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74. 'Aja' - Steely Dan (1977)
41 Plays5 months ago
Delving into longer and more sophisticated music, Donald Fagen and Walter Becker experimented with various band lineups for each song on ‘Aja’ to craft and perfect their Jazz, Pop, Rock hybrid of an album. Mixing their own songwriting skills with the jazzy prowess of the likes of Wayne Shorter and Tom Scott legitimised Jazz in Rock and marked a significant moment in the relationship between the two.
Episode Playlist: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/5lMwSaREPbFf2eWm9plmWv?si=32e6859344e04e28
LONG LIVE ROCK ‘N’ ROLL
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Transcript
The Perfection of 'Asia': Band Lineups and Jazz Influence
00:00:12
Speaker
Hello and welcome back to the Long Live Rock and Roll Podcast. Delving into longer and more sophisticated music, Don Fagan and Walter Becker experimented with various band lineups for each song on Asia to craft and perfect their jazz-rock hybrid of an album, mixing their own songwriting skills with the jazzy prowess of the likes of Wayne Shorter and Tom Scott legitimized jazz in rock and marked a significant moment in the relationship between these two genres.
Co-host Felipe Amorim's Travel Adventures
00:00:40
Speaker
Joining me to discuss this album is my co-host, Mr. Felipe Amorim. How are you doing, bro? Great, man. I had my journey kind of disrupted by strikes, but I'm home at last. There you go. Well, I'm more of a better place to be. Yeah, not the reference, didn't I? Very good. Very nice. Very nice.
00:00:57
Speaker
Very professionals as usual as usual.
Release and Impact of 'Asia' Album
00:01:00
Speaker
But yeah, anyway, so if you didn't get it from the picture you're seeing on the podcast or the picture you're seeing on YouTube or Felipe's reference or the fact that I mentioned it in the opening paragraph, we are doing Asia by Steely Dan from 1977. So as usual, I'll just give you a few quick facts. So it was released September 23rd, 1977. Took one year to record between 1976 and July 1977.
00:01:25
Speaker
recorded in studios across Los Angeles, New York and Hollywood. Genres associated with this album, and I'm sure we'll get into this, Jazz Rock, Yacht Rock, Pop Rock, Jazz and White Soul. The album falls just under 40 minutes in length, released on the ABC label with producer Gary Katz and the band in charge of producing the album. So let's get talking about this album.
Personal Connection: Introducing Jazz Fusion through 'Peg'
00:01:50
Speaker
Yeah so why this album right? So I chose this album yeah and the reason I chose it is because this was actually probably my first ever experience of jazz fusion and I learned this when we were at uni studying at the Institute of Music in London. This came up as one of the funk bass lines so when I was studying bass we had sort of lessons we had a lesson on funk, a lesson on jazz, a lesson on rock,
00:02:15
Speaker
And this was one of the ones that came up in funk. Now, the song we did was Peg. And obviously, you know, it is very funky in nature, but it's still part of this wider Jazz Fusion album. And I thought, what better way, you know, we haven't really done Jazz or Jazz Fusion on this show yet. And I thought, what way to sort of get, you know, get it going with this album, which was my first introduction to Jazz Fusion.
Jazz Complexity vs. Mainstream Appeal
00:02:39
Speaker
But yeah, I mean, do you want to kick us off for anything in particular you want to start off with? Well, the one thing I want to say is like, because this is a rock show, why would we approach an album that is jazzy or even pop, if you want to claim it's pop music? And I think everything about it, it's rock, really. Like the fact that it's
00:03:04
Speaker
The music direction of this album is completely unpredictable. It's the most rock and roll thing about it. Like you never know where they're going. And they've managed to make commercial music that is actually clever, like really clever. It's hard to do because a lot of nuances of, let's call it complicated music. So your jazz, your jazz fusion, your prog, all this kind of music.
Balancing Complexity and Accessibility in Steely Dan's Music
00:03:33
Speaker
It's hard to connect with wider commercial audiences with that kind of music because without trying to call people who like pop music stupid, it's hard to understand the technicality behind what's happening.
00:03:51
Speaker
a prog song that goes from 7-8 to 9-16 you know and then in jazz so it was always playing the mix of lydian over a double seven chord or whatever people don't get why that's special and not that that shouldn't be expected of them you know we spend years of our lives learning why it's special and what makes it advanced and what makes it special to implement that into a rock song for example so i don't expect
00:04:16
Speaker
mainstream audiences to get jazz or prog or something. Also like a complicated chord or song structure doesn't necessarily make the song good. That's a misconception that some musicians have. Well let's make something that is extremely complex and this is going to be great just because it's difficult to play.
Themes and Exploration of 'Asia'
00:04:37
Speaker
And it's not entirely true, you know, it's, you know, and it's what Steely Dan does. It's not really easy listening, but it can be at some point. Yeah, that's really interesting you say that because I mean, let's let's first talk. What I want to do today is I want to talk about I've got four or five categories I want to talk about so we can obviously get the songs in when it's appropriate, but there's just some overarching themes of the album I want to talk about.
