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I first heard Steely Dan back in Kansas City, Missouri, where I ended up living with my dad after running away from home a second summer in a row. It was 1970 and I was just 15 years old. "Do It Again" was playing on the radio that summer night. I had just dropped some acid and I was on my way to see Led Zeppelin for their KC concert on their first USA tour. My date was a fat guy I had just met - him driving by and said, "Hey you wanna go to a concert?" He had high hopes I guess, and I just wanted to get out of the house. What I remember more than Led Zeppelin though is "Do It Again" drumming through the twilight heat, and the joy of all that Victor Feldman percussion.





Sexy. Contained. Because what "the Dan" accomplished was this: They introduced a new idea into the musical conversation of the time. It was the idea that intelligent music was cool. In a year where drum solos lasted minutes, quarter hours even, and singers screamed - a lot, Steely Dan made it cool to be educated. It is safe to say that they are the beginning of college rock.

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