Customer Reviews

Steely Dan: Reelin' in the Years

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2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Steely Dan are noted for their exacting and meticulous recording style. Unfortunately 'Reeling In The Years' by Brian Sweet is written in almost the complete opposite of Steely Dan's style. Long on gossip and hazy recollections by Steely Dan alumni Sweet's account never gives us what we want: Steely Dan!

After informing us that he could not get any interviews with either of Steely Dan's principals Walter Becker or Donald Fagen in his preface, ("for reasons best known only to themselves, Becker and Fagen, declined to be interviewed despite several earnest requests."),Sweet then spends the next 36 pages detailing Fagen's childhood (but not Becker's), the songwriters school days at Bard College and then a long study of a terrible film the duo wrote the score for in 1971 ('You Gotta Walk It, Like You Talk It'..so bad that it's never been aired on tv).

One of the things that die hard 'Dan fans hoped for before this book came out was a detailed account of how and when the group came into being when they were signed by ABC Dunhill Records in 1971. Despite lots of details and a plethora of non-source credited quotes (in fact none of the quotes in the entire book are sourced!)the reader will still come away somewhat confused as to how the original group (which toured for three years) was first assembled. Sweet himself seems confused, on p. 40 he states that Denny Dias, a longtime guitarist for the band, was the first to join the band. Five pages later he states that the group had already recorded and released their first songs before Dias had "yet to arrive in California."

Aside from compiling a sloppy chronology Sweet gives off obsessive tones with comments like "What more do they want?" as he demands they release a new album in his introduction. Later he takes on the roll of psychologist with, "Fagen seemed to be blaming his parents and the American lifestyles in the Fifties for his thirtysomething creative problems." What lifestyles of the 1950's were a! ffecting Fagen some 30 years later one can only guess but Sweet seems confident in telling us the true psyche of this person he's never interviewed.

Now I don't blame all of these faults with the book on the writer..... But what you get is a half baked account, slapped together (complete with a picture of Donald Fagen in kindergarten)for a quick buck....maybe Fagen and Becker are saving their version of the Steely Dan story for Hollywood!....I can see it 'Steely Dan: The Trip We Made To Hollywood..(and back)!

While British author Brian Sweet should be commended for compiling the first ever account of Steely Dan in book form, the publishers should have realized that Sweet was not a first rate author. Or a writer in the usual sense..he was the creator of a sloppy fanzine that even to diehard Steely Dan fans was both obsessive and idiotic. Omnibus perhaps should have subtitled this 'A Britsh fans' view of Steely Dan' for it is quite ironic that Steely Dan, perhaps the most American of all the great 1970's bands, has yet to be recognized by the US rock historians. While Sweet does fill in some of the holes in the early Steely saga he spends too much time on banal trivia, is it really important that we know what color tie Fagen & Becker's first manager was wearing when he met them? Did we really need a picture of Donny Fagen age 12? The publishers should have realized that they had hired an adoring fan of the composers and not a writer or researcher. My father said that you can always judge a book by its index and bibliography...this book has neither...no index + no bibliography= sloppy writing...Steely Dan deserve better.

This biography of Walter Becker and Donald Fagan is loaded with interesting information about the lives and near maniacal recording practices of Steely Dan. I believe this is the pretty much the only biography of Steeley Dan available and as a huge fan I could not put the book down. Note, however, that great literature this is not. The book is extremly poorly written, bordering on offensive at times, but the content more than makes up for it.

A mishmash of speculation, hearsay and interviews taken from uncredited sources, Sweet's book will probably still find a fascinated audience among most hardcore Danfans. Those who are well-read in the interviews of ex-band members and related studio guys will instantly recognize many of the quotes in this work, however Sweet does not credit any of the actual sources of these quotes and would lead the less investigative reader to believe he spoke with many of these musicians himself (instead of simply culling the quotes from Modern Drummer or Guitar Player). In that regard it is somewhat of a hack job. The writing style itself is somewhat poor, and there are some embarassing factual errors. All this said, I'll admit I gobbled it up, simply because I was it does provide a hearty dose of Dan information and folklore in one convenient package.

It is ironic that an account of the Steely Dan phenomenon is documented by someone whose writing skills are negligable. Becker and Fagen, two contemporary literary masters by most standards, would find it strangely fitting, I suppose. Sweet's saving grace is his penchant for detail. His tome has the stories for which every avid Dan fan hungers. Recording sessions, writing sessions, band reformulations, personal melodramas, etc. These elements make it enjoyable reading, especially when accompanied by revisitations to the legendary recordings. Listening to the CD's while making one's chronological journey through this book, is distictly thrilling, as well as eye(ear)-opening. The lack of an index and of footnotes limits this volume's usefulness as a reference source however. It would be nice to see a similar effort made by a writer who posesses a similar creative energy, quirkiness and skill to that of Becker and Fagen themselves.