Understanding Jazz Fusion: A Genre Overview
00:05:06
Speaker
One of them is jazz fusion. So let's kind of explain what that is. Jazz fusion, I think to sum it up simply, is playing jazz music on rock instruments. Would you agree with that? Yeah, one definition I like, which is not, it doesn't exclude your definition, is jazz mixed with anything else. So when you have an Afro-Cuban groove,
00:05:31
Speaker
and you're playing a jazz melody, that could be considered a fusion, although people would just call it Afro-Cuban jazz. But you have, since Miles Davies started experimenting around 1975, using rock instruments, as you say, like electric guitars and other stuff, but the point for me is it's not necessarily the instruments, but any other genre mixed with
Studio Perfection vs. Live Performance
00:05:57
Speaker
jazz. If you have a funk beat,
00:06:01
Speaker
If you listen to Cameline by Herbie Hancock, that's a funky beat. Just quickly interrupt Felipe to tell you, as usual, if you're new to this show, the full album we're talking about and any song we mention
00:06:16
Speaker
going to be in a Spotify playlist and the show notes below so you can listen before or after the episode and any songs like Felipe said that come out that aren't in the album they'll be there as well so please continue. Yeah so Chameleon is a is a funk groove you know very very very funky
00:06:31
Speaker
But if you isolate the melody, you can call it jazz. And in terms of interpretation as well, and also the fact that it's instrumental, most people just call instrumental music jazz, unless it's classical music. Oh, that's jazz, because it's instrumental. Anyway, but fusion for me is jazz mixed up with anything. It could be rock, could be funk,
00:06:58
Speaker
And in that sense, Steely Dan is closer to a fusion band than to a rock band.
Role of Session Musicians in Crafting 'Asia'
00:07:05
Speaker
But one thing I want to say is they are not really a band in this album because they, I think they toured as a five piece band, a regional lineup when they started. And eventually they decided that touring wasn't the big deal. They wanted to be in studio recording.
00:07:22
Speaker
and the band didn't tour for 19 years so that's just producing albums and so you have the two main songwriters and basically what you have is guitar and piano. Can we come back to that? Yeah. Can we come back to that? Because just in this so jazz fusion we've got our definition just for listeners as you said this is maybe a predominantly rock show we are going to branch out every now and then I said in way back in the first episode
00:07:46
Speaker
I'd like to get to the point where we do a two-pack album one day, just because why not? You know, rock, you know, rap music doesn't necessarily, it doesn't mean that rap, there can't be something rock and roll about rap music. You know, you never know. So, you know, why not expand our horizons and try a different genre? So jazz, what's the difference in terms of what does jazz fusion bring to rock music? You're talking about complex harmonies. So with rock songs,
00:08:14
Speaker
nine times out of ten, you're going to have a simple chord, either a G, an A minor, an E flat minor, whatever. We're going to stick to them mainly with jazz.
Chuck Rainey's Unifying Bass
00:08:24
Speaker
Jazz, I don't know why the name jazz is there, but sometimes when we use the word jazzy to describe stuff, when you say
00:08:32
Speaker
Let's jazz that up a bit. That's because you're taking a simple spice up by taking a simple chord like a G minor and adding a special note. And we might, again, we're not going to go into this, but that note might be a seventh. So you hear them say a G minor seventh, or it might be an 11. And I'm not going to go into the intricacies of why we use those numbers, but it adds another little tone that just changes the chord. It's still a G minor at root.
00:08:56
Speaker
But they just decorates it a little bit with another little number. So I'll leave that there. And because of the complex harmonies and chords you're playing, you are getting more sophisticated chord progressions. And you probably hear, if you've listened to Asia, you'll hear moments where actually a chord comes and you go, ooh.
00:09:13
Speaker
That's that jazzy, that's spicy, that's unusual. And unpredictable, isn't it? Sometimes you're not expecting that tension in the chord. Sometimes I think they do a lot of that with the vocal melodies as well. Some of the phrases, the title song for me, you hear the beginning of the melody and that's all, that sounds familiar. And then immediately goes in a direction that you're not expecting. And you said in the title song, I can think of the chorus where he goes,
00:09:40
Speaker
Da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-
00:10:08
Speaker
intricate arrangements, intricate melodies that, as Philippe already mentioned, you're not expecting. So yeah, that covers the jazz fusion side of it and what you can expect to hear from jazz when it inserts itself into rock.
LA vs. New York Session Musicians: Influences on 'Asia'
00:10:22
Speaker
Now, let's talk about the thing that you were just about to get to, the bands.
00:10:26
Speaker
I say bands, not bands. There's so many session guys, the thing with them is, I think because they used New York session musicians and LA session guys as well. It's interesting to mention there's kind of a rivalry between those two music scenes in terms of how they play stuff, especially how they play jazz music.
00:10:52
Speaker
So Walter Becker is the guitar player, so I sometimes get confused. What he mentions in an interview about the album is like some of the LA guys they would bring, so you hire a drummer from LA.
00:11:11
Speaker
they would come with a truck and there's a crew like taking the whole drum kit and it's this gigantic kit, loads of drums and cymbals and it's all really planned and organized but that also reflects in the way they play and they play something that is like predictable but extremely well executed. And I said, on the other hand, you have the New York guys coming with their hardware and cymbals like in the bags and they use whatever drum kit to have at the studio
Recording Perfection: Multiple Guitarists for the Perfect Solo
00:11:40
Speaker
But they have a certain freedom in the way they play and they would take more risks. And I think the album's got a good balance of both session styles. It's really interesting to mention that when you change a band from song to song,
00:11:56
Speaker
you're running a major risk of your album like not having a style that connects the songs in a way or sound or a vibe or a groove. And I must emphasize to listeners that when you know you can do your own research into this because it's too much for us to note down, each song has its own band. I know that Chuck Rainey plays bass on most of them but other than that
00:12:21
Speaker
think there's about five different drummers on the album. There are many different guitarists, so just before Felipe goes on, just know that each song has a different lineup. There is not one song on the album that has the same list of musicians. It's around 40 musicians involved in this album.
