album. After it was released, jazz musician Keith Jarrett threatened the band with legal action for writing credit on the title song. Gaucho marked a significant stylistic change for Steely Dan, introducing a more minimal, groove and atmosphere-based format. The harmonically complex chord changes that were a distinctive mark of earlier Steely Dan songs are less prominent on Gaucho, with the record's songs tending to revolve around a single rhythm or mood. Gaucho proved to be Steely Dan's final studio album before a 20-year absence from the recording industry. Background Exceptional difficulties plagued the album's production. By 1978, Donald Fagen and Walter Becker had established themselves as the only two permanent members of Steely Dan, using a revolving cast of session musicians to record the songs they wrote together. However, the pair's working relationship began to strain, largely because of Becker's increasing drug use. During the course of the Gaucho sessions, Becker was hit by a car while walking home late one Saturday night to his apartment on the Upper West Side. Becker managed to push the woman he was with out of harm's way, but sustained multiple fractures in one leg, a sprain in the other leg, as well as other injuries. During his six-month recovery, he suffered from secondary infections. While Becker was in the hospital, he and Fagen continued their musical collaborations via telephone. Becker's personal problems continued to mount when his girlfriend, Karen Roberta Stanley, died of a drug overdose at his home on January 30, 1980. Her family attempted to sue him for $17.5 million in January 1981, claiming that he had introduced the woman to cocaine, morphine, barbiturates, and heroin. The court later ruled in Becker's favor. Composition Hal Leonard's Best of Steely Dan explains that Gaucho is "a concept album of seven interrelated tales about would-be hipsters." The lyrics of "Hey Nineteen" are about an aging hipster attempting to pick up a girl who is so young that she does not recognize "'Retha Franklin" playing on the stereo. The song closes with the ambiguous line, "The Cuervo Gold, the fine Colombian, make tonight a wonderful thing", leaving it up to the listener whether the narrator is consuming tequila and drugs with the love interest, or if he is in fact alone. Resemblances between the subject of "Glamour Profession" and then-second year NBA player Magic Johnson have been noted but not confirmed as intentional, particularly as the recording of the album coincided with the player's arrival to the city and the onset of the "Showtime" era of the Los Angeles Lakers and how it paralleled the L.A. lifestyle at that time. Years later, the line "living hard will take its toll" would almost seem to have been prescient after the player's HIV announcement. Stewart Mason of AllMusic says that "Time Out of Mind" is "a barely veiled song about heroin, specifically a young man's first experience with the drug at the hands of a pretentious, pseudo-religious crank talking of 'chasing the dragon' with the 'mystical sphere direct from Lhasa.'" Recording Recording sessions With 1977's Aja, the duo had become accustomed to recording with Los Angeles-based session musicians; the transition back to using New York City players during the Gaucho sessions proved difficult, as the musicians were unenthusiastic about Becker and Fagen's obsessive, perfectionistic recording style. Sessions for Gaucho began in New York City during 1978.[7] Fagen and Becker hired Mark Knopfler to play the guitar solo on "Time Out of Mind" after hearing him play on Dire Straits' hit single "Sultans of Swing". Several hours of Knopfler's playing were recorded at the session, but his contributions as heard on the record are limited to a matter of seconds. The album's mixing sessions proved to be just as difficult as the recording sessions: it took Becker, Fagen, Nichols and Katz over 55 tries to properly mix the 50-second fade out of "Babylon Sisters".[5][15] Drum recording Even though the session players hired for Gaucho were amongst the most talented from both the East and West Coast session fraternities, Fagen and Becker were still not satisfied with the basic tracks for some of the songs, particularly with regard to the timing of the drum tracks. In a 2006 interview for Sound On Sound Magazine, Donald Fagen stated that he and Becker told recording engineer Roger Nichols: "'It's too bad that we can't get a machine to play the beat we want, with full-frequency drum sounds, and to be able to move the snare drum and kick drum around independently.' Nichols replied 'I can do that.' This was back in 1978 or something, so we said 'You can do that???' To which he said 'Yes, all I need is $150,000.' So we gave him the money out of our recording budget, and six weeks later he came in with this machine and that is how it all started."