Guessing a book's ambitions for itself typically is a matter of reading its forward. Despite his catchy title, Brian Sweet's forward does and, alas, MUST stipulate that he could not convince Steely Dan's key members to participate in the the production of "Steely Dan: Reelin' in the Years." As we are soon to learn, the characteristic retiscence with, occasional manipulation of, and general disdain for popular media by Mr.s Fagen and Becker are an essential part of the exposition of this "band." If J.D. Salinger has a musical counterpart, it is Donald Fagen, and perhaps Walter Becker is a psychedelic Hemingway. In either case, the deliberate, if uncalculated, mystery of Steely Dan is Sweet's most obvious "take" on the Fagen/Becker collaboration. Anyone who has an abiding interest in the work of either of these figures knows this full well, but one cannot blame Sweet for thematizing it. As a result, Sweet must rely on an assemblage of extant press accounts and interviews, which really turns the book into a second order cut and paste job. This said, however, what "Reelin' in the Years" does successfully is lay out some basic facts about the band in chronological order, using an apt phrase or song title to characterize each period. This presentation is satisfactory, but perhaps avoids the most difficult interpretive work to be done here: Namely, to do some enjoyable figuring on just what the hell is going on with the music. It is true that "Only a Fool" would pretend to get at anything like an "essence" here, if for no other reason than there ain't one to get. Nevertheless, as unprecendently postmodern and ironist as Steely Dan was (and, incidentally, the solo Donald Fagen of "Nightfly" and "Kamakiriad" was certainly not), there are chunks of coherency and discernible irreverency in the lyrics and particularly the music of Steely Dan that is there for the taking, the surface of which Sweet really does not limn. Incidentally, if you want a coherent, third order, take on the history of the band, listen to "Kamakiriad" with Sweet's account in mind--the clues are everywhere--Fagen denials notwithstanding. For example, the fact that Becker lives in Hawaii and Fagen in NYC is not entirely inconsistent with "Kamakiriad's" first cut about a "Trans-Island Skyway." But even though it is intriguing to think about "Kamakiriad" as a Freudian prelude to Steely Dan's "rebirth," this is not an objective exam and will not be graded. This is another way of saying that I wish Sweet had done less to try to "find" a coherency in what were highly contingent, accident-ridden, and thoroughly brilliant years of songwriting and studio sessions. Instead, I'd like to see what he makes of what Becker and Fagen assembled. This said, I think Sweet has skillfully begun excavation on a site where the artifacts are never quite stable in shape or location. "Steely Dan: Reelin' in the Years" whets the appetite and makes me look forward to the next dig.

If genius is infinite attention to detail then Fagan and Becker approach the mark. Even though the book is not up to literary snuff it provides insight into the technique's and attention of which "Dan" songs are infused. The constant striving for new sounds and the exhausting "takes" from different artists suggests why intelligent fans remain a constant in the band's orbit. We continue to look forward to new revelations about the awkward duo, the posterboys for workaholic musicians anonymous.

This book written by a man who publishes a UK-based fanzine about Steely Dan goes a long way in explaining the lives and times of the two men responsible for the band, Walter Becker and Donald Fagen. While other reviewers of this book may complain that neither of them were interviewed for this book (not that Becker & Fagen would have anyway, given their notorious dislike for interviews), Brian Sweet still does a fine job in detailing the band's history and the "bios" of both men.

It's interesting to read about the things going on during the recording of the Dan's early albums, numerous stories and anecdotes are contained in the book; and also the personality "quirks" of Becker & Fagen. Also interesting are the supposed meanings behind so many of the group's cryptic lyrics. While it's nice to have some sort of idea what a song is based on, too much interpretation will only drive you crazy in the long run (at least in my opinion). The book continues on through the "breakup" of Steely Dan in 1981, the "drought" that any 'Dan' fan suffered through the 80s as Becker & Fagen found other creative projects to work on and the joy we all felt when we found out the "band" was back together in the early 1990s.

While this updated edition of the 1994 release doesn't really tell too much about what the guys have been doing since '94, it does give a good history up to that point. I feel after having read this book that now I have some small sense of what Becker and Fagen are like. Any Steely Dan fan who wants to learn more about the band's history should go out and grab this book if they haven't done so already.

I can not understand why everyone is complaining about the writing style of this book. I think it is presented quite well. I would like a little more information on certain songs. However, any reader can really get a good feel that Becker and Fagen are two quirky individuals who can really write great music. The reader gets a good background of the original band members without becomming overly detailed. Whereas the writing style is not down right exciting, it matter of factly presents Becker and Fagen as the two talented but oddball musicians that they are. Well done Mr. Sweet.

This book is informative, with some great photos and stories, but it has to be taken in the spirit in which it was written. The author admits not interviewing the principals during the course of writing this book, and has to rely on a lot of second hand information. For this reason, one can not take everything too seriously. There were a few grammatical errors in the text as well, but considering the author was based in the U.K., I don't really know what may be correct in their determination. I found it an informative and entertaining book, but it would have been better to hear from Donald and Walter in the first person.