00:12:37
Speaker
It's a lot of people, and they're all great. To the point they use, they tried loads of guitarists. There's a documentary about the album, what they're going on about. I think it's Spag. They're trying to record the guitar solo, and they hired a different guitar player every day. Sound engineer was like, oh, here we go again. Another guitar player should do the same solo and or improvise their own solo on the song. And they were not happy.
00:13:04
Speaker
the documentary they're going on about this is kind of funny because it sounds a bit Spinal Tap. They're like, yeah, so use four or five guitar players. No, no, five or six or six or seven. I think seven or eight. If they were speaking with a British accent would be a total Spinal Tap. But the fact they were trying out and
00:13:25
Speaker
paying the best musicians in the world just to go there and do one solo or a few bars in a song to see if that fits the song or not that shows the the commitment with excellence right now yeah one thing i want to say is that it could have resulted in a lack of unit when you have too many different people in the album especially the rhythm
00:13:45
Speaker
the rhythm section. If you have different drummers and bassists, you're really, really running a risk there. And some of my favorite drummers on the album, Jim Keltner, who was John Lennon's favorite drummer for studio record and record. You have Steve Gadd, you know, can't even name who he played with literally everyone in the music industry.
00:14:05
Speaker
And you had Bernard Purdy. That's the one, yeah. Oh man, Bernard Purdy, don't get me started. So they would hire those guys, but the thing is they have very different styles. And I think that's my opinion here. Chuck Rainey is the guy who keeps it all together. He's the glue. He's the glue because he's in almost every song and the bass is the soul of this album in my opinion.
00:14:31
Speaker
And I mean, except I'm trying to think what album it was. We did it recently.
00:14:36
Speaker
one of the recent albums, maybe it was Iron Maiden, where you asked me about the bass, and I said that for me, the bass is the most important instrument, bias, of course. Yeah, not because you're a bassist, right? No, no, of course not, because the bass is the marriage and the foundation between the melody and harmonies that a keyboard or a guitar or a singer plays and the rhythm that a drum or percussion plays. The bass needs to be perfect for both of those to shine and all work together. And you're absolutely right, man, Chuck Rainey,
00:15:06
Speaker
An incredible bass player. I studied him in the university, of course, when I did this song. And man, what a player, what a player. And his contribution to the album is so important, as you said, because it is the glue that binds these different musicians together. And it's kind of like, whilst you'd normally expect the band to fit around a drummer and go, okay, this is the drummer's
Contributions of Jazz Legends to 'Asia'
00:15:27
Speaker
style. So why is a bass player only playing on one song? I'm going to fit to his style. Or like you said, a guitarist coming in and saying, well, I'm only doing this solo on two songs,
00:15:35
Speaker
I'm going to, the drum is the constant. Okay. I'll listen to him, but with Chuck Rainey and this album is the bass. Um, and he does a fantastic job, job on it. If we watch the same deck, if you watch the same documentary that I've watched, then you'll notice the part that he actually bought stuff to the album as well. Like the song peg, he, uh, they asked him not to slap because slap bass, slap bass in the mid seventies was kind of starting to become quite prominent in bass playing.
00:16:04
Speaker
And Chuck Rainey, being a session musician, could obviously do it. And he said he, what did he say? He said he turned away from them, put a screen up so they couldn't see him, and he slapped the bridge of Peg. And yeah, and obviously it worked. It made a difference.
00:16:20
Speaker
No, it's a great bass part and he knew what the song needed. So that's the sort of thing they were really demanding with the musicians. But some of those musicians were, I would say, cheeky enough to say, wait a minute, I know what I'm doing here. Bernard Purdy was one of them because when they did Home At Last, which is my favorite track in the album,
00:16:42
Speaker
because of the piano and the drums mainly. It's just such a beautiful tune. Bernard Purdie said, oh, this needs a half-time shuffle. And they were like, no, not shuffles. We don't want to shuffle for this song. It's a very specific kind of groove. And Bernard Purdie was like, no, that's what this song needs. I know. He calls himself the hit maker.
00:17:06
Speaker
And it was like, I'm the hit maker, I know what I'm doing here. And he played the groove and they were like, yeah, fair enough. Of course, you know what it means, you're Bernard Purdy. Yeah, exactly. So they knew they were working with the best musicians in the world and those guys could deliver what they wanted. We've mentioned Chuck Rainey, we've mentioned Bernard Purdy, but another person was Wayne Shorter on saxophone, who played 4 Miles Davis.
00:17:29
Speaker
Yes. Which is a huge, a huge credit to have to your name and a huge name for Steely Dan to have on their album. Yeah, yeah. Well, When Short is one of the greatest names in jazz music. You got to mention Weather Report as well as in it. So he's such a creative guy who could
00:17:53
Speaker
not only work for people like providing the the the solos and the phrases they wanted but also create his own music and yeah it's such a brilliant, brilliant musician really.
