The band performing in the video above is Steely Dan. But it doesn’t sound fairly like Steely Dan, an impression partially defined by it being a dwell present somewhat than the type of perfectionist studio recordings for whose meticulous development (and repeated reconstruction) the group’s very identify has lengthy been a byword. However its founding masterminds Walter Becker and Donald Fagen hadn’t but settled into that complexly pristine aesthetic on the time of this look, which aired fifty years in the past subsequent week on The Midnight Particular. Again then, having put out solely their first couple of albums, they might nonetheless current their venture as a comparatively standard early-seventies rock band.
It helped that they’d a comparatively standard frontman in singer David Palmer, who handles lead vocals on their Midnight Particular efficiency of “Do It Once more,” Steely Dan’s first hit. That he didn’t accomplish that on the studio recording underscores that the band is genuinely enjoying dwell, not miming to a backing monitor, as was commonplace follow on different music reveals.
It additionally constitutes one more reason this model sounds “off” to a critical Danfan, however it will take a really blinkered purism (a situation widespread among the many ranks of Danfans, admittedly) to not respect this efficiency, particularly when it will get round to the solo by the band’s authentic guitarist Denny Dias — one other of which comes alongside in “Reelin’ within the Years,” performed in the video simply above.
Not that one guitarist might suffice for Steely Dan, even on this early lineup: additionally they had Jeff “Skunk” Baxter, now considered one of many most interesting studio gamers within the subgenre of “yacht rock.” Baxter seems prominently in their dwell rendition of “Present Biz Youngsters,” albeit as only one component of the complete stage vital to breed that music dwell. Not like “Do It Once more” and “Reelin’ within the Years,” two singles from Steely Dan’s album Can’t Purchase a Thrill, “Present Biz Youngsters” comes from their then-newly launched follow-up Countdown to Ecstasy, which supplied a richer realization of each Steely Dan’s distinctive sound and much more distinctive worldview. To the refinement of that sound and worldview Becker and Fagen would commit themselves lower than a yr after their Midnight Particular broadcast, after they give up dwell efficiency fully for the comforts and rigors of their pure habitat: the recording studio.
Associated Content material:
Deconstructing Steely Dan: The Band That Was Extra Than Only a Band
How Steely Dan Wrote “Deacon Blues,” the Tune Audiophiles Use to Check Excessive-Finish Stereos
Based mostly in Seoul, Colin Marshall writes and broadcasts on cities, language, and tradition. His initiatives embrace the Substack e-newsletter Books on Cities, the e book The Stateless Metropolis: a Stroll by way of Twenty first-Century Los Angeles and the video sequence The Metropolis in Cinema. Observe him on Twitter at @colinmarshall or on Fb.
