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Thursday, Sept. 20, 2001
Did I mention I like Steely Dan?

Here's the deal. Just about everybody has a musical ear of some sort. Mine just happened to be pre-ordained for the stuff with some depth to it. Some meat.

Steely Dan, whew. I knew I'd get to the point where I'd have to jot something down about my obsessions. And since I was 12, I've been wrapped around this one.

Those who hang around me know better than to get me started.

Let's see: I've got all the published material. Even some rare stuff (you have to be an active music group for a looooong time to qualify as even having rare stuff). I'm active in every internet thing there is on the subject - and there are plenty, believe you me.

Can you tell I'm exercising great restraint here? I'm not sure I want to test the limits of memory for a single entry page on this server.

But let me set up this one event. Understand that those of us afflicted with the disease gather every scrap from the table of Dan. We suffer interludes between albums which, well, let's just say they're extended. 20 years, the last time. But the music is so layered, so smooth. The lyrics beg interpretations like no other. Songs I've heard hundreds of times sound so fresh, so unique.

And in the summer of 2000 I found myself with 7th row tickets to see them live, my second show with them. On the day of the concert Ally could have cheerfully plugged me into the local power substation for the energy level I was shooting out.

I sat next to some guy I'd never met and we were instant brothers. He did air gutar and I phantomed on drums. We shimmied and jived. We yelled and sang. Mostly, we relished each others company because Donald and Walter were up there on stage making us into something else. They winged us out of ourselves and flew us around their world for a while.

15,000 other middle aged fanatics, and we all had the same vision.

I forgot that I was a parent, a businessman, a bumbler of things earthly. There was nothing for us but the music, the sound! And I could have stopped everything, right there, and followed them around the country just to have that particular, small cell in my brain kept lubricated indefinately.

And now I'm in lurk mode. They're in the studio, making another album. It's like waiting for Van Gogh to paint Starry Night.

Don't rush it, fellas. Your quest for recording perfection has been noted by many. Certainly, it takes time. Yes.

Of course, I'm not getting any younger, here. And neither are you.

www.steelydan.com

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