I get an email from an old friend, a philologist from Montreal, and he's attached a song for me to hear. It's from an album called Pretzel Logic, a favourite of my brother's, but I've never given it much thought. Steely Dan, those studio pedants with a perverted name; why should I listen?! I've got work to do! But the philologist, with whom I used to often play music, says that the song reminds him of early Genesis, which is the second most enticing thing he could say next to that it reminds him of late Genesis. So I listen, and I'll eat my hat if he's not right; it sounds like early Genesis - the ornate piano arpeggios, the mellotron swells, the cryptic, surreal lyrics, and the pretzel logic song structure, not to mention the bounteous fruit and unselfconsciousness - or was that a different Genesis? To be frank, it's been a long time since I listened to Foxtrot or Nursery Cryme, those favourites of my youth, not so long past now, but if you had told me then that on a rainy January morning in a downtown Toronto office building I would be reminded by my friend the philologist, via classic-period Steely Dan, of the nearly-forgotten joys of early Genesis, I would have questioned your thinking.
Posted by Jordan at January 27, 2010 9:06 AMwelcome back Jordan and welcome Steely Dan to StG.
Posted by: BMR at January 27, 2010 7:54 PMWow I spent this entire day just trawling the net to find amazing music and I focused on getting mp3 singles and wow, Charlie Freak must be my greatest find! Thanks a lot
Posted by: FireFly at January 28, 2010 8:13 AMThis brought up an image of some skeptic kid in a Rush 3/4 sleeved baseball t-shirt in a record store in 1983 picking up Pretzel Logic with a skeptic look on his face, "Well, if it sounds like early Genesis..."
Posted by: Jay Watts III at January 28, 2010 9:12 AMUp until now I was entranced by almost everything I discovered here... but you haven't yet developed an appreciation for Steely Dan?! What the...
Posted by: olewanei at January 28, 2010 4:15 PM