By Cameron Crowe Rolling Stone Their new album, held throughout product-glutted summer for just the right moment, accidentally came out the same afternoon as the new Rolling Stones LP. Their first tour in three years was canceled. They haven’t had a hit single since 1974’s “Rikki Don’t Lost That Number.” And still, their sixth and […]
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Steely Dan dare to give a more-open-than-usual interview
By Sylvie Simmons Sounds Magazine It’s not every day that Steely Dan bare their souls to the public. But amid the palm trees and coke bottles at the Bel Air Hotel, all was revealed — if not all, at least a lot for Steely Dan. Warning: at times this interview degenerates into the Becker and Fagan […]
Fancy Dan
Nobody’s making better music than an unlikely duo named after a dildo Originally published on Feb. 18, 1977 By Arthur Lubow New Times Magazine “Very fancy music,” says William Burroughs. He is listening to Black Friday, a rollicking rock and roll song about a stock market crash. He has agreed to hear the music of Steely Dan in the […]
Steely Dan: The Royal Scam Review
Originally published on Aug. 24, 1976 By Bud Scoppa Circus Donald Fagen and Walter Becker don’t play by the rules. They won’t tour, they won’t talk to interviewers, they won’t keep a band together — instead they prefer to ship out their best players to the Doobie Brothers and hire hand-picked freelance musicians for specific parts […]
Recluse Rock
Originally published on Aug. 23, 1976 By Janet Maslin and Dewey Gram Newsweek There is something forbidding, even menacing, about them. When they played backup for Jay and the Americans, they were nicknamed “Manson and Starkweather.” But now that singer-keyboardist Donald Fagen and guitarist Walter Becker are the nucleus of Steely Dan, perhaps the best […]
Steely Dan: Art for Art’s Sake
In the space of five albums in four years, Steely Dan have created arguably the best rock music, and certainly the most erudite, of the Seventies. Michael Watts talks to its founders and songwriters, Donald Fagen and Walter Becker Originally published on June 19, 1976 By Michael Watts Melody Maker Donald Fagen and Walter Becker […]
‘Katy Lied’: The truth is superfine
Originally published on May 4, 1975 STEELY DAN: ‘KATY LIED’ (ABC Records ABCL 5094). YOU KNOW how it is with these aces: first time, you think, human tasty muzak; next play, you start to ge hooked onto a melody here and there and a fragment or two of those enigmatic lyrics; the third time around […]
Steely Dan: Katy Lied
Originally published on May 1, 1975 By Steven Rosen Circus Raves EIGHT-THIRTY PM. On the sixteenth story of a monster New York skyscraper a lonely light shone at the end of a cavernous floor. The deserted space was a storage center for office furniture; 36 desks piled up, dozens of sofas in heaps, desks, swivel […]
Showbiz Kids: Talking with Jeff Baxter, and a Critical View of Steely Dan
By Chris Briggs ZigZag Magazine Interviewing an American musician is a unique experience. The inevitable myth precedes actuality. Three Steely Dan albums and 18 months of impressions formed within the confines of one’s own stereo systems and no opportunity to see the band play live. Simple manipulation of the media guarantees “cult band” status, and […]
Band Breakdown: Steely Dan
Originally published on June 1, 1974 By Chris Welch Melody Maker Steely Dan, in their short time together, have been hailed as one of the best bands to emerge from America in a long time. They have set the US rock scene back on a road to musical creativity, and helped free it from the […]
