By David Walley

Two Against Nature?

I guess that cultural events are where you find them, especially for old Sixties soreheads like myself who are tempted to return to the critical lists after too many years off for good behavior. (Imagine how tiresome it would be for you'all to daily always be ready with an opinion on your sleeve, to prepare to fight to the death with epigram and musicref, your versions of rock and roll/musical truth always in the active file. For that matter, imagine how much of a stone bore it would be, like the protagonist in Nick Hornby's novel/movie " High Fidelity" be in charge of a record store where you could vent at will on anyone who walked in, and this was your life 24-7?)

Ok, so pardon me for the effrontery of going against the mystery trend in these United Snakes where cultural/political affairs are measured by the texture and style of Madonna's armor-plated brassieres, her recent acceptance of the way of cabala or the size and capacity of the shovel that "W" uses to spread platitudes about man and God and law in the direction of the American voter -- still I have to give into my urges, just like Steely Dan has done with their most recent public offering after twenty years called "Two Against Nature" -- it's one of those cultural events which can't go unnoticed. Total strangers of a certain age are actually engaging in colloquies, "Did you hear Two against Nature". I was dealing with my insurance company the other day to deal with an early morning plumbing emergency which collapsed some of the living room ceiling from a persistent and elderly leak from an upstairs tub faucet. And I was shucking and jiving, trying to make the gathering of information go easily and as I was talking to the woman on the other hand when it became obvious that she was more or less a contemporary and we started talking about things that old freakazoids discuss when they're sure their teenage children aren't in the room, and the new Steely Dan album came up and she told me that she was likewise enthralled, this woman in Virginia and myself here in Western Massachusetts. It was a hypnotic experience for her, and I've been having similar discussions with people all over the country I mean hell, it beats the living bejeezus out of politics.

The first time I listened to 2vN, I did so with the lyrics and almost hurried my way through so I could listen without being occupied with mere text, so I could have the music melt into what's left of my brain. (BTW, I really do miss record jackets, for one thing the type was bigger and so was the artwork. Album covers aren't as fragile as cd jewel cases either, I know because my Steely case dropped out of my hands, fell exactly in the right spot and smashed the bindings. Talk about fair use willya. I bought the disc a few weeks ago and have with small exceptions been listening to it constantly ever since--- not an active listen you understand, but a passive one, i.e. I switch to "repeat all" and go on about my business, and I swear there's always something I haven't heard before; familiarity doesn't breed contempt, it breeds wonder.

2vN has also affected my teenage daughter (14 going on 25) who already thinks her old man is a fossil and retrograde because he just doesn't like rap music. I don't think she's old enough to appreciate Steely Dan because the kinds of music she listens to is mostly product, easily dismissed and replaceable product (ever try to unload an 'old' rap record? Most used record stores, unless they totally specialize in hip-hop and rap, just won't give you any value at all). Naturally we spar about this as you can imagine; she's at the age where she expects to be surrounded by "her" music at all cost. That is to say, that when she gets into my car she studiously ignores the rule that when in my car it's my music. Fortunately my other three aren't as old and like my music, recently which has comprised Miles Davis' "Kind of Blue," piano music of Allan Shawn, a Live Steely Dan album from a few years ago, and a very odd set by a Long Island musician named John Tobacco. Actually my other kids don't like their sister's music either but since she's sort of overbearing in that teenaged kind of way, she rules when she's in the car---she's also bigger than they are, and for the peace of the road I give in, but not without a fight.

But it's funny, the more I play "Two Against Nature" the more my kids get into it. They complain less and stop banging on each other like they usually do on the way to and from school. It's some kind of modern miracle, fergodsakes, how they just sit there and take it all in, like they're mesmerized. I figure if I can educate their ears at a young age, they will have a better chance of surviving in an age where all there is MTV and MP3. I have nothing against MP3, except that I don't feature spending all of my time being appended to a computer, or spending more and more money on larger and larger hardrives with faster and faster modems to download larger and larger files. Of course I also wonder what all those cutting edge computer kids do when they're not appended to their laptops or MP3 players, what kinds of lives they have when they're not on line and yammering in the instant chat mode.

I think about these kinds of things when listening to the new Steely Dan album because the music, the riffs, the production make an sonic environment which is not hostile to dreaming or my inner life, in fact it acts like a psychic amplifier of sorts. When I listen to this album, and it's been a long time since I've had an album do this, my attention focuses on the larger picture out there, that of cultural strife, that the Steely Dan represent perhaps a shot across the bow of contemporary commercial culture in essence. Indeed from my albeit it jaded or specialized perspective, this album which runs contrary to the accepted aesthetic of disposable art, reminds me so much of the Ed Sanders-written Fugs song, "Rivers of Shit," if you'll pardon my French here. I just love it, love how it's laying down out there in medialand for this exile from Main Street: There's no video with this, no play on MTV (as if!!), rather the buzz comes from word of mouth and the judicious use of that Public TV special which is used as a fund-raiser. Hell, I didn't even know three weeks ago that there even was going to be an album, and yet the other, now more established media have come out with their reviews, even the staid New Yorker weighed in with a totally inappropriate reviewer, but then again the New Yorker has been trying to re-establish it's hipness quotient ever since it was taken over by the Newhouse family and run into the ground by Tina Brown (but I'm not going to get into a literary slagfest here).

Insidiously, this album appears to have entered into the American mainstream through the back door, and still there are a lot of "old head" types out there driving around with smiles on their faces. It's not on the same level as Sgt. Pepper, but then again Steely Dan was never any competition for them, never supposed to be. The subject matter, well, Becker and Fagan have always plumbed that underside which includes encounters with toxic girls of all sorts, relationships in the process of going awry, there are wry comments on the human male condition at middle age, but who wants to go backwards, been there, done that, thank God can write a song about it without in effect bleeding all over the charts. And we appreciate those mature sentiments, us old Sixties soreheads; we appreciate the licks and the production which is carefully wrought so that no matter how many times we play the cut, there's always something else to hear to encounter for the first time.

I don't know whether "Two Against Nature" is the "best" Steely Dan album to date, it really doesn't matter. What matters most is that it's been added to the continuing canon of work, and that perhaps we won't have to wait twenty more years for them to continue the conversation they've been having with their fans since the Seventies. And that's about as good as it's going to get in this election year.


© 2000 - David G. Walley