Steely Dan's "Do it Again" dissected.
 

If you like music, you owe it to yourself to take 20 minutes and have a listen to this:

MITM Clips: Christian Hand Dissects Steely Dan - 100.3 The Sound

Lots of little surprises in the dialogue, (Skunk Baxter! Who knew?)

Anyway, try this with your morning coffee today...

Cool.

The Skunk bit is not the full story.

"Baxter fell into his second profession almost by accident. In the mid-1980s, Baxter's interest in music recording technology led him to wonder about hardware and software that was originally developed for military use, i.e. data-compression algorithms and large-capacity storage devices. As it happened, his next-door neighbor was a retired engineer who had worked on the Sidewinder missile program. This neighbor bought Baxter a subscription to Aviation Week magazine, provoking his interest in additional military-oriented publications and missile defense systems in particular. He became self-taught in this area, and at one point he wrote a five-page paper that proposed converting the ship-based anti-aircraft Aegis missile into a rudimentary missile defense system. He gave the paper to California Republican congressman Dana Rohrabacher, and his career as a defense consultant began."

Heard that yesterday, very well done.


Didja catch the deadhead joke at the beginning?


Q) what did the grateful dead fan say after he ran out of pot?

A) hey man, this music kinda sucks .....

Have you seen the ASIA DVD?
The two guys sit at a huge mixing board and pan in/out the different studio musicians that played on a bunch of tracks.

I have. The Michael McDonald part is pretty funny. It must have been hell for him to sing that part that many times!

What a great way to start my day! Thanks for that! I've always enjoyed Steely Dan even though I didn't (and still don't) know all the background info on the lyrics, being they're so cryptic. Whenever I hear Steely Dan come on the radio I always think that everything is right with the world at that moment. I saw them live in 1996 here at Nat Bailey stadium; it's a small quaint ball park. That was a treat, and so was this link to dissecting "do it again". Thanks again!

Awesome!. Thanks for the link. It brought back memories of listening to the vinyl cranked through headphones.

I started listening to Dan in 1974 and even though I didn't know much about them, my ears would just zone in every time I heard them. It wasn't until years later that I found out how intensely intricate and exacting they were in the studio. They definitely knew that "less is more". They had such a great groove. AFAIK, they never did live work.

Fun trivia: the band's name came from the name of a dildo in a novel "Naked Lunch". :eek:

Perfect lunch time fare. Thank you!

It is rare for them to perform live because they are essentially studio producers who hire various studio musicians to work on their albums. They are touring this year though. Of course Walter Becker and Donald Fagen are the core duo musicians but the rest of the band is fluid. As to performance, they don't really "perform" as in put on a show for the audience; they are rather dry in that respect. I Googled Steely Dan at Nat Bailey and found this review from that concert. It was 19 years ago and so it's interesting to read the review which fills in some parts of my faded memory.
Live Review: Steely Dan, Nat Bailey Stadium, August 16, 1996

It's too bad we don't know anyone who plays in a steely dan style of band ...

I enjoyed the clip. I'm passing it onto a friend of mine who is a big SD and Doobie Bros fan.

If you look at the studio musicians that participated in their albums, it is top shelf talent.

Very cool, Oberst...especially Skunk's contribution..thank you!



Hey Scott...is this what you are referring to? Very cool...

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SD toured '72-'74, then retired from the road and broke up after Gaucho in '81. They returned to touring in '93, and have been fairly consistent since. I've seen them a baker's dozen times, though not the last few tours. The Making of Aja DVD is pretty good for showing how they think and just how crazy they were in the studio. Definitely one of the best song-writing teams ever.

As for Do It Again, in-flight wifi won't let me see it. But that song really changed the world of radio. While there certainly was plenty of great music that was on both AM and then the emerging FM radio stations, nothing quite like SD had hit yet. You drop the needle on that song, the groove starts, and you're somewhere else, with a handle in your hand...

Hah, around 6:15 in, "...guitar doubling the Bass....an early Detective kind of thing.."

Nice nod to a great but obscure band.

I loved that clip!!! Gave me goosebumps hearing the various parts dissected.

Thanks for posting this, I thoroughly enjoyed it. I somehow had the album at about 10-11 years old and really liked that particular song but never got much further into it. In my early 20's I was listening to Aja regularly. I need to dig further into their catalog. I always have liked their music.

That radio clip is super fun but it's really frustrating to hear all the detail terminology misused.

If anyone wants it, I have the entire multi-track recording.

https://mega.co.nz/#!R4gnlBLY!KgEcHQ6ECxWWvWqHb9SUMiNB2KhsP9uctaMATTd 6sgw

Open it with an open source recording program called Audacity

My father played Steely Dan religiously when i was growing up.

It wasnt until my 20's that I really got the lyrics. Was like opening a birthday gift.

LOL, my dad played Dave Brubeck. I still haven't gotten the lyrics ;)

Holy crap!! Thank you, Wolfe!

