Exile on Main Stream?

Dressmann, the Norwegian chain of men's clothing stores, has landed a deal with The Rolling Stones. The lads will contribute with a special collection for the discount chain. The Exile on Main Stream collection?

Photo: Dressmann

Shuffle Diplomacy Twenty Eleven

It looks like that's what the Steely Dan 2011 tour will be called. Shuffle Diplomacy Twenty Eleven. And it's just another surprising name for a Steely Dan tour.

It started out plain enough with Steely Dan In Japan in 1994, but since then the names of the tours have been intriguing, elaborate and/or slightly odd. How about the Art Crimes tour of 2000 and Steelyard "Sugartooth" McDan (and the Fab-Originees.com) in 2006. Or Think Fast, Steely Dan in 2008 and the 2009 tour, long enough to recieve two names; Rent Party '09 for the US dates and Left Bank Holiday for the European leg.

So far just one date is known; Tanglewood, Lenox, Massachusetts on July 26, with tickets on sale February 6. But it has been suggested the tour will run between July and November. Nothing official yet, though...

/For all our posts regarding Steely Dan live 2011 please click the Shuffle Diplomacy Twenty Eleven tag/

Weekend music: Lulu

Spinning on A-rotation on Radio Dupree this weekend is a single by the Scottish artist Lulu. She pulls off two David Bowie numbers , and it's darn good, we dare to say!
Lulu is probably more well known for other things, like singing the title song for the James Bond move The Man With The Golden Gun, and for her carreer as a TV personality. But in 1974 she had the good taste to release a single with two Bowie songs.
Bowie even produced the recordings, and he sang back-up vocals and played saxophone.
The Man Who Sold the World even went high on the UK chart...number three!

One hour Deacon Blues special starting Tuesday

With a kind soul helping us out with a copy of that rarity; The Woody Herman Band's version of Steely Dan's Deacon Blues, we're trying to help people who want to hear it know when to turn in and listen.

Usually Radio Dupree is a non-stop mixed playlist contantly updated on the fly. The rules and regulations forbid us to publish any playlist saying exactly at what time a certain artist/track can be heard.
And while we have that Deacon Blues version on heavy rotation right now you may not want to spend hours listening just to catch that once or twice (although we play some other music worth hearing, if we may say so ourselves!)

So here's a deal to make it a little bit easier to find that song. Starting Tuesday January 24 at 12 p.m. Central European Time we're broadcasting a one hour mix of Steely Dan covers and related stuff including you-know what. Check our schedule and adjust it for your time zone:

http://bit.ly/RadioDupreeSchedule
You've got six chances over three days. It's those shows named Deacon (something.

Deacon Blues by The Woody Herman Band is only available on the CD version of the 1978 release titled Chic, Donald, Walter And Woodrow. More on the album here:
http://www.broberg.pp.se/woody.htm
and here:
http://www.pergunnareriksson.se/cover60.htm

The Radio Dupree listeners...

Did you ever wonder where the Radio Dupree listeners come from? Well, here is the current top 10 list of the countries of our most frequent listeners:
1. United States
2. France
3. Sweden
4. Canada
5. People's Republic of China
6. Poland
7. Hungary
8. United Kingdom
9. New Zealand
10. Germany

We are a bit surprised to find The People's Republic of China coming up as #5. Great! Help spread the word to your countrymen!

Jeff "Skunk" Baxter picks favourite songs and guitar

Jeff "Skunk" Baxter stopped by the Gibson Music Lounge at the 2011 Sundance Film Festival. In this 3 minute video he answers the questions:

Do you have any favourite songs from your days with Steely Dan and The Doobie Brothers? (*)
How good were both of those bands?
How did you become a defense analyst?
What is your favourite Gibson guitar?

Since we can't embed the video you have to click this link or the pic to see it.

(*) He says there are so many but picks one from each band; Razor Boy and Take Me In You Arms (Rock Me A Little While).

Steely Dan(ce)

Photo: dalbera. Creative commons.

How about some modern dance set to the music of Steely Dan? That's what's coming up as part of the Parson Dance Company's run at the Joyce Theater in New York Januari 26 - February 6.

