Up Early/Rabbit Holes...

Up early, before the crack of dawn. That's just the way it goes. Early riser: freshly-brewed coffee, a hearty breakfast, writing in the blog. It's a routine. Lately the days have been power-packed with activity. Long days of wandering the lakefront, making appointed rounds, also promoting an upcoming show for our band, reviewing the mixes of our songs. There are some major themes in my life: music, coffee, schlepping. You make a routine and break routine. Try to mix it up. I am reading an incredibly well-conceived and well-written book about the band Steely Dan, called "Quantum Criminals." It has sent me down the rabbit hole of obsession. Yes, no doubt, Steely Dan was one of the greatest of 70's bands. I have been listening to their remastered albums, many of these songs were on the radio, are on the radio still to this day. Quirky, edgy, funny, a band and not a band, led by two mad-cap characters, East Coast college grads who moved to New York, Brill Building songsters, who then transplanted to L.A. and formed a band. Marginal dudes always on the outside looking in. The lyrics are about old East Coast trauma and a debauched L.A. scene: kinky sex, drugs, madness, a Mad-Magazine-style sense of irony & humor. Smart, super-smart and funny. Fabulous musicianship; after three records they ditched the band concept, and found the finest hired hands they could afford for all their later work. Sterling, pristine, meticulously-recorded and produced albums. A super-clean sound wrapped around a darkly apocalyptic and hilarious, enigmatic sensibility. My co-collaborator and I  have been listening to mixes of our songs, making revisions, re-listening, re-mixing, I was stunned to discover that the song "Babylon Sisters" from Steely Dan's fabulous, masterpiece album "Gaucho,"  was mixed over 250 times?!? Holy Shite. The mind reels. Talk about mad-making, musical-obsessiveness. Lately, I have been reading the liner notes, the text printed in the booklets of the remastered albums, written by Fagen & Becker, so funny, so good. You want to spend time with these characters. Super-cool, absolutely, bred-in-the-bone, stone-cold, musically-obsessed, jazz & r&b freaks and studious intellects & nerds. Indelible lines and choruses. Lately, it is the only band I am listening to, besides my own. Fabulously inspiring, no doubt.