Natural Sound Post-Perfection: The Pursuit of Resonance
00:18:06
Speaker
So I'm going to segue from this section to the next section with my final point about multiple bands. As you mentioned they were they were chasing such a particular sound for each song that they ended up you know as we said changing the lineup for each song
00:18:22
Speaker
Now, how does this sound? The songs they wrote, and they knew the sounds, as you said from the documentary, they knew the sound that they wanted for each song, but when pieces of music came that were so technically demanding, they didn't play it themselves. Walter Becker is not on two tracks on the album.
00:18:42
Speaker
It's black cow and one other one. I can't remember. It might've been Asia or peg. He's not on them because the parts that he wrote was so technically demanding. He just put his hands up. I mean, this is crazy as an artist. We know that a lot of artists are fueled by their ego, but how, how confident in your own ego and how committed to the project do you have to be to say, do you know what? This requires better than what I am at the moment. So I'm going to call in this guy to play it.
00:19:12
Speaker
Yeah, that is like, yeah, it means that the music is way bigger than your ego. Yeah, and I think that's a massive credit to them. Yeah, it's not about like, oh, I'm a great musician, I've got to play the solo. He plays some beautiful solos in the album, but he also has other guitar players coming to play solos when
00:19:34
Speaker
when they could do a better job or more creative job or different. I just think that's such a credit to him and to them to actually say, do you know what? I can't do this.
00:19:43
Speaker
Let's get someone else in and listen, this is very complex music. So it's not like you can't play the pentatonic scale. Like he's very good at what he does. But this leads me into the next stuff I want to talk about, which is the perfectionism of the album, because this album and when I'm not saying it's a perfect album, that's debatable. But the level of perfection they are striving to achieve. And I want to start this section off by talking.
Technical Innovations in 'Asia's' Production
00:20:07
Speaker
Maybe you heard this from in the documentary.
00:20:10
Speaker
Dean Parks, who was a guitarist on the album, says this, perfection is not what they went after. They were after something you wanted to listen to over and over again. So we would work past the perfection point until it became natural, until it sounded almost improvised. So it was a two-step process. Step one was to get perfection. Step two was to get beyond it and to loosen it up a bit.
00:20:35
Speaker
which I just find nuts when everything you and me know about music and listen we were far from the most knowledgeable people in music on the planet but we know our fair share we've experienced it.
00:20:45
Speaker
We know that you go for the groove of the song first, you go for the feel of the song, you work out your parts, you get it all together, you work with the rest of the band, then you perfect it. But not on this album. The guitarist is saying they went the other way. They perfected things and then wanted to un-perfect it a little bit by loosening it up and not making it sound so polished.
00:21:07
Speaker
Yeah, I think it's again a combination of the LA and the New York approach to arrangement and everything else.
00:21:18
Speaker
And I think, yeah, they had definitely a lot of attention to detail. That's what it is. That's where the perfection is, in my opinion. You know, like, oh, let's try a different groove for the song. If we change the groove as lightly or the chords or whatever, if that's going to work or not. And then, as I said, when everything's perfect, just bring some chaos into it. Yeah, it could be just a guitar solo. The interesting thing about it is that Gary Katz is the producer on this album, isn't he?
00:21:48
Speaker
he was we're talking about our university he came for a lecture at once and um so i had the pleasure to see that man talking for a couple of hours about the the stuff he produced and everyone was shocked when he mentioned that he doesn't play an instrument and he doesn't do any mixing or or any sound engineering things and some of them so what's your job as a producer then because for people who don't know most producers nowadays they
00:22:14
Speaker
They are normally, as a general rule, they're good sound engineers and they know the gear really well. They normally play one or more instruments. I'd go a step further nowadays and say that when you look at people like Dr. Dre,
00:22:29
Speaker
and rap music, which I know is different to what we're talking about, you have a man or woman who can play everything on the keyboard, like Dr. Dre, who is quite a talented musician, and then you have an artist come over it. And I mean that for pop music as well, not just rap. You might have a producer for Taylor Swift who can play every instrument needed. He'll produce that and Taylor's just got to sing.
00:22:48
Speaker
Yeah, so in that case, Gary Katz is the guy who says, oh, I trust my ears. And that's what it is. So think about it. You have two great songwriters who happen to be amazing musicians hiring some of the best guys in the business. So everyone in the room is a master of the instrument. And then there's a guy who doesn't play.
00:23:10
Speaker
who trusts his ears. And if you're not a musician, you're a music fan, you're on the other side of this game. And it's really important to have that view. He would be like, no, this sounds good. No, that doesn't sound good. What if you go a little bit more crazy or a little bit more
00:23:28
Speaker
I don't know. So he would speak not necessarily in music terms in order to get a good sound out of the musicians. And I think maybe that's part of the chaotic element of the album. You have someone who can hear you as an outsider
00:23:49
Speaker
and give you an honest opinion, not only an opinion, but like an insight. I think a grounded opinion, a opinion that forgets what these guys know about jazz and how it's clever to put a
00:24:04
Speaker
making this up an A major seven just after a C dominant sharp 11 you know that that technically might work but if you've got someone on the ground who says it doesn't quite work it doesn't try the other one yeah yeah so it's good to have a guy like that working in a project and yeah and this he is someone who knows a lot about music in a different way and it goes sometimes beyond the the perfection that we're talking about yeah so continuing in that vein for me
00:24:35
Speaker
It's almost like each song has become a piece of art within itself, requiring the same level of attention, detail, precision that some bands would give to an entire album, just per song, because they're so well crafted, aren't they? And it's not just cool jazz chords, great jazz solos, and good drumming,
00:25:05
Speaker
the production side of it as well. That is the next section I want to go on to is the production of it. It goes as far as saying it's flawless. I can't think of anything that I'd say, oh, it's not that mix is a little like this, or we could have been produced a bit better like this. The attention to detail given to every instrument and every minute detail of the album is flawless.
