By Curtis Schieber Columbus Dispatch “Agents of the law / Luckless pedestrian / I know you’re out there / With rage in your eyes and your megaphones,” Donald Fagen sang during “Don’t Take Me Alive” in Steely Dan’s second set on Saturday night in the Value City Arena. Thousands in the audience joined in for […]
Steely Dan Goes Back in Time to 1979
By Bobby Reed Chicago Sun-Times Examples of irony, riddles and perversion have been prevalent in Steely Dan’s lyrics for over 30 years. The same is true for the duo’s relationship with the road. They didn’t tour when they had big hits, and two decades later, they toured without new material. Walter Becker (guitar, bass) and […]
Contemplating end of the world
By John Soeder Cleveland Plain Dealer Even if “discorporating” really is a word — sorry, it’s not in our dictionary — who uses it in everyday conversation? Those wise guys in Steely Dan, that’s who. We were talking about the upgrades at Blossom Music Center, where singer-keyboardist Donald Fagen and bassist-guitarist Walter Becker bring their […]
Decades Later, Steely Dan Still Vital Force
By Rick Shefchik St. Paul Pioneer Press ST. PAUL, Minn. — If any ’70s-era band should have survived to play arena concerts and win Grammys in the 21st century, it would be Steely Dan. After all, they were an anachronism in their own time, just as they are today. While other groups, then as now, […]
Having another ‘Go’ with Dan
By Greg Kot Chicago Tribune Donald Fagen and Walter Becker chuckle when they recall the night they derailed the Eminem victory train at the Grammy Awards in 2001. The Steely Dan duo had just walked away with an unexpected triumph for album of the year, their “Two Against Nature” pulling an upset over the rapper’s […]
Muzak for the Masses?
Radiohead and Steely Dan reach the limits of their experimentation By Bret McCabe Baltimore City Paper First off, forget everything you already think you know about Radiohead. Yeah, it’s a big task. The band has spent the past six years either being the biggest band on the planet or acting like it: fleeing the limelight […]
Steely Dan Makes a Long-Awaited Return
By Jon Bream Minneapolis Star Tribune Steely Dan is pop music’s most successful recluse. In their heyday from 1972 to 1980, the Dan duo of Donald Fagen and Walter Becker eschewed the stage, touring briefly two or three times. They reunited in 1993 to hit the road, touring regularly in the ’90s before finally releasing […]
Everything’s Going Right for Steely Dan
By Chris Hovan Cleveland Free Times As sophisticated icons of contemporary pop music, Donald Fagen and Walter Becker have secured a space among the landscape of modern mainstream culture. Beginning with 1974’s Pretzel Logic, the pair would lead Steely Dan through a number of quintessential albums that featured a slick blending of pop and jazz […]
Ever-Droll Steely Dan Still Offbeat
Newhouse News Service When Steely Dan released “Two Against Nature” in 2000, it was the band’s first new studio album in 20 years. Now, just three years later, Steely’s colorful co-founders Donald Fagen and Walter Becker are confounding expectations with the release of the comparatively instantaneous studio follow-up album, “Everything Must Go.” Then again, as […]
Recording ‘Everything Must Go’
By George Petersen MixOnline.com It seems like only yesterday that we gazed through the glass at Two Against Nature, the landmark comeback album for Steely Dan. Now, danmeisters Donald Fagen and Walter Becker — the enigmatic showbiz kids who consistently broke all the rules to create some of the coolest mainstream cult-pop on the planet — […]
