What a pile of old tosh!

I like Asia, and while fully accepting the corporate rock accusation that gets leveled at them, they do know a good tune when they write one. Their studio albums, all through their career, have been well produced and generally sound great. So why can't they make a decent live album?

And it's not just them. I love a live album although I'm aware not everybody does. They can, however, be an excuse for profiteering and what we might politely term sharp practice (aka stealing). The Asia box set Quadra is a case in point. When I saw it for a fair price at Missing Records I bought it on the theory that not all 4 discs could be terrible. Wrong. Lightly burnished audience tapes, the worst of which was probably recorded some miles from the venue, and the best standing next to one of "those" concert goers. You know the one who recognises every song with a sigh or a whoop.
Overall a 3 out of 10 at best.

The money for old rope trick seems to be getting performed ever more regularly when it comes to live albums. The internet is full of places to download rubbish radio shows, bootlegs in fact, but you can pay for the self same shows on Amazon. Steely Dan, who frankly have only themselves to blame for the market in substandard shows, currently have about 20 albums usually of the same couple of broadcast concerts from 1974 and 1993. The most blatant is an audio rip of their PBS concert from 2000 available officially on DVD.

Of course the artists and their representatives see no benefit from these releases by and large. Although they do on occasion promote them as if they do. There are two well known shows by Renaissance that have been bootlegged for years. They were released by a proper record label (Cleopatra) in 2015, but this one at least has had no work to improve it at all as far as I can tell. The first few minutes have badly phasing which is still present on the paid for version. These were pushed by the official band outlets as new quality product.

As a fan I'm interested in hearing anything worthwhile by the artists I follow, hwoever I can honestly say that I have only ever come across a couple of bootlegs, or ROIO (Records Of Illegitimate/Indeterminate Origins) that I think are worth the attention*. They are:

Steely Dan: Mannassas 1996.
Procol Harum: Aalborg 2003
Yes: Union Tour London 1991
Phish: Chula Vista 1997

Probably a couple more but I can't think of them at present. The above all available on Amazon and
for free in some of the murkier corners of the web. Somehow I have avoided the part of the collecting bug that involves owning every note ever played by a given band or artist, preferring to stick to what they think is worth passing onto the public. Asia seem particularly prone to foisting substandard live product on us. Leaving aside a few of their more recent releases which have had the full DVD/CD treatment they are mostly ROIO in all but name.

*For the record I was indoctrinated by Robert Fripp's maxim about recording of live shows being like taking notes of a private conversation early on - so radio shows tend to be as far into this murky world as I get.

Excuses, Excuses

  A long gap between posts I'm afraid. Brought on by the busyness of business, but there have been some goings on in music recently that I felt compelled to comment on so...

Bill Nelson

No secret that Bill is a huge favourite of mine. He is also someone who seems to reflect the ever increasing trend to stumble into the future focussed relentlessly on the past. He writes a regular journal on his website. the latest (as I write) is here. Bill is producing more and better work than he has ever done but is again being forced to revisit work that he regards as juvenalia - Be Bop Deluxe were a good band but a recent article in Shindig and doubtless the upcoming one he refers to in Classic Rock will pick over their bones and pass over the subsequent 40 years and hundreds of recordings with barely a nod. I sympathise with Bill and wish that he and other artists could be allowed the spotlight for their current work that it deserves.

I suspect (as from his comments I think Bill does as well) that the power of Facebook may have helped sell this event out in record time, and given that the Facebook groups that helped the sell out seem to have the same myopia about anything other than Be Bop Deluxe, then he may be right that there will be some disappointed fans clutching armfuls of 70s LPs to be signed. This means that many of his very loyal current following go without, me included. While I think some of the comments being expressed on the website message board are a little OTT, it would be nice for Bill to have a supportive crowd, especially if there is a question mark over him playing live again.

Over The Rhine

Another favourite. Sometime ago they did a a crowd funder covering three new albums. While I'm of the persuasion that would listen to Karin Bergquist sing a shopping list, I was pleased to see that there will be a new piano album from Linford included. I recently bought the only one of his earlier ones that I didn't have, "Unspoken Requests" and it's now a fixture on the iPod. If you don't know about Over The Rhine, catch up here. Hopefully more shows in the UK at some point. St Georges Hall in Bristol would be a great venue for them. HINT!

Steely Dan

Or the Donald Fagen band as it should really be now. While I could care less about current goings on, the hope that DF's chase for dollars will also include some expanded reissues and some more proper live albums, rather than bootleg radio shows, is on. As a side note Jazz Journal, which I read occasionally, but is very much stuck in 1966 made a comment in it's blurb for last months issue that Steely Dan had no place in a Jazz magazine. Oh come on! Surely we are past that! The irony that this comment was supporting an interview with guitarist Steve Khan (Aja, Gaucho) and that elsewhere in the magazine was a report on new interpretations of some of Donald's songs and a feature on Chris Potter, stalwart of the 90s band is clearly lost on whoever wrote that.

EMusic

I have winged about the demise of this once great service before, but have finally paused my membership to give it three months to get it's act together. Not going to happen I'm afraid but as most of my saved for later list disappeared months ago, and Frontiers Records vanished in September I struggled to use up my allocation last quarter. So bye bye EMusic, fun while it lasted.

