Thanks, 'not,' it's an interesting take, but I'm so familiar with Bowie that if he was The Elusive One (for me), I'd have caught it right away.
Unlike most here, I've had 11ToW in fairly steady rotation since it's release. I find it to be an enjoyable, satisfying listen. Not heaping many expectations upon it helped in that regard. It was Walter's first time in the solo spotlight and it wasn't really presented as much more than a home studio project, so that's the spirit I approach it with. While the synthetic elements bothered me on Kamikiriad, they actually bolster my experience here. And there was lots of real guitar! His voice ... yeah, it's an acquired taste. My then-girlfriend mused "why does he groan so much?", which was actually rather insightful. There is a sort of groan to his vocals, but it serves the songs. I can't really find anyone to make a neat comparison with - sure there's a bit of Fagen's mannerisms, but how could there not be after so many years of close collaboration? Remember, we'd never heard Walter sing before, so HE may well have had some measure of influence on Donald's vocal style over the years. The Bowie and Knopfler comparisons this morning are intriguing, and I can kinda sorta hear what you guys are getting at. "Junkie Girl" & "Surf and/or Die" are the centerpieces, as far as I'm concerned - they sound as if he's going into all the dark places he'd personally been in basically since Aja. Chasing the dragon, a girlfriend going where he didn't dare to follow. "Surf" has by far the most densely-packed lyric here - the dam is busting loose and the black water is gushing out. Preceding the two with "Down in the Bottom" make for a potent opening 1-2-3 punch. And then after the deceptive calm of "Book of Liars", there's another strong 1-2-3 punch with "Lucky Henry" / "Hard-Up Case" / "Cringemaker". Guitars and grooves predominate. Yeah, that's probably Dean Parks doing the shredding. "Girlfriend" could've been a hit if the verses were as strong as the chorus. A few pages ago, Ippudo brought up Scritti Politti - I can hear echoes (real or imagined) of them on this song. I love how "My Waterloo" starts off with what sounds like a cheesy rhythm machine preset and then that plush steel guitar sounding part kicks in. The little wink to the "Haitian Divorce" talkbox is awesome. The album doesn't really flag for me until the last three songs - "This Moody Bastard" just kinda drifts along, "Hat Too Flat" is a bit tiresome, and "Little Kawai" has a paint by numbers southern gospel structure. I've never been crazy about the album title - yeah, yeah, "whack" is an amusing double/triple entendre (or even more depending on where your mind goes), but I'd be down with something straightforward like making "Book of Liars" the title track.
I don't dislike Becker's voice at all. Quite listenable. But the nagging comparison is still driving me NUTS. Sly and the Family Stone...Family Affair? Possibly....
i got the 11 tracks of whack just for completion sake and curiosity much later on after release. listened to it a couple of times and that was it. some of the music was interesting. sorry, but just not used to walter beckers voice on lead. it was an interesting experiment. might go back to it again considering the circumstances. on the other hand, i've been listening to all the donald fagen releases a lot more now. even bought 'sunken condos' on cd, as i only had the digital tracks release before. later -1
I can hear similarities now that you mention it. Sly often added some groan to his vocals, and Walter's phrasing has a similar feel at times.
If "Book of Liars" is a good example of 11ToW, I'm not going to be in a hurry to Seek out the album. I always skip that song on "Alive in America", mostly because of Becker's tuneless singing.
I don't even own Alive In America anymore. Can't stand to listen to it. The soundboard boots from that tour are so good, it's a complete mystery to me how they could suck all the life out of SD live on the official release.
I like "Babylon Sisters" and "Third World Man" from "Live in America". That's about it. I like Drew Zingg as a guitar player a lot, but his sound on this album is kinda nasty.
