Now that this utterly fantastic forum exists, it shall become the guilty pleasure of silently slavering aficionados such as myself, who were content with imagining Mr. Gibson adrift on some Oort Cloud of internetic ambivalence. Oh, the horse shall drink, perhaps, if led to the water and given a silly straw...!

Onto the topic at hand: since being handed a worn copy of "NEUROMANCER" in 1998, I've always wondered how many other WG fans out there are also DanFans (i.e. the passionate and peculiar sort of person, absorbed in the sly, surrealistic sonic stylings of Mssrs. Donald Fagen and Walter Becker, a.k.a. STEELY DAN). Also...did you meet Mistah Steely Dan hisself AFTER encountering Gibson, or (like myself) quite a while BEFORE ever hearing and/or reading a word of WG's works?

And what's more...in what ways does the confluence of these two bodies of genius float your proverbial boat?

Don't pout...I'm not coolhunting, just curious. Any major forum slave would toss a couple ducats in the virtual kitty, just fer laffs...

Take my hand in the Android Warehouse,

Carol A. Wade

PS: A new Gibson novel and a new Steely Dan CD (5/6/03!) in the *same* year??! I can't stands it no mo'!!! YIPPEEEEE!!!

"Simply put, I want to grow old; dying does not meet my expectations..." --
Stephen Malkmus

Aw heck I dunno. I'm just a fella from Pittsburgh who stole their name. What a shame about me. So what's your answer and what is your opinion on the Iraqi war? You've been quoted by known warmeister blogger Glenn Reynolds for your scary intense space shuttle reflection. Do you dream of bathing in Iraqi blood, watching as you cross the killing floor, with a gun?

Philip Shropshire
www.threerivertechreview.com
www.majic12.com

PS: If you come out against the war, please refrain from riding rickety planes. Walk to London. Take a boat to China. Or at least stay out of the US Senate...

quote:

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Originally posted by Steelydan:
Aw heck I dunno. I'm just a fella from Pittsburgh who stole their name. What a shame about me. So what's your answer and what is your opinion on the Iraqi war? You've been quoted by known warmeister blogger Glenn Reynolds for your scary intense space shuttle reflection. Do you dream of bathing in Iraqi blood, watching as you cross the killing floor, with a gun?

PS: If you come out against the war, please refrain from riding rickety planes. Walk to London. Take a boat to China. Or at least stay out of the US Senate...

---

Hrm! Talk about starting the thread off with an off-topic *bang*! Anyway, to answer your question, I would say that my reaction, when exposed to mentions of the Dan in WG's fiction, is probably the exact *reverse* of that of Cayce Pollard, when placed, say, before a giant Armani Exchange billboard. I've not read P-Recog yet (waiting to buy it @ the damn B&N next week, in the event I can't get "online" any other way...HYULK!), but let's just say I know the drill.

In no uncertain terms: mentions of Dan in WG books are, for me, the ultimate Countdown to Ecstacy. My heart stopped when Bobby awoke in Barrytown. I rose a zombie to the Gentlemen Loser. And, when I first happened upon Klaus and the Rooster in "All Tomorrow's Parties," I nearly asphyxiated. The Rooster's fast-motion, agonized and violent Francis Bacon mug was something stunningly out of my own inner mirrorshades. With such discussion, I could go on for hours...

And to [incrementally] indulge the precocious fraying of this thread, on the topic of war...to quote Frank Zappa, "Some scientists claim that hydrogen, because it is so plentiful, is the basic building block of the universe. I dispute that. I say that there is more stupidity than hydrogen, and that is the basic building block of the universe..."

See the glory Of the Royal Scam,

Carol A. Wade

"Simply put, I want to grow old; dying does not meet my expectations..." --
Stephen Malkmus

Heard Steely Dan before I read Gibson. I thought it was great make out music. Got me interested in jazz at the time and from there to the blues. Skydancer, there is another thread Gibson and music, [I believe] and there are now a whole lot of reasons for me to repair my turntable and listen to old albums.

quote:

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Originally posted by gus:
Heard Steely Dan before I read Gibson. I thought it was great make out music. Got me interested in jazz at the time and from there to the blues. Skydancer, there is another thread Gibson and music, [I believe] and there are now a whole lot of reasons for me to repair my turntable and listen to old albums.

