If I had to choose just one group to take with me before being shipped off to a desert island, it would be Steely Dan. Not really classic rock. Never was, never will be. More like ironic, strange, rock-like jazz. Not really a group either, more a moveable feast provided by Donald Fagen and Walter Becker, who wrote and played the songs as others came and went. The first Dan album, Can’t Buy a Thrill (1972) set the pattern right from the start with “Do It Again.” I remember playing it real loud in my ’73 Dodge Challenger one Sunday as I escaped from my father to drink beers at my uncle’s bar in north Jersey. And I once talked trash about China with Jeff “Skunk” Baxter at a homeland security conference in Philly. Skunk was lead guitar on that first album and played too with the Doobie Brothers. He is also a defense consultant these days and a sort of security conference groupie. That night, he jammed in the hotel bar with a local group and we drank and talked about international relations. We made some sort of bet on China, can’t remember exactly what. Twas strange but cool.

Anyway, Steely Dan’s most recent album was in 2003 and all of their nine studio releases – except for a 2000 misfire – are just fantastic. The Royal Scam (1976) is great driving music – they all are really – and “The Caves of Altamira” is about some cave paintings.

MP3: Steely Dan – “Do It Again”
MP3: Steely Dan – “The Caves of Altamira”