Surprised at the negativity here. To me, Becker’s songs and voice have the bite of Steely Dan that’s missing from Fagen’s solo work. Don’s never been able to hit the human-level regret, dissatisfaction or admission of failure as Walter does (did), which is what is one of Steely Dan’s first lyrical assets for me. It comes out more on Circus Money (which is my second-place Dan solo album), but there’s plenty on display on this record. Only Walter could’ve pulled off something as savage as this from ‘Fall of ‘92’, like ‘Snowbound’ a Steely Dan song in all bit name: “You do remember little Foxy, the funny little dog we found Out romping on the beach that day Last week I sold your ruby earrings Took old Foxy to the pound You should have heard him howling As that old Beemer pulled away”
Can't get into the album. Have only ever listened to it twice. Once some time back and once recently back when this thread was around Katy Lied I think. A chore both times. Starts out badly with reverbed/compressed/phased/gained/GATED snare drum. And while that disappears on later tracks and there are probably a couple standout tracks, I find it hard to go back and give it another go. Probably will though in the next few days, like Monday..
I agree. When they "separated", it became clear that a lot of the old Steely Dan voodoo (for lack of a better word) came from Walter. It's too simplistic to call him the Yin to Donald's Yang, but he definitely had a higher ratio of dark to light than his pardner.
Oh brother, that's dark...Dr. Oz just read it and he's "concerned..." I think once a person hears 11 Tracks of Whack and Circus Money, you see what Walter might have been responsible for in Steely Dan. I often can tell from Walter's "voice" and the rhyme scheme. Reading those lyrics, I might have to add "Green Earrings" to the pile...
I'm a fairly vocal Becker booster and "11 Tracks" and "Circus Money" made it crystal clear to me what Becker brought to SD and how he's, to my taste, a more interesting, shaded, poetic, abstract-thinking, edgy and/or beautiful lyricist than Fagan. On a personal level, I also feel empathy for WB, as I can't really sing all that well, myself, yet I'm cursed with music and songwriting OCD/passion. I'm simply unable to create the sound that I hear in my head - melodies far beyond my range, tones and textures like Neil Finn or John Lennon, when a reasonable analog for the tone and quality of my voice is maybe Mike D from the Beastie Boys - yes, the least interesting vocalist in a white rap band, lord help me. It's beyond maddening - moving into heartbreaking. You really gotta be as good as Dylan or Lou Reed to overcome not being able to sing very well - and even they, at least, have a unique, eccentric stamp to their voices that they learned to use to great effect. So, when I first heard WB's solo material, I was immediately rooting for him. I very quickly got past his voice (which I actually think is an expressive instrument) and heard the songs. "11 Tracks," to me, is like a cross between SD and what used to be called "college/alternative," which is the music I grew up with. It feels like a cool, personal, honest, pretty raw album and I love it. Fagan has the clear advantage of being the lead singer of SD and of also being the one who created the majority of the initial musical ideas in their songs, so his albums easily scratch that SD itch - because they, basically, sound, superficially, like SD albums. I love Fagan's solo work, but it's also as different, to me, as Becker's is from SD. Fagan's stuff is plain speaking, romantic, a little snide, but also kinda vanilla. Becker can be plain-speaking, as well, but he's more brutally so. Under the sheen, SD had a lot of edge and, imo, Fagan has more sheen under the sheen. "11 Tracks..." is like someone took all the missing SD ingredients in Fagan's solo work and squeezed them into an album. It's clear, together, Fagan and Becker are SD - like mixing the light and dark laundry in the washing machine. All that said, I don't think Becker's solo albums are BETTER than Fagan's, just different. I also prefer "Circus Money" to "11 Tracks," which does sometimes feel like an artist unsure of how to present himself and his songs. I'd probably rank SD solo as: 1. Nightly 2. Kamakiriad - Circus Money (tied) 3. 11 Tracks - Sunken Condos (tied) 4. Morph (I have some trouble with Morph for some reason, although, I love a lot of it. Fagan and Becker don't make bad album together OR alone) I go back and forth on how I feel about Becker's penchant for using then-current colloquialisms that end up becoming dated, which he's always done since SD days. Sometimes the irony works, sometimes it feels forced. In the end, I think Becker is the more interesting, probing, risk-taking songwriter and Fagan creates more user-friendly magic from a smaller well of sonic and linguistic references. Fortunately, it's all good, it's all subjective, I have all their combined work and I can listen to whatever I want whenever I want. Walter Becker's death is a tragedy, as is the fact there will never be another SD album. I really hope Fagan decides to record any or all of the new compositions he and Becker have written since "EMG." As the voice and sonic torchbearer of SD, Fagan can obviously come as close as possible to creating what a new SD might have been like.
