Steely Dan

Steely Dan performed at Merriweather Post Pavilion Tuesday night. Suburban editor Andy Rosen reviews the show. Halfway into Steely Dan's set at Merriweather Post Pavilion Tuesday, the band had already busted out the big guns: "Aja" (with studio-quality drum solo), "Hey Nineteen," "Showbiz Kids. " And now they were playing "Bodhisattva. " Apparently, many people were too busy to look up from their smartphones and watch. At least one person was sleeping in the front row of the lawn seats.

Steely Dan performed at Merriweather Post Pavilion Tuesday night. Suburban editor Andy Rosen reviews the show. Halfway into Steely Dan's set at Merriweather Post Pavilion Tuesday, the band had already busted out the big guns: "Aja" (with studio-quality drum solo), "Hey Nineteen," "Showbiz Kids. " And now they were playing "Bodhisattva. " Apparently, many people were too busy to look up from their smartphones and watch. At least one person was sleeping in the front row of the lawn seats.

Ever since Steely Dan was listed in one of the subscription series at the Merriweather Post Pavilion this summer, Dan fans have been champing at the bit to buy tickets.And no wonder. Not only is the reunion the first time Walter Becker and Donald Fagen have worked together as Steely Dan since 1981, but the group's last tour was 19 years ago.But when tickets for the show didn't go on sale as announced, some fans got suspicious. Rumors began to spread, and within weeks, it was taken as gospel that the reunion had been scotched, and that there would be no tour.

Merriweather Post Pavilion has two of the biggest shows of the week - Steely Dan and Death Cab for Cutie. Meanwhile, the Verizon Center in D.C. has Taylor Swift for two nights starting today. We will have reviews of both Swift and Steely Dan later this week. Elsewhere: the great Jonny Blaze will be at Peer Pressure, which deserves a congratulations for reaching it's tenth edition. Also: Boys Noize, James Nasty, Gilded Gilly, and Posh Cavern, and Save Your Soul at Lith Hall. On Tuesday , Steely Dan performs at Merriweather Post Pavilion, 10475 Little Patuxent Pkwy.

Merriweather Post Pavilion has two of the biggest shows of the week - Steely Dan and Death Cab for Cutie. Meanwhile, the Verizon Center in D.C. has Taylor Swift for two nights starting today. We will have reviews of both Swift and Steely Dan later this week. Elsewhere: the great Jonny Blaze will be at Peer Pressure, which deserves a congratulations for reaching it's tenth edition. Also: Boys Noize, James Nasty, Gilded Gilly, and Posh Cavern, and Save Your Soul at Lith Hall. On Tuesday , Steely Dan performs at Merriweather Post Pavilion, 10475 Little Patuxent Pkwy.

Walter Becker still remembers what happened when word first got around that he and Donald Fagen were writing songs together again. This was 1986, just six years after the two had called it quits for Steely Dan, and already, the interest in a reunion album was enormous."

For Steely Dan fans, it's been a drought of biblical proportions: 12 years and counting without any new music from one of the more innovative bands of the 1970s.There have been no albums from either of Steely Dan's founding members, Donald Fagen and Walter Becker, since 1982, when Mr. Fagen released "The Nightfly." The duo last worked together in 1980, on what would be the final Steely Dan album, "Gaucho."As Mr. Fagen explains, he was left drained by making "The Nightfly" without his old partner, and found "I had nothing left to say."

In the furor that surrounded this year's Grammy contenders for album of the year, it may surprise no one to hear that one of the nominated albums included a song whose narrator gloats over his affair with an underage girl and tries to pressure her into a threesome. Or that another tune from the album was about a man propositioning his young cousin. But those songs aren't on Eminem's widely denounced -- and ultimately also-ran -- "The Marshall Mathers LP." Actually, "Janie Runaway" and "Cousin Dupree" are two of the catchier songs on the album that took top honors this past week: Steely Dan's "Two Against Nature."

Packaging, they say, is everything, and Donald Fagen's "Kamakiriad" (Reprise 45230) is a case in point.Mention to most pop fans that "Kamakiriad" marks Fagen's reunion with Walter Becker, and the reaction is likely to be mostly yawns. Explain, however, that Becker and Fagen's last project was a little thing called Steely Dan, and odds are that listener interest will increase considerably.But it's the music that ultimately makes the case, for "Kamakiriad" sounds like nothing so much as a Steely Dan album.

