MACK #66: Steely Dan

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Hello again friends!

This week is all about Steely Dan!

In my should-be-quite-a-bit-humbler opinion there are 3 types of people. A) Casual Steely Dan Fans; B) More-Than-Casual Steely Dan Fans and C) Our Dave.

I’m a “B” on the above scale. I love Steely Dan. As a matter of fact, if you happened to catch the episode of the show on our Top 10 Favorite Albums of All Time, you may remember that “Aja” was my number one. And! you also may remember that our Dave placed Steely Dan’s “The Royal Scam” as well as Donald Fagen’s solo effort “The Night Fly” on his list.

Maybe you think you are an “A” or maybe even an “I don’t know any Steely Dan songs” type of person. Let me assure you that you do know more songs than you think you do. There are a lot of hits and also quite a few retroactive hits — songs that may not have been played on the radio a ton when they were released, but somehow they’ve found their way onto the airwaves nowadays. Perhaps that’s due to a good number of these songs being placed into a decent chunk of tv and movie soundtracks.

In this episode we talk about the history of Steely Dan and go through those first seven classic albums that are still considered some of the best contemporary music ever made.  Donald Fagen and Walter Becker were well-known for driving producers, musicians and probably any one who would listen to them crazy with their absolute need for perfection.

On one song, Babylon Sisters, they went so far as to create 50+ takes just on the fade out. So, yeah, we’re talking about a ridiculous level of attention to detail here.

We go through the hits, play some early stuff and discuss “The Lost Gaucho” bootleg album. The story behind the song “The Second Arrangement” as well as the behind-the-scenes insanity surrounding “Gaucho” are legendary. So much so that the end result was the end of the Steely Dan era that we all know and love.

So, crank up your stereo, your boom box or your cellphone and listen along as we discuss and pay tribute to the one and only

Steely Dan.

XOXO
Sheckster

PS! If you are interested in downloading “The Lost Gaucho” tracks, you can find them as part of this very informative blog post!

>> Click here for THE LOST GAUCHO tracks <<

PPS! There is an amazing one hour documentary on the Making of Aja that all Steely Dan fans should watch.

 

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