Rod Stewart - Every Picture Tells A Story
Rod the Mod finds his solo footing, headed for stardom, with the Faces in his wake.
6:00 AM GMT 22/06/2011
Features Disc of the day
Steely Dan
Katy Lied
(ABC, 1975)
Last week's Dan gigs send MOJO reelin' back to their curveball.
Saw Becker & Fagen last Wednesday, at a Hammersmith Apollo show that pillaged my pocketbook but did nothing but stoke my admiration for the kings of jazz-rock snark (there's a great chat about it, here). Beautifully bookended by two versions of Reelin' In The Years - the first a radical reworking, the latter a faithful rave-up featuring original Reelin' axedude Elliott Randall (now a London resident) - it was joyous and energetic, with Fagen in excitable voice. Yet it was their version of Black Friday - all that stuff about grey men diving from the 14th Floor swollen in significance by the ongoing economic apocalypse - that's camped out in my forebrain and had me racing back to Katy Lied. Now I won't start a pub fight by saying their fourth album is their best - there's an equally strong case for each of their first six - but as a record its creators long dissed (unhappy with the effect of early noise reduction technology) it's perhaps the least openly celebrated. But Black Friday's saturnine boogie (Becker's guitar solo, emerging from the ample shadows of Baxter/Dias/Randall/Derringer, is killing) is just one plus. The nasty hangover of Daddy Don't Live In That New York City No More is another. Then there's something bizarrely modern about Everyone's Gone To The Movies, from Jeff Porcaro's mechanistic rhythms to the fuzzy sax snatches that could almost be samples. And weirdest and best, Your Gold Teeth II: a surreal beatnik concoction built on melancholic, Vince Guaraldi-style piano. Sunny and black simultaneously, Katy Lied is the Dan album for London right now: too hot, too fragile, a cocktail of booze and anxiety dressed in hotpants and debt. The perfect post-boom album by the perfect post-boom band, anyone?
Danny Eccleston
Posted by Ross_Bennett at 6:00 AM GMT 06/07/2009
Further Listening
Steely Dan – The Royal Scam (ABC, 1976)
Prefab Sprout – From Langley Park To Memphis (Kitchenware, 1988)
Thomas Dolby – The Flat Earth (EMI, 1984)
Previous Disc of the day
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Earl Brutus - Larky
Last salvo of Ginsters Pasty-Warholism from Britpop ramraiders.
12:04 PM GMT 08/06/2011
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Loudon Wainwright - T-Shirt
An overlooked small wonder from an unpredictable career.
6:00 AM GMT 03/06/2011
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Landscape - From The Tea-rooms Of Mars… To The Hell-holes Of Uranus
Dry computer club Futurists, upon hitting implausible chart paydirt.
6:00 AM GMT 17/05/2011
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Causa Sui - Summer Sessions Vol 1-3
Epic Danish jams, for when the neighbours get you down.
6:00 AM GMT 12/05/2011
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All well said. Maybe a shout out for Doctor Wu. IMO...the best song on the LP.
Posted by AD at 12:36 AM GMT 02/12/2011 Report Abuse
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