Don Breithaupt - Steely Dans Aja

Aja

Praise for the series:

It was only a matter of time before a clever publisher realized that there is an audience for whom Exile on Main Street or Electric Ladyland are as significant and worthy of study as The Catcher in the Rye or Middlemarch . The series, which now comprises 29 titles with more in the works, is freewheeling and eclectic, ranging from minute rock-geek analysis to idiosyncratic personal celebrationThe New York Times Book Review

Ideal for the rock geek who thinks liner notes just arent enoughRolling Stone

One of the coolest publishing imprints on the planetBookslut

These are for the insane collectors out there who appreciate fantastic design, well-executed thinking, and things that make your house look cool. Each volume in this series takes a seminal album and breaks it down in startling minutiae. We love these. We are huge nerdsVice

A brilliant series each one a work of real loveNME (UK)

Passionate, obsessive, and smartNylon

Religious tracts for the rock n roll faithfulBoldtype

[A] consistently excellent seriesUncut (UK)

Wearent naive enough to think that were your only source for reading about music (but if we had our waywatch out). For those of you who really like to know everything there is to know about an album, youd do well to check out Continuums 33 1/3 series of books.Pitchfork

For reviews of individual titles in the series, please visit our website at www.continuumbooks.com and 33third.blogspot.com

Also available in this series:

Dusty in Memphis by Warren Zanes

Forever Changes by Andrew Hultkrans

Harvest by Sam Inglis

The Kinks Are The Village Green Preservation Society by Andy Miller

Meat Is Murder by Joe Pernice

The Piper at the Gates of Dawn by John Cavanagh

Abba Gold by Elisabeth Vincentelli

Electric Ladyland by John Perry

Unknown Pleasures by Chris Ott

Sign O the Times by Michaelangelo Matos

The Velvet Underground and Nico by Joe Harvard

Let It Be by Steve Matteo

Live at the Apollo by Douglas Wolk

Aqualung by Allan Moore

OK Computer by Dai Griffiths

Let It Be by Colin Meloy

Led Zeppelin IV by Erik Davis

Armed Forces by Franklin Bruno

Exile on Main Street by Bill Janovitz

Grace by Daphne Brooks

Murmur by J. Niimi

Pet Sounds by Jim Fusilli

Ramones by Nicholas Rombes

Endtroducing by Eliot Wilder

Kick Out the Jams by Don McLeese

Low by Hugo Wilcken

In the Aeroplane Over the Sea by Kim Cooper

Music from Big Pink by John Niven

Pauls Boutique by Dan LeRoy

Doolittle by Ben Sisario

Theres a Riot Goin On by Miles Marshall Lewis

Stone Roses by Alex Green

Bee Thousand by Marc Woodsworth

The Who Sell Out by John Dougan

Highway 61 Revisited by Mark Polizzotti

Loveless by Mike McGonigal

The Notorious Byrd Brothers by Ric Menck

Court and Spark by Sean Nelson

69 Love Songs by LD Beghtol

Songs in the Key of Life by Zeth Lundy

Use Your Illusion I and II by Eric Weisbard

Daydream Nation by Matthew Stearns

Trout Mask Replica by Kevin Courrier

Double Nickels on the Dime by

Forthcoming in this series:

Lets Talk About Love by Carl Wilson

Pretty Hate Machine by Daphne Carr

Rid of Me by Kate Schatz
and many more...

Don Breithaupt

2011

Continuum International Publishing Group
80 Maiden Lane, Suite 704, New York, NY 10038
The Tower Building, 11 York Road, London SE1 7NX

www.continuumbooks.com

2007 by Don Breithaupt

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be
reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted
in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical,
photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the
written permission of the publishers or their agents.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Breithaupt, Don.
Aja / Don Breithaupt.
p. cm. -- (33 1/3)

Includes bibliographical references (p.).
eISBN-13: 978-1-4411-8132-9
1. Steely Dan (Musical group) Aja. I. Title. II. Series.

ML421.S76B74 2007
782.421660922--dc22

2007010815

Printed and bound in the United States of America

First and foremost, my heartfelt thanks to Donald Fagen for agreeing to be interviewed for this book. He sat down with me at his Manhattan office last June, fielded a stack of nuts-and-bolts questions about the making of a thirty-year-old record, and was funny and forthcoming throughout (I think I got off to a good start by promising not to pose any hard-hitting, daily newspaper-style questions like Which comes first, words or music?).

Additional thanks to: Brian Tomasini at Irving Azoffs office, who arranged the interview; Steve Khan, Lee Ritenour and Chuck Findley, who shed additional light on the Aja sessions and the composers methods; Marc Jordan, who provided details of Fagen, Katz and Nicholss participation in his debut album; series editor David Barker, who gave me invaluable direction from the beginning; Jay Graydon, who supplied a raft of material about the final Peg guitar session; former Metal Leg editor and current Dan attach Pete Fogel, who has done me more than a few favors over the years; and Steve Armour, whose friendship and insight are unwavering.

Finally, thanks as always to my long-suffering wife, Rikki (yes, Rikki), who, through no fault of her own, has the complete works of Steely Dan permanently lodged in her head.

The challenge was: dont gush. Its your favorite album. Youre going to write it a love letter and make a fool of yourself.

I had already called Aja the best record in the solar system in print (in Night Moves: Pop Music in the Late 70s), so maybe, I told myself, the hyperbole was out of my system. Right. The hard part, as it turns out, wasnt squelching my enthusiasm: the hard part was properly explaining it. Its a well-worn adage that the easiest assignment in the world is reviewing something you cant standRod Stewart continues to have about him the air of squandered potential...and Ive found that writing about something halfway likable is usually a snap tooMaroon serves notice that Barenaked Ladies are tired of being your Yoko Ono and would like to be your John Lennon...but trying to explain why a particular recording implants itself in your DNA on first listening, well, thats tough. It feeds into other classic stumpers like: at what point does craft become art? And: does street-level popularity preclude artistic immortality? And (most importantly): who cares what I think?