From Circus Raves, written by ???
Steely Dan had to cancel a sold-out European tour when singer Donald Fagen came down with severe strep throat. Donald wanted to ignore the devastating pain, but when it kept getting worse and worse Elton John's personal physician was called in, and taking one look at the reddened tonsils of the moody Dan, he gave the strict orders to "Go Home!" The Steely Dans plan to make up the dates in December.
From The Los Angeles Times, written by Richard Cromelin
Any doubts about Steely Dan's being America's most inventive band were resolved by the group's Wednesday Santa Monica Civic concert, which also took care of lingering reservations about its ability to excite as well as beguile (it packs a punch that could wake any nearby dead) and about its stage personality (subtle but intriguing, once you find it).
At every level, from Jeff Baxter's screeching, throaty rock 'n' roll guitar through Donald Fagen and Walter Becker's wry, enigmatic lyrics, the Dan effortlessly covers every possibility as it smashes out its sophisticated, highly personalized (and flawlessly amplified) jazz-flavored rock. The musicianship is incomparable, the interaction among the players nearly telepathic, and there are countless moments of uncanny exchange.
Rather than settle for mere musical accomplishment, Steely Dan uses it to powerfully express an attitude. Be it through venomous appraisal of past love affairs, a biting, sarcastic (and even moralizing) look at the California scene or a panorama of Dylanesque imagery, the persona (embodied onstage by the emaciated Fagen as a mad musical scientist) that grows from the music is uncommonly tangible and entire, aware and affecting.
Beyond that. Steely Dan is funny (both lyrically and musically), spoofing pop conventions as it creates exquisite pop songs. It's that humor that finally lifts Steely Dan above all but a very few working bands and which made the concert one of the year's best (and it happens again tonight).
Opening is Kiki Dee, a singer with the rare ability to make the pop ballad a genuine emotional experience. A lively, engaging performer, her brisk, solid set received a deservedly enthusiastic response.
From Hit Parader, written by Martin Fredric
To Steely Dan, everything comes down in the end to the music. Nothing else matters... nothing is allowed to break the concentration there's nothing in their lives they'd rather be doing not for love or for money or for just plain fun.
"It's a matter of everyone understanding the music is the most important thing," is the way they all put it. Their image even their very personal self-images relates to the music and the music alone. You might call them the complete musicians, guys who live for very little else, and the strength and the purity that comes out of that kind of concentration is what makes an unwavering and ever-growing circle of die-hard fans feel that this group is not merely of the moment. Relatively new as groups go their first birthday as a complete six has just about happened - it's already easy to see that they are classy, and in their way, classic, too solid to be just for today.
The nucleus of the Steely Dan is the songwriting team of Walter Becker and Donald Fagen. It all began some five years ago, when Becker, a seventeen-year-old bass guitarist, ran into nineteen-year-old Fagen, already a keyboard wizard and vocalist. That was at Bard College and they've been playing and writing together ever since.
"Mostly writing together," they protest. "Our only playing experiences had been scattered studio work, pick-up band stuff, and about two years with Jay and the Americans in their little back-up
orchestra."
Not bad, but hardly what they were looking for even back then. But the break the step that would let them get on to what they thought they should be into didn't really come until little more than a year ago. It was then that their producer, Gary Katz, became staff producer at ABC/Dunhill in Los Angeles and took "everyone that he knew along with him. And that included me and Donald," Walter explains. "We went out as staff writers, but we began secretly in the basement of Dunhill offices to assemble a rock-and-roll band. Jeff Baxter and Jim Hodder came out when we did, and then there were four."
Jeff, a whiz on guitar and pedal steel guitar, just happened in L.A. at the time, trying, as he still is, to achieve his one big goal "to be the best stringed-instruments player in the world." With Steely Dan, he feels, it could happen. And that's the best thing he's felt since the days he was born and raised in Mexico City. Known to friends and foes alike as "Skunk" - "because I never used to change my socks" -his musical education began back in the old hometown where his generous parents treated him to eleven years of classical piano training. He repaid them by joining a rock-and-roll band that played at the "Gringo School" dances in Mexico.
He left Mexico to attend the Taft School for Boys in Connecticut, where he listened to rock music, began playing the guitar and met up with a young man named Dave Palmer, now his fellow Steely Danner. Dave remembers Jeff as "a little freaky seventeen-year-old dude, running around saying he loved music and everything." His real career as a rock musician began when he moved to Boston and began working in a record store. One day, a member of Ultimate Spinach happened by, mentioned in passing that the band was looking for a dynamite guitar player.
"Me!" Jeff cried, and that was that. Eventually, of course, Ultimate Spinach broke up, Jeff tired of "nothing happening" on the Boston scene, and followed his dream to L.A. - and Steely Dan.
Jimmy Holder, drummer, percussionist and vocalist, began his musical career in Boston as a child when he learned to play the accordion. But he knew even then that he was not following his natural calling because, "I was always banging on something."
Eventually, he got his first drum kit and just kept banging away until he joined the Bead Game, Boston's own resident hippy band.
