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All Of It with Alison Stewart
Steely Dan's 'Two Against Nature' at 25 (Silver Liner Notes)
00:23:02
Steely Dan released their eighth studio album Two Against Nature on February 29, 2000, after a 20 year album gap.
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Alison Stewart
This is all of It. I'm Alison Stewart live from the WNYC Studios. Thank you for sharing part of your day with us. I'm really grateful you are here. On today's show we'll speak with Oscar nominated designer Paul Tazewell, who created costumes for the film version of Wicked. We'll also learn about a new exhibit at the center for Brooklyn History that looks at how slavery impacted the borough we know Today we'll hear from Jesse Eisenberg who wrote, directed and stars in the film A Real Pain. Plus, you know the Oscars are this weekend, so we've created an all of it Osco Bingo card so you can follow along at home with us. I tell you, we laughed madly out loud while making it. Go to our all of itlofitwnyc on Instagram and you can download your own version. That's the plan. So let's get this started with a Steely Dan album that turns 25 years old this week.
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Unknown Speaker
One plus summer you come to me rip and red and bad through and through with that deep mystical soul synergy pump instead between me and you that's.
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Alison Stewart
Gaslighting Abby, the intro track from Steely Dan's eighth album, Two Against Nature. The album came out February 29th, 200025 years ago this week. Factoring in a leap year, it has been 20 years since the last Daily Dan album, Gaucho, and in many ways the culture had moved on. From the perfectionist jazz rock fusion band, rock had opened up for acts like Radiohead and Beck. There were now boy bands like NSYNC and pop stars like Britney Spears. Hip hop had taken over. Eminem was at the height of his powers. And yet the following year, when Steely Dan got the nomination for Grammy Album of the Year, up against albums from each of those artists, the trophy went home with Donald Fagan and Walter Becker. The band also took the awards for Best Pop Performance by a Duo or a Group with Vocal Best Pop Vocal Album and of course, Best Engineered Album. In a little while we'll hear from someone who was instrumental in that last category, especially for another installment of our silver Liner Notes celebrating, I'm joined by New Yorker staff writer and music Journalist. Amanda, I'm going to try to say your last name. Petrasic.
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Amanda Petrasich
Petrasich.
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Alison Stewart
Petrasich. Amanda. Petrasich. Amanda, welcome to the studio.
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Amanda Petrasich
Thank you so much, Allison.
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Alison Stewart
Listeners, do you have a fond memory of Steely Dan's Two Against Nature? Tell us about your relationship with the band and this album, in particular. 212433. WNYC 212433, 9692. Amanda, what was your introduction to Steely Dan?
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Amanda Petrasich
I actually came to Steely Dan kind of late. I was a punk rock kid. I liked music that sounded as if it had maybe been dug out of a garbage can. You know, the Clash were my favorite band. I love Nirvana. Steely Dan does this really different thing where it's incredibly cerebral, formally sophisticated, not confessional, this kind of ironic, polished, funny music where there's a lot of distance in it. And I think it took me a minute to sort of grow into that as a listener and as a fan. But I started with Aja, which remains my favorite Steely Dan record. I love that era of this band. Although. Although this record, Two Against Nature, isn't. It's an interesting album.
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Unknown Speaker
Yeah.
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Elliot Shiner
You wrote.
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Alison Stewart
You are oddly fond of the album's particular slinkiness, the unapologetic way it slithers into the room. What makes this album particularly slinky?
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Amanda Petrasich
Wow. It's so funny to hear your own writing back, too. I'm like, dang, Amanda. You know, I think that's sort of Steely Dan's whole thing. I think lyrically this record is actually sort of perverse. I mean, it's dark, it's kind of mean. There's these sort of images and phrases that are almost uncanny in it. And in fact, there's a line on the chorus of the title track where they sing Two Against Nature, slinging dread, which feels, to me at least, like a pretty good summation of what this record is about. And perhaps sort of Steely Dan more broadly is about, you know, the opening track on Two Against Nature, gaslighting Abbey, which we just heard a little bit of. I mean, that's the first time I ever heard the word gaslight used as a verb. So I think there is that sort of like a little bit sneaky, a little bit slinky thing with them. That's. That's incredibly intriguing and a little bit scary.
