new... donald fagen... solo album?!?

!!JACKPOT!!

Not too crazy about the font but I'm starting to get real excited!

Don't understand the hubbub about this song, but here's a YSI of the studio version of 'The Second Arrangement:'

http://s63.yousendit.com/d.aspx?id=1FO60H9HJI1WV1YN1LEEBC9DW9

By FRED KAPLAN
Published: February 26, 2006

THIS is my death album," Donald Fagen said in his office on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. "It's about the death of culture, the death of politics, the beginning of the end of my life." Then he mock-sobbed, "Boo hoo hoo."

Mr. Fagen, best known as the vocalizing half of the rock band Steely Dan, turned 58 years old in January. His new CD, "Morph the Cat," is his first solo album in 13 years, and he's kicking it off with an 18-city concert tour, starting this Wednesday — his first live shows with his own band ever.

He wrote "Morph the Cat" in the wake of Sept. 11, and it's an album about fellow New Yorkers dealing with the aftershocks — tales of love and dread in a time of terror.

One of its eight songs, a ballad called "The Night Belongs to Mona" is about a woman who stays cooped up in her Chelsea high-rise. At one point, Mr. Fagen, playing one of Mona's worried friends, sings, "Was it the fire downtown/ that turned her world around?" It's the album's only reference to the World Trade Center. But the attack lingers as a constant backdrop.

"The Great Pagoda of Funn" is about two lovers who stay together as shelter from the world's horrors, itemized by a choir of background singers: "Poison skies/ and severed heads/ and pain and lies ..."

"I wrote that after several beheadings in Iraq," Mr. Fagen said. "You can thank Mr. Zarqawi for that song."

"Security Joan" is a comic blues about a man who swoons for an airport guard while rushing to catch a plane.

When I felt her wand sweep over me
You know I never felt so clean
Girl you won't find my name on your list
Honey you know I ain't no terrorist ...

The album's finale, "Mary Shut the Garden Door," sounds like the score for a spooky political thriller. Mr. Fagen's liner notes describe it: "Paranoia blooms when a thuggish cult gains control of the government."

"I wrote that song right after the Republican Convention took over New York," he said. "I'm afraid of religious people in general — any adult who believes in magic." It's a gloomy number — the doo-wop background singers chant, "They won/ Storms raged/ Things changed/ Forever" — but it holds out a thin hope in its last line: "This ballad is for lovers/ with something left to lose."

That's a contrast to the most recent Steely Dan album, 2003's "Everything Must Go." It too was produced in the shadow of 9/11, but it responded to catastrophes with mordant retreat ("the long sad Sunday of the early resigned") or down-with-the-ship partying ("Let's switch off the lights/ and light up all the Luckies/ Crankin' up the afterglow").

All nine Steely Dan albums over the past 34 years — which Mr. Fagen wrote with Walter Becker, his musical partner since their undergraduate days at Bard College — dwell to some degree on destruction and doomsday, but usually with black humor or a diffident shrug. "Morph the Cat" has the familiar Steely Dan sound: the dense chords, jazz vamps, laser backbeat, skylark guitar riffs and sly lyrics — polished narratives of insouciant irony and cryptic allusions — sung by Mr. Fagen in a nasal troubadour's wail. But this time, he's staring at the darkness with open apprehension.

"Part of the difference," he said, "is that Walter's more snarky than I am. He's more realistic; I'm more of a fantasist, a romantic. Walter has that side, too. But when we write together, we assume this collective guise — this guy you could call Dan — who isn't either of us, really. Dan's a much colder dude. Or maybe he just seems cold. Maybe he's afraid to show his emotions; that's more likely."

Cut loose from Dan, Mr. Fagen writes songs that are "more personal," he said, "and, as it turns out, more autobiographical." The keys to this chapter of his chronicle are not just the attack on his city but also the death of his mother, in January 2003, after a long bout with Alzheimer's disease.

"It was a horrible death, very agitated toward the end," he recalled. The album is dedicated to her. "In memory of Elinor Rosenberg Fagen, a k a Ellen Ross," the liner notes read. "Ellen Ross was her stage name," he explained. "She was a professional singer from the age of 5 years to 15. She was the Shirley Temple of the Catskills. Her mother would take her up there in the summers to sing in a hotel. One time, the guy who owned the hotel took her over to an amateur-hour radio show. She had an anxiety attack. That was the end of her career."

While Mr. Fagen was growing up in the New Jersey suburbs, his mother sang show tunes around the house, encouraged him to play piano, and took him into Manhattan on weekends to see Broadway musicals. "I got most of my musical theory from her," he said.

"Morph the Cat" begins with the title song, which sounds like an R. Crumb cartoon theme about a cat named Morph who flies above Manhattan and seeps into apartments, spreading good cheer. But when the tune is reprised at the end of the album, after the songs about severed heads and so forth, Morph (as in Morpheus, god of dreams?) seems more menacing.