00:25:31
Speaker
Unless you have anything else about perfectionism, can I go on to the production?
Balancing Perfection and Humanity in Sound
00:25:35
Speaker
Yeah, let's move on. So here's some research I did about the technical innovations that the producers did for this album. Overdubbing and layering, creating a much denser, intricate sound. And this means, you know, when you talk about layering in production, it's quite simple. You are layering
00:25:54
Speaker
instruments on top of each other now that's quite simple when you're doing drums bass guitar and vocals but when you have two or three guitars and you know it's not unheard of two basses two drums multiple vocals it can get hard to sort of place things where they need to be for the audiences to hear them isolation booths this is the mid 70s they isolated every instrument bro
00:26:19
Speaker
every instrument they isolated. And what this means technically is that if you're in a room and the producer says to you in your band, okay, play through the song and we'll try and capture the bass. If your bass has got a microphone on it, although you're playing your bass and that's the main signal going into the microphone,
00:26:42
Speaker
might also get what we call a bit of bleed which is where a certain tone of a guitar might just seep into your instrument and it just loses
00:26:53
Speaker
quality, let's say, doesn't it? It just loses the specific signal that is just the bass. And this is quite common practice nowadays, but for the mid-70s, bro, to be isolating every instrument. Every musician in a booth, yeah. I didn't know when that started the music, but that allows the musicians to play together and also get a quality of recording that sounds like they recorded one at a time. So that is the best of both worlds.
00:27:21
Speaker
But further to this, they've actually miked the instruments as well in terms of, did I read somewhere that they put microphones up onto their right hand of the guitar so that you could- Which is how we normally do with acoustic guitar. It's interesting to do that with electric guitar. Wow, I've never heard of that. And so you get that and then you're basically picking up and getting the nuances of each instrument and basically, you know, things like just a little pick. And I think you can hear it in peg.
00:27:50
Speaker
There's that lovely part of guitar. It's goes... Oh, the muted notes, yeah. Yeah, because the guitar, on this whole album, as melodic and harmonic as it is in places, it's very percussive in all of others, isn't it? Yeah. And I think, well, interesting that you say this, it's percussive, because, like, rhythm is, for me, what makes this album accessible.
00:28:17
Speaker
And yeah, so in terms of all the prediction stuff you're talking about, I think those details are like capturing the plectrum and getting the room sound and that kind of stuff.
00:28:33
Speaker
you're bringing some life to music, otherwise it can end up being overproduced. If it's well thought in terms of arrangement and there's that search for the perfect sound, the perfect execution, it might end up sounding too cold, you know, like not human. When it's too good and too correct, let's put it like that. So yeah, that sort of ideas really make the music more human. I love it. Beautiful.
00:29:01
Speaker
Just to add to the technical stuff you know there was some signal processing techniques that they were utilizing and innovating in a dynamic range compression EQ, which is basically enhancing the clarity.
00:29:13
Speaker
of each instrument, which is what I said before. It's like, you know, isolation booth, miking up the intricate parts of an instrument and then sort of using these new signal processing techniques means that you're going to be able to hear each instrument crystal clear. And that is why I think this album achieved so well, just beautifully hearing all the perfectly mixed instruments. It is producing perfection, production perfection. It still sounds great today,
00:29:41
Speaker
sounds like it could have been mixed yesterday. Yeah, it sounds as good as any modern pop album. Yeah, yeah. In terms of sound engineering and mixing. Is there anything you want us to talk about?
Creative Complexity in Songs Like 'Asia'
00:29:53
Speaker
In terms of production? No, no, judges in general, I've kind of come to the end of my points, you know, themes. Lars is the organized one here. He follows his notes, I write my notes and then and then forget about it.
00:30:06
Speaker
I'm the LA player, you're the New York player, aren't you? We need global versus the show, isn't it? I want to say about, in terms of the complexity of it and how clever the songs are, I think
00:30:23
Speaker
If you only listen to one song on this album, I would say Asia is the one. I'll tell you. My opinion on that is, because first of all, it's a long song. They have a few short songs, short, I mean like just under four minutes or five minutes. But Asia is a long song, almost eight minutes or around eight minutes.
00:30:44
Speaker
7 7 57 yeah yeah so that song has got everything you can hear all of their influences in it and it's got a sort of a bossa nova groove at the beginning
00:30:59
Speaker
And he can get quite funky at some points. And at some points, there's no groove, just cymbals. It's just a vibe. You can't hear the groove. And they went for something that I think wasn't... There's an interview... I know you like Rick Beato, who's one of my favorite YouTube channels. And he interviewed Steve Gad about that song.
