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August 28, 2010 - 9:01am
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Which Steely Dan albums do you own?
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This may possibly be my favorite thread!
I am a lifelong dedicated Steely Dan fan. My favorite band/ duo.
Can't Buy A Thrill 1972 CD
Countdown To Ecstacy 1973 CD
Pretzel Logic 1974 CD
Katy Lied 1975 CD - Remastered
The Royal Scam 1976 CD - Remastered
Aja 1977 CD - Gold MFSL Original Master
Gaucho 1980 CD - Gold MFSL Original "
Citizen Steely Dan 1993 CD
Alive In America 1995 CD
Two Against Nature 2000 CD
Everything Must Go 2003 CD
Solo works
Walter Becker - 11 Tracks of Whack 1994
Donald Fagen - The Nightfly 1982, Kamakiriad 1993, Morph The Cat 2006.
My favorite CD is Gaucho. I love every song on this one and plus its a Gold Mobile Fidelity Sound Labs original master recording.
Favorite tunes:
Here At The Western World
My Rival
Time Out Of Mind
Glamour Profession
Aja
Black Cow
Josie
FM
I own every Steely Dan album and the solo albums.
Favorites:
1) Royal Scam
2) I consider Gaucho and Aja to be one large album.
3) Countdown to Ecstasy
4) The Nightfly
Least: Kamikiriad and Pretzel Logic (mostly because I hate "Rikki Don't Lose That Number.")
Funny about Kamakiriad, which for me is Donalds best album.
I don't have any Walter Becker albums, but all 3 of Donald Fagen.
I am a huge fan as well, but I have to admit some of the stuff running around in their heads is sometimes a little disconcerting,often funny, but the musicianship is beyond reproach. I even liked Everything Must Go. Great story tellers.
The problem for them is to top their previous work. Often hard to do.
back before I had taste, I had a couple.
now that I have taste, I stay far away from that miserable, cliche elevator light nonsense.
Taste? Come on, SD is great... What a snobby, grumpy old man you are
There he is!
I had you down as being within the first ten replies!
Ding ding ding!
Next, tell us again how you feel about Dire Straits!
Not in this thread he's not!
I agree Jim. It would behoove anyone to read the liner notes on any album. Donald and Walter have always sought out the world's best session musicians to play on their albums.
I once saw a short film on the making of Josie in the studio and all the Guitar and Bass players that they went through to finally come to a choice of who they would use just on that one song!
Walter and Donald are the epitome of what world class musicians should be. I have yet to find another musician/musicians that go to the great lengths they do to be the best that they can be in the studio or in a live situation for that matter. Plus, they are just Damn Cool!
A Dan fan forever
Mark
You need to find, if you haven't all ready, the 2VNat DVD. It is great to watch them play and the conversations are funny and sometimes disturbing, but that is Fagan and Becker.
Thanks Jim,
I didn't know such a DVD existed. I will definitely seek that one out. I try to aquire everything I can concerning SD.
Appreciate it,
Mark
If you can't find one you can borrow mine. Just let me know.
That's very kind of you Jim. I certainly appreciate it.
Mark
Snobby, Grumpy, yes. Old .. no! I am 31! I had Aja, but I gave it away to a doctor friend.
and for the record... I **LOATHE++ dire straits.
I do like Mark Knopfler's solo output though, especially sailing to philadelphia! great guitarist!
My problem is that for all their technical wizardry, the labcoat inspired perfection... there is very little feeling...if any at all. Id much rather have a less talented band with Soul..
(like Joe Cockers GREASE band, for example...check out them playing on the first JC Superstar Album)
Just remember that taste changes as you grow up to be a "real adult".
I like Steely Dan and I'm a big fan of all of their recordings from what I consider to be their glory years: 1981 through 1994. All of these recordings are just fantastic even if they are very hard to track down. The growth in SD's musical style these recordings show is clearly why SD's work in the early 2000's was so ground breaking. These seminal recordings show why SD was never a group to tread water or rest on their laurels.
Agreed...
Yeah, my Dad had alot of Joe Cocker's stuff. I have never really heard that much from him. I will have to check that one out. thanks!
Oh by the way.. didn't Joe Cocker play at Woodstock? It was either at Monterrey 1970 or Woodstock not sure. Anyway, it was a replay of a live concert in which Joe Cocker was performing that I watched on T.V. He was good at that performance and his energy on stage was awesome.
Mark
Joe Cocker was at Woodstock
Many years ago, I read a neat article about SD and how they achieved their "sound."
I'm thinking this was around when Aja came out.
Donald Fagen said they'd have the musicians keep playing and playing a given part for 8 to 12 hours, until late into the night and the musician would become so tired, he'd put less and less of himself into the playback; creating sort a world weariness and detachment that was the sound they were looking for.
Fagen kind of refers to it in this interview....looking for a "laid back" sound.
On a related note, The Dukes of September tour has been getting rave reviews, but we won't see it 'til it hits Vegas...too late for any useful reviews!
Great info Buddha! thanks for the links too.
Mark Evans
SD rules
YES THEY DO!! Walter and Donald are the Commandants Of Cool
-------------------------------------
Yes, and I want to be Jack Lemmon in the one with Ann Margret.
