Anyway, onward with some more obscurities, yet more additions to the ever-expanding Becker/Fagen/Katz discography: Gary Katz has co-produced a 1986 album for -- and with -- Larry John McNally called Fade to Black on Atco in the States, and under his former name of Kannon appears on an album entitled Song For Two by Cashman and West on the ABC Dunhill label from 1972. He's credited with backing vocals. Spotted hidden away on the credits at the end of Bright Lights, Big City, a track called BNT Blues by Bobby Forrester, which was produced by Donald Fagen. Walter Becker gets a thank you on the sleeve notes for Dr. John's album, In A Sentimental Mood.

Gary Katz has finished his work on Roger Christian's solow album, title as yet unknown (even by Island Records!), and that should be out in September. It's apparently a white soul thing a la Sam Cooke. Gary Katz is pleased with the results, but didn't get along with the artist himself at all.

In John Belushi's biography, Wired, the author tells of how during the making of a film called Neighbors in 1981, Belushi used to play Hey Nineteen incessantly at full volume. He told the producer of the movie that he wanted to make a film based on the song in which a '60s girl tells her story to a punk rocker.

The end of Frank Zappa's Joe's Garage Acts 2 & 3 (final track) contains a spoof of Steve Gadd's drum solo from Aja.

The first sample of Steely Dan? De La Soul has been getting a lot of airplay with his album Three Feet High and Rising, and on a track called Eye Know has sampled a couple lines from Peg. Will they or won't they sue?

The August edition of Premiere features Donald Fagen's first article for some months. It's a brief interview and appraisal of Ennio Morricone's work on Sergio Leone's series of spaghetti westerns. Pity about his tape recorder, though, I'd have liked to have read more.

In a publicity release from Simon and Schuster about Rock Me, its author Marcelle Clements was asked if she had patterned any of her characters after anyone in particular:

"No, but I've known many musicians and the psychology of performers has always interested me. My mother was an opera singer, and I live with a musician, Donald Fagen. In fact, Donald and his former partner, Walter Becker, and I all went to the same college and I even sang with them now and then for a little while around 1965 or 1966.

"I studied music pretty much my whole life, starting with the piano at age four. I majored in voice and composition at the High School of Music and Art, and then in theory and philosophy of music at Bard College. In both high school and college I knew many musicians who resemble the ones in my book and there were bands like the one in my book. I'm comfortable with musicians. As a journalist, I've interviewed and written about performers and I think these profiles have been some of my better pieces. I'm not much of a musician any more, though I still play the piano now and then. A few years ago, I learned to play the saxophone and that was a wonderful obsession for a while. My characters are drawn from all these experiences."

Guns 'n' Roses drawing inspiration from Steely Dan? Well, Axl Rose was apparently inspired to write of Appetite for Destruction's songs after hearing Hey Nineteen. My Old School is another particular Rose favorite.

"They" might have the Steely Dan T-shirts, but Phil Gedling's got an equally rare item: a Steely Dan badge. Phil stumbled across this little delight in a Plymouth newsagents around 1980.

Thanks to Richard Clark, Nigel Harrison and Andy Komocki for their correspondence and to Jane Findlay at School House Management for her cooperation in setting up the China Crisis interview.

Last modified on 4/2/99