@AirplayBeats reacts to Steely Dan - Your Gold Teeth II Like comment and subscribe patreon.com/user?u=81569817 Airplay Beats 3609 Bradshaw Rd Ste H #337 Sacramento, CA 95827 Www.Airplaybeats.com
This is one of my favorites from Katy Lied. That's 19 year old Jeff Porcaro shuffling on drums, he picked up the jazz waltz 3/8, 6/8 and 9/8 time from a Charlie Mingus record Fagan gave him. Denny Dias with the tasty bebop guitar solo and Michael Omartian on that Bosendorfer Imperial Grand.
The late, great Jeff Porcaro with a flawless journey through the time changes. One of Steely Dan's greatest and an indication of a lot more jazzy stuff to come. Porcaro to me perfected the Purdie shuffle.
19 yr old drummer Jeff Porcaro sounds like a much older jazz drummer here. Love the musicality of his playing and technique of responding to and participating in the music, not just keeping time. He’s spectacular.
Almost 5 decades later I still picture myself in a Jazz club with a good bourbon and a good woman. The Denny Dias beautiful guitar solo still brings me to tears. One of my favorite SD cuts along with "King of the World", "Night by Night", and "Green Earrings". You guys are the best because you truly appreciate the music quality SD brings. Thanks.
“Throw out your gold teeth and see how they roll” Steely Dan used a variation of this line on the original Your Gold Teeth song from Countdown to Ecstasy. The symbolic significance of gold teeth lies in the human condition to replace loss, age or decay with material things that can make us feel better. The narrator complicates this symbolic reference by commanding that the gold teeth be removed and thrown like dice. The command is simultaneously a call to reject our superficial selves and allow ourselves to gamble on or give away the pieces of ourselves not core to who we really are.
My favourite thing watching Steely Dan reactions is the surprise that registers on everyone's faces when the songs take them somewhere else, completely different from where the reactors thought they were going. This song has become one of my top Dan tunes. You can groove to the guitar or that amazing piano... and those drums... those drums!! 😃
The era of Steely Dan was the most flush with musical pioneers and apex talent. They probably didn't fully understand like everyone else that the internet and conservative rollback wants to limit music popularity. Music is a powerful political tool to warn of the next Adolf Trump-Putin.
One of my top Steely Dan songs. Thanks, you guys - watching your channel reminds me of hanging out with my brother. He was a brilliant drummer and vocalist - he sounded a lot like Michael McDonald, actually! And he died in 2008. Growing up, he would sit me down and play music and we'd geek out on it together. He knew all there is to know about Steely Dan; which session musicians they had playing each part, etc. This song has ghost notes on the snare that brought him to tears, they're that good. Anyway, I miss him, and you guys give me a bit of comfort. Like hanging out with my brother again.
The late, great Jeff Porcaro on drums. He was known for his drumming with Toto and Bob Scaggs. He also played on Michael Jackson's Beat it, and Mother by Pink Floyd.
Yall goated fr fr to even do a reaction to steely dan’s discography! in the black community when you bring up steely dan nobody knows who they are especially in my generation lol Donald Fagen and Walter Becker were and are truly incredible writers and musicians! So much soul in there music peace and love from NC
Donald puts on a great vocal performance on that track not to mention that crazy guitar riff.the song actually sounds like it should be fun on royal scam
I think this is first of quite a few tracks on the next two albums where Larry Carlton is involved. His arrangements and playing changed SD into a guitar band, which is what it really was all along. Very next album Royal Scam he comes out on the first two songs with solos hitting on all cylinders in Kid Charlemagne and Don’t Take Me Alive. To me, the SD sound afterwards is more in line with Larry Carlton’s harmony and complex chords, especially on Aja. Just my uneducated opinion. I love Steely Dan.
Michael Omartian on piano, as he is throughout this album. Jeff Porcaro on drums. Denny Dias on guitar. Listen to DF curse with delight on the Katy Lied outtakes when he hears the guitar solo added in n this song (I guess for the first time). I like that Vince Guaraldi and Peanuts reference. Absolutely in that ballpark.
