They stab it with their steely knives, But they just can't kill the beast

As many of my friends (along with my vast network of fans) know, I'm a bit of an Eagles fan. Because of this, I also find interest in many things that are linked to the Eagles in one way or another. I enjoy listening to my Joe Walsh and Don Henley cds. One of these days I'll start building my Glen Frey and Timothy B. Schmidt catalog. Since the Eagles were formed while Henley and Frey were both backup singers in Linda Rondstat's band, I will sometimes listen to her music to try and find some roots in the Eagles style. I also enjoy listening to Jackson Browne music, since he was responsible for writing some of the Eagles better tunes.

Where my fascination with eagles-esque music has always been a bit strained is with Steely Dan. Steely Dan is always right alongside the Eagles whenever there is anything written about them. The famous line of Hotel California that I used for this blog's title was there in response to Steely Dan's lyric "Turn up the Eagles, the neighbors are listening" in their song Everything You Did. The popularity of both bands was on the rise at around the same time, and like the Eagles, Steely Dan broke up and then reunited after a long wait.

But that's really where the simularities end as far as I can tell. One listen to Steely Dan makes it pretty apparent that they shared virtually no musical style with the Eagles. Steely Dan's sound is somewhat of a progressive-jazz-pop sound, with a squeaky clean (some would go so far as to say sterile) presentation of the instruments, where the Eagles have a sound much closer to what you'd call a "70s classic rock" type of sound, with their share of effects and dirty guitar distortion.

I can't help but wonder if Steely Dan's sound was representitive of the "east coast" sound whereas the Eagles represented the west coast sound. The "east coast" sound was one that had stronger roots in a more conservative, "clean" type of upper class sound while the California sound was more influenced by the southern rock and brittish type of sound.

I hate it when I get partway through a thought, get an ADD fit and completely lose inspiration to keep writing. I can usually go back to anything I've written and find the point where my somewhat coherent thoughts suddenly get all scrambled and from that point on most of what I write is all rubbish. Happened right about the beginnng of the 4th paragraph this time.

But in closing (with what little dignity this rambling ADD-laiden vestage of mental vomit has left), I'm listening to some Steely Dan, not really enjoying it, and still trying to figure out just how they've managed to be linked to the Eagles for all this time.