Weekend music: Another Steely Dan cover

When we started Radio Dupree a little more than five years ago we had two artists that we said would always be on the playlist; Frank Zappa and Steely Dan. And those two also played an important part in the name we picked for the station.

Our weekend music this time around is a Steely Dan cover by the one-man group Archangel from west London. His name is Nick Webber and here's a couple of quotes from reviews of his debut album How To Lose Your Best Friend:

"Eleven magnificently overwrought and dramatically fashioned songs that explore the lexicon of love with an epic sweep and neon glow that will remind you of all your favourite 70s and 80s groups while sounding utterly contemporary."
The Guardian

“the sound made by a young man with a serious record collection having monstrous amounts of fun, and almost bafflingly, it works”
Word Magazine

And say what you want about a cover compared to the original, but we thinks it is fun to see that the music of Steely Dan inspires new generations of musicians to record covers.

And on Radio Dupree you can hear not only the originals, but also covers like Nick's as well as music and artists with a close connection to Steely Dan. Right now we're spinning Sally Taylor's When We're Together from her album Tomboy Bride. A song that Donald Fagen and Walter Becker helped her record. And there's a couple of tracks from original Steely Dan drummer Jim Hodder's band Bead Game.

We're also busy compiling a Zappa special for December filled with rare remixes and stuff you'll have a hard time hearing elsewhere.

But here and now it's Steely Dan cover time! Thanks to the site thesixtyone.com we can give you a taste of Archangels and Do It Again:



(Do we detect a slight Elton John Bennie And The Jets influence in the break a minute before the end?)

And while we're at it:

An article from the The Onion, a "parody newspaper" as Wikipedia calls it. Donald Fagen defends Steely Dan.

"Look, I understand. It's an acquired taste," Fagen said after putting his group's 1978 hit "Deacon Blues" on the bar's jukebox. "I wasn't that into it at first, either. But when you really listen to the unbelievable production values and the wry, perfectly crafted lyrics—it's just great art, okay? You should definitely give 'the Dan' a shot."

"No one knows better than I do that this stuff can get extremely self-indulgent," Fagen said. "And, yes, I realize that all the preciousness and apparent awe at its own cleverness can be a little too much to stomach sometimes. Hell, some of Gaucho is even too goddamned smooth for me."

Funny! Read the full article here.