Davy Jones of The Monkees has died

Davy Jones, one of the members of the 60's pop group The Monkees has died. BBC reports that he had a massive heart attack in his sleep at his home in Florida at the age of 66. 
The Monkees had hits as Last Train to Clarksville, Daydream Believer and I'm a Believer.
They had a tv-series of their own and made a movie called Head (1968) in which Frank Zappa appeared telling Jones that he should spend more time on his music instead of his dancing.

New record deal for The Sex Pistols

Punk rock band The Sex Pistols have signed a record deal with Universal.
BBC reports that the deal includes an "expanded and repackaged edition" of the Never Mind The Bollocks album.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-17170897

Donald Fagen's new album leaked ... NOT!

We don't know if Donald Fagen should feel flattered, but he's considered big enough to generate clicks on links that should be left unclicked.

His fourth solo album has popped up as a leaked album that you can download ... but beware! It's NOT the album, just some files trying to look like songs and then there's the password link you have to click to get access to the actual files.

The non-album is distributed as Donald Fagen 4 2012 - Full Album Download

Of course the password link only leads you to some scam/malware/virus site or such. The password link in our album package has been used time and time again on many alleged leaked albums, films, games ... whatever. It's a common scam.

A quick look at the "tracks" and you get files those date all the way back to 2006:

 

So. The bottom line is that the new album has NOT leaked and DON'T download anything that is supposed to be a leaked version!

Former Zappa sideman goes to prison for 25 years

Read the tragic true story here:
http://www.star-telegram.com/2012/02/22/3754559/former-frank-zappa-bassist-imprisoned.html

Happy Birthday Walter Becker!

Walter Becker is 62 today, and we got inspired by this on walterbecker.com

which we interpreted that additional homemade videos are welcome. We did what could and came up with this:



"Actor": Standing Man by Sean Henry.

(Instantly removed if WB & friends says so. It's just a fan thing...) 

Weekend music: Keb Mo

Looking for a weekend post we found this tip over on the BlueBook from Steely Dan fan Philippe:

Hello there, if you wish to have a Steely moment this week end, try
"The Reflection (I See Myself In You)" by Keb Mo on his last album, it's as close to Donald as it can be musically without being Donald himself.
Hope you'll enjoy it as much as I do.

A la prochaine
Philippe

And here it is!

Thanks, Philippe!

Esperanza Spalding - Black Gold

From her brand new album Radio Music Society.

Fagen, Becker Spotted in New York

The blog newyorkshitty.com spotted these works of art on North 12 Street, New York, February 10. Click the pic for a full view and more:

donaldfagencom update updated

The Grandfather clock update on donaldfagen.com from three weeks ago have just gotten an update. It includes a Friedrich Nietzsche watch and ... well, just go read the whole thing.

It was enough to inspire some not-too-serious speculation among fans what hidden information about the solo album might lurk in the update.

Among the "finds":

The watch in the grandfather clock update seems to have the credo inscribed in the same typeface as the Morph cover. Maybe "The Eternal Return of the Same" = next DF album title.
- Another Scurvy Brother 

If you Google "one fifteen", your first result will be One Fifteen Artist Management, which on its main artist roster features the band Deacon Blue ("Their name was inspired by a Steely Dan song").

The number 115, when factorized, gives us 5 and 23. May 23 is "Netzach sheb'Malchut" according to the Jewish calendar. Not only does "Netzach" bear resemblence to "Nietzsche", but it also translates to "eternity", which is interesting given that the credo quoted on the donaldfagen.com watch is "the eternal return of the same".

Ergo: really looking forward to May 23!
- fagenism

Feeling the urge to add our own far-fetched inferences we googled one of the names mentioned in the text; Anthony Biddle. Sifting through the life and times of Anthony Joseph Drexel Biddle, Sr. we conclude that these book titles m-i-g-h-t have inspired at least a couple of song titles on Donald Fagen's upcoming solo album:

A dual rôle: and other stories
The Madeira Islands
Shantytown Sketches
The Froggy Fairy Book
The Flowers of Life.
Word for Word and Letter for Letter
Do or Die: A Supplementary Manual on Individual Combat

While a list of where Anthony Joseph Drexel Biddle, Jr. worked as Ambassador surely also indicates the countries Mr Fagen may visit during his so far non-existent 2012 solo world tour:

Poland
Belgium
Netherlands
Norway
Yugoslavia
Greece
Czechoslovakia
Spain 

Dukes Of September set for 2012 summer tour

From Michael McDonald's Facebook page:

I wanna thank everyone for the kind birthday wishes! I wish turning 60 was a bit less painful .... But I do appreciate the encouragement very much.
I look forward to catching up with all of you this summer as we make our way around the U.S. With the "Dukes of Sept". Should be posting dates soon on the website.
M. McDonald

Dukes of September = Boz Scaggs, Donald Fagen and Michael McDonald. They toured together in 2010 and look set to do it again this summer.

UPDATE March 8, 2012: The first two dates are officially announced. Read more here. And get the latest Dukes of September posts by clicking this link: Dukes of September.

Grammy for Roger Nichols

The late Roger Nichols was awarded a Technical Grammy at the 2012 Grammy Awards today.
Here's a link to an article where engineers/producers  Elliot Scheiner and Al Schmitt pay tribute to the pioneering recording engineer.

UPDATE February 13: His wife and daugthers accepting the award.