Teddy, It is Art and I am comfortable enough to know that if we all liked the same thing there are a lot of music groups out there wasting there time and the Grammys would be the shortest show on earth. I could MC that one.
"And all the awards go to: Steely Dan" Just Kidding!
Al Schmitt gets "one" for best engineered album. But only one. He better start doing Steely Dan albums.
I have:
Pretzel Logic
Katy Lied
Aja
Gaucho
Everything Must Go
11 Tracks of Whack
The Nightfly
Katy Lied is probably the one I play the most. Recently replaced Katy, Aja and Gaucho with the re-masters which I got for $4 a pop at a record store that was going under. Walter and Donald are great musicians, and I've enjoyed their music all these years. A lot of people have never really listened to SD, and when they do, especially on a good system they do this, followed by .
Great question.
Thrill - mofi vinyl
Ecstasy - regular vinyl and I think a Quiex version
Pretzel - vinyl
Katy - mofi vinyl
scam - regular vinyl
aja - mofi vinyl and regular cd
the rest on dvd-a or sacd
Holy heck I have a lot of SD!
I have to be in the mood to listen to them, but I am often in that mood. Yeah they are to slick by an order of magnitude, but they are the epitome of tight and sound really right.
Trey
You are a man after my own heart
You are right!
The first time I ever heard SD was when I was a teenager over at my buddies house. His dad had a Sansui G-8000 reciever, Dual turntable, with JBL 4412 studio monitors.
I immediately became a Dan fan. Also we stayed in mortal fear of his dad finding out we touched his stereo.
Mark
does anyone else have the cisco reissue of aja? does anyone who has it think it is terrible? i have played my copy on several very good systems and it is listless and dull.
i have most everything from the early years on LP including this reissue.
tom
Check out my SD tribute wall:
OK, how do you post a larger picture??
Like this I guess...duh!
Lovely!
Your room has great Feng Shui!
From one Dan fan to another...AWESOME homage to my favorite group
Awesome Zen den too. You have done it up right my friend! Thanks for the pics.
Mark Evans
Thanks guys. Here's one I bet no one has:
Nope! I don't have this one.
FYI: The 'object' on this album cover is where Walter and Donald came up with the name Steely Dan.
Mark Evans
I had always heard it was a reference to a William Burroughs book..(naked lunch)
Your exactly right Teddy. Steely Dan III from Yokohama, a strap-on dildo referred to in Burroughs book "Naked Lunch."
Mark
Same here
Yep, the boys are/were both Burroughs fans and always have had that sarcastic, warped sense of humor.
"Have you heard about the boom on Mizar 5? people got to shout to stay alive."
That they do....that they do..
BTW: Nice Yellow Ibanez guitar on the right
Mark Evans
I think I remember buying Katy Lied. I had my first job, I was stripping and refinishing floors for a hospital as a summer job. Good work actually, I enjoyed it a lot. And I was spending part of my first paycheck at a record store. Maybe Cat's records. They had an audiophile section, and I got the MoFi Katy Lied. I was so excited! I had an old Rega 2, with the curced arm, and I still remember how the groove noise was different on the MoFi than my normal records. And it was so clean, and smooth, and that bass! It is in storage now or I would listen to it tonight!
Trey
Thanks Mark. That's a signed Frank Gambale model, the FGM100.
Naked Lunch - excellent book and a very interesting movie Naked Lunch
Note that the music WAS NOT by Steely Dan but rather by Howard Shore and Ornette Coleman Naked Lunch: Full Credits
Sorry but I couldn't resist a cheap shot
Hey Jazzfan....you lost me there. I must have missed the post saying that SD did the Naked Lunch soundtrack.
Sorry about that. I didn't mean to imply that someone had mistakenly stated that SD did the music for Naked Lunch but rather that SD are just wanna be hipsters as opposed to OC who is the real deal.
(and now I will duck for cover )
Since a lot of good stuff is coming up about SD, I will rename the thread. Keep on posting pls
No argument from me regarding Ornette Coleman being the real deal but to attach a "wannabe" handle to Becker and Fagen is a bit disingenuous, smiley face aside. Coleman was firmly rooted in a genre whereas SD was a bridge between genres. In the early 70s they were doing things that no one else was doing and it grew from there. I defy anyone to name another "group" that produced a product in the 70s that sounds as current as their stuff does to this day. But then everyone is entitled to their opinion however wrong it may be (insert smiley face here).
I agree with what you're saying, particularly with the part about how in the 1970's Steely Dan sounded way ahead of their time. Where we part company is with the second coming of SD - I feel that their more recent material hasn't progressed much from their 1970's material, not to say that the recent material is "bad" but rather that Steely Dan has lost that cutting edge / ahead of the curve sound that they had in spades in the 1970's.
But then again not everyone has the ability to reinvent themselves like Miles Davis (multiple times) or Ornette Coleman (at least once), to name a few who have done so successfully.
I was first exposed to Ornette Coleman via Pat Metheny's work with him. The work they did together was so advantgarde and amazing. What a pioneer!
concerning Ornette Coleman I will take a quote from Donald Fagen's song 'New Frontier' off the Nightfly album: "He's an artist, a pioneer.. the key word is survival on the new frontier."
Mark
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