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Alison Stewart
Well, let's play a song. Let's take a listen to. Almost gothic. This is from Two Against Nature, Steely Dan.
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Unknown Speaker
I'm working on gospel time these days. Summer. The summer Is the beautiful part of the summer the slow white creature in the reckless room she's so severe the wife child walks right out of here I'm so excited I can barely cope I'm sizzling like an isotope I'm on fire Cut me some slack first she's way gone Then she comes back she's all business and she's ready to play she's almost gothic in a natural way.
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Elliot Shiner
That'S almost gothic. Off the album Two Against Nature by Steely Dan. I want to bring in another guest now and our engineer wrote. Wait, the Elliott Shiner?
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Amanda Petrasich
Yes.
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Elliot Shiner
Elliot Shiner is a veteran recording engineer who's worked on several Steely Dan albums including Aja Gaucho and Two Against Nature. He shared the album's Grammy wins of that year for Album of the Year and Best Engineered album. Elliot, it is a pleasure to have.
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Alison Stewart
You on the show.
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Elliot Shiner
Nice to meet you.
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Unknown Speaker
Thank you. Allison, how are you?
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Elliot Shiner
I am doing well. By the way. Listeners, if you have questions for Elliot about the recording of Two Against Nature or another Stilly Dan release, you can call in now. 212-433-WNYC 21243. 9692. I'm going to put you in the way back machine. Elliot, how did you first connect get connected with the band?
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Unknown Speaker
You're not going to believe this, but I. I've been friends with Donald if Walter was around for since 1969. They were the music directors for a band called Jay and the Americans. And I ended up making an album with Jane the Americans and to the band members were Donald and Walter and they had done all the arrangements and I'm not sure why I was in there and I think Donald Walter felt the same thing. Why are we doing this? But we became great friends and I didn't see it for a long time. Right after that they had moved out to LA with Gary Katz and they got a deal through ABC Dunhill and everything progressed from there and I didn't actually see him again until Royal Scam.
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Elliot Shiner
Well, how did you become a regular contributor to the band?
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Unknown Speaker
They liked what I did. You know, that was first time I think anybody had ever said to me we like what you do, you know, and we want to work with you. And so what did you do? Just an engineer, you know, my job, you know, I was always told my boss was a guy named Phil Ramon who is a big time engineer producer.
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Elliot Shiner
Yeah.
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Unknown Speaker
And he had always told me that your job as an engineer is you're a soldier. You're really not on the album. On the front cover, it's always a picture of band, and you just need to do what they want. And what I had been doing before was something they wanted.
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Elliot Shiner
We got a text here that says, so many songs about women. Can't help thinking it's the same woman in all of those songs. Elliot, do you have any intel on that?
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Unknown Speaker
I don't understand that one. Who's so many women?
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Elliot Shiner
Yes. Somebody wrote a text that said, so many songs about women, can't help thinking it's the same woman in all the songs.
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Unknown Speaker
It's not.
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Amanda Petrasich
Okay? It never is. It never is.
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Unknown Speaker
It never was. I mean, when I did Royal Scam, we were doing the tracks in New York. They had flown him from la, do him here. They wanted to use New York studio guys. And after about a week of recording, I got a call from my accountant. I was going through a divorce. And he said, you have to get a divorce before the year ends. And this was October. And I said, well, how do I do that? And he said, call your lawyer. I called my lawyer. He said, the quickest way to get a divorce is in Haiti. I said, okay, I have to fly down there and do that. And. Yeah, you have to do that. And I came in and told Donald, Walter and Gary that I can't work next week. I'm going down to Haiti for divorce. And they don. Walter looked at me like, what are you talking about? And I said, well, I have to do this. And the only place I can do it was would be in Haiti. And I came back, and very first day back in the studio, Donald and Walter corner me and say, we want a new everything about Haiti. And I told them what happened to me, and they immediately wrote Haitian Divorce. But it really didn't have anything to do with me, but I inspired the song.
