Catalyst: The Original Recordings 1968-1971 by Walter Becker & Donald Fage
JamsBio (Free subscription) | 11/23/2009
In 1974, Steely Dan co-founders Donald Fagen and Walter Becker found that the sounds they heard in their head were often too expansive for the 5-piece band they had formed. So they hired a passel of session men for their third album and created Pretzel Logic .
Hidden Track (Free subscription) | 11/20/2009
[Originally Published August 9, 2007] Steely Dan 03/20/1974 FM ( MP3 ): After listening to one of Steely Dan’s rare live gigs from the ’70s, I’m just confused as to why these guys didn’t tour behind any of their legendary albums. The Dan absolutely tore it up in the live setting with a band that included Michael McDonald, Denny Dias and Jeff “Skunk” Baxter. To see...
Philadelphia Inquirer (Free subscription) | 11/20/2009
Live music and more, tonight through Thursday, compiled by Shaun Brady, Tom Di Nardo, James Johnson, Sara Sherr and Jonathan Takiff.
Radio Dupree (Free subscription) | 11/15/2009
As Evan Rytlewski posted on expressmilwaukee.com earier this week , he mentioned the New York group Grizzly Bear while interviewing Walter Becker from Steely Dan recently. Walter checked out a couple of songs from the group during the interview and found one horrible , one interesting and concluded more study is needed . Evan sees similarities between the two bands: Both are New York bands with tricky,...
Philadelphia Inquirer (Free subscription) | 11/12/2009
Could Steely Dan have grown a heart? The group's "Rent Party" tour slouches into the Tower Theater Nov. 19 and 20. It's an audience-oriented affair: The band performs entire albums (the sainted Aja on the 19th and the scarcely less-celebrated Royal Scam the next night) and takes requests.
Radio Dupree (Free subscription) | 11/11/2009
A short but fun interview from the Minneapolis Star Tribune with Steely Dan 's Donald Fagen & Walter Becker on tour. Just a couple of quotes: Q How's the tour going? Becker: We're at my favorite part -- the break. Fagen: Yeah, the break's going really well. Q Donald, how has Walter changed over the years? And Walter, how has Donald changed? Fagen: He's just about 40 years older than when I met...
Cincinnati Enquirer (Free subscription) | 11/09/2009
for much of their careers, Donald Fagen and WAlter Becker preferred to toil in the dark confines of recording studios, tweaking their jazz-influenced songs into drum-tight perfection rather than spend 18 months on the road trying to replicate them live. Now, they're coming here.
PopMatters Music (Free subscription) | 11/06/2009
Star Tribune (Minneapolis) (MCT) -- Bruce Springsteen is doing it. So are Van Morrison, the Pixies and Steely Dan. Playing a classic album in its entirety in concert — along with random favorites, of course. On tour this year, Steely Dan is rotating the three biggest albums from its 1970s warped jazz-rock heyday: "Royal Scam," "Aja" and "Gaucho." To get Rock and...
The Daily Swarm (Free subscription) | 10/28/2009
Brooklyn’s Ben Perowsky shuttles between the worlds of jazz and rock, backing everyone from John Zorn to Steely Dan’s Walter Becker. His solo nod, Opus Esopus, will register as a jazz disc to the casual ear, but it includes interpretations of Beatles and Hendrix songs alongside his own originals. Meanwhile, his band Moodswing Orchestra’s self-titled release is a studio assemblage...
The Concert Blog (Free subscription) | 10/26/2009
The voice was still there, strained and squeezed at times, but alive and electric and calling to the crowd from the 70s like out of some long dark tunnel of time. But there he was: Donald Fagen, lording over the Fender Rhodes center-stage Sunday night at the Masonic Center in SF, leading a 13-piece band through two hours of [...]
PA Pundits (Free subscription) | 10/25/2009
Today’s music video is ‘Reelin’ In The Years’ from Steely Dan. This video was posted to You Tube by evilOlive Steely Dan has been a loose coalition of many musicians grouped around the two main originators of the band Donald Fagen and Walter Becker. Before they formed Steely Dan, they actually had a former band with Chevy [...]
Sacramento Bee (Free subscription) | 10/19/2009
Steely Dan's Walter Becker. Pop music longevity being what it is, Steely Dan's surprisingly visible second act comes as a revelation. The multi-Grammy- winning, Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductees have survived a 19-year break in public performances and a 20-year break between studio albums in a willfully uncoventional career. Their current emergence as a major concert draw during a time of dwindling...
Word Magazine blogs (Free subscription) | 10/16/2009
I have come across a couple of odd facts recently, which were new to me if no-one else, about people who are now well known in other fields, but whose first ambition seems to have been Pop Star. It made me wonder if there are the other examples. The slightly diverse names that made me think of this were Chevy Chase, drummer in Donald Fagen and Walter Becker’s first band, and Kevin Kennedy (Curly...
FlashlightNews (Free subscription) | 10/15/2009
The new IDEAL Digital Light Meter (61-686) precisely measures incandescent, fluorescent, metal halide, high-pressure sodium and halogen lamp output, yet carries an MSRP of only $139 (U.S.), or about 25% less than competitive light meters with similar feature-sets.
M80s Soundtrack for an 80s Generation (Free subscription) | 10/03/2009
'Flaunt the Imperfection' was the 3rd album released by China Crises and was produced by Walter Becker (of Steely Dan fame) and reached number 9 in the UK Albums Chart in May 1985. According to the album credits, China Crisis was now officially a quintet consisting of Daly, Lundon, Johnson, Wilkinson, and Becker. However, Becker never appeared with the band, and the subsequent tour featured new keyboardist...
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