Steely Dan: Iconoclastic Boogaloo

From Cash Box, written by Eliot Sekuler

"In our heart of hearts, we are really bizarre," comments Donald Fagen, comfortably crumpled like a ball of scrap paper on the couch. His friend and collaborator, Walter Becker, nods noncommittally, an attitude to which he is not usually prone. The conversation, expecting but not receiving further elaboration on the subject, slides into brief silence.

We were sitting in Becker's new Laurel Canyon house, perched pleasantly on top of Los Angeles, 3200 miles as the crow flies from Brooklyn. Fagen and Becker flew from Brooklyn three years ago, shortly after leaving the instrumental entourage of Jay and the Americans. Originally contracted to ABC/Dunhill as a songwriting team, they instead gave birth to Steely Dan, a pair of hit singles ("Do It Again" and "Reelin' In The Years") and an album that was certified gold a year after release.

Now there is "Countdown to Ecstasy," their second ABC LP, struggling its way through the top 40 charts and a single, "Show Biz Kids," that got lost some-where along the way. It was a strange choice for a single release, containing an oddball contrapuntal chorus and an entire verse that needed bleeping. "We're sadder but wiser in relation to that" says Becker, "but its always comforting to know that you've got something potentially obscene on AM radio."

With characteristic ambiguity, they are fond of comparing their song-writing process to the creation of "junk sculpture." "Some songs are completely mine and some are Walter's, but in most there isn't any cut-and-dried division. 'Boston Rag,' for instance, has my chorus and verses by Walter." Musically, both of them have a predilection for jazz, a slight disdain for theatrics and an amiable cynicism towards the pretensions of the rock "scene," but not for the music. "Someone sent me a newspaper clipping that described rock concerts as 'the inept playing for the untutored," said Walter, with more amusement than indignance. "That just isn't true. The music may be simple, not as sophisticated, say, as jazz or classical music, but some of the guys playing it a lot of the successful ones-are very, very good at what they do."

"I listen to music for its intrinsic musical values, as opposed to any dramatic or theatrical qualities," continued Fagen. "For that reason our lyrics are usually dry and objective. The content may be subjective, but it's pure music, pure lyrics." Within the complexities of their music, there is seldom anything thrown in for emotional content. They prefer to leave their compositions uncluttered by images that would allow the listener to relate on the basis of sentiment or any non-musical experience. As in jazz, then, the feelings of the audience are aroused not by story telling or catch-phrases but purely by the sounds of the music itself. "Actually," added Walter, "they (the lyrics) just appear to be passionless because everyone else's stuff is so soppy."

Steely Dan has undergone changes of peripheral personnel since its inception, but the original quintet has remained intact. Becker on bass and Fagen's keyboards are joined by drummer Jim Hodder to form the rhythm section. Jeffrey "Skunk" Baxter, an outstanding and very original musician who previously did studio work for Carly Simon, alternates guitar leads with Denny Dias.

Recently, the group has taken pains to enliven their stage act, adding vocalist Royce Jones and two girls, introduced as Porky and Bucky, who add some oomph to the choruses while dancing on the side of the stage. Fagen was asked, half jokingly, if he had thought of going "whole hog" with the idea; he could, for example, enclose the girls in cages and dangle them, Las Vegas style, above the band on stage.

Fagen: "Don't think we haven't thought of that. Unfortunately, though, unless you take the authority upon yourself, like Frank Zappa, for instance, you can only get people to do just so many things."

Becker disagreed: "We can get those people to do anything we want them to."

Fagen: "Yeah, but then you're assuming a burden of responsibility. I just couldn't ask them to do that routine with a real, live python; that's pretty dangerous..."

Becker interrupted: "Sooner or later," he said, "they will do the routine with the python."

Santa Monica Civic Auditorium September 2, 1973 concert review

From Cash Box, written by e.s.

From the opening strains of "Bodhsivatta," a celebrated cut from their latest ABC-Dunhill album, it was glaringly apparent that before the audience was a rock-n-roll band transformed the new Steely Dan Review. Primarily studio-oriented musicians, they have tentatively resigned themselves to the requisite exertions of showbiz, Bard College blue-jeans being hurriedly exchanged for velvet and satin. Above all, though there was the precise, hypnotic, at times scathingly sarcastic music that has placed them among the most import-ant new groups to emerge in popular music.

Featuring digital acrobatics by the band's two guitarists, their opening number established the three-ring circus pattern that the act was to follow. Donald Fagen, nucleus, key-board man and primary vocalist, assumed the central spotlight. He was flanked by the furiously duelling guitarists on one side and a newly acquired side-show composed of a singer-cum-conga pounder and two cheerleaders on stage left. Royce Jones, the new vocalist, offered smooth and professional editions of "Brooklyn," "Dirty Work" and "Change of the Guard," all standards of the Steely Dan repertoire, while the cheerleaders chimed in on the back-grounds and presented perhaps the most charming abdominal muscles ever, superfluously, to grace the stage.

In the past year, the songs of Donald Fagen and Walter Becker, the group's composers, have slowly gained recognition as prototypical music of the 70's. Rock formulas honed to catchy perfection by jazz-fan instrumentalists, a cynical disdain for sentiment combined with sophisticated, sometimes obscure literary reference may serve to make them established spokesmen for the contemporary rock audience. The only obstacle may be their own seeming reluctance to assume the role.

B. W. Stevenson is a heavy Texan balladeer who speaks of traveling light, hitchhiking on the open road. At every rest-stop, he must have played the juke-box, for it is that instrument which appears to be his chief source of musical inspiration. On stage he commands audience attention with easy congeniality, a folksy manner and a voice as big as Texas. His band is tight, his songs are simple and if his RCA Records hit single, "My Maria," is any indication, he should be serenading those same truck-stops for some time to come.

