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Thread: Steely Dan

  1. #21
    Stuck on the Border Delilah's Avatar
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    Default Re: Steely Dan

    Donald Fagen issued a statement in memory of Walter Becker. I guess it answers my question in the RIP thread about what will happen to the band.

    Walter Becker was my friend, my writing partner and my bandmate since we met as students at Bard College in 1967. We started writing nutty little tunes on an upright piano in a small sitting room in the lobby of Ward Manor, a mouldering old mansion on the Hudson River that the college used as a dorm. 



    We liked a lot of the same things: jazz (from the twenties through the mid-sixties), W.C. Fields, the Marx Brothers, science fiction, Nabokov, Kurt Vonnegut, Thomas Berger, and Robert Altman films come to mind. Also soul music and Chicago blues.

    Walter had a very rough childhood - I’ll spare you the details. Luckily, he was smart as a whip, an excellent guitarist and a great songwriter. He was cynical about human nature, including his own, and hysterically funny. Like a lot of kids from fractured families, he had the knack of creative mimicry, reading people’s hidden psychology and transforming what he saw into bubbly, incisive art. He used to write letters (never meant to be sent) in my wife Libby’s singular voice that made the three of us collapse with laughter. 



    His habits got the best of him by the end of the seventies, and we lost touch for a while. In the eighties, when I was putting together the NY Rock and Soul Review with Libby, we hooked up again, revived the Steely Dan concept and developed another terrific band.

    I intend to keep the music we created together alive as long as I can with the Steely Dan band.
    "Walter Becker, Steely Dan Guitarist and Co-Founder, Dies at 67" Sept. 3, 2017 - Billboard

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  2. #22
    Stuck on the Border MaryCalifornia's Avatar
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    Default Re: Steely Dan

    Yes, I heard on Sirius radio yesterday and today that Donald Fagen and the band will continue to tour as Steely Dan. He doesn't seem to have any guilt or moral dilemma about it. I wonder if their fans hate them touring without their founding member Walter Becker. Probably some do.

    The band's timeline is so similar to the Eagles its crazy. Formed in 1971, ended in 1981. Reformed in 1993. They were on the same schedule haha!

  3. #23
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    Default Re: Steely Dan

    Hi Mary ! Wow, that's crazy. I never knew their founding/break up were so close together. Small world.

  4. #24
    Stuck on the Border Annoying Twit's Avatar
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    Default Re: Steely Dan

    It seems that Donald Fagan is suing the Becker Estate for full ownership of Steely Dan. It appears that there is some very strange legal agreement about what happens when members leave Steely Dan, including by passing on.

    https://music.mxdwn.com/2017/11/23/n...eckers-estate/

    I do think this is sad, and it makes me feel that it's good that Eagles and the Frey family have come together as they have.

  5. #25
    Stuck on the Border MaryCalifornia's Avatar
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    Default Re: Steely Dan

    Well that is a really sad, unfortunate state of events. Thank goodness something similar is not happening with our guys. “Spin writes that Fagen is suing “in an effort to keep the band’s name alive” even with the passing of Becker”. I can’t believe Stely Dan didn’t have this issue locked down tight in their legal documents.

  6. #26
    Stuck on the Border Delilah's Avatar
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    Default Re: Steely Dan

    Going to the original source, Spin Magazine, can provide a clearer picture of what’s going on.

    At the center of the lawsuit is a 1972 buy-sell agreement signed by the original bandmembers when Steely Dan was incorporated. According to the complaint, which was filed Tuesday in L.A. County Superior Court, the contract provides that whenever a member of the group quits or dies, Steely Dan purchases all of that member’s shares in the group.

    “By the 2010s, Fagen and Becker were the only remaining shareholders and signatories to the Buy/Sell Agreement,” writes attorney Louis “Skip” Miller in the complaint. “Four days after Becker’s death, on September 7, 2017, the Becker Defendants sent Fagen a letter stating that ‘We wanted to put you on notice that the Buy/Sell Agreement dated as of October 31, 1972 is of no force or effect.’ “
    The buy-sell agreement is really not that unusual. Lots of times co-owners want the business entity to stay in the hands of those who know the ins and outs of the business, and family members don’t always fit the bill.

    Judging from this alone, the signed contract trumps a letter which seems to be based on nothing more than the Becker Defendants’ wishes.

    ”Steely Dan Singer Sues Bandmate’s Estate” Spin, Nov. 22, 2017

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  7. #27
    Border Desperado MortSahlFan's Avatar
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    Default Re: Steely Dan

    Very sad to read this.... I'm sure it's about money..

    It's never enough, is it? Man, they should revert to their old notebooks making $80/week at CBS.

  8. #28
    Stuck on the Border Delilah's Avatar
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    Default Re: Steely Dan

    The latest from Donald Fagen about Walter Becker’s death and the lawsuit. He explains why he is using the “Steely Dan” name for future shows.

    If it were up to Fagen, he wouldn't refer to the post-Becker touring incarnation of the band as "Steely Dan." "I would actually prefer to call it Donald Fagen and the Steely Dan Band or something like that," he says, noting that promoters have so far insisted that he call it Steely Dan for commercial reasons. "That's an ongoing debate. To me, Steely Dan was just me and Walter, really – it was like a concept we had together."
    (my emphasis)

    ”Donald Fagen Discusses the Loss of Walter Becker and Steely Dan's Future” Rolling Stone, Dec. 19, 2017

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  9. #29
    Stuck on the Border NightMistBlue's Avatar
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    Default Re: Steely Dan

    Miss D., thank you kindly for that (43 minute!) audio. Very interesting.

    Confidentially, when Mr. Fagen says "Live Nation" insists on him touring under the name Steely Dan rather than his own name, he means Irving Azoff. There's a running bit about that in Fagen's hilarious 2012 tour diary.

  10. #30
    Stuck on the Border MaryCalifornia's Avatar
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    Default Re: Steely Dan

    Interesting. Maybe this is why Timothy is billed in some of his solo shows as "Timothy B. Schmit of the Eagles." I mean, I think that's sort of embarrassing. Maybe the venues and investors require it. (And Irving if he has any skin in the game). I had not noticed this billing in prior solo tours.

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