A visit with uncles Walt and Don

This is my fifth visit in the last 12 years. Believe me, if I could see them more often I would. The lag in between has more to do with their schedules than mine. It has been two years since I have seen Uncles Walt and Don and it really did feel like a reunion of sorts.

I grew up listening to these guys. My parents didn't play the records, but the radio stations they listened to played all of the (then) current hits of Steely Dan. Getting a 3 year jump on me, they released their third album, Pretzel Logic the year I was born. All of the earlier hits were still fresh and being played in constant rotation.

Fast-forward to 1992. I was away at college, sitting at the desk in my dorm room looking for a classic rock station on the FM dial. The one I found was questionable, but far better than any of the other shit I could find. They had a penchant for playing Peg, which I have always loved, and other memorable tunes by this Steely Dan. I was a member of a music club at the time and was able to get my hands on some of their stuff. I was amazed at how much I knew! It was definitely a warm homey feeling for a kid living away from home for the first time. And the songs that I didn't know displayed the talents of these jazz-rock studio musicians as well as the songwriting skills and musicianship of the aforementioned "uncles".

At any rate I have recently seen Steely Dan live on the "Think Fast '08" tour. The following is the song list they played that evening.

Introduction: Instrumental by the band featuring
-Everyone's Gone to the Movies and the Fez
The Royal Scam
I Got the News
Show Biz Kids
Everything You Did
Two Against Nature
Hey Nineteen
Godwhacker
Babylon Sisters
New Frontier
Gaucho (Walter Becker on lead vocals)
Glamour Profession
Parker's Band (lead vocals by the ladies)
Josie
Aja
Keep Me Yearning (Walter Becker introduces the band during vocals by the ladies)
Peg
FM (No static at all)

Encore: Kid Charlemagne

While I was disappointed that Pretzel Logic and Don't Take Me Alive were not included in the (very thin) ONE song encore, that was my only disappointment. These guys love what they are doing and love to share it with us. Even the songs that I skip over on the albums kick ass live. They change, adapt, take on new personalities by whoever is happening to be in the touring band this year... which brings me to Aja. Whenever I hear any track from this phenomenal album I am transported to my childhood home on a summer's night many years ago. I found a mint copy on vinyl and bought it because it had "Peg" on it, however, only three songs on Side One forewarned me that this was not an ordinary album. Little did I know that new doors would soon be open to me. I took it home and vividly remember sitting on my bed, in the dark, "absorbing" the album as I had done with Dark Side of the Moon a few years before. Anyway, the coming off of Josie and sliding right into Aja sparked something. I sat down, closed my eyes, and just experienced this living, breathing, creature that was the music produced by this group of individuals. It literally brought tears to my eyes. I realized that generations to come will look back on this and say, "I wish I was there...". Hell, I do that with certain events.

Whatever tomorrow may bring, I count myself very fortunate to have had the opportunity to spend 5 evenings with Donald Fagen and Walter Becker sharing their chunk of American History with me.

You old bastard, you.

At 7:00 am (in the morning) I was backing out of the driveway. Renee Montaigne was just giving the highlights of the news to come, but right before the break she wished a happy birthday to Donald Fagen. "The man who sang 'Hey Nineteen' turns 60,"
she said.

I have always known and loved Steely Dan. I have been a "Steely Fan" for only 16 years. I recall an evening in '92 or '93 when I was in the backseat of a friend's car with my girlfriend coming back from somewhere during my first (or second) year of college somewhere in small-town Pennsylvania (Pee-Ay, as we say). A local radio station was playing an evening of "B sides". Obviously, at this point, the cd had replaced the record, but the station was playing the second half of a series of albums. I'm (somewhat) sure they played Peg and Hey 19, but it has been a while. At the break the DJ announced that it was a 'best of' album by Steely Dan. It was one of those moments of revelation. I recognized just about every song that was played, but could not put a name to the band before that night. As a child I would hear the songs on pop radio, so I knew them, but not really. They sounded different that night. I had recently played in a high-school garage band and knew a little more about music than I previously had. This "pop" music had depth, layer, texture, color, flavor... I was completely surrounded by ORCHESTRATED sound and I fell in love, as if I had heard these old, tired, familiar songs for the first time. Soon thereafter I bought my first copy of 1976's Aja, at a now defunct record store, and yes, it was on vinyl. It wasn't long before I got the boxed set, Citizen Steely Dan, which collects all of the studio albums onto 4 cds. I saw them live in 1996, then in 2000, then in 2003, and finally in 2006. I truly love these guys.

Anyway, I am listening to 2006's Morph the Cat by Messr. Fagen as I type. While the title track of his first solo album, The Nightfly, ranks among my all-time favorite songs ("you say there's a race of men in the trees, you're for tough legislation, thanks for calling, we wait all night for calls like these") and his second outing, Kamikiriad, has delightful jazz-pop tunes, there is no question that "Morph" is his finest. So I say, if at 58 Donald Fagen recorded his second finest work (only behind Aja), then I wish him a happy 60th birthday, and look forward to the next, productive 60 years!