After a 19-year hiatus, those sophisticated, subversive jazz punks Walter Becker and Donald Fagen are back to do it again live, out on the road. It’s not some kind of nostalgia sell-out thing, is it? By Chris Willman Los Angeles Times Flash back to the late ’70s, exact date undetermined. You turn on “The Donny […]
Steely Dan Reelin’ Again
By Steve Morse Boston Globe Take two alienated suburban kids. Throw in an early love of jazz, blues and Bohemian culture. Send the youths to Bard College, where they meet and become fast friends. Add a fussy, workaholic nature. Toss in a zest for strangely alluring lyrics that Frank Zappa once dubbed “downer surrealism.” Then add […]
Edgy, Cool Steely Dan Back on Stage and Tour
By Jon Pareles The New York Times As timing goes, now would hardly seem to be the right moment for the first Steely Dan tour since 1974, which came to Madison Square Garden on Wednesday night. Pop music has veered sharply away from everything the group’s core, Donald Fagen and Walter Becker, cared about most. […]
Interview with drummer Peter Erskine
This is a reprint of a 1993 interview that originally appeared in “The Rhythm Section,” a newsletter published by Rhythm Tech, a percussion accessory manufacturing company in Mamaroneck, NY. By Paul G. Hichak Going out on tour with Donald Fagen and Walter Becker a/k/a Steely Dan is supposed to be somewhat of a serious exercise, […]
Donald Fagen’s ‘Kamakiriad’: Words and Music
From the radio show “Words and Music” with Donald Fagen, featuring music from his new Reprise Records release, Kamakiriad. This program was written and produced by Davin Seay, and edited by Rick Dasher for Marc Graue Recording Services, Burbank. Executive producer, Larry Butler. Segment 1 INTERVIEWER: Donald Fagen, it’s been over a decade since one […]
Picking up Where Dan Left Off
By J. D. Considine Baltimore Sun Packaging, they say, is everything, and Donald Fagen’s Kamakiriad (Reprise 45230) is a case in point. Mention to most pop fans that Kamakiriad marks Fagen’s reunion with Walter Becker, and the reaction is likely to be mostly yawns. Explain, however, that Becker and Fagen’s last project was a little […]
Q&A with Donald Fagen
By Chris Willman Los Angeles Times When it rains, it pours for drought-stricken Donald Fagen fans. For starters, this week brings to record stores his first new studio album in 11 years, Kamakiriad. While futuristically themed in part, the record will sound instantly familiar to fans of Steely Dan, with the kind of literate, jazzy […]
Resonant Emotion in Fagen’s Latest
By Richard Cromelin Los Angeles Times Donald Fagen Kamakiriad Reprise The Steely Dan signatures are all in place: jazz chords and female choruses, horn-section sighs and light-funk grooves, lush atmospheres and a sound of amazing presence. But Kamakiriad isn’t just an Aja minor. For the first time, Fagen instills his music with full emotional openness, […]
Kamakiriad Review
By David Browne Entertainment Weekly Both nothing and everything sounds out of place on Kamakiriad (Reprise), the long-delayed return to the record bins of former Steely Dan singer, keyboardist, and jaundiced wit Donald Fagen. Steely Dan was the first slacker pop band, mixing in bits of hipster jazz rhythms and lingo into sardonic pop that […]