It's a 'guitar album', no question. I didn't mind the home-studio aspect so much the second time I listened to it. Becker's 'groaning' sounds bluesy to me, that's the vibe I get from it. Soulful. He was a really soulful singer. I listen to guys like Neil Young and Keith Richards...Walter Becker's singing's not so bad Indeed, that three song bit was the most enjoyable part of the album for me. Yes We'll get there soon, but I listened to Alive In America once. Once I started getting hold of some of the soundboard and audience tapes from those tours, it was like, "Who needs Alive In America?" I can't argue with any of this. Once you get the 'feel' for Becker's writing it gets kind of easy to suss out his lyrics, etc.
Never listened to much WZ, so I don't know. But for me, it's more than just the vocals that are naggingly familiar; it's the whole late-night independent station 1970-73-ish jazz feel of the tracks that drives me nuts.
Very cool to read your comments Black Thumb, it gave me some context like ohnothimagen's review. I can understand what you mean by the end of the album being weak and that the opening is strong. I'd say his voice is lacking many of Bowie's qualities but the Knopfler comparison seems to be more the case.
WALTER BECKER-11 TRACKS OF WHACK (B-) 1. Down in the Bottom (B+) 2. Junkie Girl (B+) 3. Surf and-Or Die (C-) 4. Book of Liars (B-) 5. Lucky Henry (B) 6. Hard Up Case (C+) 7. Cringemaker (C) 8. Girlfriend (B-) 9. My Waterloo (C) 10. This Moody Bastard (B-) 11. Hat Too Flat (D+) 12. My Kawai (B-) ______________________ 1. Down in the Bottom (B+) The first in a series of tracks that from Walter Becker’s vocals and the instrumental elements indicate that this is a early-90’s indie rock record yet it’s from one of the two great minds behind the jazz pop/rock Steely Dan. Like the past never happened, Becker leads off with a sure thing chorus over a mechanical rock beat, atmospheric keyboards and a total lack of jazz. Only the light funk guitar moments provide any link to The Dan here. And only the drumbeat is weak as the rest of the song is one of the best here. Becker’s lyric immediately could pin him as the cynical one in the Steel but also proves he had a hand in some of the best rock lyrics ever. It’s always good to pay attention to a band that can get deep and layered with a message and Becker proves with this first lyric that the music backs off some for it to be heard. He speaks with an old girlfriend- “Here in the suburbs it’s hard to tell if I got the bear or the bear got me”, or a verse like: There in the corner of the eastern sky The tortured angel of your rising sign Darkens the evening with his one good eye An evil omen of the dopest kind But a line like the first that takes the old line about “in case you’re wondering, I’m alive and well” and turns it on its head into “in case you’re wondering it’s alive and well, that little habit that you left with me”. You immediately get what the song is about, but the wording keeps it interesting. Great melody alongside makes this one of his best solo tracks. 2. Junkie Girl (B+) Again if you can avoid the mechanical drum beat, you have another solid song on your hands. Or in your arms. “You come out blazing like an open sore” Becker sings as he addresses seemingly the same girl from “Down on the Bottom”. Becker brings out the guitar for some nice jazz rock alongside another indie rock song. Like so many Dan songs, Becker addresses us as the junkie girl in 2nd person like he must have done through Fagen singing at us like we’re the gangster of “Do It Again” or the woman that left him in “Reelin’ in the Years”. Again, this indie rock rarely touches other genres as it’s practically pure pop/rock. A fine melody and hook for the chorus keep up the quality so far. 3. Surf And-Or Die (C-) With some minor chords included, the tone is darker on this rock song-the third to lack jazz or the other genres The Dan reached with just bluesy guitar work coloring this. Becker sing/talks some of this but it’s about the groove here as his vocal melody is weak and there’s no hook. The drums shuffle and loosen up more here than on the first 2, and Becker stretches his arms for a lengthy guitar break with great tones but less emotional feel. All the music really seems to spotlight the lyric as Becker’s got a doozy up his sleeve here. One of the denser lyrics he’s written, it’s about someone whose “daredevil hang glider fell out of the sky”. It may be about someone who lives dangerously despite having a family care for. 4. Book of Liars (B-) To appear the following year on Alive in America, this track brings soft rock into play for the first time. Becker still sounds like an indie rock star vocally as he is somewhat quiet, with limited emoting skills and range, but he feels genuine and somewhat human in his delivery which does make the emotion richer. Light keyboards and drums team to let Becker’s voice be most prominent as he sings to us in 2nd person about how we as his ex-girlfriend deserves a star next to her name in the ‘book of liars’. 