"Yeah, the cat is narcotizing the citizens," Mr. Fagen said. "I observe it in people, this mind-death, these layers of brain-washing that's gone on for so many years. It's in the techniques of political machines, the unbelievable stupidity on television." He stopped and raised his eyebrows. "Hey, maybe Morph is television."

Then he backed away, chuckling. "I refuse to take responsibility for any interpretation," he mumbled.

Last week, he was busy rehearsing for his tour. Steely Dan gave up live performance in 1974. "I burned myself out quickly, my voice was getting tired, I was in my mid-20's, my lifestyle wasn't very healthy." Mr. Fagen recalled. After he and Mr. Becker broke up the band in 1980 (a split that lasted 16 years) , "I didn't have the confidence in myself to organize a band and a tour without him."

In the late 80's, he met a producer, Libby Titus, whom he later married. "She was putting together what she called these 'horrid little evenings,' " he said, concerts with several big-name pop singers, performing one after another. Mr. Fagen joined them. At first, he just played piano; then, under her prodding, he sang again, too. "So," he said, "I got back into it a bit."

Still, his element is the studio. Last August, he sat in a booth at Avatar Studios, in Midtown, with his engineer, Elliot Scheiner. Mr. Fagen had spent a year recording the album's tracks. Now it was time to mix them. He and Mr. Becker were notorious perfectionists in mixing the Steely Dan sessions. That part hasn't changed.

"Mmmm, bring the snare down in those two bars by one-tenth," Mr. Fagen said, listening to the rhythm tracks of "Mona." He meant one-tenth of a decibel, a minuscule adjustment in volume.

Later, listening to the horn tracks, he said, "After the first bop-bop, you've got to bring up the da-bop."

Then the vocal tracks. Hearing himself sing the line, "To see how the story ends," he said, "The first syllable of 'story' is a little hard; bring it down two-tenths." Another line, "When you're already dressed in black," was a little soft. "Bring up the whole line one-tenth." He listened again. "Maybe only the end of the line — "dee dressed in black" — bring just that up one-tenth."

After five hours mixing, he said, "I'm wearying of this," in a stentorian tone. He got up, stretched, sat down, and went back at it for two more hours.

Soon, Mr. Fagen hopes to remix his previous solo disc, the 1993 "Kamakiriad." His voice on that album was buried: too soft and indistinct. "I was in my self-loathing period," he said.

The remix will be part of a three-disc box-set, which Reprise Records plans to release later this year, of all three Fagen solo albums, starting with "The Nightfly" (1982), his wistful look back at his cold-war adolescence. "I see them as Youth, Middle Age and Death," he said with a crooked smile.

But if "Morph the Cat" is "Death," what will he do for an encore?

In an e-mail note, Mr. Fagen replied, "just one of those cringe-worthy duet albums: you know, me and gwen stefani, me and tony bennett, me and gladys knight ... also some tricked-up duets with dead people: nat king cole, tiny tim, mae west, etc."

But those aren't booked. What is likely, he said, is another tour with his new band this summer and probably some gigs with his musical companion of youth and middle age, Mr. Becker. Just because you've done death doesn't mean you're done with Dan.

"In an e-mail note, Mr. Fagen replied, "just one of those cringe-worthy duet albums: you know, me and gwen stefani, me and tony bennett, me and gladys knight ... also some tricked-up duets with dead people: nat king cole, tiny tim, mae west, etc."

It is very laid-back, even by SD standards...

I love Donald Fagen so much

http://www.jordanhoffman.com/archives/2006/03/the_great_pagod.html

Some negative criticism: Security Joan seems more like a late Steely Dan tune than a Fagen solo one; the production feels really airless, so I was begging for some reverb to be plastered on something by the end; and the codas of some tracks go on and on without any building of tension or clever variation.

There's a lot of apocalyptic themes in the lyrics: the chorus of The Great Pagoda of Funn especially. Some of the lines in there really seize my attention, since they kind of tear at the edges of the slick little SD jazz/pop envelope by being disturbing.

One good review (mostly of the lyrics), by a pro writer, but not a musician at:

http://www.wrongturnjournal.com/ here's an excerpt (probably in violation of some copyright or something) :

Toth:

Which explains my disappointment with his new record and, to some extent, with the whole Steely Dan project these days. Don't get me wrong. There's lots to love on Fagen's latest, and the latter-day Dan recordings generally tremendous fun. But all of them show a much duller edge than the early work, musically and lyrically. Listening to Fagen's back catalog in concert, even throwaway B-sides like Here at the Western World are creepy and suggestive enough to keep me grinning. As Walker Percy used to say about Kafka: He would read his friends all those stories about alienation and misery, and they'd be rolling on the floor because it was all so true. (End of Toth excerpt)

Back to *my* post. I'm amazed to have to agree with a neo-con, but what he says is right.