One of my ALL TIME FAVORITE songs by Steely! I've never seen anyone do a reaction on this one and I'm so thrilled! I can't get enough of you two AND Steely, lol ;-). Keep it up!
Fagen must be one of the most underrated singers. His unique tones and delivery bring SO much to these songs. He's always said that he was never comfortable as a singer and didn't care for his own voice. That may be one of the reasons why his dlivery is so unique. THEN he turns around and does something like "Maxine" on The Nightfly with impeccable pitch and rhythm in the traditional sense. He's much better than he's given credit for. I love this man's singing.
A truly underrated gem in the SD catalog. Great drumming and keys. Beautiful understated guitar. Bass that just grooves you along. What else do you want?
I remember my friend played this for me in my car, in my garage in the spring of 2001. I was instantly hooked. I listened to this album and nothing else for a few weeks. I then went and bought The Royal Scan, the rest is history.
🤗 This is one of my favorite "Dan B-Sides" 🤗 Yaaaaaaas! ☺I love this Chorus! "Throw out your gold teeth and see how they roll, The answer they reveal, Life is unreal...... " 😁🥰🐰
Michael Omartian did a couple of stellar solo albums during his tenure with Steely Dan. With many of the same musicians. White Horse is exceptional. Progressive Jazz with Dean Parks and Larry Carlton sharing guitar duties. It wont get clicks but I think you'd like it.
Great song. Everyone that replies to your vids writes how great the musicians they hired are (and rightfully so). Time to shout out how great of a pianist, keyboardist player Donald is. One of you guys mentioned that before, that SD songs are piano driven. So true.
Fantastic lyrics on this one, and despite what a complex composition it is, they STILL figured out a way to come up with a MONSTER hook to bring the listener back in and keep it from getting too outside the box. You can feel all of the musicians on this one really cutting loose, in the best possible sense. This album is definitely a precursor to the sound they eventually perfected on Aja…. although they took a phenomenal detour with The Royal Scam before they got there! 👍🏼🎼🎸❤️😎
I used to listen to them back in the day: in one ear and out the other…..as you guys break down the songs, I truly enjoy them. Now I love them! Thanks for reacting to their music!
I was taken aback when I first bought this album, a couple weeks after it came out. I feel that this one is a great prelude of what was to come in the Royal scam and everything else going forward..Thank you for your genuine reaction. It's clear that you appreciate musical genius.
Fun fact: they were unhappy with the sound of Katy Lied vinyl album due to problems with noise reduction system used. Still sound pretty good and has some of their best songs.
They refeused to even listen to the album because MCA would not let them remix it....I think it is one of the best albums....they were something else huh
This is Steely Dan's PIANO album (even with all the great guitar work). Micheal Omartian's piano playing (as well as DF) is all over this album. This album set the template for Aja. It's odd that Royal Scam came between them because Aja sounds like the natural followup. As you guys now know, this music never gets old, outdated, tired sounding. Its the gift that keeps on giving 50 years later. It always sounds fresh, interesting and vital and I NEVER get tired of listening to the Katy Lied album. This is when they became a non touring studio band (until 1993), and used more outside musicians to flesh out the sound F&B wanted. Its a huge step forward from Pretzel Logic. Hopefully you guys will still be playing these tunes 50 years from now in your incredible quadrophonic sound system in your flying car!! 😁 Keep your SD and Fagen etc exploration going!!
Donald and Walter had Micheal Omartian select a Bosendorfer Imperial grand from a piano store near the studio where the Katy sessions were recorded and billed it to ABC as part of the album costs. Omartian said he returned to the studio a few years after and the piano was still there, covered with cigarette burns. Bosendorfer Imperials are built with extra bass keys to allow the pedal tones from some of Bach's organ pieces to be played on them. Many players love the depth, richness and volume the extra bass strings produce. Bosendorfers go for several hundred thousand dollars these days.
