I'm 24 years old. Call me the "next generation of appreciation" or whatever, I'm just letting you all know I'll be listening to Steely Dan, Zappa, and King Crimson for the rest of my life. Already seen Steely Dan twice. So grateful man. Some people will never get to see Donald or Walter. I didn't even get to see Walter. love all the famous studio musicians. I believe Jon Herington (if that's right) Randy Lawson, Keith Carlock, you name it. Thank you, Skeevy Daniel.
@@jlr022159 Saw the Dixie Dregs last month with Steve Morse Band opening. Van Romaine and Dave LaRue came out at the end and they all jammed. It was a blast seeing them for the umpteenth time. Van and Rod did a drum duet that blew the doors off!
Me. At 64. Since ‘Can’t Buy A Thrill’…. What true artistry , craftsmanship, and wry humor on top…. Why I’m still playing guitar- trying to figure out those Mu major chords will challenge and teach anyone!!!😁….Much love for all things SD!
Just bask in the glory of these dusty old recordings collected all together (now) right here, for whom we have Skeevy to thank for making available..... AT ALL... period.
Any other band would eventually give in…even The Beatles gave us the Anthology series after 30 years…but unfortunately Fagen (and Becker when he was still with us) doesn’t want to release anything that is not sonically perfect. It was a minor miracle that the demo of Everyone’s Gone to the Movies got an official release.
It's actually the rough mix of or rather, the unmixed version of the master take that made it onto the album, but here the instruments volumes and spatial positionings in the stereo are out of whack, the vocal lacks reverb and perhaps among other things that might be missing (like the fade out vocals and lead guitar) there seem to be an acoustic guitar track dead center of the stereo which they either later removed from or buried in the final mix.
Note how 'Megashine City' was later reharmonized w/ sus4 chords, played in half time/different groove (minus the original title words in the lyrics) and remade as/renamed 'Talking 'Bout My Home', for the Lost Gaucho Sessions and Outtakes. Thanks for sharing.
This was quite a surprise! Never knew this existed! Got 3-4 cds with another complete set of different ones. Some of these tracks are really good. We need to get audio people on these old recordings for re-release. And yes, the song Dallas as well.
Fagen hated rock He also hates better vocalists, which on this album he had two. David Palmer and drummer lead vocalist on Midnight Cruiser-Jimmy Hooder.
I know that Becker & Fagen disliked their first single release, "Dallas," but after hearing a promotional copy in the listening library at Ohio's Bowling Green State University in the fall of 1974 I made sure I bought Poco's 1975 album, "Head Over Heels," just so I could play their gorgeous version of "Dallas" whenever I wanted. At the time they were labelmates with Steely Dan at ABC/Dunhill Records.
@@ericmalitz Steely Dan's "Dallas" showcased the pedal steel guitar of Jeff "Skunk" Baxter, which made the song a perfect fit for Poco's master of that instrument, Rusty Young.
I was a kid in the 70s, and I thought Dunhill Records was part of a cigarette company. I read label notes and looked at the records that my older siblings owned. I was a weird kid, but in the 70s, lots of other kids were also weird.
@@petermacmillan6756 I was 22 when I first saw Steely Dan perform live on the Feb. 9, 1973 airing of NBC's rock concert show, "The Midnight Special." They soon became for me in the '70s what The Beatles had been for me in the '60s -- the best songwriters of the decade (even though almost every Becker & Fagen song examined the sordid side of life).
What Becker & Fagen and producer Gary Katz did from demo to finished product on "Katy Lied's" "Any World" is just stunning. Michael McDonald's voice and Michael Omartian's piano obviously had a lot to do with it, as did the dynamic drumming of Wrecking Crew veteran Hal Blaine.
Only the Dan could have such an absolute gem of a vocalist in stixman Jim Hodder and spread his magnificence so thinly across their considerable repatoire , with only Midnight Cruiser and Dallas receiving the polishing cloth .
Awesome. Thanks for sharing it’s always amazing to see how their songs evolved and how their creativity changed things. Some really good cuts here been listening since her do it again on the radio when it first came out. Nice to hear a few other things it was in their wheelhouse at the time.