There got that off my chest, back to work.

Steely Dan - Ultimate Music Guide

From previous posts you will have worked out that I'm quite keen on Steely Dan, so I was pleased to see Uncut add them to their Ultimate Music Guide series. These magazines are a great way of getting started with an artist, I have bought several, The Byrds, Van Morrison, & The Beach Boys issues all sent me off to the record shop.

With the Steely Dan one I have better insider knowledge and while it is very good, certainly making anything I could write to advise you where to start redundant, there are gaps...

The first is that as far as I can see nowhere does the song F.M. get a mention. It won awards and was released in various versions which surely gives it trainspotter appeal.

Number two nit-pick is the Hoops McCann Band. Named after a character in "Glamour Profession" (Steely Dan fans love this stuff) their "Plays the Music Of Steely Dan" album is a Jazz-lite set of covers. Not a musical sensation but part of the lore. And lore is one of the important things about Becker and Fagen. Bard College, Jay & The Americans, Chevy Chase, Muswellbrook... If you don't know what I'm talking about then catch up with Brian Sweet's excellent Biography called "Reelin' In the Years" (what else). If you ever see his other book "Complete Guide to the Music of Steely Dan" for less than ridiculous Amazon prices grab it. As a supplement to the interviews in the Ultimate Music Guide get Barney Hoskyns' "Major Dudes: A Steely Dan Companion". There is a small overlap of interviews, but not enough to matter.

Something else that is of interest to the train spotter in me are Steely Dan covers.

Woody Herman's "Chick, Donald, Walter & Woodrow" marries a suite from Chick Corea with five Steely Dan songs, far more effective big band Dan than Hoops McCann.

Herbie Hancock covered 'Your Gold Teeth II' on "The New Standard", an album by the way that is high up on the list of best Jazz albums of recent years.

"The Nightfly" has attracted its share of easy listening covers. Mel Torme took on 'The Goodbye Look' and 'Walk Between the Raindrops' on his Reunion album with Marty Paich, (whose son David covered Bodhisattva with Toto), and the Four Freshmen had a stab at Maxine and I.G.Y.

Best covers? The Pointer Sisters' take on Dirty Work clearly influenced Steely Dan's own live arrangement of recent years.

 Wilco's version of 'Any Major Dude' is good as is 'King Of The World' from Joe Jackson. Oddly Waylon Jennings managed a not bad rendition of 'Do It Again'..

Buy the Steely Dan Ultimate Music Guide, if you are a fan or not. Becker and Fagen make good copy whatever your opinion of their music. Personally I love it and am patiently waiting for Donald to get his finger out and release some better live albums and proper expanded editions of the albums.

Postcript: 

My dwindling opinion of Donald Fagen took another hit this week with the headline "Steely Dan Singer Donald Fagen Sues Bandmate Walter Becker's Estate". While it's hardly the first unseemly scrap for control of a band name, Yes do it every second Thursday after all, the comments in my obituary of Walter Becker stand.

Walter Becker

There have been lots of eloquent tributes to Walter Becker, but these are a few random personal thoughts.

I've mentioned before how I came by some of my early music choices, none have stayed with me as consistently as Steely Dan. I joined the party with 'Aja' which arrived for Christmas 1977. It opened up new possibilities in music for me. From there I explored backwards and found riches that have lasted me a lifetime.

The guitar solo on "Home At Last" grabbed me early on, but because of the obtuse way credits were handed out didn't know had played it for some time. Of course at age 14 I didn't appreciate the finer points of Becker and Fagen's humour, so the liner notes were lost on me.

I came to recognise and appreciate Walter's guitar work, he had a clear bluesy tone as biting as his sarcasm. He is as has been observed many times in the last few days a greatly undervalued player, the equal of the high calibre names that pepper Steely Dan albums. I saw them live at Wembley in 1996 and his relaxed demeanour on stage remains the epitome of cool, leaning back into a solo on one of his understated Sadowsky guitars.

Oddly one of the best showcases for his guitar playing is on Donald Fagen's 'Kamakiriad' where he played pretty much all the guitar & bass (apparently because it was easier to do it himself as he was on board anyway as producer). Listen to "Countermoon", "Springtime" and "Tomorrows Girls" for Becker at his best.  His own solo albums showed that it was Becker who put the nip in Steely Dan's lyrics, try "Cringemaker" and "Lucky Henry" on '11 Tracks of Whack'.

Donald Fagen's promise to continue as Steely Dan is a bit questionable for me. Walter Becker was every bit as much Steely Dan as he is, without him it is just the Donald Fagen band. You Tube video's from earlier this year show an ill looking man so he may have dropped out of touring anyway. Fagen's voice is not what it was so perhaps time to retire the band with dignity.