The Steely Dan piece is called Run To You and based on four classic Steely Dan songs; Aja, The Royal Scam, The Fez and Reelin' In The Years. The coreographer David Parsons calls it a reflection on the human traits of positivity and negativity.

According to an article in The Wall Street Journal, Parsons worked with Donald Fagen some 20 years ago.
One of the dancers was giving Donald Fagen Pilates lessons (!) and invited him to collaborate. He composed original music called The Squash Lesson. (Apparently better known these days as Shanghai Confidential.)

20 years later and Parsons, through the same dancer, got Fagen's permission to use the four songs this new piece.
More in The Wall Street Journal.

Radio Dupree is processing the Fagen/Pilates information and look forward to hearing from Steely Dan fans catching the performances.

Steely Dan's Showbiz Kids covered as Showbizz People

Here's the latest Scandinavian cover of a Steely Dan song. Released in Denmark March 2010 and brought to our attention by our our Danish friend Carsten late last year we somehow fumbled the ball and thought we had written about it on this blog. We hadn't. Until now.

So here it is. From Danish singer Hanne Boel's album I Think It is Going to Rain a piano/vocals version of Showbiz Kids retitled Showbizz People:



More Hanne Boel on YouTube:
Hanne Boel - "I Think It's Going To Rain"
Hanne Boel - "Mad World"

[Mange tak, Carsten!]

Steely Dan back to playing sheds in 2011?

It certainly looks like it as the following can be found on the Tanglewood homepage:

Let's zoom in a bit:

The Steely Dan advertisment says the band will be playing the Koussevitzky Music Shed on July 26 at 7 in the evening and that tickets in the price range $25-150 go on sale February 6.

By the way, Tanglewood is, according to Wikipedia, "an estate and music venue in Lenox and Stockbridge, Massachusetts. It is the home of the annual summer Tanglewood Music Festival and the Tanglewood Jazz Festival, and has been the Boston Symphony Orchestra's summer home since 1937."

This also answers the question wether the band would tour or not in 2011. Some Steely Dan fans figured a Donald Fagen solo tour to promote his upcoming album could be an alternative.
And as you may or may not know Fagen toured with Michael McDonald and Boz Scaggs in 2010 while Steely Dan had a break from the road after touring every year 2006 - 2009.

With this first date publicised more questions appear:
* How many dates will there be?
* US only or other parts of the world as well?
* Will Walter and Donald do solo stuff on this tour?

Upon reading that the July 26 date will be at the Koussevitzky Music Shed we for a minute suspected that the tough economic climate finally has hit the Steely Dan organisation, and that the tour will consist of small venues and sheds. But apparently a shed isn't always a ... shed. This is what we found searching for a picture of the venue:

Photo: CC-BY-SA-3.0/Matt H. Wade at Wikipedia

/Click Shuffle Dimplomacy Twenty Eleven for all our posts regarding the tour. /

Return To Forever ... returns

Return To Forever IV is starting a world tour in Australia February. The band this time around consists of Chick Corea (piano and keyboards), Stanley Clarke (bass), Lenny White (drums), Frank Gambale (guitar) and Jean-Luc Ponty (violin).

Dates announced so far:
09 February, 2011 Perth, Australia PCEC Riverside Theater
11 February, 2011 Melbourne, Australia Regent Theatre
12 February, 2011 Melbourne, Australia Regent Theatre
13 February, 2011 Adelaide, Australia Her Majesty's Theatre
15 February, 2011 Sydney, Australia Opera House Concert Hall
17 February, 2011 Brisbane, Australia QPAC Concert Hall
19 February, 2011 Auckland, Auckland, New Zealand ASB Theatre

Return to Forever IV: Hymn of the Seventh Galaxy Tour 2011 from CoreaCrew on Vimeo.

More here:
http://www.return2forever.com/
http://chickcorea.com/concerts
http://www.facebook.com/ReturnToForever

Roger Nichols diagnosed with Pancreatic cancer

Roger Nichols, the recording engineer behind those classic Steely Dan albums as well as recordings by numerous other artists, have been fighting cancer since May 2010.

http://www.rogernichols.com/

The Story Of Funk

You still have a couple of hours to hear the first episode of three of BBC:s The Story of Funk as presented by actress Pam Grier.

