Resurrection

MY HEROES AIN’T DEAD AFTER ALL: They're alive. Alive in America. Yes, they’re old. The kind that’s good. The kind that’s reunited. Reunited oldies but goodies. Instead of youthful kinetic exuberance, good judgment borne of experience takes its place. Discipline. Polish. Things some might associate in a knee-jerk reaction with boring. Actually, boredom does seem to creep in certain songs (Bodhisattva, Sign In Stranger, for instance) but sheer talent and the music's sophistication keeps ennui from settling.

Some people might question the necessity of a live Steely Dan record at this point in time, this late, more than a decade after their breakup. If the Beatles, minus a “live” John Lennon, were able to reunite and record new songs for a double-album release at that, there’s no reason why an intact (as far as creative core is concerned) Steely Dan can’t put out a concert album of all vintage (except for Book of Liars) material.

The biggest disappointment I have with this record is that there are too many brilliant songs in the Steely Dan discography that are not here: Do It Again, Brooklyn (Owes The Charmer Under Me), My Old School, With A Gun, Any Major Dude Will Tell You, Dr. Wu, Any World That I’m Welcome To, Bad Sneakers, Throw Back The Little Ones, The Caves Of Altamira, Don’t Take Me Alive, The Royal Scam, Haitian Divorce, Black Cow, Deacon Blues, to name some.

It irritates to realize that the choice of their concert repertoire seems to hinge on the instrumentalists’ opportunity to show off virtuosity. Then you wish again that the original members and crack session men who played in the studio records were in the touring lineup. Case in point: the solo guitar lead in Reelin’ In The Years. When you have listened to it countless times, the song ingrained in your consciousness, you hear a live version that’s obviously different; the classic lead by Jeff “Skunk” Baxter (some sources say it’s by Elliot Randall) whom Jimmy Page admits to being his all-time favorite guitar solo, being rendered unrecognizable. One can’t help but be dismayed, longing for the original. That is, the original song and lineup; Donald Fagen and Walter Becker being the only ones left of the studio Can’t Buy A Thrill era band.

The nature of Steely Dan as a jazz-influenced pop/rock unit probably inhibits them from the stale gesture of performing cepra live renditions –- jazz music as spontaneous, as unencumbered by the orthodox rules of the music establishment as it is. Only purists would throw the “Don’t fix it if it ain’t broken,” dictum at you.

Not that all the material in this album stray far from the original. Josie, except for the brief ’70s arena-rock-like drum solo, is surprisingly faithful to the studio cut. Not that there aren’t any shining moments. In Third World Man, Fagen’s voice is a panther stalking prey, graceful, sinuous, powerful, wound tight, ready to pounce. The lead guitar dives and grapples. The languid rhythm section ideal for the lead guitar intrusion. All elements producing a solid whole.

Perhaps it’s intentional. Fagen calls their seven studio records “failed experiments” and maybe he and Becker simply want to wash their hands and distance themselves from their past product –- an arrogant brush-off or honest admission. Even if that’s the case, those seven “failed experiments” are worth 70 Duran Duran, Petshop Boys and Depeche Mode platinum records put together. Those bands can base their whole careers on Steely Dan’s two worst LPs.

Part of the fun listening to Steely Dan songs is deciphering the lyrics. Fagen and Becker being the purveyors of esoterica and arcana, the strangled intensity of Fagen’s singing makes code-cracking far from easy.

Analyzing the reason for the release of a live-concert record is easier: They have gotten over their boredom with each other and are now eager to start working on their eighth Steely Dan studio album. You wish! PJT/February 1996, Horizons

Note: Steely Dan did release an eighth studio record: the Grammy winning Two Against Nature –- a middling effort which managed to beat Eminem’s The Marshall Mathers LP for Record of the Year in 2001 besides winning three other Grammies. Plenty of guilty middle-aged National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences members out there with a predilection to overcompensate.

Record Reviews A La Mode

IN THE MID-'90S I WAS GIFTED WITH THE OPPORTUNITY TO REVIEW music records for a glossy travel magazine spin-off of a leading English daily which inevitably went defunct considering its confused raison d’etre. The following articles are reprints with edits of two columns on Steely Dan Donald-Fagen Walter-Becker albums that I did for Horizons.

This whole music-critic thing was bound to happen, the wetting of my feet in the music-review biz, that is. While in college, I was similarly honored in Weekly Sillimanian with a review column – Rewind – name-use years ahead of cable’s Channel V nostalgia program.

My debut review, of The Cure’s Three Imaginary Boys (per Philippine recording industry methodology, this 1979 LP saw the light of day in these shores more than 10 years after it’s initial international release as the RP buying public started noticing the band), was long-winded but made aesthetically visually attractive with a column logo of a Gilbert-Arbon rendering of a cassette tape with a pencil stuck through the reel. Also, it was probably that school publication’s first attempt at pop music criticism.