5. Lucky Henry (B) Ooh some hard rock guitar! The first song with some jazz playing in the rhythm, Becker sings another vague lyric like “Surf and/or Die”-another character in a down and out town that could is hell and maybe literally is hell. “Lucky Henry says hello scratched in the verses high and low, and down to hell and gone I’m told.” This would have been a better track to play live with Steely Dan than “Book of Liars” as Becker wails away at times, uses distortion and smarts, while technically sounding as good as he always did. 6. Hard Up Case (C+) Starting with another stiff beat that sounds like the 80’s or very early 90’s, Becker goes back to 2nd person after the profile song “Lucky Henry” singing at us like again, we’re an ex-girlfriend who is now with another “hard up case” like Becker himself. A very light funk feel accompanies this rocker with the first strains of brass. With Donald Fagen producing all the brass, I don’t hear him very prominently on keys but at least the arrangement is good. Becker also provides himself another spotlight guitar solo, this time in a funkier vein. Ultimately, the song doesn’t have the melody, hooks or interest level others do on this album. A better performance than song. 7. Cringemaker (C) Becker again talk/sings on a track over another rock song that is humble musically but tougher lyrically. “She calls me daddy and I go numb down in the bottom where the love comes from” looks back at the opener, twisting the word ‘bottom’ into a different meaning. Becker’s complicated relationships seem to be the theme of the album on so many tracks at this point, it’s obvious that Becker had let some of them consume him. The light rock & soul groove is a bit derivative, but accessible. Still, this one also doesn’t stand out much like the last track, kind of moving along without much impact. 8. Girlfriend (B-) The theme of Becker’s women characters continue as once again a relationship is the song’s subject matter. The R&B chorus is alright but the pre-chorus is better-one of the first hooks heard in quite some time. Another 80’s drum sound is here, light but stiff. Lyrically, a lot of these songs play like grunge rock tracks as Becker again is down and out and if it’s not him, it’s another character who is. Becker really wallows here as the most important reason he needs a girlfriend is to tell his troubles to. “All of my dreams-bitter illusions, I can’t get rid of them too soon.” Nice to hear some sax here which keeps this in soul music not jazz. 9. My Waterloo (C) With funk guitar, light keyboards, and another stiff beat, Becker continues his quest for the right relationship as he suffers on his own. “It’s still no easy thing to hold your head up high, when every time you turn around, someone kicks your statue down.” Musically, the album retains the same small focus the lyrics have as more standard indie rock hits the ear. But it never really hits-it seems to groove a lot more. There’s just a lack of detail in songs like this from an instrumental standpoint and it causes the album to start becoming ‘samey’ by this point. 10. This Moody Bastard (B-) The first time we hear backing singers like we heard on the Dan albums, this song changes the music’s focus finally playing like a jazz ballad, quiet, unassuming but more intriguing than a number of the rock numbers. It is moody like Becker himself has been throughout. More keys are back as we hear electric piano and organ over a light jazz shuffle. It’s atmospheric a bit like “Book of Liars”, never getting intense. A lot of the album has a calm and relaxed vibe about it, feeling smaller and more intimate than Dan records. Lyrically, it plays like another relationship song but it could be looked at as Becker remembering his times with Fagen in Steely Dan and at Bard. Little friend of mine /Can you still recall /Our salad days /Between the ivy walls? Beneath the autumn sun? /When all is said and done We were a good combination /We were good clean fun Still my thoughts roll back /Every now and then Think about you /Remembering /I start in smiling and I just can't stop. 11. Hat Too Flat (D+) A totally different track than the others, this has a bit of a reggae beat to it with a strange quality to the guitar work that makes it stand out as one of the more interesting backings on this album. It contrasts the keyboard-led refrain which releases some of the tension of the verse rhythms. Still, it’s a disjointed sound with odd synth and guitar playing