By Stephen Holden New York Times Nearly three years in the making, Steely Dan’s Gaucho (MCA-6102) is as refined as pop music can get without becoming too esoteric for a mass audience. Though it consists of only two men, Steely Dan must be counted one of the most influential rock “groups” of the past decade. […]
Interview with Robert Klein
“If you’re looking for the 1980-81 Steely Dan tour, this is it. It was three-quarters of a mile long and they had one roadie — the cab driver that brought them here. ” Robert Klein is warming up his audience of less than 200 invited guests in an RCA recording studio on West 44th. Klein […]
Steely Dan: A (Very) Brief Encounter
Originally published on Nov. 30, 1980 By Kristine McKenna Los Angeles Times New York — Interviewing Walter Becker and Donald Fagen, the minds behind Steely Dan, is akin to being the new kid in school tossed in a room with the cruelly cool in-crowd. They know all the in jive and aren’t about to clue […]
An LP with Ironies in the Fire
By Richard Cromelin Los Angeles Times If anyone else had come out with a song called “Gaucho,” the title character would be a man in black fresh off the pampas, reeking of romance and mystery. Steely Dan’s gaucho is a comically pathetic figure in a less than romantic situation. The singer’s girlfriend has picked him […]
Spinning Sardonic Tales of Winners and Losers
Originally published on Nov. 28, 1980 By Boo Browning Washington Post It’s a little side street that’s closed to traffic so we can play there. No one else wants to come and play, ’cause we’ve got the basket tilted. — Walter Becker There’s more than a tilted basket on the street where Steely Dan play. For […]
Steely Dan: The Second Coming
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 […]
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 […]
