It's here...!

"It" being the Nightfly Trilogy box set. The Swedish Customs (Tullverket) and the Swedish Postal Service (Posten) added 169 Swedish kronor to the total. That's $25.50 or £12.90 or €18.00. But, hey! I got one of the 100 signed copies sold through donaldfagen.com.

While waiting for my box set to arrive I searched for info on it and pictures of it on the Internet. I wanted to know what it looked like, what it contained.
So now that I have my own copy I'll do just that; get some pics and text up as soon as possible so you can see what you get if you buy Donald Fagen's Nightfly Trilogy.

I have a busy Friday, but sometime late this Saturday a page should be up and ready. Check back for a link.

P.S.
We've added the two previously unreleased tracks; Hank's Pad and Viva Viva Rock 'N' Roll, to the Radio Dupree playlist.

- - - - - Update December 2 - - - - -

The Trilogy page is up! Just a few photos and quick description of what it looks like. To see and read just click this link to get there.

The Swedish Arrangement...

Time to get local. And once again push our local Steely Dan tribute band; 2nd Arrangement. The previous - and first - time we mentioned them was two months ago.

A new video from the latest gig is up. It's a six minute sweep containing a quick taste of the following songs: Lunch with Gina, Bad Sneakers, Green Earrings, Peg, Any Major Dude, Do It Again and The Second Arrangement.

They've added trumpet and saxophone and are eight people strong by now.
Looking forward to the next gig! Radio Dupree promise to be there.

Fagen Trilogy promo sold on eBay

What can you do with $71.01?
You can buy a promo copy of Donald Fagen's The Nightfly Trilogy box set on eBay.


That's what somebody did earlier this month. Looks like a two-record deal; one CD and one DVD.

Here's a link to the page.

Donald Fagen MVI page

We've mentioned it a couple of months ago, but it looks a bit different now so we thought we'd give you the URL once more:

http://www.mvimusic.com/donaldfagen/

That's the official page on what "MVI" is in regard to the Nightfly Trilogy box and Donald Fagen.

(MVI's are basically DVD discs with music and bonus stuff like videos, text and pics.)

And here's a link to a discussion on an audiophile forum. The view of the box set so far seem to be unimpressed.
Unimpressed by the sound: No remastering of the albums and the bonus cuts just in stereo.
Unimpressed by the packaging: No printed booklets. All the text/credits on the MVI discs only. A custom-ringtone application were you have to pay for whatever ringtone you create from the one song per album that's available. And then there's the mp3 versions of the music for the mp3 ripping-challenged among the boxed set owners.

http://www.stevehoffman.tv/forums/showthread.php?t=101396
(The comments on the boxed set starts on page seven...)

For us the interesting stuff is to see what Donald has to say in the written track-by-track comments to all songs. And what the three promised bonus things will prove to be. According to the MVI-site we can expect something more:

"At least three "connected events" will be made available at minimum to registered owners of an MVI release. These events will include the ability to download bonus songs or video and may also include access to album updates, artist posting and special offers. Some artists may offer more than three connected events if they choose."

We can't help notice that the "Kamakiriad Behind The Scenes Documentary" mentioned in early press releases has disappeared from the box set. Our guess is that it might be one of the three bonus thingies coming up.

Anyhoo... We'll see what we think of the whole shebang as soon as our copy arrives.

One thing we were reminded of reading the forum postings was that this would've been a great chance to release Donald's version of the song Bright Lights, Big City from the 1988 movie of the same name. It was recorded but never made the soundtrack CD ... and not this boxed set either.

Got your copy of the box set already? Not bothering to get one? Feel free to share your views by adding a comment.

What's in a "remaster"?

An interesting article about remastering for all audiophile buffs out there. And for the casual listener as well. Should I buy these songs one more time if I already have the vinyl and/or a CD version?

Timesonline: "Do the song remain the same?"

The article is based on the new remastered Led Zeppelin-collection Mothership as it is compared to the 1990 remasters and the original vinyl.

Food for thought and after reading the article we can only come to the conclusion that the art of remastering is a mix of technology, philosophy, personal taste and business.

New Fagen interview

Reuter's has a new interview with Donald Fagen here.
Of special interest is the final question & answer:

Q: What's next?

A: "I'm back into songwriting mode ... for myself and also talking with Walter about a Steely Dan album. We are planning to go out with Steely Dan in the summer (playing live) and maybe next fall (2008) I'm hoping to go out with my band ...We are having a lot of fun in our old age."

The full interview can be read here.

(P.S. As often is the case this Steely Dan-related link was found over on the dandom.com's BlueBook.)

