Steely Dan... What Do You Think???

I heard an interesting instrumental cover version of "Jack Of Speed" on the Stingray "Jazz Now" channel the other day...damned if I can remember who it was by, though.

 

Every album has something to recommend and most of their output is top notch.
You could start at THRILL and look at a three album run to PRETZEL LOGIC or move up an album or two and still have a stellar three album run.

 

Everybody getting their 50th Anniversaries. AJA should get one. ..






























eventually

 

And probably will...nine years from now

(do the math, Alex)

 

I think they have produced some of the best sounding albums in my record collection

 

And then factor in Fagen time...

 

Circus Money is SOOOO much better than Sunken Condos...IMHO.

 

As far as I'm concerned Circus Money is up there alongside The Nightfly as the best Steely Dan solo projects.

 

I saw them at the Beacon twice last week. First was Royal Scam and then the inaugural performance of Nightfly. Even though I'm a jaded veteran of their annual tours, I cannot emphasize enough that the best way to see them is when they do their October residency at the Beacon.

 

Lucky bastid! How was The Nightfly in its entirety?

 

Would love to have seen them in the early 1970s.

 

The Nightfly in its entirety was excellent, IMO. Donald's voice was pretty strong (though it did fail him on "You'd never believe it..." on the title track), and the Dan-ettes did some of the heavier lifting on the higher-key vocals (and all of "Maxine", which was a little bit of a disappointment for me...I'd hoped Donald would at least take the "Mexico City..." verse for himself, but no).

But Carlock was a monster as always. The band was locked and loaded. Donald broke out "Rikki" for a rare airing. I wish the Crusaders track "Keep That Same Old Feeling" was performed whole, and not just as a vehicle to introduce the band. Connor Kennedy from Donald's Nightflyers band was brought in as a second guitarist alongside Jon Herington for the album proper, then disappeared until the end of the show when he was given the nod to let rip on "Reelin' In The Years".

Great show, great night. I keep saying I'm done seeing them live, but I keep getting sucked back in (this time for The Nightfly). And I still reap rewards, even after 16 shows in 25 (!!!) years. Though, if I never hear "Hey Nineteen" live again, it'll be too soon.

 

"Do It Again" is their best song, in my opinion. The rest -- meh, I could never really get into Steely Dan. Too sterile sounding for my ears.

 

It was seriously refreshing to see them play eight songs they rarely perform live. Hearing Nightfly in the context of the big band made me appreciate just how similar it is to a Steely Dan album. Connor Kennedy played rhythm guitar for all of those tracks, and when he came back on stage for "Reelin'" and "My Old School," Jon Herington nodded a green light for Connor to rip some solos. The kid did not disappoint.

Which leads me to what I assume is an unpopular opinion: the Dan now sounds better live with Herington taking all the guitar solos instead of sharing the load with Walter, who seemed to resort to guitar noodling over the past few years. It was especially evident on the Royal Scam night when Herington provided a hot solo song after song. He was finally allowed to use a Talk Box on "Haitian Divorce," which was a major highlight for me. Apparently Walter was against the box live, thinking it was too much of a gimmick, even though he was the one to play it on the record.

Anyway, don't hate me for saying that I prefer Herington (or Kennedy for that matter) over Walter's guitar playing these past few years.

 

Nope, that's a fair cop- with all respect to Becker by the end there he was really a shadow of his former self as a guitar player, just noodling all the time. Remember, I'm one of the guys who rates Walter Becker's guitar solos on the "classic seven" Dan albums as highly as any of Carlton's, Baxter's, Randall's etc, so it does pain me to say that a little bit.

 

If I ran the circus, Fagen would take a page from the King Crimson playbook and really mix it up each night.
Imagine if they had 40+ tunes in the bag. You could show up not knowing if you’d hear Brooklyn or King of the World or Pretzel or Dr Wu or Caves or The News or whatever!
Ah the possibilities....

 

What's funny is, considering that they habitually have done the "full album" shows for nine years now, they could switch up the setlist on a nightly basis very easily- Fagen just doesn't like leaving his "comfort zone", I guess, or feels that the punters just want to hear the "hits" (which clearly isn't necessarily the case, as some of the comments made here prove). The Dan have played -somebody correct me if I'm wrong- Countdown, Scam, Aja, Gaucho and now The Nightfly in their entirety (yeah, we know The Nightfly isn't Steely Dan per se but it's close enough for jazz rock IMO) so they actually have lots of song to choose from that are played on at least a semi-regular basis. Hell, at this point I bet Fagen could even toss in a solo tune or two -"On The Dunes" or "What I Do", let's say- and the fans would eat it up.

 

I was never a huge SD fan growing up in the 70s, but certainly liked most of their radio hits. As I got back into vinyl a few years ago (and dated a SoCal chick who loved SD), I came to appreciate SD more. Was pretty cool when SD and Boz were propped up on Breaking Bad. Are they the geniuses some make them out to be? I don't know. Music is subjective and experiential. But I have now had the chance to see SD in concert a couple of times and really enjoyed it.

 

Did Donald get the Steely Dan name?
I see there heading in the UK.

 

I have been listening to Becker's solo stuff. I never had heard it before a few months ago. My brother-in-law is a SD freak, and gave me all of his cds to listen to.
I don't like all of it, but hearing the music is enlightening because I can definitely see where "half" of the SD music came from. What the "contribution" is.

 

Tell me about it.

 

Donald do all the donkey work ?

 

I agree with you that the band is already familiar with most of the material and it wouldn't be too difficult to pull off a deep cut or two per show. Yet I think Donald is hesitant to stray from the hits because he doesn't want to lose the "general" audience. Look no further than the legendary Rarities Night at the Beacon in 2011. I was surprised to find people in the audience who grew restless because of the seriously deep dive into the catalog. Sure, the Dan faithful were crying rivers of joy, but there were plenty of knuckleheads who only wanted the hits.

Donald alluded to this balancing act during the recent residency, introducing "Rikki" as a song that will please both those that aren't all that familiar with the Dan and also the hardcore fans (presumably because they don't play "Rikki" all that often). In any case, this has been the m.o. for the last fifteen years or so. It is what it is.

 

Frankly, I don't quite understand anyone who doesn't like, appreciate, or respect them at some level. It's a bit of a litmus test for me I'm afraid. Same thing with Zappa. I don't like everything SD did by a long shot, but I do really love an awful lot of it. But to not have a few songs out of that entire catalog that move the needle for you... I dunno I think it says something about a person.

 

Breaking Bad mentioned SD a couple of times.