My first meal of the new year was consumed at one of those mock-bakery restaurants, which feature overpriced sandwiches and baked goods. Still, it was a good sandwich, and the place makes wonderful monster cookies. They use real monster, not the artificial kind so common these days. And the place offers iced tea by the tub, which, no joke, is one of the best ways to attract my business.
The winter holiday season usually makes me reflective, and when I'm in that mindset, my musical taste changes. Man does not live by Metal alone. At least, this one doesn't, even if Metal dominates my listening. But I've been listening to Steely Dan for as long as I've been into harder rocking music. I played a LOT of Steely Dan in the car, when I was in high school. My mom found their material odd, but it must have made some sort of impression on her, as she was eager to attend one of their reunion concerts with me, back around 1993. She had a good time, and it was one of our last bonding experiences before she died a year or so later.
All these years later, the Steely Dan album I listen to the most, the one that really resonates with me, is Gaucho. This is probably the most-maligned of their original seven releases. It is generally considered the worst of the lot, but it works for me better than any of the rest. The band's career can be viewed as a gradual shift from being New Yorkers to becoming out-of-place Californians. I've seen Gaucho, released at the end of 1980, labeled as a concept album on life in the SoCal of that era. In a loose sense, that's certainly true, even if the songs are only related in theme, not storyline.
Mike Powell does an amazing job of echoing my thoughts about the songs in this piece, published a few years ago. I only wish he had commented on my favorite one, Third World Man. I'm amazed at how Walter Becker and Donald Fagen took a stellar Larry Carlton guitar solo, left over from the sessions for a previous album, and constructed a song around it. It fits together seamlessly, with the listener unaware that Carlton had no other involvement in the song or album.
The music is tired and laid back, but the tales it tells are sadder and tawdrier than ever before in Steely Dan's oeuvre. It appeals to the same part of me that loves John Crawford's compositions for Berlin. I won't defend Berlin as great music, but I admire how he wrote songs about sex and lust, rather than about imaginary romantic love. Yet, just as with Becker and Fagen, a bit of real feeling emerges from time to time, and is all the more poignant because of the artists' track record for emotional honesty.
So here's a shout out to Gaucho: Happy 30th Birthday! I'm glad you are finding appreciation, and that Steely Dan continue to play some of your songs on their current tours.
On a different note, regarding the reflection I mentioned above, it was a year ago today that I limped into Bedford, Pennsylvania, on my journey to the East Coast. As related in an earlier post, I became violently sick in the early hours of January 1, 2010. I was exhausted as I drove away from Columbus, Ohio, that morning. I should have completed my drive to New Jersey that day, with just a visit to Patti Bonn in Bedford. But getting to her home, at the halfway point of that day's scheduled route, was all I could manage. Patti is one of my publishers, so we're old friends and business partners, and she had already offered me her spare bedroom for a night. I took her up on the offer, and felt much better on January 2, when I finally made it my friend's house in western New Jersey (and picked up Ember from the kennel that was housing her).
2010 was a very lucrative year for me, and moving was well worth the effort and expense. Now I'm ready to take on even more challenges and changes in 2011. I'm expecting the best, and I hope everyone reading this finds it too! Happy New Year!