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Alison Stewart
My guests are Elliot Shiner as well as Amanda Petresic.
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Amanda Petrasich
Petrasich. I know it's a hard one. It's a hard one.
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Alison Stewart
Petrasich from the New Yorker. We are talking about two against New York nature, you know, Amanda, Steely Dan are famous for their precision. They take a lot of takes. As a listener, as a journalist. How does that precision and perfection translate?
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Amanda Petrasich
It's interesting. I had to really grow in, as I was saying earlier, I had to kind of grow into an appreciation of it. I feel like Steely Dan is like, if you're used to music where you feel like you can kind of curl up inside of it a little bit, like Steely Dan's a band, you sit next to you know what I mean? There's like a little bit of distance. I think, in the extraordinary production of those records, they can feel, and I say this with deep love and admiration, and Elliot, I'm sure, can speak to this more. They feel a little impenetrable in a way that I think can be quite thrilling and quite intriguing. But if you are someone who has sort of come of age listening to kind of scrappier music or sort of messier music, I think Steely Dan at first can feel a little cold or a little intimidating. You know, they were obsessive in the studio. They were perfectionists. You know, Gaucho, the record they released prior to this one, that sort of necessitated the 20 year break. I think there was something like 42 studio musicians on that album, all of whom I understand were kind of put through the paces when it came to really making the sounds the way that Becker and Fagan wanted them. There's this kind of great quote from the wonderful rock critic Robert Chris Gau, where he says, you know, Steely Dan is Walter Becker and Donald Fagan. Everyone else is an instrument. And I think you can kind of feel that, right, these two guys and their particular sort of idiosyncratic vision for music, and then this just sort of massive supporting cast that had to figure out how to fulfill it properly.
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Alison Stewart
You know, Elliot, you've worked with many other people, Ricky Lee Jones, Bruce Hornsby. How did the studio experience differ with Steely Dan from the other musicians that you worked with?
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Unknown Speaker
Well, with those guys, what got put on tape every night was the most important thing to him. I would sit there when we worked on. On Asia and we recorded the track for Peg. And when we recorded, it was last minute, they eliminated one song and they needed to record another. So we did Peg that night. And over the course of time, they needed a guitar solo. And I usually don't do overdubs with those guys. I would do the tracks and mix and I got asked to do some of the guitar solo overdubs. And Walter did it twice at different times. And each time it sounded was just incredible. But you couldn't talk, you know, say, walter, that was amazing. And he'd say, not stunk. Erase it.
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Amanda Petrasich
Wow.
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Unknown Speaker
And, you know, you get into that thing where you'd be crawling up a wall and your fingers would reach the top of the wall and somebody would step on them. And it was. To us, it was always great. To Walter and Donald, it wasn't.
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Alison Stewart
We're gonna talk a little bit about the album. Two against nature and Elliot, you have a song that you like west of Hollywood. Tell us a little bit about this track before we play it.
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Unknown Speaker
West of Hollywood was it was more like what they used to do lyrically and musically it was more like what you could have expected from Gaucho. Overall scam and I just, I drifted to that along with Jack Speed. Same same kind of deal.
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Elliot Shiner
Let's listen to west of Hollywood from Steely Dan.
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Unknown Speaker
Brother in tears look at this chain of sorrows stretching all the way from here and now to hell and gone I was Kid clean she was Aunt Siakla Just a thrill away from punching through Cosmic Wow. It started out good, then it got lots of better making up the rules as we went along. But with a business like this, there's an Ollie downside. I'm way deep into nothing special right in the crest of a way breaking just west of Hollywood.
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Alison Stewart
That's west of Hollywood. Against from Two Against Nature. Steely Dan is the artist. We'll have more of our silver liner notes with Steely Dan after the all.
