Status
Not open for further replies.

padraig (u.s.)

a monkey that will go ape
I don't have an ideal of rock music in my head
it's not really about an ideal - such things don't exist - rather qualities. potential qualities.

my problem with Steely Dan definitely isn't that they don't rock hard enough

thing about it like this - the peak of 70s rock music is probably Can and Funhouse, something like that

Steely Dan is the antithesis of that
 

Corpsey

bandz ahoy
I don't really group Steely Dan in the same universe as The Stooges (who I – mainly as of this year — love).

To me they're more in the jazz/funk world, hence their being sampled in rap music (which is how I heard a lot of their stuff first, my dad listening to their first album a lot notwithstanding).

(And YES I understand that they're not as funky as Sly Stone or jazzy as Miles Davis etc etc...)

Anyway, fair enough, I understand they're a very divisive band.

I was going to say lets down our weapons but then occurred to me that Steely Dan vs The Stooges e.g. would be one of those polls like Prince vs Michael Jackson that would be interesting from the POV of aesthetic philosophy.
 

version

Well-known member
There's jazz in The Stooges too though. Some of Fun House sounds like a jazz club in the bowels of Hell.
 

version

Well-known member
I was going to say lets down our weapons but then occurred to me that Steely Dan vs The Stooges e.g. would be one of those polls like Prince vs Michael Jackson that would be interesting from the POV of aesthetic philosophy.

They're a bit too far apart, aren't they? I was actually thinking it's been a while since we've had a poll, but I couldn't really think of any match ups. I considered Rakim vs. Big Daddy Kane, but I don't think anyone's really arsed about BDK these days and it's a bit Q/Mojo Magazine.
 

Corpsey

bandz ahoy
They're a bit too far apart, aren't they? I was actually thinking it's been a while since we've had a poll, but I couldn't really think of any match ups. I considered Rakim vs. Big Daddy Kane, but I don't think anyone's really arsed about BDK these days and it's a bit Q/Mojo Magazine.

Steely Dan vs CAN - it even rhymes!
 

version

Well-known member
Jeff Baxter from Steely Dan ended up becoming a missile defense consultant. One of the most bizarre career trajectories I've ever come across.
 

padraig (u.s.)

a monkey that will go ape
There's jazz in The Stooges too though
that is true, but not in the same way

jazz in the Stooges is in wildest end of free jazz sense of feeling toward complete freedom - but with absolutely none of the technical knowledge

there's no (afaik) recordings of it but they started off as almost an Einsturzende Neubauten/Hantarash kinda deal - random appliances and tools on stage, chaos, cacophony of freeform noise - which even in the confusion of the late 60s was never going to make into a record (maybe an incredibly obscure private press that gets reissued by Creel Pone 30 years later) - and they wound up learning to play their instruments. the sax on Fun House is as close to jazz proper as they ever get, it was basically a whim of Iggy's to invite a hippie jazz guy they knew.

whereas the jazz in Steely Dan is hella muso
 

catalog

Well-known member
has this been posted already?


i like the storytelling aspect to it, and the sort of country feel.

i really like em, but sort of what corpsey has said, i think i put an album on and didn't really get it, they seem to be one of those bands with a little clutch of classics.
 

padraig (u.s.)

a monkey that will go ape
Wicked tune. A Padraig one, I feel
I'm sure I'm on record many times saying that Gwen Guthrie is my absolute favorite diva of them all. no one else is even close.

"the best", I mean that's difficult to say in a world graced by Loleatta Holloway, Jocelyn Brown, etc, but certainly on the diva Mt. Rushmore

everything she did with Larry Levan (and Sly + Robbie! what an unbelievable collection of talent) is canonical but my favorite undoubtedly is

my other Gwen favorite is "Getting Hot", unadulterated joy, the anticipation of "getting ready for the best time in your life"
 

padraig (u.s.)

a monkey that will go ape
I have to confess my ardor for the halcyon days of post-disco has somewhat cooled. not completely, just down from its fever pitch. it happens.

but nothing will ever cool my ardor for Gwen Guthrie/Larry Levan collabs
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Top