Steely Dan are one of my favorite bands. Their music has always been beyond easy description: smooth yet quirky; whimsical yet secretly black-hearted; cool yet utterly nerdy; classic yet completely fresh.
For me, they were the soundtrack to life in Los Angeles, and this song shows why.
It's Babylon Sisters, live.
Friday, August 15, 2008
Listening Post
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16 comments:
I'll never forget the first time I threw Aja into the CD player, lit one up, and slunk back into my chair. Wayne Shorter's saxophone is ringing in my head as I type this...
That's why it's California music -- it brings to mind getting high then driving your classic gun-metal gray Mercedes roadster out of the Hollywood Hills at sunset with the top down and a big, stupid, satisfied smile on your face.
Isn't that the band Seth Rogen makes fun of in Knocked Up? I'm not making fun of your taste at all. I know people who really like them.
He says they gargle his balls, which they don't really (even though it's a damn funny thing to say).
Steely Dan is an all-American band that is completely subversive in lyrical content.
The essence says, "I would and will give protest, but I'm very sedated at the moment, tranquilized even. I'll be more vehement when the drugs wear off."
I love hearing "Hey Nineteen" in the local supermarket, while the other shoppers obliviously dodder about w/out knowing what's gracing their ears.
Suavely subversive.
Jesus, are you Donald Fagen?
The subtle joke here is the play on the title; it can refer to a prostitute, "Babylon Sister," or it can refer to the activities transpiring, "Babble on, sister," a very attractive companion w/out a lick of substance coming out of her mouth.
An underrated American original.
I am Recondite, and so are they.
Have a good day.
There's nothing as crisp or as clean than Dan... Want to see what your expensive stereo's got? Pop this or Aja in and crank it up, you'll find out whether your amp or speakers can handle it...
Swooping down in the short plane are the grammarians reminding you that Steely Dan IS one of your favorite bands. And it IS one of theirs too.
I realize that Grammar Nazis will point out that it's wrong, but I've always broken the rules and referred to bands as "they." It's how I roll, deal with it. : )
Dude, you're a writer. Steely Dan IS one of my favorite bands.
What are you, my 10th grade English teacher? Listen, anal-retentive -- I'm pretty good about grammar around here, so if I choose to use what's become an acceptable social variant, you're either gonna have to let it go or sit there fuming because everything isn't just so.
I'd suggest the former.
Making fun of Steely Dan fans has become sort of a cottage industry among recording engineers and live sound guys. There's a really great industry mag called TapeOp that does this annual thing ripping them down.
The thing about it is, they're not ripping the band itself (because how can you not love Steely Dan?) but their albums for years were held up as benchmarks of what a perfect recording at the time should sound like, which put them in the perfect place to have pot shots taken at them from the peanut gallery.
It's almost become an inside joke of sorts.
Great song pick, as always.
Yeah I'm going to have to brook the other anonymous because, while technically "Steely Dan is" correct, most people who are "in the know" concerning the band members (collaborative b/t Becker/Fagen) refer to the band/them as "they."
I hear noobs ask questions like, "So which one is Dan?"
I have to tell them to go read Burroughs to understand the reference, then they give up at the prospect of unexpected intellectual labor: "Well just tell me what it is."
Boo fucking hoo.
Go back to Barry Town, noob.
Hell motherfucking yeah.
Dan, Steely
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