Steely Dan - Gaucho (1980) (1 Viewer)

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Great album. I burnt out on Aja years ago - I might see how that's going with a trial listen tonight - but I'd put Gaucho second only to Royal Scam. Don't know if anyone has mentioned it, but the serialised short story on the cover of the cd reissues is great. I ended up buying a couple of their albums which I wouldn't have bothered with because of it.
One of the things that makes them so great in general is the lyrics being so beautifully pointed. You'd be the butt of one of their jokes and not even know. This album is a high point of that. It's good music to return to with jaded ears.
All the jibber jabber about the music being too slick etc...I think it's nonsense. You can hear the edges on all the Dan stuff. Although less so perhaps on this album. Most big-money big-studio albums from the last twenty years have way more exacting performances than Steely Dan got. They just wanted it right.
Anyway...Gaucho is a perfect snapshot of the grit and misery and delusion behind the scene they were deriding, while using the vocabulary of that scene. As well as being just a brilliant album.
 
Bernard Purdie talking about the Purdie Shuffle which he uses in Babylon Sisters. This might have appeared on thumped before...
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Here, Bernard Purdie is great, lets not belittle his life accomplishments by saying he's in any way to blame for Steely Dan.

Steely Dan are basically the template for Ween, who in turn are the template for the Smith Westerns and Foxygen, who in turn are the template for The Lemon Twigs.

That's their legacy: rich white suburban kids making sneery record collection rock.



(not that any band should really be held responsible for their legacy, poor Nirvana)
 
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Hang on a minute. There's something wrong with Ween now too? Wait until Anthony hears this...
 
Are they very sneery? I don't pick up that much on it.

I think so. But they are sneering at themselves. Or at what people assume is themselves but is actually just a fake version of themselves constructed as an object to direct their sneeriness at. I might have a point here but probably not. It's late and I'm drunk. To be honest, I mostly just like the tunes.
 
Ween were disappointing live.

Never played them again after that
 
Steely Dan are basically the template for Ween, who in turn are the template for the Smith Westerns and Foxygen, who in turn are the template for The Lemon Twigs.

That's their legacy: rich white suburban kids making sneery record collection rock.

Pity the NME is fucked. They might have hired you....
 
Hang on a minute. There's something wrong with Ween now too? Wait until Anthony hears this...
Nah nothing wrong with Ween, I barely know them, I was just listing bands. Ween for album club next week

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Lads. Just spotted this. It's Wednesday of next week. TAC night out? Who's in? Cornu? Lili Marlene?
flying home now!
 
I'll happily go and point out second by second how horrible it is if you get the pints? Sound good?

Not quite sure if you are serious but I'd be well on for this were it not for the fact I've just realised I have tickets for LH screening of Mulholland Drive on Wed night. Alas, it will have to be some other time :-(
 
Keep an eye out for more nights. I would be good humoured in my critique and I'm a cheap date when it comes to pints. Enjoy Mulholland Drive, I meant to book tickets for all those Lynch movies but unfortunately will be missing out on all of them.
 
I was going pretty good with gaucho a few days ago.

We had a leonard cohen co-hin on friday night and went on a few tangents and amidst all the cohen, cohen covers, similar era music and so forth the vocals on gaucho sounded so posed that It might have changed my view on this record for a while.
 

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