What a cool,cool musical experience. I spent 2 hours going over every single track and it's just incredible hearing parts that I've been listening to for 30 years and realizing I've never actually HEARD them. They say that mixing music is like killing your children, but how they buried Skunk's track that far down in the mix is beyond me.

Again Wolfe, a very heartfelt Thank You.

Finally got to listen to the piece. Love isolated tracks but best to ignore the commentary and just listen to the parts. Skunk's work on that track is pretty crazy and the nice thing about the isolated track is you can hear some of the comping and figures that are adding the spice to the tune.

I think every drummer should listen to Hodder's drum track, then the final mix, then the isolated drum track again. Simple and clean wins. Also it is always interesting to hear an isolated bass track which often sounds somewhat ugly alone but sits perfectly in a mix.

Thanks for that link. Absolutely fabulous. Been a Dan Fan since the beginning. Saw one of their last shows in DC in '72. Wow

LOL, airhead bimbo in background feeling left out because no one is paying attention to her: "it's so ominous".

Shaddup!

Just finished Donald Fagan's book, Eminent Hipsters. Interesting read for those wanting some insight into his quite eccentric personality. He talks about growing up in New Jersey and the influences that shaped his musical style. Not much about SD, though he does share a lot of stories about being on tour with Michael McDonald & Boz Scaggs in their band, 'The Dukes of September'.

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1434689353.jpg


Try these two albums for starters...from '74 & '75:

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1434689693.jpg

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1434689959.jpg

Hey that's my radio station! Cool tracks, thanks for sharing.

I've been a Steely Dan fan forever and we have covered several of their tunes over the years. We saw them live a couple of times in the 90s and the band was great except the hired-gun LA lead guitarist who just overplayed terribly.

'93 was Drew Zingg, '94 was Georg Wadenius (both are on the "Alive in America" album). For '96, Wayne Krantz was on guitar. Jon Herrington joined in '00 and has been on guitar ever since.

For drummers, Peter Erskine was '93, Dennis Chambers was '94. For '96 it was Ricky Lawson (RIP), and he toured in '00 as well, with Keith Carlock taking over since '03.

Zingg and Wadenius were fairly busy players and Krantz has his own thing going on. Herrington really has nailed the role where he honors the spirit of the original solos while doing his own thing.

Wayne. Gobs of technical skill but missed the whole groove of the Dan IMO. I hate to call out another guitarist because we all miss the mark sometimes but sheesh, buy a theme and let that axe breathe a little bit! I've seen him in other settings where he fit it really well but sadly this was not his night.

I agree that Herrington shines playing live with these guys. Always a respectful hat-tip to the original solo while tastefully adding his own touch.

fwiw I didn't really dig any of the guys playing live until Herrington, and even then it took him a few tours to really get inside the tunes. Starting in '03 he came into his own with the band.

Oddly enough, when Larry Carlton sat in for the "Royal Scam" night in 2009, I though Herrington seriously outplayed him. Herrington was totally at ease with the tunes while Carlton was half-reading and just not particularly inspired.

I am a big Carlton fan as well but he can sometimes be hot and cold live. There are nights he just owns the room from the downbeat, and other nights he never really settles in. I suffer this as well sometimes. I need to get in touch with the room and if the sound is off or I can't hear myself I can't just relax and play. Those nights are like all work.

Wow! Very cool! Like seeing an engine built from the foundry up. I would like to hear more dissections of songs. Very cool. Thank you for posting this.

Love them and have for many, many years.

I've seen them every chance I could since they started touring again in earnest in the early 90's. I have tickets already for an August show.

They're certainly not showmen on stage, but the music is the thing, anyway. I don't go to see them dance.

It has always fascinated me that while their songs sound fairly innocuous to most folks, they almost always talk about the underside of humanity---truly sex, drugs and rock and roll.

Hells yeah!!!! Wolfe, you have any more of those multitracks you want to share?:D

I remember when Aja came out. I was living in the UC Berkeley dorms. Every guy had a killer stereo in his room, or as killer as a college student could afford. We all bought the "master" pressing of the album, or rented it, recorded it on our very best chrome tape, then listened to the tape while reserving our LP for special occasions. On really special occasions, we'd connect the oscilloscope to the pre-amp and work on chemically assisted mind expansion. Some of us actually managed to graduate.

I think the new biopic of the beach boys will recreate a lot of the studio stuff from the '60's. I'm not their biggest fan, but that should be fun to see.

And here's just the strings from Eleanor Rigby...

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I would not mind seeing some of the really intense Beach Boys stuff broken down like this, you know, Pet Sounds.

I noticed there are links at the bottom of the original site that has 8 pages of other station recording segments - some are dissections of other songs.
Here's one :
Dissecting Queen, Beatles, Marvin Gaye and The Stones - 100.3 The Sound