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Black Friday Radio 2019
Extreme Black Friday with, not just a song, but an entire concert of Steely Dan. “Black Friday” starts at 43:35
“I’m buggin’ out!” Wonder what’s in that Coke can? It sure seemed to have changed the texture of his night.
1/9/19
Double 19 requires two “19” songs.
That song was all over MTV in the mid-80’s. I believe it got a fair amount of radio play as well.
Interesting story behind the making of the song –
You probably knew this one was coming. Another big radio hit –
2018
End of another year. Hope everyone has a terrific New Year!
Added more songs to the list, including a new Steely Dan performance from this year.
Black Friday Radio 2017
It’s that day again. Gear up, get the body armor on, and crush enemy shoppers while Steely Dan Muzak plays over the store speakers!
Walter Becker Of Steely Dan Dead At 67
Walter Becker, co-founder of the legendary band Steely Dan, died Sunday September 3, 2017.
Anyone who has read this site for more than five minutes knows how respected the Dan is around here.
His bandmate and collaborator Donald Fagen wrote a tribute, posted on Rolling Stone’s website. Read it here, or listen with brief commentary.
One awaits the inevitable “Steely Dead” tour.
– Night Sky Radio, “Reaching The Music Singularity“
Thanks to wdydfae of “What Do You Do For An Encore?“, who informed me of this. Read his post about the news here.
Reaching The Music Singularity
“Better keep it real –
Or whatever”– Steely Dan, “Pixeleen”
Steely Dan quit touring in 1974, saying they hated it. In 1993, they starting touring again, and now Donald Fagen is announcing a new tour at the age of 69. So, if they don’t like touring, why go back to Annandale, as it were? The Don tells the Wall Street Journal (behind a paywall, unfortunately) –
When the bottom fell out of the record business a bunch of years ago, it deprived me of the luxury of earning a living from records. I don’t sell enough albums to cover the cost of recording them the way I like to. For me, touring is the only way to make a living.
Turns out The Dan is not the only band touring to make some cash. Guns ‘n’ Roses is hitting the circuit to make some pay as well. The fact that the band hasn’t released a new album since 2008 is no obstacle. Proving that a band does not need to be creating new stuff to make money.
Or even alive. Ronnie James Dio is going on tour despite being currently dead. A hologram of Dio will perform with a live band.
No word on whether Jem will be the opening act.
One awaits the inevitable “Steely Dead” tour.
H/T to Ace of Spades HQ and Quartz
Saturday Night Studio – New Year’s Eve
Have some music to rock out the old year and ring in the new!
See you in 2017!
Black Friday 2016
It’s that time of year again…. load up your machine guns and storm the stores for those Black Friday sales!
Stores should be required to play nothing but Steely Dan songs today. Maybe it would chill some of the more… frenetic… shoppers out. Well, at least until they got to “Don’t Take Me Alive!
Some Steely Dan for your shopper-survivalist weekend –
Saturday Night Stolen
This one’s heavy on video, yo. But it’s smooth.
In 1978, the Doobie Brothers released their album Minute By Minute, containing the song “What A Fool Believes”….
…and, of course, it became a hit. So smooth.
Comare and contrast with Robbie Dupree’s 1980 single titled “Steal Away”…
…which seems to be exactly what happened here. Very suspiciously similar.
According to this site, Dupree’s song also was, uh, inspired by Eddie Money’s 1977 song “Baby Hold On.” I can kind of hear it.
Doobie Bro Michael McDonald had this happen with another song, 1982’s “I Keep Forgettin’ (Every Time You’re Near)” –
The song was sampled in 1994 by Warren G and Nate Dogg in “Regulate” [mildly NSFW]-
A completely and totally 100% absolutely true and smooth account of how this came about was related on the internet series Yacht Rock [also a bit NSFW]. And “Hollywood Steve,” the host of the show, is a real life music critic.
However, “I Keep Forgettin'” itself is heavily inspired by Chuck Jackson’s 1963 song titled, amazingly, “I Keep Forgettin'” –
McDonald’s version is sometimes listed as a cover of Jackson’s song, but there are differences. Although sharing credit with the writers of Jackson’s song, McDonald does get a songwriting credit on his version.
Michael’s old friends in Steely Dan had their own run-in with this sort of thing. From 1977, their song “Black Cow” –
…which got sampled in 1997 by Lord Tariq & Peter Gunz for their single “Uptown Baby” [you know it’s NSFW]-
The opening of the song features another sample, Amores Como El Nuestro by Jerry Rivera.
Turns out The Dan weren’t happy with Tariq and Gunz sampling the song and causing Walter and Donald some difficulties. Peter Gunz discusses it here (a little NSFW language in there).
Not long after that, Tatyana Ali released her 1998 single “Daydreamin'” (lots of apostrophes in music, apparently), where Tariq and Gunz sampled themselves sampling “Black Cow” in some kind of recursive loop and rapped on it –
“I heard Steely Dan “Black Cow” and went wild!”
Steely Dan’s Donald Fagen completes and reverses the Mobius Circuit by sampling “Uptown Baby” over “Black Cow” –
nightskyradio 