Jump to content
Hamer Fan Club Message Center

Steely Dan?


Recommended Posts

Anything up to and including Aja.

Listen to Steve Gadd and his solo at the end of Aja.

Listen to Realing In The Years and the guitar solo.

Fantastic early stuff.

Katy Lied: (complete with a Katydid bug on the cover).

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Well, if you're only into rock, I can understand why Steely Dan doesn't do much for you :lol:

-

Austin

Lol, I'm not. My desert island artist would be Beethoven, and I have portrait tattoo of Waylon Jennings because, well, I really like Waylon Jennings. Just out of curiosity, I looked up what I've listened to lately on Spotify, which included Morbid Angel, Stevie Wonder, and Jackie Wilson.

Still, just never got into Steely Dan. Which, apparently I get defensive about :P

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Loved the first six albums, but Gaucho didn't connect. I am seeing them for the first time this month, and am very excited. I have played half a dozen of their songs in one band or another. Fagen and Becker don't seem like folks I'd like to hang with, but I do love their music.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Always liked SD.

Great songwriting, playing and lyrically a cut above.

One of the few bands of their genre from the 70's that I actually connected with even though I was a head banging punk at the time so should have hated them.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

They have certainly had some excellent "HIRED GUNS" as guitar players not to mention the "REGULARS" Denny Dias and Jeff "Skunk" Baxter.Other guitarists of note have included Elliot Randall,Larry Carlton,Dean Parks,Rick Derringer,not to mention numerous other top session players.Have to say though my favorite guitar player from any Steely Dan era is Jon Herington. He has a lot of style and grace and great note choice............ and plays for the song............he is a real intelligent player with how he does it.I bought his "The Complete Rhyming Dictionary" back in 1992 and was floored by his playing.............he is certainly one of the best guitarists out there.............. he looks kind a like nerdy Eddie Van Halen with glasses. :D Videos please! :) And BTW take a look at his guitar in the first video............I say he has good taste! :)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Reelin' in the Years' sucked me in. 'Hey 19' spit me back out. God I hated that song.

According to a Wiki article:

Donald Fagen once said in an interview that his hope was that songs like "Hey 19" would be enjoyed by soccer moms in dentist chairs bobbing their heads unaware of the filthy lyrics.

Much of the Steely Dan song collection is just this--lyrics that deal with our culture's seamy underbelly while wrapped in elevator music. "Everyone's Gone to the Movies" is about an older guy who shows 8mm porn films in his den to the neighbord kids. There are many other examples going all the way back to "Dirty Work" on the first album.

OTOH "Reelin' in the Years" is sort of the exact opposite, a reflection on the irrational aspects of lost love along with the hollow promises of education and many other things--pretty introspective stuff--camouflaged in a hard-rocking song with some of the best electric lead guitar of all time.

They did not conceive of, write, produce, perform, and mix these songs casually or arbitrarily.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Pretzel Logic is one of my favorites. It's very deceptive - it sounds easier than it is.

Reelin' in the Years has a classic solo, and Carlton's 335 on Josie is just fookin' sweet.

Deacon Blues is cool, mostly because of the line "I cried when i wrote this song - sue me if a play too long..."

Yeah, i like a little Dan.

Oh, and Velorush - you're too kind. "mean" is not a word i associate with much of my playing... :) But thank you, sir.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

As I eased out of my formative metal years and began to study the ubiquitous late 60s/early 70s classic rock catalog, I developed a healthy appreciation of SD. In fact, I began to notice that learning their songs expanded my chops and musical vocabulary...like going to school. For nearly 20 years now, the two riffs I play when trying out any guitar are "Let it Go" by Def Leppard and SD's "Josie".

Link to comment
Share on other sites

SD for me is like zappa; amazing playing, but i'm not always in the mood for their vibe.
but sometimes i do hit that mood, and go on little benders, listening to baby snakes or aja all weekend.

here's a good live vid of green earrings w/ wayne krantz (back when he played more conventional type lead solos);

Link to comment
Share on other sites

SD is hands down one of my favorite groups to listen to. Their songs sound deceptively simple - try to jam along sometime, your head will explode. Also their albums are great sounding - I used to use Aja to dial in PA's when I was doing live sound.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

SD is hands down one of my favorite groups to listen to. Their songs sound deceptively simple - try to jam along sometime, your head will explode. Also their albums are great sounding - I used to use Aja to dial in PA's when I was doing live sound.

I thought I'd figured out the verse section of Reelin' in the Years back in college. After the Internet age I compared what I was playing to a YouTube video - yep, completely wrong!

Agreed, great music to EQ a live room, too!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Well, I went back and listed to a bunch of this stuff while running today and found I liked it quite a bit more than I remembered. After the last four years in Gainesville, "Hey Nineteen" seems disturbingly identifiable as well, though coffee is the only south American thing I dabble in... wait, no. That isn't true now that I phrase it that way, but not what they are mentioning.

It's weird the things that remind you how much older you are getting.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

In high school in the 70's in St. Louis we had KSHE 95. A progessive hippie and very alert "album rock" station, Once exposed my careless friends and I bought all the Steely Dan albums, Pick a song and we can sing along. 30 years later when I hear the first few notes of Josie my mind flashes to a girl I wish I knew better. I can see her now, sitting on my best friend's lap in an Ozark campground, us passing around a jar with a couple grams of smoldering hash inside. She's framed in sunlight and music. Dang, Steely Dan still helps her look good. I hope to marry that girl. steely dan

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

×
×
  • Create New...