By Jerry McCulley Amazon.com Steely Dan’s Walter Becker and Donald Fagen aren’t exactly providing their undivided attention as they check in via phone from New York to promote Two Against Nature, their first studio album in 20 years. “There’s a cartoon on the TV here with the sound off. This one concerns a disconcerted beaver, I would say,” notes […]
Tag Archives | Donald Fagen
Becker and Fagen Do It Again
By Eric Deggans St. Petersburg Times As might be expected from a group named after a fictional sex toy, Steely Dan masterminds Walter Becker and Donald Fagen present a cynically hilarious, though sometimes confused, demeanor in person. Taking on interviewers like two tag team wrestlers over the telephone, the duo makes sure that — whatever […]
Classic of the Week: ‘The Nightowl’
By Jon Matsumoto Los Angeles Times Adjectives like warm and nostalgic rarely are applied to the cynical and bittersweet music of Steely Dan. But they certainly describe the moods evoked by 1982’s The Nightfly, the first solo album by the cryptic band’s singer, Donald Fagen. Working apart from the barbed sensibilities of his Steely Dan partner Walter Becker, Fagen fashioned […]
Fagen Does Dan; Dan Does It Again
By Geoffery Himes Washington Post Donald Fagen’s first album in 11 years, Kamakiriad, can be judged from two different perspectives. On the one hand, it marries tartly ironic lyrics with lush jazz harmonies in ways well beyond the reach of today’s ambitious pop-rock composers from Sting and Billy Joel to Mark Knopfler and Brenda Russell. […]
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 […]
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, […]