[17] Nichols named the drum machine "Wendel". Subsequently, Wendel was awarded a platinum record. According to Ken Micaleff in an article in Modern Drummer, the title song's drum track was assembled from 46 different takes. The drummer on the session, Jeff Porcaro, is quoted as saying: "From noon till six we'd play the tune over and over and over again, nailing each part. We'd go to dinner and come back and start recording. They made everybody play like their life depended on it. But they weren't gonna keep anything anyone else played that night, no matter how tight it was. All they were going for was the drum track." Drummer Bernard Purdie plays his signature half-time shuffle beat, the Purdie Shuffle, on "Babylon Sisters". "The Second Arrangement", outtakes and bootlegs "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. Artwork The cover art is based upon a wall plaque entitled "Guardia Vieja – Tango" (Old Guard – Tango), located in a southside Buenos Aires promenade known as Caminito, by Argentine artist Israel Hoffmann.[22] Release Just prior to release the band members had another argument with MCA over the retail price. MCA made Steely Dan a test case for its new "superstar pricing" policy, whereby new albums by top selling artists would sell for $9.98, one dollar more than those of other artists. Critical reception The album was greeted with mostly positive reviews. It was given 4½ stars from Rolling Stone's Ariel Swartley, who said of the album: "After years of hibernation in the studio, the metamorphosis that began with The Royal Scam is complete. Steely Dan have perfected the aesthetic of the tease." The New York Times gave Gaucho a positive review, later deeming it the best album of 1980, beating out Talking Heads Remain in Light and Joy Division's Closer. The album also received positive reviews from the Montreal Gazette and PopMatters. Not all reviews were positive. The second edition of The Rolling Stone Album Guide, which gave all of Steely Dan's previous releases at least 3 stars (out of 5), gave Gaucho a 1-star rating; critic Dave Marsh called it "the kind of music that passes for jazz in Holiday Inn lounges, with the kind of lyrics that pass for poetry in freshman English classes." Gaucho also received a lukewarm review from the Pittsburgh Press's Pete Bishop. Robert Christgau of the Village Voice gave it a tepid review and rated it B-. Accolades Gaucho won the 1981 Grammy Award for Best Non-Classical Engineered Recording. Commercial performance The album reached #9 on the U.S. Album Chart and was certified Platinum. "Hey Nineteen" reached #10 on the U.S. Singles Chart, and went to #1 in Canada. The album reached #27 on the UK Albums Chart. Track listing All songs written by Walter Becker and Donald Fagen, except where noted. Side one "Babylon Sisters" – 5:49 "Hey Nineteen" – 5:06 "Glamour Profession" – 7:29 Side two "Gaucho" (Becker, Fagen, Keith Jarrett) – 5:32 "Time Out of Mind" – 4:13 "My Rival" – 4:34 "Third World Man" – 5:15 Personnel Steely Dan Donald Fagen – lead vocals, synthesizer (2-6), electric piano (2-6), organ (6) Walter Becker – bass (2, 4, 5), guitar (2, 5), guitar solo (4) Additional musicians[edit] Rob Mounsey – piano (3, 4, 5), synthesizer (7), horn arrangement (1, 5) Don Grolnick – electric piano (1) and Hohner Clavinet (1) Pat Rebillot (6) – electric piano Joe Sample (7) – electric piano Steve Khan – guitar (1, 3, 4, 7), lead guitar (6) Mark Knopfler (5) – lead guitar Larry Carlton (7) – lead guitar Hugh McCracken (2, 5) – guitars Hiram Bullock (6) – guitar Rick Derringer (6) – guitar Chuck Rainey (1, 7) – bass Anthony Jackson (3, 6) – bass Bernard Purdie (1) – drums Rick Marotta (2, 5) – drums Steve Gadd (2, 3, 6, 7) – drums, percussion Jeff Porcaro (4) – drums Errol "Crusher" Bennett (1, 4) – percussion Victor Feldman (2) – percussion Ralph MacDonald (3, 6) – percussion Nicholas Marrero (6) – percussion George Marge, Walter Kane – clarinet (1) Tom Scott – alto saxophone and clarinet (1); tenor saxophone (1, 3, 4, 6); Lyricon (3, 6), horn arrangement (3, 4, 6) David Sanborn – alto saxophone (5) Michael Brecker (3, 5, 6) – tenor saxophone Dave Tofani (5) – tenor saxophone Ronnie Cuber – baritone saxophone (5) Randy Brecker – trumpet (1, 4, 5), flugelhorn (1, 6) Wayne Andre – trombone (6) Michael McDonald, Patti Austin, Valerie Simpson, Frank Floyd, Diva Gray, Gordon Grody, Lani Groves, Leslie Miller, Zachary Sanders, Toni Wine – backing vocals [37][38] Production Producers: Gary Katz Executive producers: Paul Bishow, Roger Nichols Executive engineer: Roger Nichols Assistant engineers: John "Doc" Daugherty, Gerry Gabinelli, Craig Goetsch, Tom Greto, Barbara Isaak, Georgia Offrell, John Potoker, Linda Randazzo, Marti Robertson, Carla Bandini Production coordination: Jeff Fura, Margaret Goldfarb, Shannon Steckloff Mixing: Elliot Scheiner Mix down: Elliot Scheiner Coordination: Michael Etchart Sequencing: Roger Nichols, Wendel Tracking: Elliot Scheiner, Bill Schnee Mastering: Bob Ludwig Overdubs: Jerry Garszva, Roger Nichols Surround mix: Elliot Scheiner Rhythm arrangements: Paul Griffin, Don Grolnick, Rob Mounsey, Steely Dan Horn arrangements: Rob Mounsey, Tom Scott Piano technician: Don Farrar Special effects: Roger Nichols, Wendel Consultant: Daniel Levitin Art direction: Vartan, Suzanne Walsh Design: Michael Diehl, Suzanne Walsh Design assistant: John Tom Cohoe Photography: Rene Burri Photo research: Ryan Null Liner notes: Walter Becker, Donald Fagen, Frank Kafka Liner note translation: Victor Di Suvero Charts Weekly charts Album Year Chart Peak position 1980 UK Albums 27 1981 Black Albums 19 1981 Pop Albums 9 Singles Year Single Label & number Chart Peak position 1981 "Hey Nineteen" (B-side: "Bodhisattva" (live)) MCA 51036 Black Singles 68 1981 "Hey Nineteen" MCA 51036 Pop Singles 10 1981 "Time Out of Mind" MCA 51082 Pop Singles 22 1981 "Time Out of Mind" (B-side: "Bodhisattva" (live)) MCA 51082 Adult Contemporary 13 1981 "Time Out of Mind" (B-side: "Bodhisattva" (live)) MCA 51082 Mainstream Rock 13
Gaucho…probably the most divisive album in Steely Dan’s catalog. Given the amount of time, money and effort that was put into making the album it should have been a lot better than it was. Instead, it is what it is- after 37 years I’d say we’ve accepted it. Doesn’t mean that everybody likes it, though. For some it is way too slick, overproduced and clinical sounding. On the other hand it does include some compelling tracks, even if the overall musicianship isn’t quite as ‘showy’ as on some of their other albums. The shift in sound towards synthesizers and electric pianos ensures that the album wasn’t intended to be “Aja Part II”. To me the record for the most part seems to take the piss out of the whole “decadent L.A.” scene- as New Yorkers I think Becker and Fagen had been waiting for the right time to give L.A. an expensive kiss off (in the words of the title track) and they do so with gusto. Gaucho sort of presents itself as the final word on the seventies (not unlike Let It Bleed was for the sixties in a way), saying goodbye to the “Me Decade” with a two fingered salute. We all know the behind the scenes stories surrounding Gaucho: Becker’s addictions, loss of his girlfriend and car accident limiting his involvement in making the record (he is wholly absent from four of the seven songs), the erasure of “The Second Arrangement”, the plagiarism controversy involving the title track, WENDEL and Steely Dan’s battles with their new record company (MCA) over the price of the album, holding up its release for months. All of these trials and tribulations sort of colour the project. “Babylon Sisters” – IMO this is one of the greatest opening tracks for an album of all time. Not unlike “Rocks Off” on Exile On Main Street, “Babylon Sisters” totally sets up the rest of the album- lyrically, musically and production-wise. The song involves a guy escaping L.A. with a couple of hookers, deluding himself that in doing so he’ll find his salvation but knowing that he probably won’t. Bernard Purdie returns to lay down his patented Shuffle on the drums, again aided and abetted by Chuck Rainey’s bass and Don Grolnick’s keyboards. The guitars provide a slight reggae feel alongside a dominating Tom Scott horn chart. Female backing vocals are to the forefront with Fagen providing his narrative over top. The overall arrangement makes for a hypnotizing track. They nearly wore the oxide off the tape mixing this song- specifically, it’s coda. “Hey Nineteen” – The big hit single off the album. When I first heard it I recognized the chorus from hearing it being