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Alison Stewart
You are listening to all of it on wnyc. I'm Alison Stewart. I'm speaking to New Yorker staff writer Amanda Petrasich about the 25th anniversary of Steely Dan's two against nature. Also with me is Elliot Shiner, an engineer who worked on albums as well as Asia, Gaucho and many more Steely Dan releases. And we are taking your calls, 212-433-W. Amanda Steely Dan had not released an album in 20 years when Two Against Nature came out. What happened in the culture of music in that 20 years?
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Amanda Petrasich
God, it's a great question. When you look at those two decades, 1980 to 2000, I mean, seismic shifts in the way that we both make and consume and think about popular music. I mean, what's sort of remarkable, about two against nature. It's, you know, 20 years is a long time. Kind of, by any metric, for anybody banned. But Steely Dan really just sort of picked up where they left off. I mean, this record is different, I think, stylistically in some ways, but you really can't hear any of that. Right. Like, there's not a big kind of hip hop or pop or rap influence on this record. Even the ways in which rock music was changing during that time, it sort of didn't make its way in here, which maybe speaks a little bit to that sort of general impenetrability of this band and their vision and the kind of unwaveringness of, you know, the kind of thing that they wanted to do, which is a thing that nobody else does.
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Unknown Speaker
It's.
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Amanda Petrasich
Steely Dan is Steely Dan, and that's it. So this album always feels really timeless to me, I think, in the sense that it was sort of specifically not of its. Doesn't sound specifically of its time, which is kind of a cool and remarkable thing. And the fact that, you know, it had this sort of big moment at the Grammys that year feels even more radical.
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Elliot Shiner
Elliot, you were part of that group that went on stage to accept the Grammy that evening. What do you remember about the room, about the evening?
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Unknown Speaker
Well, it was. I forget the arena, it's downtown. But we didn't think we were going to win that, and we thought we would win engineering, which we did. And then all of a sudden other things were happening and we were winning different versions of the album. When we got to the final categories, album of the year, and they announced it for us, and we all started to walk up to the stage and what I remember most, Eminem was in there. And that seemed to be the one that everybody wanted to win. And everybody was booing us as we went up to the stage, and it was kind of comical, but it was understandable. The people that were there weren't real music people. There were. It was filled with fans, and they were. They were coming to see Eminem.
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Elliot Shiner
Were you proud at that moment?
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Unknown Speaker
Yeah, of course. I mean, this. This was the first time that Walter and Donald ever won the thing we. We had been nominated for Engineers on both Asia and Gaucho and I think Night Fly, and we had one for Asian Gaucho and, you know, but they had never won anything in their entire career, so I was proud for. For both of them.
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Elliot Shiner
We have time to play one of two songs, and I'm gonna let you choose. Elliot. Janie, Runaway or Cousin. Dupri, which one would you want us to hear?
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Unknown Speaker
Probably Cousin Dupree.
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Elliot Shiner
Okay, we'll talk about Cousin Dupri. What do you want for us to listen to in this song?
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Unknown Speaker
Trying to remember. It was a semi hit. It got more play than anything else. And, you know, I really couldn't tell you what to listen for. All this stuff is very similar in style and whatever, if you were a listener, whatever you listen to.
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Elliot Shiner
Amanda, I'm gonna ask you, what do you want us to listen to in Cousin Dupree?
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Amanda Petrasich
Cousin Dupree is a pretty wild song, I would say, so. I think the lyrics to the song are actually, in fact, maybe sort of horrifying. It is a song about having a crush on your much younger cousin. So I would maybe say put the lyrics aside and listen. God, listen to what Elliot did. I mean, listen to just the extraordinary way that this song sounds.
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Elliot Shiner
We have been speaking about Two Against Nature. It is our choice for silver aligner notes. Thanks so much to Elliot Shiner, the engineer of Two Against Nature, the engineer of so Many things. The what? Elliot Shiner. He's on that. Engineer. Elliot, thanks for your time today.
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Unknown Speaker
Thank you, Allison.
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Elliot Shiner
And also Amanda Petrosich from the New Yorker. Thanks for coming by.
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Amanda Petrasich
Thank you so much.
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Elliot Shiner
Here's Cousin Dupree.
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