---

Hey gus...I remember the first moment I noticed an SD reference in a WG book. I, too, was a DanFan before being a "Gibsonite" (har), and I truly thought I was dreaming. It didn't make sense, but it did. Somehow, without having much of an image of The Killing Floor from the Dan song "Your Gold Teeth," I just felt, between the lyric and Gibson's usage, what he was getting at, without much confusion. What I'm wondering is: is this an implant of some variety by lascivious extraterrestrials, responsible for the bizarreness of Gibson's and SD's talent, or is it just some kind of sociocultural runoff that should be overlooked with a shrug?

I know about the "Gibson and Music" thread, but heavens...that's a bit too general. I'm simply trolling for verbose maniacs, whose synapses swell in the weird glow of this intersection of influences.

Another example...why is it that it's possible for Gibson to use references from DanMusic, rather than mentioning the band it/themselves? At first, it seems clear...copyright issues, and a lack of necessity. It's this nodal point (if you will) of resonance that fascinates me the most, being both a DanFan and a Gibsonite, and the reason I started this thread.

Quite specifically, there's probably no explicable rhyme or reason to the plethora of Dan references in Gibson's work, outside WG just being one of those fussy savants like Becker & Fagen, and certain WG characters like Colin Laney, Henry Case, The Finn, and definitely Cayce Pollard.

Just what *is* it about the swirling, psychedelic amnion of Steely Dan's music that moves WG enough to name characters after mysterious entities in the duo's songs (eg. Klaus and The Rooster)? To me, it's a point worth at least discussing, if not dwelling uselessly upon for hours and hours...

Lost in the Barrio with 6 days to go,

Carol A. Wade

"Simply put, I want to grow old; dying does not meet my expectations..." --
Stephen Malkmus

Howdy Skydancer, yup, time to get the turntable fixed or buy one of them cds. I'd go with the savant explanation. References from old David Bowie songs still pop in my head. "Bright Young Things" from ATP. "Flashing bright young things, taking the way to war, touches the sad remains, wait for Aladdin Sane" think that's the way it goes. Time to re-read all my Gibson books.

"I have achieved a measure of peace with my uncertainties".-Robert Crais
"Size of the measure varies"-gus

peace

quote:

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Originally posted by gus:
Howdy Skydancer, yup, time to get the turntable fixed or buy one of them cds. I'd go with the savant explanation. References from old David Bowie songs still pop in my head. "Bright Young Things" from ATP. "Flashing bright young things, taking the way to war, touches the sad remains, wait for Aladdin Sane" think that's the way it goes. Time to re-read all my Gibson books.

---

COUNTDOWN TO ECSTASY. Period. Get it, listen, and learn. For a probably finer point of evidence, regarding the basic, hyperliminal weirdness that both the Dan and WG share, please snag a copy of KATY LIED, preferably on vinyl (if you can find one). Use 8-Track tape as a viable substitute...

An aside: (along the lines of "The Difference Engine" and Steely Dan's studio obsession) Should DIGITAL always denote "futurity"?

Discussssss....

On the other side of no tomorrow,

Carol A. Wade

"Simply put, I want to grow old; dying does not meet my expectations..." --
Stephen Malkmus

Burroughs to Steely Dan to William Gibson

They are all about street people.

Movements don't begin in universities or palaces, they begin on the street among throngs of people. That's why stories of the rich and powerful can't compare to stories about the masses.

"Aja" sounds fuckin' *amaaaazing* on vinyl. Those guys're *such* studio geeks. The liner notes on "Katy Lied" are hilarious because of how detailed they are regarding their recording equipment, right down to the lathe used for mastering the disc.

Justin Roby
Adjunct Instructor in English
GWU

I love Steely Dan, but what's the big deal about listening to it on vinyl? Can you really hear the difference? I have all of it on vinyl, but I think it's great not to hear all of the little pops and hisses. Are artifacts introduced or removed during the transfer to CD?

Will you still have a song to sing
when the razor boy comes and takes your fancy things away?