In this three part series, American actress Pam Grier ensures Radio 2 is one station under a groove, taking listeners on an historic funk odyssey. She's been a fan of the music since she starred in the so-called Blaxploitation movies of the 1970s. Back then, funk was not only the soundtrack to her films but also to a vital time in American history for black people. It was a time of self discovery, struggle and social change. The music reflected all of that.

And part two airs this evening!

Pink Floyd ends dispute with EMI

Pink Floyd's dispute with their record company EMI is over and they have signed a new contract with the label.
BBC News reports that the fuzz was about the group being dissatisfied with the details of downloading in the old contract.

Fripp & Eno live in Paris 1975

Fans of Robert Fripp and/or Brian Eno will be pleased to hear that the duo's 1975 live performance at the Olympia in Paris, France is now made available for download by DGM.
DGM (Discipline Global Mobile) is also planning a CD release later this year.

DGM puts it like this:
Frippertronics expert Al Okada notes "For any fan of No Pussyfooting or Evening Star, this live recording is of epic significance..."

Nas + Steely Dan (and some Zappa)

Remix. Mash-up. Two ways to describe Steelmatic. It's where two guys from the USA; Manz with some help from Mr. Fantaztix have taken rapper Nas 2001 album Stillmatic and retooled it using Steely Dan samples. It was released December 31, 2010, and although we do not pretend to know all or even enough about the legal ramifications we do suspect it might not be "official" as in cleared with the repective owners of the music.

Then again we could be wrong, as the duo's previous collaboration Hot Trax has been available at the same site since October 2009. Hot Trax features samples from Frank Zappa. And the Zappa lawyers haven't taken lightly on the use of Frank's music outside of the official recordnings.
That's also why we don't link directly to the stuff. It's out there and if you want it you know how to find it.

Radio Dupree Top 20 - January 2011

1. Frank Zappa - Who Needs The Peace Corps? - The Best Band You Never Heard In Your Life

2. Union Carbide Productions - San Fransisco Boogie - In Gold We Trust (sampler)

3. Captain Beefheart - The Spotlight Kid - The Spotlight Kid

4. Captain Beefheart - There Ain't No Santa Claus On The Evenin' Stage - The Spotlight Kid

5. Al Di Meola - Aja - The Royal Dan - A Tribute

6. King Crimson - The Sheltering Sky - Discipline

7. Steely Dan - Bad Sneakers - Katy Lied

8. Bill Bruford - Back To The Beginning - Feels Good To Me

9. Genesis - Harlequin - Nursery Cryme

10. Gentle Giant - Free Hand - Free Hand

11. Catherine Russell - Spoonful - Inside This Heart of Mine
12. King Crimson - In The Court Of The Crimson King - In The Court Of The Crimson King
13. The Doors - Do It - The Soft Parade
14. Jimi Hendrix - Bleeding Heart - More Experience Vol. 2
15. Lynsey De Paul - Because - All This And World War II (various artists)
16. Jean Michel Jarre - Poltergeist Party - Deserted Palace
17. Frank Zappa - Bobby Brown - Hammersmith Odeon
18. Steely Dan - Chain Lightning - Katy Lied
19. King Crimson - Cirkus - Lizard
20. Zappa/Beefheart/Mothers - Man With The Woman Head - Bongo Fury

-------------------------------------------------------
Chart compiled by listeners voting
on the songs they hear on Radio Dupree

One month ago we predicted Zappa domination on the next Radio Dupree chart, much because of the release of Hammersmith Odeon, a 1978 live recording. Well, Zappa is number one but with a live 1988 remake of an old We're Only In It For The Money dittie, and holds two other positions on the new chart but only one song from Hammersmith Odeon.
Captain Beefheart (R.I.P.) shares a track with Zappa (from their collaboration Bongo Fury) and comes up with a total of three songs on our chart! A result of his death on December 17?
King Crimson: three tracks.
Steely Dan: two songs from Katy Lied.
Finally, the surprise of the month: Union Carbide Productions as number two. A rather obscure Swedish band with their psychedelic San Fransisco Boogie.