00:31:23
Speaker
And Steve Garrett said that at the time, no one has seen that in pop music. There's a sax solo in the song and the drums, they solo over the sax. So there's two of them. So that's how unpredictable it is. So you've got this beautiful melody and the lyrics and it talks about a woman and how he admires that woman. And you're listening to that and you go into that journey. Oh, it's a beautiful story. Right. And then the sax solo and you have Wayne Short playing the solo.
00:31:51
Speaker
one of the greatest uh and he goes for that solo and the drum starts soloing on top of it that you can hear that in like in jazz or fusion or free jazz whatever it's kind of acceptable in any other context it's like come on drummer shut up like that's the sax moment you're like you you you're over playing it you're playing over the and you're actually playing over someone else's solo it's the most like uh it's the most rude thing you can do as a musician is to take someone else's solo but
00:32:21
Speaker
It was designed to be like that. I was going to say, if they wanted two solos at once, if it's on the album, that means they wanted it. Yeah. And Steve Gant says that they were not quite clear about what they wanted, but they would let you
00:32:35
Speaker
try to decipher what they wanted and go for it and they gave him enough freedom to go and solo over that and it's it's one of the most epic drum solos of all time and I think at the end again so so when we think this this the song is going to come down and it does
00:32:52
Speaker
and he becomes kind of pop music again at the end the sax and the drums start soloing together again it's it's just beautiful i agree i think it's it's the song to go to on the album where if you want a taste of what the whole album is about i think that's it yeah you've got really unorthodox fusion instruments a guitar solo and a sax solo and the drum one as well um you've got like these syncopated hits and stabs which kind of give the progressive fusion element to it loads of little
00:33:22
Speaker
motifs and embellishments in between the vocal phrases which is kind of rocky but yeah really great song. Do you know what I think about some of these songs is that what I love is the cross genre appeal of this all because you've got soulful vibes and you know overall
Cross-Genre Appeal and Calming Qualities
00:33:41
Speaker
I think each song, although it might have a different style attributed it, each one has what I would call a soulful feel to it in the terms of a relaxed. Let me tell you a quick story. I listened to this album. So we were meant to record this last week, but something came up and we had to delay it to this week. I was recording this on the day that my car went for an MOT. Sorry, I was listening to this the day my car went for an MOT. Now, personally,
00:34:06
Speaker
The day my car goes for an MOT is the most stressful day of my year. I get good cars, but I drive them a lot. You never know what can happen. So two years ago, my MOT was about 800 pounds, which is just
00:34:22
Speaker
unbelievable. I was just like oh my god what am I going to do? So the next year you got PTSD from the year before so I was listening and I listened to this album. I listened to this album when I was doing, before I went for the MOT and I was like it's good yeah I know I like it in places I like that solo it's good whatever. I went to the MOT and I didn't bother going home I sat in the garage and listened to it
00:34:47
Speaker
And the whole, the album calmed me down. I was there to start. I was like, I handed him the keys. I was like, right. Cause you know, I was quite fidgety. I was like, Oh, come on. You know, how long was it? Five minutes already. And as the album went on, I was like, by the time I got to bloody, by the time I got to Josie, I was like, it is what it is.
00:35:06
Speaker
Whatever happens, you know, so it really does. So that's what I mean by the soulful vibe. It had a calming effect on me. You listen to it. And no matter how many syncopated jabs or hits there are, which is quite progressive, it's not the same progressive as 21st century schizoid man, which is in your face and loud and disruptive. It's progressive in a lovely calm way. So you've got those soulful feel for it, funky rhythms everywhere.
00:35:32
Speaker
gospel female vocals we've already said the jazz harmonies and chords but I love you know the rock instruments and the overall how somehow if you combine all five of those elements you've got a pop song exact yeah it's just hard come right yeah so I just wanted to say that what I loved is that you didn't have the same
00:35:54
Speaker
stylistic characteristic doing the same job on each song and what I mean by that is Deacon Blues the drumming to me is rock drumming yeah but yeah on on peg as a
00:36:07
Speaker
as an example, it might have been funk drumming. And the same way that the guitar solo in Asia is a jazz solo, but the guitar solo in PEG is a rock solo. So I love that they didn't just have rock drumming through the album, funk bass playing, jazz guitar.
Musical Versatility: Track-by-Track Exploration
00:36:24
Speaker
No, they just mixed it up. Never the same style and never the same music. And it keeps it so interesting.
00:36:30
Speaker
unbelievable it is it is one yeah probably one of the most creative albums ever recorded in terms of mixing up uh different styles and having some sort of unit to it which is not not easy to achieve it can have albums where each song is completely different but there's something to it i think is the rhythm there's always a bit of a funky vibe and there's always the amazing bass and
00:36:58
Speaker
Yeah, you're right. But then you get four songs in and you're kind of like, all right, I get where this album is going. And then they hit you with home at last, which has like that. They're like, well, let's fuck it. Let's just stick in some reggae. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Because the halftime shuffle on that one sounds like something between reggae and funk. You know, it's still and still jazzy enough. It's everything really. I actually that's my favorite song in the album.
00:37:29
Speaker
I think it's the moment that it comes in the story of the album for me.