Well I’m sure glad they ended up waiting to put out Any World. This version is nice, but I definitely prefer the slower version. Interesting to see the song is relatively unchanged, though
In Gullywater, "I don't care about your dead souls"....a literary reference to the 19th century Russian writer Gogol and his short bleak (think Russian & it's an accurate descriptor) novella "Dead Souls"
Gullywater' could have fit right in w/ the repertoire of the unreleased album by Wicked Lester - the rather stylistically eclectic band that Gene Simmons and Paul Stanley had before they went into Heavy Rock mode and founded Kiss. Two songs that have yet to resurface are 'Take My Money' and 'Hell Bound Train' , which along w/ 'Megashine City' are tunes Becker and Fagen wrote essentially as vehicles for original lead singer David Palmer. 'Megashine City' eventually found its way into the 'Lost Gaucho' set of demos, as 'Talkin' About My Home'. 7:50 -Producer Gary Katz's 'That's real good!'. 7:53 - This early intro to 'Any Word...'rather reminiscent of Carol King's "I Feel The Earth Move', which came out in 1971, roughly a year before these demos.
'Saka Jaweda...My Friend...' They later re-used that same idea in much better form as 'Rose Darling... My Friend!' 7:52 - the piano intro to this early version of 'Any World...' sounds a bit like Carole King's classic 'I Feel The Earth Move Under My Feet', from her classic 1971 megahit album 'Tapestry'.
@Chris Gavito Also, let's not forget that Carole King was right there in the middle of the "hit-factory" known as The Brill Building. Of course, B/F haunted that scene much later, eventually landing their temporary roles as the Manson and Starkweather of Rock w/Jay&TAs, the office of whom was inside the Brill.
They took out and replaced the lines ending with the line "just another scurvy brother" on the bridge in Sign in Stranger, when they played it live, and changed "Retha Franklyn" to Otis Redding on Hey Nineteen'
Midnite Cuiser steals the show of course it should given it made the final cut on C.B.A.T , curiously DALLAS & SAIL THE WATERWAY which would have been seamless additions were presumably deemed inferior and still have yet to be included on cd compilations .
Major SD fan since 1976, but in the last few weeks RU-vid has been recommending lots of outtakes and alternative versions like this that I've never heard before. "And where my feet touch ground, that's where I'll settle down." D&W obviously didn't like that lyric! BTW, is the photo an alternative album cover? The girls outside the hotel appear to be pursuing a profession that is a constant SD theme. Great stuff!
For fun and speculation I think the song Running Child could have been sold on as a pop hit circa their pre SD period. I could easily imagine that on American pop radio around late 1960s. I'm thinking Brill building? Im probably showing my ignorance here😮
"Sakka Joweda" has hit written all over it...wonder why they didn't include it on any album? Maybe worried about offending? I don't know......Sacagawea was a Native American woman who explored with Lewis and Clark all the way to the Pacific Coast in the early 1800's.
Possibly influenced the arrangement of the Pretzel Logic version, but Barrytown was demoed in the late 60s. I definitely think Megashine City influenced Black Friday which might be why it was so radically rewritten into Talkin' Back My Home.
The really good time seeing 'Skunk' wailing at the earliest few shows make me wonder WHY S Dan bothered with that Citizen SD Box when it was basically barren except for a few seconds of intro/outro notes on the 2-3 tunes which were treated with that amount of 'attention'. If anyone's ever sourced more obscure matters to build on- or around - in song- I've never heard of such a bipedal source of amazement . 'Hey, let's do a song about Sacagawea? Everyone knows that story & it's time is due? Plus, as re N. England's First Nations, we'll surely win over the people on whose lands we stole or inherited from those who did! It'll be taken well by all sides as respectful & maybe we'll be able to grant some of the royalties to NARF in Boulder Co who stand proud before the Supreme Court & have been on the winning side even though they've argued against the same land stealing machine as sits in lopsided judgement!’ 'I dunno, it doesn't seem to have very much to say about the Four Corners or Big Mountain land grabbing areas of fact.' 'Well count it in Jimmy & we'll see what happens..'
I think he may do a bit of the backing on the vocals later on in the song but it's just Don at the beginning. No idea who's doing the high pitched nanana's though.