they were quite popular in the 80s. Pastel shirts, shag cuts, maybe ruffles? Play the Catskills and make good money. All the old folks Loved Glen Miller. Not easy to do either that blended mello sax & mutes sound.
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Shades of Billie Eilish
- Thread starter chazolson
- Start date
There's about 8 SD tribute bands in LA. There's one, Pretzel Logic that headlines the Santa Monica Main St Fair every year and the crowd runs to about 500 people. I know a few people who could care less about the fair but roll up in time to catch their set.
I don't know about elsewhere but SD had a big hit, their first to my knowledge, here on the west coast with Bodhisattva.
My only problem with SD is Fagen. Intellectualized "anti-cool" is worse than the regular cool. I especially loved how he/they would diatribe about the "excess" of LA rock and then spend two days at the
Record Plant or wherever getting a snare drum sound.
Mugre
I don't know about elsewhere but SD had a big hit, their first to my knowledge, here on the west coast with Bodhisattva.
My only problem with SD is Fagen. Intellectualized "anti-cool" is worse than the regular cool. I especially loved how he/they would diatribe about the "excess" of LA rock and then spend two days at the
Record Plant or wherever getting a snare drum sound.
Mugre
Do you even know their history? They did start out as a cohesive band, and actually toured a bit with the original line-up, as the music on the first couple of albums, in spite of some jazz chords being thrown in every once in awhile, was still basic rock. They had hits, singalong hits, right from the start. Fagen's vocals, while a bit quirky, weren't any more weird or irritating than a lot of stuff at the time. They had, in the beginning, a dedicated front man/singer, but he bailed early on, as Fagen wanted to sing more. As Fagen and Becker's writing got more ambitious and complex, of course they were going to bring in session guys with jazz chops; it was no different than what Brian Wilson did on Pet Sounds. Steely Dan had stopped functioning as a touring band anyway, it was like how The Beatles operated with Sgt. Pepper's. By the time of The Royal Scam and eventually Aja, jazz 'fusion' became a thing, gaining in popularity with an audience that, for the most part, couldn't care less about bebop. The problem with fusion was that it was all chops and no tunes. SD bridged that gap; they were boppers at heart, and infused altered chords and tasty soloing into their approachable hooky pop songs. Have you ever listen to Aja? It's a compositional masterpiece, songs studied and performed by collegiate jazz bands. I would say, however, that Gaucho was a complete disappointment; it was like they blew their wad on Aja, and should have just walked away. Their arc was over. Their lyrics were always sardonic, sarcastic, dark and cryptic. Maybe you just like literal narrative. Maybe you just like The Eagles.
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Kids now: "what's a record store?"
My girlfriend is an art teacher and comments all the time about how none of the kids no any history of anything. Not even the history of things they are interested in. They just don't even bother to know. She said she out on some 90's grundge and they thought it was some new band. It was Nirvana, Alice in Chains, and Soundgarden amd these kids are all 14 or older. I blame the parents. Haha
When my daughter was a freshman in high school, she went through a metal phase. She was like, "Dad, I realized how they make that drum sound. They have two bass drums!"
Musically, many of her songs would stand out as pop music from any era. She's good.
drumvsbass
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Ya know, I shouldn't admit this in public... 
When I first saw the video for Aerosmith's 'Dude Looks Like A Lady', I thought "hey look, it's those guys from that RunDMC video, they have a band now"
When I first saw the video for Aerosmith's 'Dude Looks Like A Lady', I thought "hey look, it's those guys from that RunDMC video, they have a band now"
I can't remember which time it was that I was in Vegas this last year, but I missed being able to see SD there in concert (I think it was Becker, not Fagen). So not even a tribute band - the real (-ish) deal!
Yeah, that doesn't really change much for me. It's just another form of the smarmyness that irks me so much.
Props to whom it is due though; they made it doing music, a challenge for any and all and their mark on the music world is indelible and deserved. There is no song of theirs that I won't leave playing on the radio something I can't say for about 10 other "classic rock" bands who sadly, are played much more often. The drum outro to Aja, moves me to tears in it's greatness but you know, Gadd, right?
I will say this for Fagen and Becker, they merged jazz and rock just about as far as you can and still call it rock (and get it on the radio) without falling into the noisy, metrical chaos of "fusion". I expect it's from Fagen having grown up with vocal jazz in his house. They stayed tuneful and used extended harmony as a functional tool instead of a compositional exercise.
Mugre
Those who do not know history are doomed to repeat it, and we're certainly seeing that now.
I have always thought that they were a good team and a great example of what can be accomplished if two different people blend their influences and actually respect one another for the unique things they bring to the table. Fagen did bring in that jazz influence and they took it about as far as could be done while still achieving some financial success. Becker had a quirky, rock edge that kept Fagen from going full-on smooth jazz. I am (obviously) a huge fan, but some of their later stuff (and Fagen's solo stuff) is so watered down in that direction that I can't even listen to it.
I'll refer you to my post #64, but I hear you. They were not only compositional geniuses, but also masters of personnel management. As for the Gadd example, they knew what they wanted, he was the guy for the job. Bernard Purdie wouldn't have been, necessarily, but I can't imagine anyone else playing that shuffle on "Home At Last". Becker knew that Chuck Rainey was the better bass player.
Hoo-boy; at 17 years of age just recently she made a comment about not knowing who Van Halen was. Panty bunching ensued. If you have some popcorn handy, there are a couple of threads here concerning that, one got shut down.
I, for one, think the weirdest thing about the CL ad is that someone writes the OP to ask who Steely Dan were instead of simply looking them up on Wikipedia."Let me google that for you" and all that.
Not knowing something is fine. Not knowing how to look something up is not.
This drives me absolute nuts. You can get most simple questions answered by typing in a Google search. I can't for the life of me understand how someone can be that damn lazy.
Now there are times my wife and I are trying to think of an actor/actress. We know the name of the movie, but it's more of a game to see who can come up with it first. It makes getting old fun.
Granted and agreed. How many giants of the guitar took a stab at the solo for Peg before Jay Graydon nailed on for the ages? You know, for a band I kind of don't like, I know way to much about them. I guess it's because I'm of that era and when I was younger I read voraciously the music magazines like Rolling Stone, Circus and Creem.
Mugre
I'm 51 and really have only heard of Steely Dan in the past few years. I like them and they are fun to play, but somehow I missed them in my formative years. But I also expected Grateful Dead to be a metal band based on the "Steal Your Face" logo. I was quite confused when I first heard them. Disappointed, actually.
"Do It Again", quickly followed by "Reeling..."(or was it the other way around?)off the first album were substantial hits right off the bat, on a national level. The second album, "Countdown", where you'll find 'Bodhisattva', was a bit of a sophomore slump, but they were back on track with "Rikki" and 'Pretzel Logic'.
This drives me absolute nuts. You can get most simple questions answered by typing in a Google search. I can't for the life of me understand how someone can be that damn lazy.
Now there are times my wife and I are trying to think of an actor/actress. We know the name of the movie, but it's more of a game to see who can come up with it first. It makes getting old fun.
IMDB is all you need.
Right you are. Bodisattva was the first song I remember knowing that is was a band called Steely Dan. it was a long time ago. Most everyone above were naming later songs as radio hits so I added my small tid-bit.
Be well,
mugre