played as “bumper music” on Coast To Coast AM, of all things (essential listening on the night shift). It’s a song about a guy suffering from a midlife crisis hoping to find solace in the arms of a girl half his age. The infamous “Cuervo Gold/Fine Colombian” section made me howl- it’s not the healthiest diet in the world at all but one I certainly had an appreciation for in my younger days (that is assuming that the fine Colombian in question is pot and not cocaine). Roger Nichols’ homemade drum machine WENDEL is used to full effect here, essentially turning Rick Marotta’s drums into a finely tuned loop (you can hear the various click tracks in the background). Fagen’s Rhodes piano and synthesizers (his trademark ‘harmonica’ patch) rule the roost, while Hugh McCracken provides a smooth solo and classic intro. Walter Becker carries the song on bass and rhythm guitar. “Hey Nineteen” is the classic “early” Steely Dan sound updated for the eighties. “Glamour Profession” – easily the most “dated” sounding song on the album, due to its disco beat (being as it’s Steve Gadd providing it it’s more than a mere disco beat, of course, manipulated by WENDEL or not) and massed synthesizers (Fagen). A new addition to the Dan’s stable, Rob Mounsey (who would be Donald Fagen’s co-conspirator for the next few years) tickles the ivories on an exquisite piano solo. Anthony Jackson, another newbie, plays bass, a low funky line guaranteed to make yer speakers vibrate. And yet another newcomer, Steve Khan, excels on guitar, particularly during the extended outro. It’s the longest song on the album, but one gets the sense that it didn’t have to be. “Glamour Profession” is another L.A. story song about a cocaine dealer and his various exploits (one time my wife asked me, “Is this song about what I think it’s about?” “Yes, honey, it’s about a coke dealer.” “I thought so.”) For my money, side one of Gaucho is my third favourite bit of Steely Dan music, after Countdown and The Royal Scam. Side two, on the other hand… “Gaucho” – I do not like this song. I really do not like this song. It had no redeeming qualities for me at all, even if I do get a boot out of the idea of two straight guys writing a song about a bickering gay couple. But no, I don’t like the horns (Tom Scott goes way too far in this case), the stop-start rhythm (Jeff Porcaro) that it took them fourty plus takes to get right…even Becker’s guitar solo fails to impress (his only solo on the album). I don’t know what the hell this song is trying to convey musically, it sounds like bad lounge music to me. Next… “Time Out Of Mind” – Amazing that an ode to smoking heroin (“chasing the dragon”) could be a successful song on the radio (not to mention another one I hear in the grocery store quite a bit) but that’s “Time Out Of Mind” for ya. An upbeat number, Becker again provides bass and rhythm guitar against Rick Marotta’s WENDEL-ized drums, keyboards by Fagen and Rob Mounsey, but again the horns overpower the track way too much…and then there’s good old Michael McDonald caterwauling away in the bridge (I can hear Becker and Fagen thinking, “How can we make this song sound even more commercial?” “I know! We’ll get Mike to sing on it!!!”) The flew in Mark Knopfler all the way from England to play lead guitar only to bury him in the mix, a truly wasted opportunity (Knopfler wasn’t too impressed with the situation either) “My Rival” – This totally sounds like a Fagen solo track to me. There’s a few theories as to what this song’s about –who the ‘rival’ is- I’ve never been able to figure it out myself. Donald plays organ (as mentioned earlier it sounds inspired by early 60’s ‘soap opera’ music), Becker is nowhere to be found, Steve Khan and Rick Derringer provide the guitars, but again, the drums are so manipulated by WENDEL that the track sounds utterly robotic. “My Rival” has all the hallmarks of being a good song but it is executed very poorly on the album IMO. “Third World Man” – after the “Second Arrangement” debacle, a leftover from Aja was dusted off, “Were You Blind”, with new lyrics added to become “Third World Man”. The third world man in question is actually a Vietnam vet who cannot relate to the America he’s returned to. Unfortunately, for me the song is so plodding and repetitive that it’s difficult for me to care. The song is temporarily redeemed by Larry Carlton’s majestic guitar solo/outro but otherwise the track seems very overwrought. Not one of my favourites, let's put it that way.