Consider, for instance, the nature of digital recording: the sample. An analog wave is "sampled" so many times per second, so each value is an approximation of where the wave is at a moment in time. You have, then, on CD, 44,100 of these "moments" which are then re-jiggered to give you an approximation of the original wave (you get better as you increase the sample rate; formats like SACD do 98,000 samples/sec or 98 KHz). A record, which is an analog recording (that is, the image on record, if you look close enough, is a very close reproduction of the wave), is continuous, rather than a series of slices. So I feel that often there's a subliminal completeness to analog that's missing in digital.

As for the other stuff, there's the surface noise, which helps fill out the sound (some speak of the "warmth" of vinyl, which is partly surface noise. One of Autechre's albums actually says "incomplete without surface noise" which means that you've got an incomplete album if you don't have the vinyl). A well taken care of record can outlast a CD; if a record has too many scratches and pops, somebody treated it like crap, didn't clean their needle occasionally, or had bad equipment. I have, again, Aja in moderately good shape and it sounds excellent; I have a copy of the White Album that still sounds awesome (and loads better than the late 80s mastering job that is still in print. It sounds tinny compared to the vinyl). End of rant. Vinyl is so worth it.

I think I was convinced when I listened to a copy of the German single of "Charlotte Sometimes," by the Cure. On 45, and it had a live version of "Faith" that sounds like I have Robert Smith and the rest of the band in my room playing for me personally. The first time I heard it on good equipment, I had to sit down. Other things to hear on 45? The version of Public Image Ltd's "Metal Box," was released in a metal box, at 45 RPM. Jah Wobble's bass playing rattles walls on that recording. Even the recent remastered PiL "plastic box" best of failed to capture that.

Anyway, Clacker, this was a long way to say that, yes, it is a big deal, and there is information lost, particularly if you listen to CDs fromt the late 80s, when they hadn't quite gotten things to sound right. Seriously: do an A/B test on the White Album, or even your Steely Dan collection, and you'll hear the difference. CD mastering now is pretty much state of the art. Those new Rolling Stones reissues all sound excellent; much fuller than the late 80s CDs that were out.


Justin Roby
Adjunct Instructor in English
GWU

[This message was edited by Justy on February 12, 2003 at 09:24 PM.]

[This message was edited by Justy on February 12, 2003 at 09:29 PM.]

Reading Gibson's books and related academic material that referred to Steely Dan's music being quoted lead me to buying a few tapes/CD's. I know, you may snigger when I refer to cassettes, but I still use them in my car, and the head rush from listening to "Bodhisattva" cranked up high is just too cheerfully unbelievable, or "Any Major Dude" or "Babylon Sisters"--so much of it is just plain yummy ear candy. The precision pounding piano and the laser-focused guitar/s (never did figure out if they were multiple players or single player doing multiple tracks)are like some kind of drug for the music center of the brain.

Now, I must get them on CD, must get "Aja"; I can remember the stir that caused when I was in high school, not enough money to afford records. Now, I saunter thru 'music stores' and take notes of the music I want to get on CD--all the cool stuff from the 80's, Blondie, Depeche Mode, Madonna, The Police, David Bowie--I was into reggae before reading Gibson. My friends thought I was so weird...rasta preppie. Remember those early Jane Fonda workout days? I still remember a routine to "Rikki Don't Lose that Number", it haunts me still, and I still hate to excerise.

I saw William Gibson in Boston on 2/18; he'd been asked about future musical trends and he modestly claimed he was bad at predicting future trends. Then again, he bad is better than most people's real good. I asked him about the whole music thing as written up in February's _Wired_, and he hadn't read the whole issue yet, just "PR"s review.

DermaWoman

Sorry. You've demonstrated connections, but I'd really prefer to believe that SD and Gibson are drawing on the same set of influences, rather than Gibson drawing on SD.

IMHO, speaking as a musician, Gibson represents risk and innovation -- like chopping a Yamaha street bike and taking it up to 120. SD is about using gobs of potential and playing it safe -- like taking a Porsche and never going faster than 30, but boy does it handle sweet at 30. There's also an undesirable level of polish in SD's music; SD would never write in sentence fragments.

I thought I was hallucinating but I could have sworn I saw fangs on Donald Fagen. Am I the only one?