1

Never trust a surfer.

I was told that early in my tenure in Utah.

The surfers came from California.  They were used to living on the beach.  The only requirement for the sport was a board.  They weren’t used to lift tickets, lodging, they’d steal you blind.

But the rest of us ski bums, growing up in the frigid northeast, were not much better.  We might have thousands of dollars worth of ski equipment, but our bank accounts were empty, if we even had one.  So when my sore throat persisted, I impersonated my friend Al at the University of Utah clinic, where I was told nothing was wrong, to just wait it out.

A week of skiing in Sun Valley and an inability to swallow had me dialing for dollars, to my dad, to ask him for money to see a real doctor, who did a more exhaustive test and told me I had mononucleosis.  At 22?  Wasn’t it a teenage kissing disease?

I became an expert on Johnny Carson.  I continued to sleep on the couch.  But when the season was over and my roommates moved on, I had to leave the City of Salt.

So I went to Odyssey Records on State Street, bought six cassettes, gassed up my car and headed east, to my homeland, Connecticut.

Should I be driving?  OF COURSE NOT!  But who was I going to leave my still almost brand new machine with?  I just popped in one cassette after another, dashing downhill, to the Atlantic.

Steve Miller was pretty good.  Nils Lofgren was disappointing.  McCartney’s album wasn’t as good as the one from the summer before, they let Linda SING?  But the album that got me through was…"Royal Scam".

That’s what the cassette says.  I’ve got it right here.  Not "THE Royal Scam", just "Royal Scam".  In a blue plastic box.  Manufactured by GRT for ABC.

What’s worse, in an effort to save tape, i.e. money, the order of the songs was rearranged.  I didn’t know until this week that "Don’t Take Me Alive" was on the first side.  Or that the title track CONCLUDED the album, as opposed to side one.

There was one stretch, from Denver east.  I could not find a place to crash.  I’d been on the road for eleven, maybe twelve hours.  I stopped at a gas station, the song emanating from my speakers was "Don’t Take Me Alive".

I’m a bookkeeper’s son
I don’t want to shoot no one

The media shows bad boys.  I was never a bad boy.  I wasn’t a pencil-protector nerd, I was just…average, indistinct, like the protagonist in this song.

I played "Can’t Buy A Thrill" whenever I went to Nick’s dorm room.

I skipped "Countdown To Ecstasy", but I eventually bought it and its follow-up, "Pretzel Logic", from the Record Club of America.  I didn’t know you could make records with so much surface noise.  But ah, the music.

So I purchased "Katy Lied" when it came out.  Unlike "Pretzel Logic", it had no hits.  But it did have "Your Gold Teeth II".  And "Bad Sneakers".

Bad sneakers and a Pina Colada
My friend
Stompin’ on the avenue
By Radio City with a
Transistor and a large
Sum of money to spend

Sung so FAST, a blend of west coast alcohol with east coast sensibility.  You bond not with the records with the hits, but the ones that seem to make little impact on the media, that you alone own, that make you feel if you could just meet their creators, you’d all be buddies, your life would be complete.

2

So I know every lick of "Royal Scam".  Albeit in incorrect order.

But I wasn’t expecting much last night.  I was psyched for the second part of the show, when the album had been completed and the band let go.

But last night was different.  Because of LARRY CARLTON!

We baby boomers revere our virtuosos.  That’s what made Clapton God.  Who’s God today?  Some no-name producer laying down beats for a flavor of the moment "singer"?  Honestly, Larry Carlton was a bit to the side, he was not a rocker, more of a jazzer, but we had a high opinion of anybody who could play.  And after hearing Larry Carlton last night, I’ve got big respect for him!

It’s the same axe, the same instrument for everyone.  But certain people can make it sing, can make you laugh and cry with what they extract.  Larry’s not using effects, creating a wall of sound.  Rather, he’s picking the notes, building to the point where our heads our exploding like the audience members given automobiles by the faux Oprah on "Saturday Night Live".  You should have heard him on "Third World Man".  He took us to a place that was familiar, but we’d forgotten existed. Where the notes of a guitar make us feel ecstatic, powerful and wistful, all at the same time.

But it wasn’t only about Larry.  He brought the whole band up another notch.  Not in proficiency, but ENERGY!  Last night there was a heretofore unseen power. Like this was the greatest band in the world, and they wouldn’t be denied.

But isn’t the greatest rock and roll band in the world the Rolling Stones?  That band that’s so uneven live that they specialize in mistakes?

Or maybe it’s U2, the kings of spectacle.

Or maybe Steely Dan isn’t rock and roll anyway.

What is rock and roll?  Maybe a mind-set.  Wherein those not beholden to a system test limits and their audience is liberated from everyday pressures and obligations.  A music that isn’t constrained, not made to formula, but writes its own rule book.

Rules.  That’s what we’ve got in the business today.  And that’s why oldsters pooh-pooh the Top Forty crap.  Where’s the innovation?  Doesn’t anyone aspire to greatness?

3

One of the great things about being a Steely Dan fan is you don’t have to convince anyone.  These shows are not a victory lap, an occasion for the press to fawn. The press is too busy writing its own obituary.  Trying to appear up to the minute, fearful twentysomethings will eviscerate not only their business model, but their relevancy.

Once again, music exists outside the system.

If last night was a rent party, Steely Dan occupies some heavy real estate.  But it was a party.  With the feeling of those impromptu gatherings in the seventies.  When you made a few phone calls, passed the word on the street, and people squeezed into an apartment where the music lubricated minds and feet, and for a few hours, you felt fully alive, like if you died tonight, you wouldn’t give a shit.

It’s the light in my eyes
It’s perfection and grace
It’s the smile on my face

Tonight we’re going to chase the dragon again.  I’m sure the water will turn to cherry wine.  A little birdie told me they’re going to do "Any Major Dude" from "Pretzel Logic".  CAN YOU IMAGINE?

Maybe you can’t.

But if you’re a fan…

4

I can tell you all I know, the where to go, the what to do
You can try to run but you can’t hide from what’s inside of you

We baby boomers have got the music inside of us.  We can get iPhones, update our Facebook pages, but what truly gets us off is music.  Spinning a record, going to the show.  We enjoy the one hit wonders.  But when we hear the legends, we’re returned to who we used to be.  Suddenly, there are more doors open than shut. We still feel there are possibilities.  Nothing the President, nothing Congress says can make us feel this way.  Our bank accounts won’t keep us warm at night.  But when we hear the music, we’re set free.  With our brothers.  The so-called Woodstock generation.  Which realized that music truly could make a difference, truly could save the world.  That musicians were not the tools of corporations, to play music and sing songs you wrote was the highest calling on earth.  The music came first.  The money was a result of the pursuit of greatness.  Now it’s the reverse.  But not for us.