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The cognoscenti believe "Countdown to Ecstasy" is the best Steely Dan album. I love "My Old School," really enjoy "King of the World," but I am not really enamored of "Bodhisattva" and I like "Your Gold Teeth II" better than "Your Gold Teeth."
And I didn't even buy "Countdown to Ecstasy" until years after it was released.
The first Steely Dan album I purchased was "Pretzel Logic," which I had to return to the Record Club of America because there was so much surface noise. I thought it was ABC, their pressings were legendarily substandard, but only decades later did I discover that the Record Club of America could sell albums so cheaply with no commitment because they pressed them themselves.
"Pretzel Logic" is only 33 minutes and 52 seconds long, and that was even short back in 1974, when it came out. It was a surprise that "Rikki Don't Lose That Number" was such a big hit, since nothing on "Countdown to Ecstasy" broke through. Steely Dan didn't sound like anything else. One could classify them as one hit wonders, maybe two. They came out of nowhere, were on a crappy label and broke on AM instead of FM. Yes, we learned the derivation of the band's name, but we didn't expect to hear much more.
And then came "Rikki." Which was all over the radio during the early summer of '74. And I love "Rikki," but "Any Major Dude Will Tell You" felt so personal. And "Barrytown."
To the point where I purchased "Katy Lied" when it came out. I loved that album. Played it in the Blaupunkt as I drove cross-country.
"Bad sneakers and a piña colada my friend stomping on the avenue by Radio City..."
It was all rushed out as one line.
And, once again, there was no hit on a Steely Dan album, but they'd made their bones, they'd earned their success, not that they were dominant on FM radio.
The real breakthrough was "Aja," proving the point that the public has no idea what it is looking for and something completely different can stand out and triumph.
It was the reverse of "Can't Buy a Thrill." All the action was on FM, when FM ruled, when tracks on the format were ubiquitous, cultural signposts, known by everybody.
But before that came "The Royal Scam," which I learned every note of as I drove from Salt Lake City to Connecticut listening to the cassette. I loved the line about turning up the Eagles because the neighbors were listening, but my absolute favorite was a track no one ever talked about, which is "Don't Take Me Alive."
"I'm a bookkeeper's son
I don't want to hurt no one"
Dark. And personal. The opposite of today's hit records. He's a nobody, a nerd, soft, not the boasting winner of today's musical landscape.
And it was more than three years until "Aja" was followed up by "Gaucho," which had no hit singles and was released in a changing landscape. Disco was demolished, corporate rock ruled, "Breakfast in America" and "The Wall" were the two biggest albums and "Gaucho" appeared out of step, which is part of what made it so great. It lived in its own universe. And it had those two great songs with those phenomenal lyrics.
"Hey nineteen
No we can't dance together
No we can't talk at all"
There was a new generation, labeled "X," could a boomer relate?
Which is what stuns me about people who date those decades younger than themselves today. There isn't the cultural common ground. They don't remember the TV shows and the records and...
The other famous lines were:
"Tonight when I chase the dragon
The water may change to cherry wine
And the silver will turn to gold
Time out of mind"
Ultimately it was revealed that chasing the dragon was about doing heroin which seemed unfathomable the same way we didn't believe the Beatles were on drugs. Steely Dan was two middle class guys, really?
And every one of these Steely Dan albums is great, but for a long time my favorite was the initial one, the debut, "Can't Buy a Thrill."
2
My sister owned it. And I borrowed it when I finally moved to L.A. permanently and bought the stereo of my dreams. And the song I loved, my favorite on the album, was one I never saw in print, one no one talked about, "Brooklyn (Owes the Charmer Under Me)."
"A tower room at Eden Roc
His golf at noon for free
Brooklyn owes the charmer under me"
The Eden Roc hotel was the apotheosis of the first wave of Miami, I knew that, but as far as Brooklyn owing the charmer...good luck on interpreting that.
But the change, the melody, the vocal...
I was hooked.
And that vocal was by David Palmer, not Donald Fagen.
As was "Dirty Work," which might be the most famous song on the whole album.
But the hits were sung by Fagen.
"Do It Again" paved the way for "Reelin' in the Years," which was played more where I lived, your mileage may differ.
And the only reason I knew "Do It Again" was because my '63 Chevy only had an AM radio. And the track was dark, when too many were bright and sunny.
And when I went to Nick's dorm room I always put it on. That used to be a thing, you'd go to a friend's abode and play the records you loved that they owned and you didn't.
And yesterday "Do It Again" came up in rotation on Spotify. How many times have I heard this? I debated fast-forwarding through it, just to see what the algorithm would present next, but I would be home nearly instantly and how much longer was I going to listen anyway. And when I opened the front door, I heard the solo.
3
Who played what? Good luck on that. Well, the internet helps with that. Not the liner notes. There is no credit for "Do It Again." But if you do research, you find out it was Denny Dias. Forgotten in the history of Steely Dan.
People talk about Larry Carlton's solos. Skunk Baxter joined the Doobie Brothers when Walter and Donald fired the original band. Dias...he ultimately became a computer programmer. I mean how good was he?
Very good, it turns out.
Research told me that not only did Dias cut the solo, he did it on an electric sitar, purchased used for $50 by Pip Williams, working with Bloodstone at the same time at the Village Recorder. You can read the complete story here:
shorturl.at/dG2xJ And Dias didn't use it again, it was one and done on "Do It Again."
And there are so many famous gunslingers, especially from the sixties and seventies, and Dias is never mentioned. And the style of the solos...
Doesn't sound like this.
On the album track, Donald doesn't even start to sing until after a minute intro. Needless to say this was cut for the single. As was the later organ solo. And that Yamaha YC-30 organ gives "Do It Again" that dark feeling. This was back when getting sounds in the studio was key. Before everything was produced for earbuds at low resolution.
Speaking of which, be sure to play "Do It Again" in Ultra HD on the platform of your choice, it may be over fifty years old. but it sounds like it was recorded yesterday.
So Denny starts his solo at 2:38. And it's not like he's showing off, it doesn't stick out from the track, it's baked in, you know the sound, the licks, but they're part of the wash until they're not.
What exactly is happening here? This is not the rhythm of the meat and potatoes seventies FM rock, it's not what the English bluesmeisters were delivering. It's mellifluous, yet choppy. As if Dias is whacking at a tree at double speed, swinging independent of what is happening in the rest of the track, yet fitting right in. This is not something you can dance to, move to, but your brain is following along, on a unique trip.
And it's just part of a record.
4
Now if it were the old days... Well, if it were the old days you wouldn't even be reading this, the internet, never mind e-mail, didn't exist. But you'd drop the disc on the platter of your Dual, your B.I.C., hopefully not your Garrard, maybe your Technics, possibly AR or even a Thorens turntable, crank the volume on your receiver and this sound would come out of the big speakers and...
You know exactly what I'm talking about. Sounds would reveal themselves. We lived to get inside these records. But despite all this, Denny Dias's solo in "Do It Again" didn't really reach me until yesterday.
Actually, it was Dias who got the band together, via an ad in the "Village Voice" looking for a bassist and keyboard player, writing that they "must have jazz chops and no hang-ups."
And Walter and Donald drove out to Hicksville and merged with Dias's band and...
The rest is history.
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