BONUS Review: FM As mentioned earlier, FM (No Static At All) is a song that Steely Dan did for the movie FM. The movie isn't great - some might even call it terrible. Mostly - it's just unimaginative and kind of clichéd. Sad too - it's a great cast: Cleavon Little, Martin Mull, Eileen Brennan and Alex Karras. And there's live performances from Jimmy Buffet and Linda Ronstadt. Luckily, it had a pretty cool soundtrack. Many of the acts were managed by Irving Azoff - including Steely Dan - hence their inclusion on the soundtrack album. Steely Dan contributed two tracks: FM (No Static At All) and FM (Reprise). Most Steely Dan compilations rename the song to simply FM. And - as has been mentioned - from the Gold Expanded Edition CD onwards, FM is usually an edit of FM (No Static At All) and FM (Reprise), replacing the track ending guitar solo with a saxophone solo. (A quick way to tell: the "guitar outro" version is 4:50, while the "sax outro" version is 5:06.) Either version is wonderful. I'm more familiar with the "sax outro" version - that's the first version I ever heard. But the "guitar outro" version is pretty damn tasty, I must say. As has been mentioned, the lyrics are kind of a play on FM radio - and seduction. "No Static At All" was one of the selling points of FM radio. Unlike AM, FM radio always sounded clear - immune from lightning strikes, appliances, and other noise generating sources. You play the cool music - you'll get "No Static At All" from "The Girls". Tasty guitar - smoking sax - pretty much a classic Steely Dan song in almost every way. Cheers, Paul
Steely Dan FAQ for the last albums: The Later Steely Dan Era "Katy Lied" Happily reborn as a strictly-studio unit, Fagen and Becker begin work on a new album with the help of Porcaro and McDonald. With Baxter gone, Becker begins to add more guitar work to his bass playing. Other contributors to the new album are more from the jazz world than the rock world and include alto saxophonist Phil Woods and guitarist Larry Carlton (Crusaders). "Katy Lied" is released in March 1975 to critical raves, but the closest thing to a hit single is "Black Friday" which reaches the #37. Unlike ABC, this doesn't faze Donald and Walter who could care less about the chart status of their singles. However, Gary Katz later regrets that he didn't suggest "Bad Sneakers" as a single. Despite the success of "Katy Lied" (Gold sales status, Chart peak at #13), Fagen and Becker are anguished by the sound fidelity of the album due to the faulty tape machine that they had used during recording. They refuse to listen to the album in its final form. Another major change in the structure of the band occurs when Michael McDonald follows Baxter to join the Doobie Brothers as the lead vocalist, prompting Gary Katz to comment, "Michael's role as a backup singer is the ultimate waste of talent." McDonald would, however, continue to surface on later Steely Dan albums. "The Royal Scam" Becker and Fagen return to the studio to work on their next album, the first in which Steely Dan is officially billed as a duo. "The Royal Scam" is released in May 1976 and turns out to be known as their best "guitar album," mostly due to the terrific work of Larry Carlton. The highlights for most fans and album rock radio stations are "Kid Charlemagne" and "Don't Take Me Alive." But again, there is no big hit single, although "Haitian Divorce" becomes a hit in England. With the ability to attract session men like Carlton on guitar and Chuck Rainey on bass, Becker scales back his own performance on the albums. "The Royal Scam" also features "The Fez," the only Steely Dan song with a third credited writer, Paul Griffin, who also plays organ on the song. "The Royal Scam" also goes gold and peaks at #25 on the charts. "Aja" ABC Records, consistent in their pressure for hit singles and a tour, drive Becker and Fagen back into the studio. The end result, "Aja", is released in September 1977 and features their longest and jazziest compositions to date. Fagen and Becker drafted even more giants of the jazz world including Joe Sample, Wayne Shorter and Tom Scott to execute their increasingly complex songs. "Aja" becomes their first platinum album and reaches #3 on the album chart, trailing only mega-sellers Fleetwood Mac's "Rumors" and Billy Joel's "The Stranger." "Peg" hits #11, "Deacon Blues" hits #19 and "Josie" hits #26 on the singles charts. Fagen and Becker also agree to tour again, but it is quickly aborted after the first rehearsal when members of the backup band started comparing pay scales and started griping over who was making more money. In February 1978 "Aja" wins a Grammy award for Best Engineered Non-Classical Recording. In July 1978, Fagen and Becker release the title track to the movie "FM" and it reaches #22 on the singles charts. "Gaucho" With the phenomenal success of "Aja," Donald and Walter are under considerably less pressure to release new material quickly. ABC releases a Greatest Hits package in November 1978 which includes one unreleased track "Here At The Western World." This collection also goes platinum and reaches #30 on the charts. Tiring of the L.A. scene, Becker and Fagen move back to New York to start recording their new album. While recording "Gaucho", Becker and Fagen had to endure various misfortunes which delay the release date: Becker is hit by a car, one of their favorite new tracks "The Second Arrangement" is accidentally erased by an assistant recording engineer, and there is a dispute over which record company has the rights to their forthcoming album. Becker and Fagen had already signed a new contract with Warner Brothers, but ABC (now owned by MCA) claims that they are still owed one more album. MCA wins the contract dispute and then decides to increase the album's list price to $9.98, one dollar more than all the other albums. Donald and Walter continue to hold back the album while they unsuccessfully fight the price increase. Finally, "Gaucho" is released in November, 1980. "Gaucho" follows in the footsteps of "Aja" stylistically and continues to use even more jazz session men. The album hits #9 on the charts and also goes platinum. "Hey Nineteen" hits #10 and "Time Out Of Mind" hits #22 on the singles charts. Cheers, Paul
Couple on the cover realise it's the weekend. Guess a tango is in order. Always said it was a dance album.
