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Friday, June 24, 2005
An Exceptionally Brief, Yet Important, Addition to a Common Gloss
I’d be mildly surprised if anyone reading this blog didn’t know the origin of “Steely Dan.”
On the next page, however, you’ll find a more descriptive reference (this is p. 84 of the Grove edition): “She puts on a record, metallic cocaine bebop.”
That’s as good of a description of their music as I’ve ever read. And, as far as google can tell me, I don’t think anyone’s yet pointed it out on the internet.
With Ellington’s “East St. Louis Toodleoo” also making an appearance, you might wonder if their goal was to actualize Burroughs’ fiction by giving it a soundtrack--a clear success in several ways.
Comments
Be mildly surprised, Jonathan. In fact, if I wasn’t already a habitual reader of this blog, this is exactly the kind of remark that would likely put me off coming back a second time.
We talk all the time about dismantling the canon but if Stephen Potter-ish “litmanship” is what grows up in its stead, then WE’RE DOOMED!!! to fragmentation and clubbishness. [/thread hijack]
Are you saying you’ve never heard of the band Steely Dan or that you didn’t know their name came from Naked Lunch? I’ve come to realize over the years that people generally tend not to like them as much as I do, but I supposed that factoid had a lot of consumer penetration. Burroughs still inspires a cult following, and Steely Dan’s sunny tunes about heroin addiction and murder are constantly played here on commercial radio and in grocery stores. It’s not uncommon for the Burroughs reference to be explained by a DJ killing time. Anyway, I just wrote that because it made me cringe a bit to explain it.
I thought that the additional information was interesting. When I think of cocaine, though, I think more of Reagonomics and crazed free-marketers. Steely Dan doesn’t have that enthusiasm.
I didn’t know their name came from Naked Lunch and I thought you were saying that a person who didn’t know that would be a bit surprisingly ignorant to concern themselves with literary studies. Pragmatically I daresay that is a fair-enough claim, because there are so many Americans doing literary studies that the rest of us really need to know at least *some* of what you know, otherwise we won’t have anything in common to talk about, and that would be a bit of a sad situation. Anyway, it’s not important.
I have many obscure interests, and one of my favorite forms of humor is to pretend that they’re not obscure. I certainly wouldn’t claim this reference is important at all--it’s just something I’ve personally heard repeated many times (along with the fact that Chevy Chase went to school with them, etc.)
Though I could talk about John Reith in epic detail, I wasn’t exactly sure who Stephen Potter was, I should admit.
I was going to mention Cosmas Indicopleustes, but never mind.
Not much consumer penetration outside the US, where admittedly they are not quite so well known. I thought you were having a dig at the age of the bloggers on The Valve, to be perfectly honest - all forty and rising? I thought there were drugs in there with my Pretzel Logic somewhere ( it’s in the vinyl collection, thanks).
I guess they don’t play Velvet Underground tunes in your supermarkets?
I don’t know, but if I had to guess, I’d say that most of the Valve bloggers are under forty.
I can’t remember ever hearing a VU song, but I’ve heard “Time out of Mind” and “Dr. Wu” countless times.
Genevieve, “forty and rising"‽ Do you really believe someone over forty, nay, thirty could produce such nonsense?
(Oh, and how wonderful is it that the Valve recognized my interrobang?)
Steely Dan? Is this what we’ve been reduced to? Oy vey. Lite jazz for the ironic generation.
My first exposure to SD was through The Minutemen remake of “Dr. Wu,” featuring D. Boon’s powerful singing and Mike Watt’s ass-slamming bass beatdown. But the Dan themselves have always struck me as godawful.
I don’t want to start the kind of music argument that Michael Berube often features on his blog, but the very fact that Steely Dan is featured in Giant Eagles and Shoprites and Acmes around the USofA is damning enough. Not that I particularly want to hear the VU in a supermarket. “Music for Shopping” (to predict the title of Brian Eno’s next new age album) is there precisely as a kind of mausoleum of dead style, a wax museum of thankfully forgotten, but never fully forgotten, tunes. The next Arcades Project will deal with the music of supermarkets, or so says Paul Mooney’s Negrodamus.
It’s interesting that Burroughs has generated rock music far less adventurous than his fiction. Usually even the worst rock music is more adventurous than fiction. But Soft Machine? Heavy metal in general? Steely Dan?
First Laura disses The Shins, and now this? This?!?! Next thing I know, someone’s gonna rag on Yo La Tengo, and then I’m gonna havta throw down.
You should pay closer attention.
FM is perhaps the most obnoxious rock song ever recorded. Steely Dan should burn in hell.
I was going to mention Cosmas Indicopleustes, but never mind.
Why? Why ‘never mind’, I mean, now that you have gone ahead and mentioned.
For the record, I don’t care if Jonathan or anyone else listens to Steely Dan or the Shins or (shudder) Yo La Tengo, it’s your soul you’re destroying, not mine.
Genevieve, Safeway have been playing a lot of early 70s Bowie lately, which I find a bit strange, given there couldn’t be many individuals with less need for actual food.
Well, Cosmas really kicks ass, but it is a pretty obscure band.
Sounds to me like Laura has made her point - this thread is good for a laugh but it’s pretty much hijacked now. Listen to yourselves, we are talking about what we hear in the supermarket (how silly they are playing skinny people’s music, I agree. And by the way Velvet Underground will never be played in Western supermarkets, as most of their songs are openly about the acquisition of hard drugs. This I too did not know until my thirties, when I actually bought a CD and listened to it.)
I am enticed by the claim that ‘even the worst rock music is more adventurous than fiction,’ that’s quite a fun idea (shit, where ARE those interrobangs on this keyboard?)Seriously, we could go on and on like this, and for what? Steely is as steely does.
The Soft Machine produced unadventurous music? That’s an interesting thesis. Maybe after Wyatt left.
NTM anyone who refers to “heavy metal in general” is either very ignorant or very, very well-informed about metal, and I’m gonna guess that Luther Blisset isn’t the latter.
yea, you need to listen a lot harder than you have, the Dan is extreme behind a veiled exterior.
but, i guess if you listen to Velvet you wouldn’t know that.