But what’s the appeal? Dark humor and cynicism, something that’s right up my alley. Their music is a skeptical view of American culture populated with interesting characters, be they sleazy, creepy, desperate, obsessive, jealous, other various lowlifes, lots of losers and very few winners. Fagen and Becker didn’t take themselves too seriously. After all, they took the name Steely Dan from a steam-powered dildo in William S. Burrough’s Naked Lunch. Their lyrics were equal measures of humor, irony, and sarcasm. They finished each other’s musical sentences on both sides of the music and lyric divide.
Whatever one thinks of Steely Dan, they’re still better than the Eagles…
In 1977, Steely Dan crafted Aja, an album that is widely recognized as their best album. It's sound quality is such that if one wanted to test a car stereo, one could pick either this one or Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon. When Walter Becker died in 2017, I wrote that Aja was my favorite Steely Dan album. Things have changed in the years since then. As good as Aja sounds, I prefer a couple of their earlier releases, Pretzel Logic (1974) and The Royal Scam (1976). Their notorious studio perfectionism started here.
Steely Dan started as Denny Dias’ band. A jazz guitarist from Philadelphia who had his own band, he put an ad in The Village Voice that read "Looking for keyboardist and bassist. Must have jazz chops! Assholes need not apply!" [little did he know…] The keyboardist and bassist were Donald Fagen and Walter Becker. They were Brill Building songwriters who met at Bard College in 1967. Dias, Fagen and Becker moved to California to seek fame and fortune. Guitarist Jeff ‘Skunk’ Baxter, drummer Jim Hodder, and vocalist David Palmer joined their band and Steely Dan was born. They recorded two albums - Can’t Buy a Thrill (1972) and Countdown to Ecstasy (1973). Palmer sang lead on a few of the songs on Can’t But a Thrill but was relegated to background vocals on Countdown to Ecstasy. They recorded Countdown to Ecstasy in a hurry by their standards]. As Fagen and Becker didn’t like the sound of Countdown to Ecstasy, things would change for the next album.
Pretzel Logic is the album where Steely Dan entered its Plastic Ono Band phase. John Lennon described the Plastic Ono Band as a group where the membership varied from time to time, meaning that the group was whoever was in the room at the time. And so it was with Steely Dan. They stopped being a band and became a concept. Since Fagen and Becker were the songwriters, they took over the band, much the same way as Jagger and Richards did with the Rolling Stones. And since Steely Dan was now Fagen and Becker’s band, they decided to enlist studio musicians at the expense of Baxter, Dias and Hodder. Fagen and Becker didn’t like touring and preferred studio work. Skunk Baxter was a road dog who lived for touring. He left and joined the Doobie Brothers after touring for Pretzel Logic was done. Jim Hodder opted for session work [he later drowned in his swimming pool in 1990]. Denny Dias continued to play on Steely Dan albums, but as one of many session musicians. Pretzel Logic is the transition between Steely Dan the band and Steely Dan the concept. The core of Becker, Fagen, Dias and Baxter appear on every song. The first band casualty of Fagen & Becker using hired guns was drummer Jim Hodder. Relegated to background vocals, Hodder is replaced by Jim Gordon [Derek & the Dominoes, Traffic] and Jeff Porcaro [later of Toto fame], sometimes both on the same track. Bassist Chuck Rainey makes his first appearance on a Steely Dan record.
Countdown to Ecstasy had six songs that exceeded five minutes. The album had no hit singles. Their record company wanted shorter songs and hit singles. Out of Pretzel Logic’s eleven songs, only two of them were over four minutes and they were the singles [Rikki Don't Lose That Number (#4) and Pretzel Logic (#57)]. Both songs are still in Steely Dan setlists. I like nine of the eleven songs, to wit:
Rikki Don't Lose That Number – Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar, and sometimes there aren’t any hidden meanings in song. This is Donald Fagen giving his phone number to a crush in college, who was married AND pregnant at the time. Fagan is an obsessed admirer of Rikki. That percussion instrument that opens the song [cut from the single version] is a flapamba. The piano figure is “borrowed” from Horace Silver’s Song for My Father. Skunk Baxter plays the solo.
Night by Night – An ode to life on the
streets with lots of horns and two guitar solos from Skunk Baxter that slay.
Any Major Dude Will Tell You – This one is
a message of sympathy from
one friend to another. Yawn…
Barrytown – Social satire set in a New York
hamlet not far from Bard College. A commentary on racial integration perhaps? "I'm not one to look
behind/I know that times must change/but over there in Barrytown/they do things
very strange/and though you're not my enemy/I like things how they used to
be/and though you'd like some company/I'm standing by myself/go play with someone
else." Just a tad cynical…
East St. Louis Toodle-Oo – Duke Ellington!
Becker uses a talk box guitar to simulate muted trumpets [very effectively].
Skunk Baxter uses a pedal steel to mimic a trombone [also very effectively].
Parker's Band – A funky tribute to Charlie
Parker. Is the lyric “We
will spend a dizzy weekend smacked into a trance” a reference to Parker’s
heroin habit? I think so.
