I think Steely Dan has gotten more press for their cheeky letter to Luke Wilson than they did for Two Against Nature. I saw it last week while Stereogum was down, and figured I missed my window to blog about it. But you know what? I’m opening a new window. ‘Cause I love me some Steely Dan. And they’re touring this summer with Michael McDonald.
First, in case you don’t want to read Don and Walt’s ten paragraph manifesto, the gist is that they claim Luke’s brother Owen’s new movie rips off the Dan’s six-year-old incest ditty “Cousin Dupree.” Why didn’t they address Owen directly? Beats me. Why’d they name their band after a dildo?
Here’s an excerpt:
“What we suspect may have happened is this: some hack writer or producer or whatever they call themselves in Malibu or Los Feliz apparently heard our Grammy winning song “Couspin Dupree” on the radio and thought, hey, man, this is a cool idea for a character in a movie or something. … When it came time to change the character’s name or whatever so people wouldn’t know what a rip the whole thing was, THEY DIDN’T EVEN BOTHER TO THINK UP A NEW FUCKING NAME FOR THE GUY!”
Shrewd publicity stunt. Or whatever.
Even shrewder? Becker and Fagen are crossing the country with former Dan sideman Michael McDonald. The ex-Doobie Bro is actually enjoying a pop culture comeback…
So good job Steely Dan! You’ve landed the hot ticket tour of the summer. For these “Steelyard Sugartooth McDan” shows, McDonald does an hour of his hits before joining SD on a bunch of tunes.
Here’s the setlist from Saturday’s concert at the Aladdin Theater in Las Vegas. Asterisk means w/ Michael McDonald.
- Bodhisattva
- Time Out of Mind
- Aja
- I’ve Got The News
- Hey 19
- Cousin Dupree
- Josie
- Green Earrings
- Black Friday
- Dirty Work
- Showbiz Kids
- Do it Again*
- Peg*
- Don?t Take Me Alive*
- Kid Charlemagne*
ENCORE
- My Old School*
- FM*
Three takes on the greatest Michael McDonald song of all time. Actually co-written by … Kenny Loggins!
Finally, Dan fans will love this: The Making of “Peg.”
UPDATE: Owen Wilson claims innocence, begins work on Hey 19.
You Might Also Like
 David Bowie (Jimmy Fallon) Covers “Pumped Up Kicks” |  Tokyo Police Club Cover LCD Soundsystem, Phoenix, The… |  Bono & Edge Play Spider-Man Song On Idol |  Iggy Pop Was On American Idol |
 |
 |
Wow, this is a pretty odd letter. Who knew that Don and Walt could be so threatening? Whatever, Steely Dan still rules. Aja and Goucho are pop masterpeices, pure and simple.
What? A list of Michael McDonald pop culture references without any mention of “The 40 Year Old Virgin”?
How Paul Rudd expresses his anger to the manager about the neverending MM DVD at the electronics store is priceless.
Just went and saw SD&MM at Shoreline. Nice. They did that exact set except switch “FM” and “My Old School” and replace “Cousin Dupree” with “Deacon Blues.”
The letter is hysterical and my favorite line is “some hack writer or producer or whatever they call themselves in Malibu or Los Feliz.” I also wonder if they are getting more publicity for that letter than they thought they would, because who finds themselves at Steely Dan’s website nowadays? (Lots of similarly hilarious diatribes can be found on there, too.)
steely dan is perhaps the worst band ever. what little faith i had in the grammys was lost when both beck and radiohead were passed over for album of the year so these masters of insipid pap could take home a trophy.
Thanks Chuck!
Rico man, you’ve gotta stop being such a hipster-hater. Granted that that may have been the weakest Steely Dan album. Also Radiohead and Beck are awesome, and the Grammys suck. But come now. Get off your high horse. Have you heard any of their early material at all? Don’t knock it until you’ve tried it, as the saying goes.
Everyone knows that successful comeback records/post-mortem records always win Best Album Grammys. If you don’t know that, you’re basically stupid. No, Two Against Nature wasn’t close to being the best Dan album, but they got gyped on Pretzel Logic, Royal Scam and Aja, so the academy threw them a bone (as did the R N R Hall of Fame the same year). No worries…Radiohead will have their day in the sun in 2025 or so.
I have liked Steely Dan and Michael McDonald for a while (and the Self cover of What a Fool Believes is probably my favorite cover ever). Anyway, I wanted to go to the concert but had to go out of town on an emergency.
What I heard from friends who went is that both Steely Dan and Mike only played horrible white-person-soul covers of their own songs OR just turned each song in to a 10-minute jam session.
Horrible.
Steely Dan were The Format of their time. They are teflon. (Slightly off topic but… anyone notice The Format directly quoting from Prefab’s “Green Isaac” on their new[-ish] track “Pick Me Up”? No? OK, nevermind.)
Rico, kinda like when Jethro Tull beat out Metallica for heavy metal album of the year back in the 90s?
Steely Dan rawks.
if i’m not mistaken, when they discuss the fact tht SD was fond of bringing in everyone and anyone to play parts more than once – the drummer playing is Bernard Purdie. Purdie swears up and down that he played many of the Beatles drum parts, not Ringo.
There’s your pointless history lesson for the day.
the best part about the letter is the post script wikipedia correction.
Wow, “What A Fool Believes” over “Keep Forgettin’.” Bold claim, bold. Yacht Rock rules.
i am really psyched to catch this tour. i have never seen the dan live before, but i know that keith carlock and wayne krantz are part of the rhythm section, which makes it hard to believe that there wont be at lease some redeeming quality about the show!
About once every five years I break out my audiophile pressing of Aja to see if my turntable still works. Other than that I don’t have much use for Steely Dan these days. I do however love Jeff Baxter’s work in Spirit’s I Got A Line On You video.
You can download the single of People Gotta’ Love Again and, at the same time, benefit the promotion of Sustainable Development by UNESCO by typing UNESCO in the iTunes search engine. You will see 3 UNESCO CDs and their contents, including People Gotta Love Again. Nicely mastered version as you can hear from the free excerpt. A portion of the net roceeds from that download also benefit the San Francisco School District Performing Arts program for music programs promoting sustainable development. See pourlaterre.org for all the details.
Social networking site MySpace is to block users from uploading copyrighted music to its pages…
Hey! I just discovered the cover and its great. Now, do you happen to know what he’s saying at the end at the last 40 seconds or so? It seems like he’s saying some gibberish but sounds kind of funny. Anyways, good topic!