New CD with E.S.T.

The successful Swedish jazz trio E.S.T.(Esbjörn Svensson Trio) is releasing a live CD on November 21.
It's a 2 CD set recorded live in Germany one year ago. The title is simply Live In Hamburg.
The discs include 5 songs each, all original compositions by E.S.T.

Great Bill Withers interview!

Bill Withers has been a personal favourite since I heard Ain't No Sunshine and Lovely Day for the first time. I've wondered what happened to him after a few albums in the 70's and a final one in 1985.

I'm glad to see he's alive and doing well in this fresh interview on Swedish Television. It's 30 minutes mostly in English, so no problem for you non-Swedes when it comes to watching it. The link is here:

http://svt.se/content/1/c6/97/10/17/071116musikbyran.asx
(The link will expire December 15, 2007.)

It's kinda odd that I haven't gone searching for him on the internet, but you know how these things go. While writing this I found his official homepage! Well worth a visit for more on Bill Withers.
A great songwriter and a great singer. Here's hoping he eventually will get around to doing at least one more album...

Reason to be cheerful: Trilogy in the mail

Friday the status for my ordered copy of Donald Fagen's The Nightfly Trilogy changed from "processing" to "shipped". So it's on its way! That info put a smile on my face.

And this does too. Donald and Walter back in 1996 sharing the vocals on a familiar song:

Collector's corner: Fagen/Becker autographs helps charity auction raise £16 000

One of the things up for auction this past week during the BBC's annual Children in Need fundraiser was the aptly named Star Guitar from artist Beth Nielsen Chapman.

She got a few friends to add their autographs to the guitar. OK, we can't say she collected the autographs herself. Here's what the BBC site says:

The front of Beth’s "Star Guitar" is signed by Wake Up To Wogan favourites Dolly Parton, James Taylor, Jack Johnson, Art Garfunkel, Katie Melua, Nanci Griffith, John Fogerty (Creedence Clearwater Revival), Donald Fagen and Walter Becker (Steely Dan).

Autographs on the back include: Michael McDonald, B. J. Thomas ('Raindrops Keep Falling On My Head'), legendary guitarist James Burton (who played with Elvis, Ricky Nelson and Emmylou Harris), John Kay (Steppenwolf), country star Tanya Tucker, and Delbert McLinton (the man who taught John Lennon to play harmonica).

How much did someone pay for the signed guitar? £16,000! Which equals $32,766.

And while we're on Steely Dan stuff being sold:

We haven't mentioned these two items on Ebay before so here goes...

October:
Walt Becker Steely Dan 58 Fender Precision Bass

This example of a 1958 Fender Precision bass was used in early Steely Dan recordings. Walter Becker purchased this bass in 1973 and used it on the recording of the Pretzel Logic album including the hit song "Rikki, Don't Loose That Number." The bass has been stored in Hawaii for several years and depicts some finish flaking due to the high humidity on the islands. The maple neck is very clean.
(From the Jimmy Crimmins 'Vintage Connection' Guitar Collection.)

Sold by Heritage Auctions for the neat sum of $29,500. More info here.

November:
Royal Scam Gold Award

Sold for $ 690. More info here.

Zappa Plays Zappa DVD out now

The Zappa Plays Zappa live DVD is available now. The 2 DVD set features more than 3 hours of music.
For more information: Check out http://www.zappa.com/ or http://www.barfkoswill.shop.musictoday.com/
Three concert dates of Japan are added to the Zappa Plays Zappa tour schedule:
January 21, 2008 Osaka
January 22, 2008 Tokyo
January 23, 2008 Yokohama

The Essence of Swedish Progressive Music 1967–1979

Looking for a slightly different Christmas gift? How about a 4 CD box of Swedish progressive music from the late 60's to the late 70's?

Following the book The Encyclopedia of Swedish Progressive Music 1967–1979 released earlier this year, comes a collection of tracks/artists that goes for the essence of Swedish progressive music.

"Explore the experimental groups, the power trios and the psychedelic acts. Over five hours of music, with the majority of the tracks previously unreleased on CD. Whereas most other compilations from this part of the Swedish rock era have focused on its political angle, this time we take the opposite route. It’s time to let the music do the talking!"

The limited edition box set titled The Essence of Swedish Progressive Music 1967–1979 will be released November 15.
Read more about it here. And see the full track listing here.

Looks like a must-have for the person interested in Swedish progressive music of yore!

Trilogy countdown

It's about a week left until Donald Fagen's The Nightfly Trilogy box is released. Europe on the 19, the U.S. on the 20 and Japan the 21. So we thought we'd add a little countdown to mark the days, hours and seconds left. It can be found up on the right side of the page.