Ponty plays King Kong at Zappanale 2012

The German Zappa festival The Zappanale has managed to engage several very interesting acts this year. The latest news is that Jean-Luc Ponty and George Duke will perform the entire King Kong album!
French violinist Jean-Luc Ponty recorded the album King Kong: Jean-Luc Ponty Plays the Music of Frank Zappa in the late 1969 together with George Duke and other musicians. It was released in 1970 by World Pacific/Liberty. On August 2 Ponty and Duke will perform the music from the album live on stage at the Zappanale in Bad Doberan in Germany. The band also includes bassplayer Guy Akwa and drummer Damien Schmitt.
The Zappanale has also managed to engage artists as Alice Cooper and french zeuhl-rockers Magma this year!

Donald Fagen's new one is titled...

...something!

When the title of his fourth solo album was given as Soulful Instinct on Wikipedia's Donald Fagen page, and the page having a link to our June 2010 blog entry about Donald's new album, we added a few sentences and links to our blog post in January 2012 to flesh out the info as much as we could.

What we managed to do was mix things up with a previous name-that-album effort that surfaced months earlier that proved to be a joke from a fan. That page is still available here: http://neopixeos.weebly.com/new-steely-dan-cd.html
and list the album title as Kwack Zany.

Our apologiges for muddying the waters.

So what we have here are two titles. Kwack Zany as made up by a fan as a joke, and Soulful Instinct that appeared as a Wikipedia change July 5, 2011. It previously said untitled fourth solo album.

The fun thing is that you can check out the history of a page and find out who did the actual change. In this case it comes from a user with the IP Address 173.64.13.50.

As you can see the IP Address has had a short career starting out with acontribution to a page on the comedian George Carlin in November 2010 up until the latest entry in January this year on a page about the TV series The Office.

And where can you find the location of that IP Address? Somewhere within the telecommunication company Verizon's range of IP Addresses as these searches show.

The first one puts it in Ashburn, Virginia:

While a couple of other says Buffalo, New York:

Not surprising as IP Addresses can move around. Geographically and between users.

Can we get someone to go door to door in the above cities and ask who typed in Soulful Instinct on Wikipedia as the title of Donald Fagen's upcoming album?

Can we expect some official confirmation?

Or should we just lean back and enjoy the added mentions the album gets online (583 hits on Google as of now) thanks to it having a title - fake or not?

You can check out 173.64.13.50's Wikipedia contribution page here and see the quality of his/hers/their changes to the other pages. What do you think?

Most fans who that have spoken up seem to doubt that Soulful Instinct is the genuine title...

And on February 10, 2012 the Wikipedia entry was changed and Soulful Instinct was replaced with a simple TBC (To be confirmed).

After mixing up Kwack Zany and Soulful Instinct we at Radio Dupree are as unsure about what we think about Donald Fagen solo album titles as we are about why Donald would sign the never ending amount of guitars that keep on selling on Ebay and other sites. It is a strange world...

/N.S.

Radio Dupree Top 14 - February 2012

1. The Animals
Rock Me Baby
Animalism

2. Steely Dan
The Last Mall
Everything Must Go

3. Carolyn Leonhart & Wayne Escoffery
Big Noise, New York
Tides Of Yesterday

4. Michael Leonhart
Suzy Lattimore
The Suzy Lattimore EP

5. Pink Floyd
Us And Them (Richard Wright Demo)
The Dark Side Of The Moon (Immersion Box)        

6. Bill Bruford/Tony Levin
A Palace Of Pearls
Upper Extremities

7. Woody Herman Band
Deacon Blues
Chick, Donald, Walter And Woodrow

8. L. Shankar//Van Morrison/Frank Zappa
Dead Girls Of London
2011 Birthday Bundle

9. Frank Zappa & The Mothers Of Invention
Dog Breath
Carnegie Hall

10. Electric Light Orchestra
Last Train To London
Discovery

11. The Doors - Riders On The Storm - L.A. Woman
12. Kate Bush - 50 Words For Snow - 50 Words For Snow
13. Pink Floyd - Crying Song - More (soundtrack)
14. L'Image - Reunion - 2.0

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

Two women on the chart! It's not often though we do play them. Looking at the playlist its not 50/50 men/women, but a larger percentage women than pop up on our monthly chart.
Kate Bush at 12 and Carolyn Leonhart at 3.


The number one spot is taken by legendary group The Animals. Whenever we add them to the playlist they tend to chart as well. 


Steely Dan at 2 is joined by Steely Dan associated tracks at 3 (previously mentioned vocalist with Steely Dan since 2000 Carolyn Leonhart), 4 (her brother and trumpet, keyboards, arranging for Steely Dan) 7 (Woody Herman Band's cover of a Steely Dan classic) and 14 (L'Image featuring drummer Steve Gadd and pianist Warren Benrhard who both have Steely Dan connections).


A special salute to Pink Floyd's Us And Them at five. It's the thiord consecutive month that track is charting. It was number 1 in December and 2 in January.


Listen to the station and vote and we'll see what the chart might look like in about a month!

R.I.P. Tony Duran, ex Zappa guitarist

Oh no, not another one! It is sad to write these obituaries and they have been coming too often the last 14 months or so. (Captain Beefheart, Jim "Motorhead" Sherwoood, Johnny Otis, Wild Man Fischer.) This time it is our duty to tell that musician Tony Duran has passed away.

*****

Guitarist Duran was a member of Frank Zappa's band in 1972 and can be heard on albums as The Grand Wazoo, Waka/Jawaka and Apostrophe ('). He was also a member of the band Ruben and the Jets, which adopted the name of the 1968 Zappa album.
The photo on the left is taken from the cover art of their album For Real!, an album that Zappa produced. The gentleman in the lower left corner is actually James "Motorhead" Sherwood who played saxophone and tambourine in Zappa's group The Mothers of Invention in the 60's. Sherwood died on December 25, 2011. His bandmate Tony Duran died on December 19.

http://www.gracegardensfh.com/sitemaker/sites/GraceG1/obit.cgi?user=539436Duran