This blog is the culmination of a dream-emulation honed reading local music rags Jingle, Moptop, and the “imported” Rolling Stone, Creem, Crawdaddy, and countless others brain cells can’t recall. Those who can, become rock stars. Those who can’t, become critics. As it turned out, it was only the beginning. The Internet was in its infancy. Ten years and some hence, it’s a teenager. Just about the same stage that this age group discovers sex, drugs, and rock ‘n’ roll. Ego aside, I believe my music-dissecting skills have similarly grown. Watch this teen rebel.

Let’s Get It On! I mean – Rock On!

The Dan Is Old

MY HEROES ARE DEAD AND I'VE got to get this off my chest. How many times have you read a record review extolling the musical virtues of a veteran musician, how a certain artist unfailingly and gracefully grows with age, exploring tried and tested musical byways and virgin territories with equal elan?

Donald Fagen, who along with Walter Becker formed the nucleus of Steely Dan and recorded seven of the most distinctively elegant albums of the rock ‘n’ roll era, releases only his second solo record after Steely Dan temporarily broke up in 1981 just as the vinyl presses of Gaucho got cold and putting two singles in the pop charts. Those who were charmed by Fagen’s solo debut, The Nightly, will likely be less than enamored this time.

Nightfly, which sounds a lot like the whole Steely Dan catalogue in a single package, may not be a radical intergalactic jump from the stylistic adventurism of the sinister duo, but at least it isn’t boring. The same cannot be said of Kamakiriad.

From the inlay card notes: “Kamakiriad is an album of eight related songs. The literal action takes place a few years in the future, near the millennium.

"In the first song, Trans-Island Skyway, the narrator tells us he is about to embark on a journey in his new dream-car, a custom-tooled Kamakiri. It’s built for the new century: steam-driven, with a self-contained vegetable garden and a radio link with the Tripstar routing satellite.

“The next six songs describe his adventures along the way. The last song, Teahouse On The Track, the narrator lands in a dismal Flytown where he must decide whether to bail out of to rally and continue moving into the unknown.”

Fagen’s (and for that matter, Becker’s) best material was done when he was with Steely Dan. There is no indication that they can top their collaborative oeuvre. There is a creative energy that is only unleashed when one is with the right people or group. That energy inevitably siphons off when the alliance ends. The syndrome is demonstrated in the Bread-less David Gates, who resorted to writing sappier ballads with less bite, and in Jimmy Page, who could produce nothing but mediocre blues-based songs apart from Led Zeppelin. It is no coincidence that one of the brighter spots on Kamakiriad is Snowbound, co-written by Fagen and Becker. There is also the languidly graceful Florida Room, composed by Fagen and his wife Libby Titus.

There is something self-destructive in the way Fagen writes a melody. The first bar works out fine; suddenly the appeal level drops off. Snowbound stands out because the melody builds alongside fluid storytelling. This is how Fagen and Becker operate in Steely Dan. Fagen can’t do better than Steely Dan. He should follow his own advice in Trans-Island Skyway: “Let’s talk about the good times.”

The song titles in 11 Tracks of Whack strung together can tell a story on a chapter of the life of Becker who had a girlfriend die of a drug overdose in his house. He was sued for damages by the OD victim’s mother but was acquitted and cleared of all liabilities.

With a little grammatical license and inserted phrases, the story goes this way – Becker found himself Down In The Bottom after Steely Dan broke up and he had his Junkie Girl OD. Becker had to Surf And/Or Die in the courtroom. Lucky for him, he had his Book Of Liars. Lucky Henry, that’s Becker, a Hard-Up Case and a Cringemaker. Although he admits his Girlfriend to be almost My Waterloo that has made him This Moody Bastard. What Hat Too Flat means and who or what Little Kawai is, is anybody’s guess. PJT/November 1995, Horizons

Of Classic Rock and Cyber Meanderings

I WAS SURFING, KEYWORDING WORDS I'D RATHER NOT DIVULGE, when I came upon a blog by someone who was faintly familiar. One of the keywords that got me to her site was Silliman, the university in Dumaguete, not the person last name. In her blog she admits to being a classic rock fan and that she is into creative writing, poetry, if I remember right.

The reason I don't mention her name is because I don't actually know her, she is just the namesake of a sexy female creature I met in college who wrote poetry and I was pleasurably shocked to learn that she had memorized some of the poems I wrote. The only reason I won't say the title of the former’s blog is...make your own conclusion. Suffice it to say that she likes the likes of The Doors, Cream, among others; and since she is a fan of "classic rock, poets and idealists..." she must be a fan of mine. Insert laughter track here or that SMS symbol for a smile and a laugh.

I have a confession to make, though, her site gave me the idea to start my own Blogspot site, my second actually. The first one has topics that I'm pretty sure she won't find pretty and maybe is too macho for her sensitive literary taste. On second thought, when one likes classic rock, especially the music of bands fronted by less than wholesome anarchists (is there a wholesome anarchist?) like James Douglas Morrison and Jimi Hendrix, you should have an adventurous streak.

Anyway, I will try to be more prolific with this new blog of mine than with the first one which not only suffered from intermittent zeal and postings but also from a dose of laziness. What's a cushy dewfoam bed for anyway?

See you in the funny pages and hear you in the analog world. Classic rock, remember?