My top Becker tunes.
Hey Nineteen from Gaucho. One of the best Becker bass lines, meshing with the drums (Wendell or Steve Gadd? Who knows)
Book Of Liars from Alive in America, his best solo tune and proof he should have sung more
Jack Of Speed, heard on tour in 1996, better than the version on Two Against Nature
Glamour Profession from Gaucho, the essence of Steely Dan distilled into 7 minutes.
Home At Last from Aja, one of their best and they knew it from the comments on the Aja sleevenotes
Shame About Me and Cousin Dupree from Two Against Nature, great lyrics

and too many more to mention...

The best tributes to Walter Becker

From his daughter Sayan
From Rickie Lee Jones
From John Beasley

The Dark Side

This started out as an Artist Choice about Steely Dan. I will get to that soon but for now I've been diverted by the vexed subject of Bootlegs.

A year or so ago I wrote to Shindig Magazine about the fact that they reviewed so many live albums that were defacto Bootlegs. I was letter of the month and there were some furious replies from fans who had to possess every note ever uttered by their heroes, seemingly regardless of whether their heroes got paid or not.

Robert Fripp has some decided views on Bootlegging which I read around 1979. The thought that "it's rather like taking notes of a personal conversation to circulate or publish later" stuck. This remember was written many years before the mobile phone became a fixture at shows; "This is a peculiar custom that one should listen to music through the lens of a camera and I don't like being put in a situation where the sound, the atmosphere is being punctured by theft". The above comes from an article that appeared in Musician magazine, Bootlegging, Royalties and the Moment, find it online.

So the connection to Steely Dan? They have despite much touring in the last 20 years or so released only one highly unsatisfactory live album "Alive in America" in 1995. At least a dozen high quality recordings that sound as professionally produced as the official disc circulate online, and some, notably a recording from Missouri in 1993 get pressed up and sold as legitimate product. Often claimed as a radio show, online samples reveal a soundboard feed with prominent vocals & next to no keyboards or bass. There is also a set of pre Steely Dan demos that are currently available on Amazon as 25 different releases.

Why is this a problem? Donald Fagen has been vocal recently about the fact that there is no income from his old albums any more. While I suspect he protests too much (at least slightly) with a new vinyl edition of The Nightfly coming out and Steely Dan albums doing as well as or better than many other artists of a similar vintage; the fact that there are legitimate outlets, like Amazon, iTunes and eMusic selling fraudulent material in his name without the courtesy of paying him, or indeed the currently ill & unable to tour Walter Becker is doubtless galling.

One possible answer of course would be to release some of the hoard of live tapes and unreleased material himself. In the day of the super deluxe edition he is clearly missing out on a revenue stream. So Bootlegs are bad but Donald think before you whinge.

I Think I'll Make A Playlist or How I Learnt to Love Weird Stuff.

When I started taking music seriously in the mid/late 1970s money was at a minimum so I had my cassette recorder attached to the radio much as everyone else did. So my early listening was nearly all playlists, made up of tapes of stuff from Radio 1. Early on I got organised and had the contents of my tapes written down in exercise books so I could find a given song when it was required. The random nature of recording stuff off the radio meant that the tapes weren't planned and as I always had a fairly broad taste you could find Punk next to Prog next to Pop.

I think the broad taste came from early exposure to some slightly unusual choices of early records and most importantly the radio. Having a Dad who owned a TV shop meant I had a rather better stereo than many 12 year olds, but not much to play on it. My first (proper) single was nearly 'Bohemian Rhapsody' but John Menzies in Keynsham were out of stock so Mum came back with 10CC's 'Art for Arts Sake' for god's sake. My first L.P. was a copy of The Moody Blues 'In Search of the Lost Chord' that got left in our shop, I played it for a few weeks, failed to understand what was going on and moved onto my first album choice E.L.O's 'A New World Record'. Then the world shifted. I started listening to John Peel in the middle of 1977, and was hooked quickly. Received wisdom says he was playing punk and only punk then, well over the first year or so as well as the first play of the Sex Pistols album with the thrill of hearing 'God Save The Queen' then "banned" on the BBC, I heard him play Little Feat's 'Waiting for Columbus' which remains a favourite, Bob Marley's 'Babylon By Bus' folk, country, Viv Stanshall and Ivor Cutler.

At the same time I was listening to Alan Freeman on a Saturday afternoon. The Friday Rock Show Wiki has some show lists of Freeman's programmes as well and this is a typical one. I could have made that playlist. There was also on Radio 3 of all places a "popular" music show called Sounds Interesting (mmm nice!) hosted by Derek Jewell who introduced me to Joni Mitchell's 'Don Juan's Reckless Daughter', Weather Report's 'Mr Gone', and above all Steely Dan. Aja remains one of my top 5 albums and is as fresh now as when I first heard 'Home At Last' on Sounds Interesting in 1977.

So playlists were important then and important now. I have artist related ones and genre related ones, although these never seem to stay in the categories I tell them to, but the best playlists are still the ones with the unexpected meeting of songs such as Yes' 'Leave It' meshing perfectly with Abba's 'Dancing Queen' , try it you'll see I'm right.

I think Steve Jobs must have had similar early listening experiences to me, how else would he have come up with shuffle feature on iPods. Is it just me or does your iPod have a sixth sense when it comes to shuffling, mine never seems entirely random and often throws up music I wouldn't have picked but suits my mood exactly. Paranoid? Me?