Aja reminds me of The Nightfly in that the piano/keyboard based songs are on side one while side two is the 'guitar' side (or at least features more guitar playing).
Read somewhere that Denny Dias became a computer programmer, guess playing the six string didn't quite pay bills... The Skunk went a similar route as well.
Perhaps Dias is trying to build a better WENDEL... I guess Steely Dan attracted the brainy guitarist-types....
Could you imagine had they used a drummer like Neil Peart on the song Aja?, the drum fills would have been wall to wall! Gadd was the perfect choice, although the late Tony Williams might have made great too, loved his style of skinmanship.
Nice insights - here are a few comments. Black Cow is about a stunning woman and a male friend who isn't quite in her league - who would really like to be more than just a friend. He consoles her, is supportive as she is consumed with other relationships that she is involved in. Self centered, she talks on and on - he - wanting to be closer - plays the role of a girlfriend - is her supportive shoulder to cry on. He gives her plenty of advice but she falls back into bad habits - which lead further into bad relationships - he sees her out from afar - or might have even been stalking her with another guy. He confronts her in the diner about it - "I saw you in Rudy's, You were very high, you were high - it was a crying disgrace" They are close but purely platonic. "On the counter by your keys - is a book of numbers and your remedies" - she has plenty of pills to smooth out the mess of her life, a series of one night stands. The numbers - drug dealers and caustic date phone numbers - Finally after one too many long diatribes, and seeing it will never go anywhere between the two of them, he has finally had enough and cuts it off with her. Aja - is also my favorite Dan tune I'll chime in later I don't think you understand what the meaning of the term "jumping the shark" is. When a plot is losing it's momentum and popularity - the writers inject something so ridiculous to prop up ratings. In Happy Days Fonzie went waterskiing and "jumped the shark" That doesn't apply to our dear Aja Home at Last - the Odyssey Greek tragedy / modern LA/NY scenario This applied to Don and Walt's lives much like Woody Allen would go nauseous while in the sunlight of LA (Annie Hall) "Smooth retsina" is hilarious. This is a Greek wine made with pine needles - it is anything but smooth. I got the News - Yes the song is pure sexual lust "Spanish kissing, see it glisten" refers to an aroused clitoris. I always thought it was the outro to the Classic Albums because they didn't want to talk about it's seediness. I don't think they had any idea how big the album would be when they released it
Those credits seem scrambled. The credits I know about are: ART DIRECTION: Oz Studios DESIGNED BY: Patricia Mitsui and Geoff Westen COVER PHOTO: Hideki Fujii PHOTOS OF DONALD FAGEN AND WALTER BECKER: Walter Becker, Dorothy A. White Reissue coordination: Beth Stempel Reissue Art Direction: Vartan Reissue Design: Mike Diehl Cheers, Pauk
Wayne Shorter did Aja in two takes I think they were gaga on take one. I don't recall reading that either one of them was apprehensive about working with the other. Wayne was in high demand, doing Weather Report and was friends with Joni so I am sure he knew full well Don and Walt's esteem for him and meticulous recording.
Good interpretation; I like it. I'm gonna go out on a limb and say that that kind of scenario is something a lot of guys have been through, platonic relationship or not (I know I have) As a matter of fact though I won't bore any of you with the details it's kind of applicable where the girl who first played me the album is involved...a couple of other old flames of mine as well, now that I think on it... Oh, I understand the origins of jumping the shark- I meant it in it's more generic, shorthand context of "it's all downhill from here"...what the hell do you do after Aja? When you get right down to it the ramifications caused Steely Dan to split up for over a decade. I don't either...and on the one hand you can't help but think "Maybe they should have had an idea- they had to have known that they were creating something special there." But, no, you sorta get the idea that Becker and Fagen weren't really equipped to deal with Aja's success, or how to top it or even match it. It's subtle, but you can't help but wonder how they got away with some of those lines Good point...
I know I'm stupidly late to this discussion, but life has a way of hijacking good intentions. I gave up on the Dan when I heard Aja, and slammed the coffin lid and pounded the nails in with Gaucho. For my listening pleasure, they went way off script. YMMV. During the mid 70s my roommate and I were in a few bands together and he and I were the principal writers, and Fagen and Becker were right up there on our list of heroes. I've moved on the ensuing years to other forms of music and didn't really go back to the first five Dan offerings much, if at all. I did go see them with a friend in one of the first of the 90s reunion tours, but it didn't move me much and didn't inspire me to go back to the old stuff, either. That said, when this thread popped up, I decided to go back and reinvestigate it. Playing Can't Buy A thrill reminded me of how I first discovered them. I was working in a record store and the manager played Do It Again ad nauseum, and always took the LP off right after it. One day, he got called away while it was playing and none of us bothered to pick up the needle. I was stunned. I loved what I heard and flipped it over when the side was done. Countdown to Ecstasy knocked me out, too. I joined a band for a few weeks that did Night By Night, and then spent a lot of time with my bass playing, writing roommate with Katy Lied and Royal Scam. I'm really enjoying going back through their early catalog, but I'm not rushing to stay on top of the thread topics, obviously. (I'm only up to page 62 at the moment.) I realized I remembered more of Katy Lied than Royal Scam and that and Countdown are pretty much my favorites still. I know everyone (or most everyone) thinks Aja is a manifestation of genius, but I thought at the time it was the result of too much time in the studio, too much heroin and no live band work. And Gaucho went further down that rabbit hole. So, thanks to @ohnothimagen for this thread which enticed me back into the rich writings of these two endearingly twisted guys and the musical whiz kids who aided and abetted them in the creation of all this music.
Hey, yer welcome, and I'm sure yer not the only one rediscovering this music via this discussion.Hell, even I'm doing it, even though I listen to Steely Dan on a fairly regular basis, except this discussion has caused me to actually sit down and listen to the albums as we go along as opposed to just listening to them (background noise etc). Analyzing the songs- which I thought I'd done enough with their music over the years, but I freely admit I'm still learning new things! It's been fun, and probably a bit of an education for us all. And we're not even halfway done yet...