Steely Dan Brings Brains to AM Rock (September 2, 1973 concert review)

From The Los Angeles Times, written by Richard Cromelin

Steely Dan, America's answer to the Guess Who, headlined its first local concert Sunday at Santa Monica Civic, and it appears that the band, which sounded like an expendable commercial commodity when it first emerged, is about ready to assert itself as one of the country's most versatile, listenable and downright brilliant ensembles.

Like Canada's premiere hitmakers, Steely Dan injects an uncommon degree of intelligence (if not sheer intellectualism) into its music without diluting any of its AM appeal. Perhaps the key to the group's genius lies in the fact that it sounds almost like everything else on the radio, but always throws in a little something that could be from no one but Steely Dan.

Highly derivative (its influences, from the Archies to Yes, are easily spotted) in rock's finest tradition, SD's ability to hang a broad spectrum of authentically touching emotions on that strictly commercial framework is its strongest forte. In performance the group sacrifices some of the cleanness of its recorded sound for an invigorating muddiness that flirts with but never succumbs to distortion, The addition of two women singer/dancers has livened things up considerably, and while their "Hullabaloo" go-go gyrations are at first distracting, it soon becomes clear that it's all a part of a carefully calculated and ultimately successful master plan.

And any group that encores with "My Boyfriend's Back" obviously has a lot going for it.

Opening the show was B.W. Stevenson, whose time would be better spent in the studio and at the writing desk than on the concert stage.

Steely Dan: There's A Cha Cha In My Soup

From Circus, written by Ed Naha

When is a rock band not a rock band? When the group in question is named Steely Dan.

Steely Dan is about the unlikeliest choice for a "rock band" label as you will ever find. The six-man group (consisting of bassist Walter Becker, pianist Donald Fagen, guitarist Jeff Baxter, guitarist Denny Dias, singer David Palmer and drummer Jimmy Hodder) welds together walls of electric piano, jazz-inspired guitar rhythms, slide guitar, electric sitar and a few horn riffs with skill and ease. The resulting music, however, isn't quite rock. Nor is it jazz . . . or pop . . . or anything else you can hang a name on.

During a recent gig at New York's famed Max's Kansas City, Steely Dan put on a perplexing performance which showcased their lightweight rock melodies and pseudo-Buffalo Springfield-ish vocal harmonies. The results were amazing, or rather, the audience was left amazed. Listening to the band hop, skip and jump through Latin-flavored rockers, country-inspired ballads and pop sagas, the crowds weren't quite sure of how to label this interesting potpourri. All they knew was that this music was tight and ex-citing-and worth coming back to hear again.

Basement sessions: Chief writers Walter Beck and Donald Fagan realize that their songwriting style is slightly off the wall, but they defend their tunes as being simply "traditional." "Well, we try to write songs as close to the same approach as the Beatles used, so the songs will be unified. You know, pop songs with some kind of structure that can be develop-ed. We're actually pretty traditional in that respect, but our chord structures are usually more interesting than in most rock and roll."

The history of the traditionally mysterious Steely Dan goes back to about five years ago, when Walt and Don met at New York's Bard College and decided to collaborate with songwriting duties. One resulting tune,. "I Mean To Shine," was recorded by an up-and-coming young singer named Barbra Streisand. The boys began working in studios and soon found themselves part of Jay and the American's back-up band, hardly an exciting start for the Lennon-McCartney inspired duo.

After eighteen months of bombarding America with "Cara Mia's," the team left Jay and took refuge in ABC Dunhill's L.A. office, where they be-came staff writers. It was there that Steely Dan came into being. Practicing secretly in the basement of the ABC offices, Walt and Don enticed struggling rockers to take up the Steely-ite cause, enlisting their musical services in the development of the fledgling band.

Boston underground veterans: First to join were Jeff Baxter and Jimmy Hodder. Jeff, better known as "Skunk" to friend and foe alike ("because I never change my socks"), was just recovering from the split of his Boston-based group, Ultimate Spinach, and Jimmy was about to leave another Boston band, Bead Game. Recalls Jim, "Bead Game was pretty raunchy. We never rehearsed. We just got onstage and were really sloppy. But people came to see us anyway." They both figured Steely Dan to be a musical panacea guaranteed to cure their rock ills, and so they commenced rehearsing.

The Steely Dan quartet soon realized that there was something missing from their sound. That "something" turned up in the persons of Denny Dias and lead singer David Palmer, a veteran of Middle Earth, Jake and the Family Jewels and the Quinaimes Band. David recalls that the only reason he joined Steely Dan was "I was at the low point of my life. I was working in a factory in New Jersey and I was scared. All my friends in New York were all down and out, they couldn't write, couldn't do anything. So I said 'Alright I'll join.'"

With the addition of Dave, Steely Dan was ready to step into the studio to record. On their debut ABC/Dun-hill release, Steely Dan, the group did their best to fuse together rock, pop, jazz and latin ideas. Sounding a bit like the old Electric Flag minus the horns or one of Boston's late sixties' rock mutations, Steely Dan pulls off musical surprises with the aplomb of pros. A pedal steel guitar will turn up in the middle of a cha-cha, a few jazz chords will tear through a rocker, and a Memphis horn line will suddenly appear in a ballad.

Off-the-wall realism: Crazy? Well, maybe. But Steely Dan is a group that's out to prove that it's music that still counts, not flash. Onstage at Max's, the group finishes a very laid-back set, highlighted by Steely's electric piano-dominated tunes and David's graceful body movements a la early Jim Morrison. No hype, no stage absurdity - just music. Watching them bound off the stage with enthusiasm, one can't help but remember the words of Walt Becker, who earlier in the day commented: "It's all a matter of everyone understanding that the music is the most important thing. Anything that detracts from that isn't worth doing."