Don's voice is just brilliant. Great track! Certainly one of their great jazz pieces. I'd have been astounded for you pair not to instantly recognise how good it is too. Your reactions to hearing this greatness regularly cheer me up.
Throw Out Your Gold Teeth: it is when one is desperate and has nothing left. Life is a gamble. One may need money, so the final resources, when one has nothing left, are the gold fillings and crowns in one’s mouth. Maybe the roll will be lucky. Maybe not. YOLO. In a few decades, everyone will end up in the same spot anyway.
I was raised on this music and to be honest, i hated it. Than as my ears developed i realized the error of my ears. And rediscovered the Dan in college. And now 20 years later I'm rediscovering a part of the soundtrack of my life once again. Thanks for that gentlemen.
I think it can take a while for SD to really hit. I never hated it, but I needed to listen to a lot of other music before I started to really appreciate it.
Wow, can't imagine hating these gems. They hooked me early on as a 13-14 year old. Didn't understand most of the songs for years, took some time for some of the tunes to "take", but for the most part it was just so GOOD SOUNDING that I knew they were something special. What stunk for me as a 15 year old in 1975, ready to start going to concerts, is when I found out Steely Dan was no longer touring. Wtf! I played Aja constantly in HS and all through college , but frustrated I couldn't see this band I loved live in concert. Thank god that changed in 1993. 20+ Dan shows under the belt.
@hklinker I was kind of the opposite, in that discovering bands like Steely Dan, Return to Forever and Weather Report caused me to explore jazz via Wayne Shorter, Chick Corea, Stanley Clarke, etc and branching out from there. It helped that I was into Progressive Rock from about 73-74 on, so I was listening to pretty complex stuff by the mid 70s.
@@kbrewski1 My father was a jazz guitarist so my not liking Steely Dan was just a side effect of him playing The Royal Scam for 18 years straight. 😆 When you group up in a musical house there is a sound that the family has and I at least unconsciously rebelled against my sonic roots. Steely Dan, Peter Gabriel/Genesis, Yes, Pat Metheny, Chic Corea, Jean Luc Ponty. We're just like brussel sprouts to my ears when I was 6 years old and it took years to re-educate my hearing
I see a copy of Weather Report's "Black Market" album in the background there. Hope you guys react to the title track some time; plus there's a lot more great stuff there not to be missed.
Fun fact: When Dias was advertising in I believe The Village Voice for a keyboard player and bassist for what was originally HIS new band (heh), one of the requirements he listed was, "must have jazz chops." Becker and Fagen answered the ad, and the rest is history.
For a looong time Katy Lied was my favorite Dan album. Over the years Aja eventually overtook it, but not by much. Katy Lied is still a very, very close second.
I'm pretty much the same way. I vacillate from Countdown or Katy Lied as a close second to Aja. Dr Wu is right up there with Aja as best SD tune. A great piano album.
I've never understood the relative hate Katy Lied always seems to get among Dan fans. For me it's filled end-to-end with thoughtful evocative lyrics and masterful musicality.
@submandave1125 "Hate", really? I've never encountered that to any great degree. I don't see how any reasonable music fan could hate an album with the fantastic Dr. Wu, Bad Sneakers, Black Friday, the funky Daddy Don't Live in NYC, the perverse Everyone's Gone to the Movies, the straight blues of Chain Lightning, Any World, and the very underrated Your Gold Teeth II. What confounds me is how tunes like Wu, Movies, and YGT2 especially were so rarely played live. Dr Wu has only been played 7 times live. Incredibly, I've been very fortunate to have seen it live TWICE of those 7, once in Chicago in 2009 and at the one off Rarities Night at the Beacon in NYC in 2011. They haven't played it since. Katy Lied is where SD really became a studio band and set the template for Aja. For me, Pretzel Logic was their weakest album of the initial run. (Yet its still better than 90% of most music out there).
@@kbrewski1 "Relative" hate. A lot of folks are seriously down on the album in a "it's Steely Dan so it's better than 90% of stuff out there, but in the Dan pantheon it's just meh" kinda way. It's a pretty common sentiment that I don't think the album deserves.