Since we ordered our set from donaldfagen.com's webshop to get it signed by DF himself, we expect to wait a couple more weeks for it to make it across the pond and through customs. As long as it gets here safe and sound we're willing to wait .... Might have to start another counter for that!

Weekly Top 10 - November 11, 2007

1. Bill Bruford - Seems Like a Lifetime Ago, Pt. 1 - Feels Good to Me

2. David Bowie - Silly Boy Blue - Bowie At The Beeb
3. Surfjan Stevens - Free Man In Paris - A Tribute To Joni
=. Steely Dan - The Caves Of Altamira - The Royal Scam
5. David Bowie - Lady Grinning Soul - Aladdin Sane
6. Traffic - Don't Be Sad - Traffic
=. Jerry Garcia - Accidentally Like A Martyr - All Good Things
8. Allan Holdsworth - Dodgy Boat - Wardenclyffe Tower
=. Pink Floyd - Eclipse - Dark Side Of The Moon
=. Lindsey Buckingham - September Song - Law & Order

Currently enjoying...

... the Robert Plant & Alison Krauss collaboration Raising Sand. You can watch an 8 minute interview with Robert and Alison here:



We're also enjoying the November update of the Radio Dupree homepage.

Donald Fagen on stage in New York November 26!

Donald Fagen is one of the artists playing the 2007 Gala Benefit Concert of the Lauri Strauss Leukemia Foundation on Monday, November 26, 7 p.m. at Carnegie Hall, New York.

Legendary songwriters Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller will be honored and among the headliners besides Donald we find Natalie Cole, Ben E. King and Chuck Jackson.

Tickets are on sale. Read more about it here.

New Zappa CD from the vault!

There is a new Frank Zappa CD out. It is a 2 CD set with the Grand Wazoo Orchestra recorded live in Boston on the 24 of September 1972.
http://www.zappa.com/ is taking pre-orders. On the site you can also hear a couple of minutes of music from the album. Sound quality and sound mix seem to be of similar quality as on the album Imaginary Diseases, recorded the same year and released on the same label (Vaulternative Records) last year; Some balance problems since it's a recording of a "big band" with a lot of instruments, but certainly not bad for a '72 road tape.

Track list disc 1: Intro, The Grand Wazoo, Approximate, Big Swifty

Track list disc 2: "Ulterior Motive", The Adventures of Greggery Peccary (4 movements), Penis Dimension, Variant I Processional March

Weekend music: Georg Wadenius

Here's 45 minutes from the gig that Georg "Jojje" Wadenius played at the Umeå Jazzfestival October 26. The links will work for 30 days. (Useless as of November 27, 2007).

It was part of Swedish Radio's live coverage and as they chop the broadcast into 1 hour chunks you'll have to do it like this to get it all. First go to this link:

* First hour *

Go 52 minutes in and you get 8 minutes of the first song "Longing". It continues here:

* Second hour *

and is followed by three more songs.

Songs (Composer):
Longing (Wadenius)
Atlantis (McCoy Tyner)
Tom Terrific (Rob Mounsey)
Sushiland (Magnus Lindgren)

The band:
Jojje Wadenius; guitar
Tommy Berndtsson; keyboards
Petter Gunnarsson; bass
Pelle Claesson; drums

More on Georg on his official homepage or his old and his new MySpace pages.

Weekend music: Godley and Gouldman

We added a couple of tracks from The Eagles' new one a few days back. And I've also noted on the Steely Dan pages I frequent that The Eagles is one of the bands/artists that that you're supposed to distance yourself from. At least if you consider yourself a person with a taste one step above the masses when it comes to the appreciation of real music.
I myself can buy the view of The Eagles as one of those 70's superbands that stuck around for the money, but at the same time I can't see why I shouldn't be able to say they did some great music. And still do. So in some way I pity the "I hate The Eagles"-people, the I hate-this-or-that-musician/music view of thinking.
It's a surefire way to miss a lot of fine music in genres and by artists that you turn your back on just because...

Which brings us to another Radio Dupree favorite that we ususally seem to play for our own pleasure and very few of our listener's: 10cc.
A popular 70's band that recordeed some great records.
The founding members are still around making music. Kevin Godley and Graham Gouldman have been trying out some new music together, uploading tracks to a website since 2006 that we found by accident this summer.
There are currently six songs available for download purchase and a video was added this week. So enjoy an old 10cc number (Old Wild Men), a new one (beautifulloser.com) and check out http://www.gg06.co.uk/.