Steely Dan concert

“Are you reelin’ in the years
Stowin’ away the time
Are you gatherin’ up the tears
Have you had enough of mine?”

Saw Steely Dan last Saturday at a place called the Holiday Star in Merrillville with son Dave and Darcy Wade, whose husband Tom (our board game buddy) didn’t want to go. Beforehand we met Marianne and Lorraine (Voodoo Chili veterans who’d been at my autograph party earlier in the week) at Old Chicago Pizza and Pasta Restaurant nearby. I had a guacamole hamburger and wine (to reduce bathroom visits). Still featuring Donald Fagen and Walker Becker, Steely Dan was mainly a studio band doing jazzy, funky, progressive rock during the 1970s and was inducted into the Rock ‘n’ Roll Hall of Fame in 2001. The name comes from a metal dildo called Steely Dan in the William Burroughs beat novel “Naked Lunch.”

Steely Dan, 2009 version, featured a four-piece horn section and three hot female singers. They first did their entire “Aja” album, featuring “Peg” and “Josie,” straight through and then performed most of their hits (though not “Rikki Don’t Lose That Number”). They played for over two hours and were fantastic. Marianne had attended one of their shows a couple months before in Chicago and said they were better this time because the crowd was so into it. Many in the mostly Forty-and-Fifty Something crowd were dancing and the bolder ones even went up to the stage for the last few numbers. The finale was a scorching version of “Reelin’ in the Years.” Darcy thought the vocals a little weak (often the case in a live show) but loved seeing her favorite Seventies band.

Walker Becker did a long introduction to the song Dave liked best, “Hey Nineteen,” mentioning Cuervo Gold, which I learned is a brand of tequila (I’m strictly a beer and wine guy). The lyrics document a man’s frustration with a young girlfriend who, among other things, doesn’t know who Aretha Franklin is. One line goes, “She thinks I’m crazy but I’m just growing old.” “Hey Nineteen” ends this way:

“The Cuervo Gold
The fine Columbian
Make tonight a wonderful thing
We can’t dance together
No we can’t talk at all.”

On Gaard Logan's recommendation, I’m putting my name on a list to get “Hotel at the Corner of Bitter and Sweet.” I also found a Website for the novel and learned that author Jamie Ford must be a "Star Trek" fan because even though the book has been translated into 13 languages, he’s holding out for Klingon. The book evidently touches on the Forties Seattle jazz scene, similar to the Sugar Ray Robinson book Sweet Thunder’s depiction of the NYC scene that the "Sugar Man" so enjoyed. Nine years ago I reviewed a book for the Oral History Review about the L.A. jazz scene of that era called "Central Avenue Sounds." Recalling the block where the Club Alabam and the Dunbar Hotal were located, musician Jack Kelson told an interviewer that when the sun went down, all the flaws and imperfections disappeared, replaced by "an aura of mysterious wonderfulness."