00:37:36
Speaker
I think listening to an album, as we always say, is the best experience in terms of music. It's not like one song or one single. You gotta listen to the album, start to finish. And some songs, they just come in the perfect moment. So if you're listening to that, there's a point, at least for me, there's a point where I'm like, my God, this is so dense and it's so clever and complicated. And some of the chords are like,
00:38:02
Speaker
It's almost annoyingly good. It's so good that it started to annoy me by track form. It's like, okay, right, you guys proved that you're really good, and this is like mind-blowing. And then as I said, Home at Last comes, and I was listening to that song on my way home now, because I'm stressed, there's strikes and delays. I'll put that on my headphones.
00:38:24
Speaker
because I know I'm going to be home at last. So this album has calmed both of us down in one situation or another. Plus it's a beautiful day and I can wear a t-shirt in London. Anyway, so one thing I want to say, just one last thing, is
00:38:43
Speaker
Deacon Blues is my favorite lyrics in the album and that's the other thing when everyone's talking about how good people are as musicians or arrangers or etc. You forget about lyrics and the lyrics of that song is this guy who lives a normal boring life and he dreams about being this super cool sax player.
Lyrical Creativity and Fictional Narratives
00:39:07
Speaker
And this is a story about what he wanted his life to be like.
00:39:12
Speaker
it's amazing because songs are uh mostly fake stories isn't it something that you made up and in this case it's someone else's dream they they created this guy who is not real and has this guy has that dream or that you know dream life or that fantasy in his head and they turn that into a song so it's it's it's really really clever and um
00:39:37
Speaker
And it's not, none of the lyrics are heavy in any sense, none of them make you feel sad or depressed or whatever, they're all cool. Yeah, that's, yeah, great point about the you can lose. I really enjoyed that one. The saxo is brilliant. And it's much more relaxed in terms of those jazz fusion elements. It doesn't go so heavy with it.
Highlighting 'Peg': A Rhythmic and Melodic Masterpiece
00:39:58
Speaker
But for me, I mean,
00:40:00
Speaker
I'd have to say, I agree with what you're saying in the sense of Asia sums up everything that is good about the album, but I'd argue that PEG
00:40:12
Speaker
does it to the same extent, but in a short amount of time. And that's why I'd go for that one as my, I think I'd call that my favorite. It's got the best riff as well. The horns come in. That is just the best. Beautiful. It just, yeah, it's three minutes, 57 seconds, and it gets everything in there. It gets the funk, it gets the backing vocals, it gets the jazz, it gets the rock solo. It's brilliant. But man, it's hard to pick. Do you know why it's called Peg?
00:40:38
Speaker
No, tell me. They needed a really short words to fit the melody rhythmically the way they wanted. Yeah, it's a good pace. Yeah, they had to be sure they would extend the letter E, make it long, but the word had to be something short so they can use it in the melodic and rhythmically way. So it's based on that, you know, search for perfectionism.
00:41:03
Speaker
in the documentary, I believe you and I have both watched, do you remember the part where the backing vocalist was saying that they'd spent hours recording lines because what you think would be a simple line, they were just like proper, you know, specific about it in terms of, well, hold on, we don't, you know, I can't think of a lyric, but the guy made an example, but I'll just, I'll make something up. You say, I know, in the call of the night, just that lyric, all right?
00:41:33
Speaker
wanted that they wanted a certain way they want to be emphasis on the sea of cool so you can just say in the cool of the night in the cool of all right and now emphasize the tea on the end of night and when you say in we want the in to be in you are we want you to swell up to it they just had every word they wanted something different like a different thing but yeah that was a really good take but now we're gonna do the
00:41:56
Speaker
And the thing is, how good do you have to be to have the final product in your mind? You have the sound in your head. If you're so demanding with people, and if you're so picky about small details, it's because you have a sound in your head that you're trying to get out of humans, trying to make them produce that sound.
Unified Vision and Cohesive Sound of 'Asia'
00:42:20
Speaker
Let me take you one step further and say how awesome does it have to be, not only what you said, but for two of them to be joined in the vision that they both had for each of these songs. That's a master move.
00:42:42
Speaker
But yes, I still can't comprehend it for both of them to be so in line with each other in knowing what they listen. No doubt. There's probably some arguments. There's probably some disagreements. But for the most part, they never sound like even in the documentary, they get on so well.
00:42:57
Speaker
You kind of see things nowadays when we did Fleetwood Mac and we did the classic albums documentary for that. They all had to be in different rooms because they didn't want to be near each other. Which is very rock and roll. Yeah, but these two, I mean, man, just two peas in a pod, so to speak, as the saying goes. Oh, anything else you want to mention? I just want to say one thing.
00:43:20
Speaker
I got myself thinking, why is this album part of Long Live Rock and Roll podcast? And that's the question I always ask you, what makes this album Rock and Roll for you? Okay, so for me, one of my drum teachers back in the day said to me,
00:43:38
Speaker
I, he was a jazz player. I would say, all my beginner students would learn rock first. I'll teach them rock. So, so why? Cause rock is not a genre. It's, it's an attitude. So you need that to be a good musician. You need a certain attitude. And I think that's what this album is for me. It's the rock attitude in a certain way, the freedom, the, the, the cert for
00:44:07
Speaker
a great sound, a perfect sound, and then let chaos control after you find it. And just like the attempt of producing the best music you can make with the best musicians around.