I don't hear it, really. A lot of the Aja songs are rooted in acoustic pianos; on Gaucho it's all Rhodes and synthesizers. Aja, to me, sounds warm and natural. Gaucho is cold and clinical- especially where WENDEL is concerned, the drumming is stripped of any resemblance of human feeling...now, maybe that's what Fagen and Becker wanted but 37 years later you can't help but wonder "what were they thinking?". You never get a sense of people playing together in the same room at the same time, and indeed, much of the album was recorded one instrument at a time. While there was an abundance of horns used on Aja, they were tastefully used for the most part; on Gaucho the horns end up becoming the focal point of the track simply because the arrangements and sound are so overpowering. IMO -and I've said it before- but given Walter Becker's limited involvement in the project, Gaucho seems like a dry run for Donald Fagen's solo career- Fagen is definitely the star here, between his expressive vocals on the songs and actually deigning to play most of the keyboard parts on the album himself for the first time in years (outside of "FM"). The Dan gave it the ol' Bard College try on Gaucho, but ultimately the album fails in execution. I think the pressure on them to follow up Aja was enormous and once they realized they probably weren't going to be able to measure up to Aja's quality they decided, "Well, let's not even bother trying to, then." In spite of the ridiculous lengths they went to on the production end of the album (total overkill), as far as the songs and performances go, I get a sense of a lowering of overall standards. I think Becker and Fagen knew they could have done better, but the myriad bad circumstances at the time simply didn't allow them to, and it shows.
Without further ado - the Gaucho liner notes. Cheers, Paucho There is an infinite amount of hope in the universe... but not for us. Frank Kafka, in conversation Astute Danfans may have noticed the atypically long interval between the reissue of the Aja album, with its sleek new annotation by the "artists", and the final reissue album in the MCA series, Gaucho. It is our pleasure to report to you that, in the interval, certain intractable legal and artistic dilemmas have been favorably resolved, and that we are now free to resume and conclude this brief and pungent retelling of the Steely Dan saga, such as it was. The first thing we notice as we put pen to paper is that we may have given the actual Aja album proper somewhat short shrift in the aforementioned new annotation, inasmuch as the album itself is not mentioned at all until the penultimate paragraph, and then only en passant, as it were, to remark that too much had already been written in this regard. Whereas this is every bit as true now as it was then, nevertheless we retrospectively suspect that we may have done something of a disservice to those devoted fans who are particularly fond of the Aja album above all others. We also acknowledge that it would be somewhat impertinent, if not downright disrespectful or even contemptuous, to suggest or imply that being especially partial to the most successful of our old albums, at the expense of the other, less successful but also very charming ones, would constitute a failure of imagination on the part of said fans and perhaps even a betrayal of the essence of the Steely worldview, if such a thing could be said to exist. But the fact is that, having made that dire pronouncement, we both feel that an enormous burden has been lifted from our shoulders and that we are now free to walk tall for the first time since the big legal hassle began back in nineteen seventy... whoops, there we go again - anyway, feeling as we do now, we judge that it may be well worth the risk of offending the odd culture vulture here and there in order to clear the air and move on to the task at hand. Bring on the Gaucho!!! A note to the reader: it so happens that these pages are being written as we are cruising in our nifty SD tour jet at 30,000 feet and due to land in Las Vegas, Nevada within the half-hour - and with us in the plane is our travelling tour psychologist, Dr. Clayton Dietz, Jr., who is suggesting that our reluctance to return to the discussion of the Aja album may in fact represent an unwillingness on our part to confront the painful issues surrounding the making of the Gaucho album, the (somewhat problematic) album itself, and its turbulent aftermath, which arguably persists to the present moment. In fact, we stand accused (by our own hireling "mental health professional", no less) of "blowing sunshine up the reader's a**hole" for the purposes of postponing the inevitable moment of dread. In our own defense, we can only suggest to the distinguished Doc Dietz, Jr. that a) a PhD from LSU is not worth the paper it's printed on (unless you're a basketball coach), and b) a man with a haircut like Clay's will never ever have sexual relations with a beautiful talented background singer with cobalt blue Galaxy Quest eyes and a captivatingly dimpled ensellure - this is a fact, not a theory. So, medical objections duly noted, we stand ready to make the plunge. Speaking of the Gaucho album proper, it