It's funny the way reunion shows work. As curious as we might be to see how our old favorites have changed over the years, it's always vaguely disappointing to hear a familiar tune done differently. Because even if that change is ultimately for the better, the fact that the new version has to fight its way past layers of memory to get a fair hearing means most of us will end up enjoying it less than the original.So it was hard to walk away from Steely Dan's reunion-tourperformance at the Merriweather Post Pavilion Saturday without some degree of mixed feelings.

Steely Dan and Michael McDonald -- Nissan Pavilion / Steely Dan's heyday was in the 1970s, when its jazz rock sound exploded. Although it has elements of funk, R&B and pop, the music centered around jazz arrangements. The band is known for picture-perfect sounding studio recordings and elite songwriting skills. Opening the show is former bandmate and former Doobie Brothers member Michael McDonald. Steely Dan plays the Nissan Pavilion at Stone Ridge, 7800 Cellar Door Drive, Bristow, Va., Sunday.

There are certain artists, pop music legends, whose shelves, you assume, must be crammed with Grammys. They've had brilliant careers, and their landmark albums forever changed pop. Remember Elvis Presley's self-titled debut from '56, James Brown's Live at the Apollo from '63, Marvin Gaye's What's Going On from '71, Prince's Sign O' the Times from '87? Surely, during their revolutionary years, the King of Rock 'n Roll and the Godfather of Soul had to haul home Grammys in pick-up trucks. Right?

In the furor that surrounded this year's Grammy contenders for album of the year, it may surprise no one to hear that one of the nominated albums included a song whose narrator gloats over his affair with an underage girl and tries to pressure her into a threesome. Or that another tune from the album was about a man propositioning his young cousin. But those songs aren't on Eminem's widely denounced -- and ultimately also-ran -- "The Marshall Mathers LP." Actually, "Janie Runaway" and "Cousin Dupree" are two of the catchier songs on the album that took top honors this past week: Steely Dan's "Two Against Nature."

AC/DC's Brian Johnson is a randy old buzzard. He's got only one thing on his mind, and it's double entendres. Skim through the titles on AC/DC's latest album, "Stiff Upper Lip" (EastWest 24942, arriving in stores today), and it's hard to miss the thrust of his lyrics. He "Can't Stand Still" because he wants his honey to "Give It Up." So he's telling her to "Come and Get It" before he heads into the "House of Jazz" and has a "Meltdown." You can stop snickering now, Beavis. Such pre-pubescent prurience would be forgivable if Johnson's nudge-wink lyrics were supported by head-banging guitar work.

NEW YORK -- We've all heard about the perks of rock stardom -- the parties, the groupies, the readily available intoxicants. And getting on that gravy train is simple. Send a record to the top of the charts, and everybody wants to do you a favor; make a career of having hits, and the world is your oyster. So it shouldn't be surprising on this brisk December afternoon to find Walter Becker and Donald Fagen, a duo better known to music fans as Steely Dan, gloating about their latest bit of celebrity graft: Two hefty CD boxed sets.

Walter Becker still remembers what happened when word first got around that he and Donald Fagen were writing songs together again. This was 1986, just six years after the two had called it quits for Steely Dan, and already, the interest in a reunion album was enormous."

When last heard from, Steely Dan was in a stylish funk. The year was 1980, the album was "Gaucho," and the sound was slick and soulful, full of lithe, danceable grooves but spiked with enough jazzy sophistication to satisfy the brainiest of listeners. Even so, there wasn't a lot of satisfaction to be heard in the songs themselves, as Walter Becker and Donald Fagen -- the braintrust behind the band -- wrestled with problems ranging from existential anomie to girlfriends too young to appreciate Aretha Franklin.

NEW YORK -- We've all heard about the perks of rock stardom -- the parties, the groupies, the readily available intoxicants. And getting on that gravy train is simple. Send a record to the top of the charts, and everybody wants to do you a favor; make a career of having hits, and the world is your oyster. So it shouldn't be surprising on this brisk December afternoon to find Walter Becker and Donald Fagen, a duo better known to music fans as Steely Dan, gloating about their latest bit of celebrity graft: Two hefty CD boxed sets.