Attention to Detail and Intricate Production
00:44:24
Speaker
So I think there is a rock attitude, the fact that you're mixing everything that comes to your head without
00:44:28
Speaker
without thinking, is this like radio friendly enough? Is this going to make it? Does this work or not? So there is definitely a rock attitude to the album. Yeah, I'd just add to that by saying that to take the various iterations of all the musicians and bands they had, but to still achieve a unified album, I thought that was masterful. Anyway, did you join my monologue?
00:44:57
Speaker
Oh yeah, I just, I expect your monologue to be as good as the album. Oh god, alright, we'll see. I've kept, liked the album, I've kept it short, but quality, hopefully. Here we go. So what stands out most to me about Asia, probably compared to all the other albums we've done so far, is the attention to detail given to each and every song, and how intricate and fine-tuned each aspect is.
00:45:20
Speaker
whether that's the incredibly advanced recording techniques utilized to achieve sonic perfection and fantastically nuanced sound from each instrument, or the cutthroat approach to members and session musicians, enlisting the help of over 40 different musicians and switching recording lineups day to day to ensure that the perfect group dynamic and sound was achieved. Then you add in the perfect balance between styles
00:45:44
Speaker
each perfectly amalgamated and crafted to achieve a uniqueness from song to song, but an ultimate cohesion throughout the record.
00:45:52
Speaker
Another success of the album for me was how much the album keeps you on your toes. It's constantly mixing it up. Each song had its own journey that was in itself quite exciting, but then they'd switch up the ideas and put male BVs instead of female, or play a rock solo instead of a jazz solo. Couple this with the excellent ambiance and production in each song and the chords, harmonies and melodies
00:46:15
Speaker
that are constantly keeping your ears interested, meant that I was glued to the album from start to finish, sat there listening and wondering what next piece of jazz rock magic was around the corner on the next track.
Minimalist Album Cover: Mystery and Interpretation
00:46:28
Speaker
Amazing. Did it match, did the monologue match the album quality? Yeah, for me, yeah, man. I'm a big man. Eight out of ten. The monologue, yeah. The album is 12 out of 10. The monologue is 10 out of 10. Is that okay? That's very fair, thank you. Let's do one other thing that I forgot about before we end.
00:46:45
Speaker
album cover oh how nuts is it you know what I'm going I don't know the start of that cover no no me neither but how I just found it incredible hold on let me just for viewers I'm gonna put the album cover on instead and I'm gonna turn my camera off just so you can see it
00:47:03
Speaker
Oh, wait, that didn't work. How do I work? I can do this, I believe. And there we go. How crazy is that, man? Because there's just there's nothing that sort of shocked me about this is there's nothing. And when you see the other one, it's how more black can it get? Yeah, no, no, no. But that is the side of someone's dress and the side of their face. But it's not even the full side of the face. It's just the lips and nose. I mean, talk about minimalistic. That is a
00:47:32
Speaker
a minimalistic piece of art if i've ever seen one isn't it yeah and and it is and it's beautiful because it's uh it's it's well thought when you think about the colors and yeah you think about the logo for uh the letters for asia you have that big that long
00:47:48
Speaker
J, that matches the dress, we would look at the point. It's just funny because it doesn't tell you anything about the album, does it? It doesn't sort of say, oh, it's going to be kind of this or it's heavy metal because there's a devil and flames on it or it's, you know, whatever. It just is so ambiguous. It leaves it open to interpretation, doesn't it? You see the album and you go, what the hell is this going to be?
00:48:09
Speaker
and I think like the music actually you're kind of treated with a with the similar music that comes through aren't you because you're kind of like okay wait this one's different to the last one wait the third song's even more different to the first song so yeah there's a mystery to that cover and there's beauty in it as well so it's like it has a lot to do with their music in a way but again it doesn't tell
00:48:37
Speaker
how amazing the album is because it's just not possible to do for an album covert really.
Engaging the Audience and Sharing Musical Passion
00:48:42
Speaker
Perfect. Cool. Excellent. All right. We'll leave it there then, bro. Thank you again for joining us on the Long Live Rock and Roll podcast. As I say, as usual, if you're watching, please hit like and subscribe so you can stay up to date with our new episodes. And if you're listening on Apple or Spotify, please scroll down and give us a little review. Any review gives us flies us up the charts and gets us seen by more Rock and Roll fans like yourself.
00:49:03
Speaker
So thank you again for joining us and we'll see you soon. Yeah, thanks to everyone who's been sharing, commenting, because I've read some comments on YouTube and stuff. We've, we've got a lot of support from you guys over the last two years. I don't know for how long we've been doing it for two years, coming up to three. Yeah, I'll have to do the math. I think it's coming up to three years.
00:49:27
Speaker
But yeah, the support since we moved our podcasts to YouTube has been incredible because I mean, it just means we're being seen by more people and YouTube has its own podcast platform. We have so many comments on there and it's lovely to see everyone and engage with them and sort of share the love of music. Yeah. And we're here to listen to whatever you guys have to say about stuff. And we're always doing this with passion because we want to share music with each other because we do that a lot. So we recommend albums to each other. That's how the show started.
00:49:57
Speaker
and we're trying to give you guys some insights on some of our favourite music and I'm really glad you guys are enjoying it. So yeah, thanks a lot for all the support and keep on rocking everyone and don't do anything I really do. As you guys take care and long live Rockin' Rock.