CCR?

two words: Trannie. Bingo.

mackro wrote:CCR?

two words: Trannie. Bingo.

I like it.

All of these bands have something that I like.

What, do you guys live off of eating nothing but burgers 'n pizza or something? Variety upsets your delicate tum-tums? Can't handle a little bit of Jazz-Rock? Poor babies.

I'm sort of baffled by people who hate Steely Dan, although if I had never heard them and somebody gave me an accurate description of their music, I would probably think it sounded like the worst music ever made. And they are partly to blame for foisting a lot of shitty music-makers on the world--e.g. Michael McDonald and Jeff Porcaro. Somewhere on this site there is a thread about bands that are so singular that you can recognize one of their songs within seconds, even if it's a song you've never heard. I'd say Steely Dan qualify, which is pretty amazing given that there was no real band, and really not any consistent sound.

By "Gaucho" they were pretty bad, although I find that "Gaucho" on vinyl is one of the best ways to test a hi-fi set-up.

According to Wikipedia (I think that's where I saw it), one of Jimmy Page's favorite guitar solos is the one on "Reelin' In the Years." Actually, I guess there's about three guitar solos on that song. Great drumming, too, I think courtesy of an uncredited Jim Gordon, who later killed his mom when he went off his schizophrenic meds.

gmilner wrote: Great drumming, too, I think courtesy of an uncredited Jim Gordon, who later killed his mom when he went off his schizophrenic meds.

Let's give him some extra props for having Eric "God" Clapton on his hit list as well. They caught him before he could swing it.

gmilner wrote:Michael McDonald

That right there is all that needs to be said. Steely Dan is great if you like snorting lines off young yacht boy penises.

ozzy lee harvwald wrote: Steely Dan is great if you like snorting lines off young yacht boy penises.

Who doesn't?

gmilner wrote:

ozzy lee harvwald wrote: Steely Dan is great if you like snorting lines off young yacht boy penises.

Who doesn't?

"TAKIN' IT. TO. THE. TEATS!"

gmilner wrote:"Reelin' In the Years." . . . Great drumming, too, I think courtesy of an uncredited Jim Gordon,

Nope. But he did play great drums on the hit version of the 59th Street Bridge Song

gmilner wrote:According to Wikipedia (I think that's where I saw it), one of Jimmy Page's favorite guitar solos is the one on "Reelin' In the Years." Actually, I guess there's about three guitar solos on that song. Great drumming, too, I think courtesy of an uncredited Jim Gordon, who later killed his mom when he went off his schizophrenic meds.

I just looked up that guy [Jim Hodder!] a few months ago, after hearing that song on the radio.

Fantastic drumming.

Fantastic guitar playing. I remember all three of the solos. I can hum them from memory.

I find the "[fill in the blank] FOR FAGS" or "gay-ass pedophile jazz" kind of criticisms to be telling.

One thing Steely Dan does supremely well is make people uncomfortable.

You might think "well, they make me uncomfortable because the music drives me up the fucking wall," and that's fine.

But they have a way of essaying various creepy subjects casually, amorally, and in great detail.

It's that particular combination that is unsettling.

It gives you nowhere to go with it. At least when William Bennett is going on about coming up your ass etc., there's nothing casual about it. You feel OK being kind of amped up about it to some degree.

But these guys will write about rough trade or whiling away one's life drunk and drugged or pedophilia or whatever, and take no position on it whatsoever. Yet they are tremendously invested in it--they detail it obsessively, and they keep going into the same wells, the same way someone who was feeding a perversion or had some ax to grind would.

The music is jarring for exactly the same reasons. The sounds are rounded off and the arrangements are just-so, but it's so impeccably played that it attains a sharpness that other music 'like this' (no one else has ever sounded like them) never ever gets. There's a malicious glint to it that is unexpected.

And what they do is resolutely in its own space. It never, ever comes out to get you--you have to go to it. It gets under your skin real quick if you don't take to it.

I love Steely Dan because I take to it for whatever reason, and I always have. But a nice side effect is the fact that, despite its round edges and professionalism, it inspires such venom. It's not forgettable music, in any case.