Since I've been in the music biz and the music-ed biz for over 30 years, with a specialty in tuning systems and synthesizers, I do feel qualified to comment on a few things that Fagen says.

On the one hand, he's right that stretched tuning can be out-of-tune with un-stretched equal temperament. On the other hand, stretched tunings have been available for a long time on synthesizers, even old and humble synths like the Roland D-50. (available since the mid-80's.) So there's something a little funny about this way of thinking. Also, stretched tuning is really important on acoustic pianos, but doesn't necessarily apply to situations without them. Every different kind of ensemble has a slightly different way of tuning, with out-of-tuneness being very important to the sound of some of them. (Marching bands don't sound like marching bands unless they're out-of-tune by upwards of 50 cents...)

Same sort of response to the issue of timing using sequencers and/or computers. For a while in the infancy of MIDI, timing delays and software limitations were a real problem.
Not anymore.

Fagen hears what he hears--he's not just making it up, but there's a point where having an accurate ear becomes sheer neurotic fussiness and a refusal to "try new things". A failure to get the big picture.

Anyway, the main problem with Morph is the drumming and the rhythmic interaction of the other parts. Becker seems to have contributed greatly to making the hocketing really *springy*--the grooves in previous efforts have a lot of lift or bounce. (Even lazy grooves like My Rival from Gaucho have more *sproing* in them than do the new tunes on Morph.
New stuff doesn't rock, swing, or groove. It plods.

There's also very little lift or release in the choruses.

A different kind of complaint about the new stuff is about the music as setting for the scenario created by the lyrics. I mean something like tone-painting or film-scoring. In almost every Dan tune from the past, there was something brilliant about the relation between lyrics and music. Now, it feels like you could amost interchange the lyrics of one song with the music of another--with a few adjustments--and come up with something that makes almost as much sense.

Random comment--Pagoda, if I'm not mistaken is in D Lydian. Cool to have a pop tune in Lydian. But give me the darker Phrygian of Babylon Sisters any day. I mean, Pagoda has a nice long line, but it still _plods_. And the guitar solo is dutiful but uninspired--not nec. the fault of guitarist--he had some hard changes to pick his way thru.

Anyhoo.

Has he ever sounded more beautifully knackered and bored than on "What I Do?" It should loop on for eternity as he croons away to himself and the backing singers gently take the piss.

I found it quite good, but obv. no "The Nightfly", which IMO is even better than any Steely Dan album.

"I'm Not The Same Without You" streaming in Rolling Stone. Good piano and harmonica parts.

i'm evolving at a really astounding rate of speed
into something way cooler
than what i was before

a+ lyrics

i don't need sleep anymore
but if i closed my eyes
i'd sleep the sleep of the gods
i'm not the same without you

yesssssss

lol brad

this is REALLY good man

really feelin that groove at the end

"I can hold my breath
for a really long time"

lol love this song

got a nice hook too!

this fucking rules and I had no idea it was coming. thank you based fagen

"Sunken Condos"!

"Sunken Condos"!

― theStalePrince, Monday, September 17, 2012 2:36 PM (3 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

^^i mean this is such an amazing title for an album i can't even express it

http://images.amazon.com/images/G/01/richmedia/images/cover.gif

oops:

http://wac.450f.edgecastcdn.net/80450F/ultimateclassicrock.com/files/2012/08/Donald-Fagen-Sunken-Condos1.jpg

http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/steely-dans-donald-fagen-arrested-for-domestic-assault-20160105

well, that is terrible.

Ugh

motherfucker

It is. I wonder where he goes to unwind in the city. Must be difficult being a celebrity when you just need to go outside to take a walk and blow off some steam.

I wonder if his wife is okay.

ugh

I am so disappointed but perhaps not surprised by this--my stepdad used to hang slightly with him at the Lone Star Roadhouse because he was friends with Phoebe Snow when they were doing the rock and soul revue--didn't like DF at all as a person :(

I think she'll be giving him 'The Goodbye Look'...

gross, bro

Steely Dan is the soundtrack to the coked up narcissists of the world. Can't say I'm surprised.

yah maybe 35 years ago, grampa. steve aoki now fills that role.

Steely Dan is the soundtrack to the coked up narcissists of the world. Can't say I'm surprised.

― larry appleton, Tuesday, January 5, 2016 6:39 PM (

how much do you snort a week?

"Steely Dan is the soundtrack to the coked up narcissists of the world. Can't say I'm surprised."

unless you're taking the piss, I think you've missed the point

larry applebutt this is not a thing to get all schadenfreude about

goddamnit fagen

looks like steely dan have gone from hip to scum just like john lennon!

wow using a incident of domestic abuse as rockcrit point scoring, you have good character, son.

like i said in the other thread, assaulting your wife? definite dud!

delete ILM

Obviously this reminds me of Becker's accident around Gaucho that was pretty horrible too.

Oh right -- he dipped his mustache into a tomato bisque.

!