can truly be said that never before or since in the sorry annals of pop music has so much been expended by so few for so long in the service of so little - or something like that. We come to the table ready and willing to concede to our harshest critics that it is undoubtedly true that at some point in this doleful enterprise we did indeed go well past it - the only remaining questions being exactly what "it" is and how blindly fast/excruciatingly slow we were moving at the precise moment when we crossed the line. For instance, let's talk about bass clarinets - you know the thing we mean, looks like a cross between a clarinet with glandular problems and Palladin's spittoon. Or - never mind the bass clarinets, they're not important - let's consider for a moment the musical and neurological ramifications of a middle-of-the-project compound segmental fracture of the tibia suffered by one or more of the principals. Ouchie! Or - let's not quibble - let's talk about the approximately 320 reels of 2-inch master tape left over from the album and representing only the outtakes from the failed tracking sessions - a hundred clams a roll, babies - and you begin (but only just) to get the notion that there may indeed have been a few snags along the way from conception to completion of the album. Ask yourself this: can all be well with the project when it is belatedly discovered that the chief horn arranger has a company called "Flying Monkey Productions"? Can it be right that said arranger and the chief tracking engineer have both been married to the same cantankerous woman? Lived and loved in the same Vermont country house? Driven, fer crissakes, the same late-model Benz? Had her fly them both down, each in his day, to La f**king Samanna on St. Maarten/St. Martin (the French side) just for f**king LUNCH??? All of this in the midst of the Coke Plague Years that ravaged the Manhattan sessions community all the way from Mikell's on upper Broadway to Seventh Avenue South in the West Village and all or most points in between. You book a session but you never know whether the player you hired will be the same guy he was last time you saw him or much bigger or smaller or barefoot or two days late or a week early or what. O the Humanities! Such a desolation! That's when the business with the computer started. Roger Nichols had this toy - we thought of it as a toy - but one day he came to work and told us that the toy had become a man - one helluva man, in fact. A very talented man. A steady man. A man for all seasons - call him Wendel. A man who, in the absence of a usable track after a zillion tries with "real bands", could nicely simulate the most elusive elements of the basic track that we would need to bring our little song into the world, i.e., drums and maybe a simple keyboard part of some sort, and that's all. Because, once we had that - the toy, the man, the track - we could do all the rest with little or no problemo, thank you very much. Unfortunately, at this primitive stage of the evolution of the computer and its requisite software, even the most minute event had to be programmed in the gnarly and unforgiving 8085 Assembly Language, in which all relevant parameters needed to be described in its baffling hexagesimal-base numerical system, which ultimately became the only language Roger Nichols spoke or understood, at least for a time. As it turned out, the simplest imaginable manipulations - we are, after all, simple guys - ended up adding perhaps 7 or 14 months, all told, to our already Augean labors, and hundreds of thousands of dollars to our monstrously swollen budget. And so was born the era of sampled drums and sequenced music - "The Birth of the Cruel", as we now think of it. History - read it and weep. At the time, it all seemed worth it, especially because with the eventual completion of the recording, mixing and mastering of the album would come the long-promised and much-anticipated Weekend at the aforementioned La Samanna resort with two of the loveliest waitresses in all of midtown. Giselle (5'6", voluptuous, blonde, illiterate, loves Ahmad Jamal, etc.) was bright and brassy, while Shannon (also 5'6", willowy and wanton, a perfect seventies 'luded-out f**kdoll, a walking DSM III, the reference standard of the day) was dark and sultry. Both liked the tropics and had had their bags packed since February (never mind of which year). Sitting in the bar by Gate 72, we could scarcely contain our enthusiasm for the Lost Weekend to come, and, as it turns out, we may have overdone the alcoholic stimulation thing while waiting for the ladies to turn up. Because, while the girls flew on, alone together, to St. Maarten/St. Martin (where they drank, smoked, snorted and humped each other into oblivion for three delirious days and nights), the boys, in their inebriated state, having argued briefly about the relative merits of Chico Hamilton (?) versus Charlie Persip (!) and then lost track of one another somewhere in the terminal, boarded the wrong plane (in the case of Becker) or bus (in the case of Fagen) and turned up two to three days later in Kahului, Hawaii, or the Stanhope Hotel, respectively, each heartbroken, alone, penniless, with heads