"You know, we all lived together in one house, never rehearsed, and when we got on stage, we were really sloppy. But people came to hear us anyway."
At this point, Jimmy met Gary Katz, who became the producer of Bead Game, and was eventually brought out to L.A. to become the drummer for Steely Dan.
"I like what I play in this band. I like to play strong rhythms, nothing too fancy, but strong. I like to make things go."
And then, like the boys said, there were four.
Shortly thereafter, Denny Dias came out, making it five.
Denny, on guitar and electric sitar, began his love affair with the strings at age thirteen, in Hicksville, Long Island, east of Manhattan Island. "I picked up an acoustic guitar my father brought home for about five dollars. It only had three strings on it."
His career as a musician began nine months later when he formed his first band called the Saints, whose theme song, natch, was "When the Saints Go Marching In."
He studied guitar steadily for the next few years, and finally decided to drop out of school to devote all his time to his band.
School for Denny, by the way, was The Downstate Medical School, College of Health Related Professions, where he majored in Bio-medical Computer Science.
"I figured I'd devote my full time to music. Really, it doesn't matter how talented you are in music, you can flop just as easily, but I figured I'd give it a whirl. I had this band, and I quit school and then the bass player quit the band. So I put an ad in the Village Voice and ..."
"Guess who showed up?" interrupts Walter Becker at this point.
"A bass player and a piano player," laughs Denny, "Becker and Fagen showed up."
"The band disintegrated immediately," adds Walter.
So Denny wasn't doing much musically when the call came from California that his two old pals were trying to make things pop - and were maybe doing it.
"This band is what I've wanted to do since I met Walter and Donald and heard the songs they wrote," says Denny, a look of exquisite contentment on his face.
Together these five, almost-happy guys began putting an album together. About two-thirds of the way through, who should show up to make their happiness complete - not like a bad penny, but a good one - but David Palmer.
Dave, who handles the lead vocals, began singing with high school bands in Plainfield, New Jersey, "about fifty miles out of Newark." His first professional gig, just out of high school, was with a band called Middle class, which was produced by Jerry Goffin and Carole King. "We came to New York and started to play in the Village, at the Cafe Bizarre and that whole terrible scene. All those people who have become Village legends, I knew them all back then."
Ultimately, not even Goffin and King could prevent a common show-biz phenomenon among beginners from happening "Frustration. Futility. Poverty. Any number of things" that caused Middle Class to break up.
It was not the best of times for David who:
"Went to Florida, flipped out a month or two, went crazy.
"Came back up North and decided to go to Emerson College.
"Flipped out."
"Joined Jake and the Family Jewels."
On this period, he adds, "It was a good band. Jake is one of the best writers out of New York. He's great. He's a legend in his own time." But all the same, the band broke up within six months. So Dave:
"Joined a band in Martha's Vineyard (Cape Cod, Mass.) called Quinaimes, made an album for Elektra, broke up.
"Went to Boston; got a job in a factory.
"Came back to Jersey; got a job in a factory.
"That was the lowest point of my life, believe me. So when Jeff called and said, 'There are these two writers out here and they're completely insane - come right away,' I did. I was scared. But I looked at all my New York friends who were down and out, couldn't write, couldn't do anything, so I said all right. Took off across the country."
Says Walter Becker, remembering his arrival, "We saw his teeth and then we knew. Anyone with six eye teeth is okay with us."
"I'm not really trying for an effect," says Dave of his performing. "Just energy on stage which is good, healthy. That's all. I sweat a lot. I bathe a lot. I guess I'm working toward what makes us all the best... that's all."
"And that," say Becker and Fagen, "we trust, brings you up to date."
But what about the nucleus itself - the real Walter Becker and Donald Fagen?
Outside of their rock-and-roll band, both appreciate, in fact revere, certain jazz musicians - "the best from any period, the best. From post bebop to John Coltrane, and earlier stuff, too, like Bix Beiderbeck, Jelly Roll Morton, of course, Scott Joplin and his Maple Leaf Rag, Sonny Rollins and his Apache Haircut. Anyone who's good, really good, who doesn't have to think about anything when he's playing except playing." Don's also into certain classical composers of the twentieth century ... Igor Stravinsky, Berg ... "all those composers responsible for bringing classical music to an end."
As good as Steely Dan is as a whole, it is still the songs which are most unique, the most impressive aspect of the group's music. Don claims there is a kind of a formula to it. "The typical Steely Dan song would include a penetrating verse, a rousing chorus, an inspired bridge and, of course, a no-holds-barred instrumental of some sort. Pop songs with some kind of structure that's interesting and can be developed. We're actually pretty traditional in that, but the chords are usually more interesting than most rock and roll, I think.
"We have recurring themes, but we don't have any particular fixations. Anything is grist for our mill. There's no real limitations on it. We can write about anything.
"Our lyrics contain certain associations which we hope will evoke in our listeners the sensation that they are remembering something they forgot a long time ago. Perhaps thousands of years ago! Before they were even born!"
The music is certainly evocative -and maybe even provocative - and best of all to be listened to with a lot of pleasure.
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."
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.
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.
