By Dave Ferman
Fort Worth Star-Telegram
You want irony in rock ‘n’ roll?
How about the career of Steely Dan?
In the ’70s, when Walter Becker and Donald Fagen were producing one pop/rock/jazz masterwork after another, they almost never toured.
And now that they’re making decent but unexceptional CDs, they’re practically road dogs.
What a difference a couple of decades can make. Way back when, Fagen and Becker sounded unlike any other band in rock. True, they were not the first band to mix rock and jazz, not by a long shot. But what with the canny use of some of the best players in rock and jazz (among them Michael McDonald, guitarist Jeff “Skunk” Baxter and Fort Worth bassist Chuck Rainey), their songwriting smarts, their off-kilter lyrics and their no-tour policy, they were as much an aura as a band.
Every year, they’d release a new gem with a hit single or two, do a few cryptic interviews and then be gone again, leaving music appreciated by anyone who liked pop radio and by eggheads who were also into, say, Frank Zappa and King Crimson.
And then, after the cool, creamy “Gaucho” in 1980 — nada. Fagen made a couple of decent solo records, Becker moved to Hawaii, and that appeared to be that.
But no. The pair embarked on their first tour in 19 years in 1993, now playing huge arenas and sheds, their ultra-honed sound having grown more respected and loved over the years.
This was followed by their first new music in 20 years, 2000’s “Two Against Nature,” an easy-on-the-ears collection that took home four Grammys, including the biggie, Album of the Year. The Dan were now embraced as members in full standing of the classic-rock fraternity.
And just two years later, the band returned with a new studio CD, “Everything Must Go,” which, like “Nature,” is smooth, tuneful, tasteful — and utterly without the sort of inventiveness and surprise of classic records such as “Katy Lied” or “Pretzel Logic.” Too safe by half, the newer records have long stretches that sound like a very good imitation of Steely Dan, rather than building on the legacy of their fantastic ’70s output.
Live, we can expect a selection of songs from the two recent records, a few Fagen solo songs and a whole bunch of the hits, such as “My Old School,” “Peg” and “Rikki Don’t Lose That Number.” Which is, after all, what we’ll be there for.
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