like watermelons and hearts like lead sinkers and, oddly enough, a hit single blooming on the charts. Go figure. * * * So it's goodbye to Freddie Fender, to bell bottom trousers, disco collars, Dr. Buzzard's Savannah Band, trendy Malibu (Don Henley still lives there), Tex-Mex décor and food, Donald Segretti, Nancy Spungen, the Golden Age of Porn, Schedule I narcotics, tall ships and the Wankel rotary engine, Jimmy Carter, and our Draconian, near-feudal contractual relations with various record companies, publishers, managers, hustling little business persons of uncertain stripe (not including the magnificent Irving Azoff), and all the rest. And not a moment too soon, inasmuch as we have decided to make a forced landing here in West Bumf**k, Nevada, so that we can rid ourselves of the appallingly cheerful and endlessly tiresome Clayton Dietz, who is even more irritating now that he applauds our heroic confrontation with our "shadow selves." Clay will be setting off on foot across the Nevada badlands, hoping to catch up with the Don Henley tour (eight horns!!! a potential psychotherapeutic bonanza) when they play the American Legion hall in Nogales, New Mexico, next week. Sadly for him, we have already jettisoned the orgone boxes (actually, form-fitting all-weather Gortex orgone suits) and the scented candles and the e-meters and surgical clamps somewhere back near Barstow, California, and so he will have to get by on his wits and what native charm he can muster, if any. And, like him, our little tale wanders off into the desert to die a lonely death, a mere footnote in the already epic history of 20th century mediocrity and/or underachievement.* - Donald Fagen & Walter Becker, 2000 *For those voracious fans who may be interested, an alternative (but equally valid and just as realistic and somewhat more upbeat) version of the events described in these reissue notes is available privately - just send $35 plus postage to Craig Fruin, P.O. Box 1838, San Francisco, CA 94159-1838, and you will receive a deluxe mimeographed copy of "Steely Dan - the Watergate Years", signed by Craig Fruin himself. Act fast - supplies are limited.
This was the first album I bought from the band real time. And I think around the release date as well. Great after hours party album. Is it as good as AJA, no ..but very close, he says smoking cigar on private yacht. Side 1 1. Babylon Sisters" A+ = 10/10 2 "Hey Nineteen" 10/10 3. "Glamour Profession" 10/10 Side 2 "Gaucho" 10/10 "Time Out of Mind" 10/10 "My Rival" 10/10 "Third World Man" 10/10
Don't really care for Gaucho either. It has the same problem as Aja in my opinion. Too smooth. The best tracks if I had to choose are probably Babylon Sisters and Hey Nineteen. I always found it interesting that Babylon Sisters was not released as a single in the U.S. (U.K. only) but it seems to appear on many Steely Dan compilation albums while Time Out Of Mind was released as single in the U.S. and does not appear on as many Steely Dan compilation albums. Just something to ponder when you have too much time on your hands. However, Babylon Sisters was their last single released anywhere until their comeback.
Based on the liner notes, it appears that Becker and Fagen were aware of the album's faults, in their typically self-deprecating way.
These are the most awesomely hilarious liner notes I have ever read. " . . . it can truly be said that never before or since in the sorry annals of pop music has so much been expended by so few for so long in the service of so little - or something like that." 320 leftover spools of tape at $100 a pop. Wow! I must get Fagen's book. P.S. I frigging love Gaucho. Way more than Aja. P.P.S. I'm no literary dummy. Degree in English. Writing gets the kids through college. But I totally missed what Hey Nineteen was really about. I thought it was nostalgia for late nights at the fraternity house (which is admittedly where I was when I came to love it).
I think we should discuss The Second Arrangement for a... er... second. Unlike the other Gaucho outtakes, this was nearly completed - at least twice. Either of the final versions would have really changed the tone of the Gaucho album. Give this a listen: Instrumental - possibly the wiped backing track: See what I mean? A real loss. Also - it's worth reading through the comments on this YouTube post. Cheers, Paul
I'm just going to come right out and say it: Gaucho is their only absolutely perfect album. It's my favourite.
It is incredible. I can't even imagine what effect it would have had on the album. It'd sit perfectly after 'Glamour Profession'.
Continuing The Second Arrangement discussion, this seems to be the best sounding vocal take: The theory is that this is as far as they got on the second attempt - but all of these things are pretty unclear. Cheers, Paul
"The Second Arrangement" -simply on the basis of the remake version we all know and love- definitely would have been an improvement to Gaucho. Perfect album closer IMO. Only Steely Dan could go to the trouble of re-recording a song they accidentally erased, using an entirely different crew of musicians from the first version, record a perfectly acceptable remake...and then not release it. D'oh.