Through with Buzz – At 1’30”, this is
Steely Dan’s shortest ever song. It’s also a throwaway. I treat it as such.
Pretzel Logic – A moody, bluesy time travel
fantasy with traveling minstrels and Napoleon. Becker plays the guitar solos. A
classic.
With a Gun – Biting satire with a “country”
[?!?] shuffle. This is Steely Dan’s idea of a murder ballad. The humble narrator tells the story of a
man obsessed with vengeance against those he perceives as doing him wrong,
using a gun, of course.
Charlie Freak – How does one follow a
murder ballad? This one is really dark. It’s told from the point of view
of a guy who buys someone’s last remaining possession, a gold ring. The seller
buys drugs with the money and dies of an overdose, all to the sound of jingle
bells.
Monkey in Your Soul – Fuzz bass, great horns,
and a nice solo from Becker. “I’ll pack my things and move so far from here…”
Sounds like somebody’s had enough and can’t get away fast enough.
The Royal Scam is Steely Dan’s “guitar” album. Here Fagen and Becker made the full transition to their “band” being more of a collection of musicians at any given time. With the addition of R&B musicians Chuck Rainey [bass] and Bernard Purdie [drums], this is also one funky album. Becker put away his bass and switched to guitar. He thought Rainey’s presence eliminated the need to bring his own bass to the studio. Fagen and Becker employ guitarists Larry Carlton, Denny Dias, Elliot Randall [who played solo on Reelin’ in the Years], and Dean Parks. They also employ five background singers, Michael McDonald and Timothy B. Schmit among them.
As with Pretzel Logic, I like all but two of the songs [see below]…
Kid Charlemagne – Lead guitar: Larry Carlton. Based on LSD chemist Owsley Stanley. Rainey and Purdie make their presence felt immediately. That’s Becker chugging along on rhythm guitar. A classic.
The Caves of Altamira – Prehistoric cave
paintings in Spain and a youngster who finds peace and solace among them. Lot of
horns on this one.
Don't Take Me Alive – Lead guitar: Larry
Carlton. This was inspired by crime in Los Angeles. The criminal in this story
is suicidal.
Sign In Stranger – Lead guitar: Elliot
Randall. Fagen and Becker do reggae [Walter loved reggae]. This one is a sci-fi
place where a criminal can go to establish a new identity. "Do you have
a dark spot on your past?/ Leave it to my man he'll fix it fast/Pepe has a scar
from ear to ear/He will make your mug shots disappear…"
The Fez – Lead guitar: Walter Becker. A throwaway song about having sex with a condom.
That’s all there is to this to this song. In my version
of Hell, this song on repeat. I can do without this one.
Green Earrings – Guitars: Denny Dias and
Elliot Randall. With clavinet all over this song and the playing by Rainey and
Purdie, one can be forgiven for thinking this sounds almost like a disco song…almost.
Some very tasty solos from Dias and Randall. The lyrics are about a jewel thief
who shows no remorse.
Haitian Divorce – Lead guitar: Dean Parks. More
reggae from Fagan and Becker. Engineer Elliot Scheiner asked for some time off during
recording so he could fly to Haiti and get a quickie divorce. Fagan and Becker
made a song out of it. Becker put Parks’ solo through a talk box. A good idea,
but the talk box wears out its welcome. Depending on my mood, this can be a “skip”
song.
Everything You Did – Lead guitar: Larry
Carlton. Becker and his girlfriend fight over infidelity, and he wants to hear about
everything she and her lover did before he finds him and kills him. Apparently
she played the Eagles a lot [probably too much for Becker’s liking], to which
he says “turn up the Eagles, the neighbors are listening…” This song
could have been about my high school girlfriend, who also cheated and listened
to the Eagles too much for my liking. If a Steely Dan song has vicious lyrics,
chances are they were written by Becker.
The Royal Scam – Lead guitar: Larry Carlton.
Just what is the “royal scam”? If you’re an immigrant, it’s the American Dream.
Pretzel Logic and The Royal Scam – two albums that maybe are not as immaculate sounding as Aja but definitely more interesting, and infinitely much better than the Eagles [or as my friend Alan calls them, the Egos].
I’m not the only one to rag on the Egos. I found this little bit written by someone under the pen name Streetmouse who had this take:
There's a Pretzel Logic conspiracy that suggests that the movie The Big Lebowski is a coded tribute to Steely Dan, and that much is related to this album. Most obvious is the prominence of the 'Dude' word, and the underlying attribute of the warm hearted ideal that bad times indeed don't last forever. Things get even more suspicious when you consider that The Dude's (Jeffrey Lebowski/Jeff Bridges) bowling teammates are named Walter and Donald, along with the ever-present bartender who is named Gary (Gary Katz, producer of Steely Dan's music.) There's also The Dude’s hatred of The Eagles, where The Dan and The Eagles both reference each other in verse, all with good natured ribbing.
No comments:
Post a Comment