The NME wrote that during their visit they would be recording a BBC2 "In Concert" special for Stanley Dorfman, guesting in The Old Grey Whistle Test and then departing for more key dates in Europe. However, when they arrived to record the Whistle Test program, there was a technicians' strike in progress and they were turned away at the gate. Sacrilege!
The tour was cancelled, too, after only four concerts when Donald was taken ill. Rumors abounded that he was suffering from the effects of drugs, but Walter denied this saying: "I've known him seven years and never in that time have I known him to take cocaine, and certainly not since we got to England."
Also in May that year the NME wrote: "Steely Dan, the stylish American five-piece rated by NME writers as one of the most striking bands to have emerged in the Seventies, start their tour on Friday 17th in Manchester. In celebration of this they ran a competition in which 25 copies of "Pretzel Logic" could be won. The questions were:
1. Which founder member of Steely Dan is no longer in the band? (A) Elliott Randall (B) David Palmer (C) Gary Katz (D) Donald Fagen.
2. Which college did Walter Becker and Donald Fagen attend during the sixties? (A) West Point (B) Yale (C) Bard (D) MIT.
3. Which Dan song chronicles the aftermath of a nuclear disaster? (A) Do It Again (B) Barrytown (C) King of the World (D) Fire in the Hole
4. Which Dan song was not written by them? (A) Reelin' in the Years (B) Remember You're a Womble (C) East St. Louis Toodle-Oo (D) Parker's Band
5. Who played the slide guitar on "Show Biz Kids"? (A) Ry Cooder (B) Rick Derringer (C) Skunk Baxter (D) Elmore James
A 3" CD of "Century's End" has been issued by Warner Bros which includes "The Nightfly" and "The Goodbye Look", as well as an instrumental track entitled "Shanghai Confidential." In actual fact, this song was originally composed specially for a professional New York dancer called David Parsons who asked Donald to write him a song for a dance video. When the video was complete, however, he decided not to use the song after all.
One song featured in the film "Bright Lights, Big City which is not included on the soundtrack album is Donald's version of the Jimmy Reed song of the same title. His interpretation of it is apparently a gem; it was also covered by The Animals in the sixties.
In a Q article about music busines hoaxes, it stated that the manager of an unknown Scottish band attempted to expose certain A&R men's ineptitude by sending them "demos" of already established artists, including Steely Dan. The A&M fellow rejected the two Fagen-Becker tunes with the comment, "not the sort of act A&M would sign."
Larry Carlton is recovering after being shot in the neck as he entered his studio to work on his next album on April 6th. Initially, he was in a serious condition but he has thankfully pulled through and his voice is back to normal (the bullet penetrated his voice-box) and he is receiving daily therapy to return his left arm to its full usage.
In a late '70s(?) Playboy feature called "Ears of the Stars," Donald Fagen was asked what he had been listening to lately. He said: 1. Phil Woods - Altology (Prestige); 2. Dandy's Dandy (Venture); 3. Sonny Rollins - Way Out West (Contemporary) 4. Surf Punks (Dayglow).
The original choice of cover for "Can't Buy A Thrill" was vetoed by Jay Lasker on the grounds of being too suggestive. It featured a naked little girl staring lasciviously at the magazines in a porn shop window while the store's proprietor leers at her.
Likewise, he demanded a change in the cover for "Countdown to Ecstasy" because the first water color by Donald's girlfriend, Dorothy White, depicted three sci-fi spectres sitting in different states of detached expectations as three white lights loom ahead. Lasker thought that with five members in the group, the cover ought to reflect this and asked her to include another two figures. He reasoned that otherwise people might think that the group had broken up. Dorothy White argued that it was just a painting and had no relation to the members of the band. However, to placate him, she succeeded in adding two more vague shapes to the background without significantly altering the painting's appeal.
The bridge on "Glamour Profession" is a take on the bridge of Kurt Weill's "Speak Low" and they had had the chorus for it lying around since their college days.
A question raised in a Musician interview in 1979 about a line from "Your Gold Teeth" prompted a response from a reader in Washington. He accused Becker and Fagen of taking the lyric, "There ain't nothing in Chicago for a monkey woman to do" from a Count Basie/Joe Williams song entitled "Going to Chicago Blues."
On their '73 U.S. tour, Steely Dan were encoring with a version of the Angels' "My Boyfriend's Back."