through most of this. The beat can get annoying as its too prominent. Lyrically, this is another dense one, with ‘hat too flat’ being a metaphor perhaps like “Bad Sneakers” about being poor but trying to live it up anyway. It appears to be about a bunch of working guys from Archurus hanging out together but the lyrics are difficult to decipher: Fair Arcturus Fashion forecast: Skirts will be shorter Legs stay long Virtual raincoats are coming back Hats as always continued flat I had to look up what Archurus was in the Steely Dan dictionary- Arcturus is 37 light years from Earth, has a diameter 25 times that of our sun, is 70 times more luminous and is the 4th brightest star in the sky. 12. My Kawai (B-) The first signs of country music since “Pearl of the Quarter”, this one ends things humbly. Speaking to a little girl, he sings about IHOP, where babies come from and squirt guns. With a waltz rhythm, this also feels off-kilter in a way but it’s the most positive refreshing lyric here. “Those bad boys don’t love you like I do” as if he’s singing to a daughter who just started dating. With backing singers in tow, Becker sounds genuine and very likeable though the song’s melody and hook needs something more. For such a down in the dumps album, it’s a bright way to conclude his debut. --- Overall: B- I’ve heard so much indie rock over the years from the 1990’s and this fits right in with a lot of records that have a humble, reserved yet intriguing quality with smart lyrics and vocals that are atypical of your standard rock singer. Becker sounds humble even when he sings tough and depressing lyrics while the music never gets big, never gets loud and never gets overly-ambitious. In fact, it may not be ambitious enough when we look at his past. Many songs can blend into each other in memory after its over and it leads one to believe that some of them just aren’t memorable.
Good review. Boy, busting out Kamakiriad and 11 Tracks Of Whack sorta killed this discussion, didn't they? Hopefully things pick back up for Two Against Nature and Everything Must Go- those're next. Don't everybody get too excited
It’s literally about a young friend of his who was killed in a hang- gliding accident. It’s Walter’s monologue to his late friend. The background drone is Tibetan monks chanting. Kawai is Becker’s son.
Unattributed quote (but I've seen it a few times) about this: "Surf and/or Die' was a song that I wrote about an incident that happened with some friends of ours in Hawaii where a young guy was killed in an accident and it was very shocking, for a young, healthy person that you know well, and that you loved the family, and everything, to suddenly not be there one day. And I remember going to the, they had a little sort of a memorial service for him, and one of the Tibetan lamas from the Dharma Center in Paea, the town I live in in Hawaii, came and said a little piece there. And it was very moving, and I could see how his perspective on the continuum of life and death and the whole Tibetan Buddhist thing kind of made the whole thing a little less meaningless and senseless-seeming. And anyway, I wrote this poem about it later and it became the song... At some point after that, my wife said, hey, she had met four of these monks that were hanging out in Paea, a couple had come over from Tibet, and said how'd you like these guys to come up and say a prayer or blessing in your studio? And I said, great. And I started thinking, well, I've got this track here, I'll just, why don't we just record the blessing, I thought. And I thought, why don't I just record the blessing right on this piece of tape with the song on it and see what happens, and not play the song for them or anything, but let's just let them go in and do the chant. And then they went in and they did these prayers, it's actually a series of prayers that they do, and we recorded them. And then after they left, we listened to the track with the prayers on it along with the rest of the music, right, just to see what it sounded like, and it was in the same key, and it was right in rhythm with the track, and everything else. And it was the prayer for the departed and so on, so I figured, great.... And the song itself is basically a kind of a pedal point bassline, drone underneath there and everything, so we ended up using it."
Alive In America will come at the end, as a springboard to the discussion of their live material (official and unofficial)
I'm a Deadhead in addition to being a Danhead, so folks getting on and off the bus at various points in the chronology is second nature for me. A lot of passengers get off either band's bus around 1980, but with the Dead a lot of others get on - especially when it gets close to the '90s. The Dan, not so much, it appears.
