Monday, July 7, 2008

steely dan



we've got young skinny girls... here at the western world.

Steely Dan are one of those American bands - or more accurately, pairings - which provoke attitudes of ambivalence. More properly still, you either love 'em or loathe them.

Personally, I go with the former.

I've always had a secret hankering after their smacky jazz noodling. That nodding out lethargic fuzz which somehow recalls syndicated 70's tv shows like 'Taxi' or 'Hill Street Blues' as much as jaundiced memories of Donald Fagen and Walter Becker stumbling over their leads.

This first appeared on 1978's "Greatest Hits", a bit of a misnomer since it was previously unreleased and the only song over four sides of vinyl which couldn't then be found on any other album. The rest of those numbers included are solid representations from everything they recorded between 1972 and it's release. I'll go out on a limb though, and advise that you should really purchase all their previous releases regardless.

And why stop there ? Steely Dan are FM magic; no static at all.

With a clean nod to Any Major Dude with Half a Heart for somehow noticing my 'minor' strop.

Produced by Gary Katz.

STEELY DAN: HERE AT THE WESTERN WORLD from "Greatest Hits" 2 x LP (ABC) 1978 (US)

CITIZEN STEELY DAN

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

I loves the Dan so than you for this, then again I'm 50 so what do I know anyroad.
I enjoy your blog very much, your strop less so

ib said...

Hey, Walter. Thank you for your comment.

We're roughly the same age as things go, so I would hazard you know as much as me.

I'm glad you read this blog and I hope my stroppiness in last week's post didn't put you off too much, man. You're feedback is truly appreciated.

Cheers!

Your driver said...

Isn't everyone that counts 50? Completely off subject. I checked out Ken Currie. You're right, his older stuff looks a lot like Sandow Birk's work. Currie is the older of the two, so I'd imagine he was the influencer and Birk was the influenced. He's quite good, though I liked his older stuff better.

ib said...

Yeah, I hadn't realised how much his current work had moved into a much more introspective realm - which isn't such a bad thing ; still, the spectre of Goya was always present even in his earlier work.

But did you like the Dan, Jon ?