December 3, 2005

Steely Dan principal Donald Fagen finds love in an airport security line, mulls the ramifications of a ghostly feline, chats up the late Ray Charles and ruminates on aging and death on “Morph the Cat,” his first solo album in 13 years. The nine-track set is due early next year via Reprise.

Fagen is backed on the set by such familiar Steely Dan sidemen as drummer Keith Carlock, guitarists Wayne Krantz, Jon Herington and Hugh McCracken, clarinetist Lawrence Feldman, pianist Ted Baker and saxophonist Walt Weiskopf, among others.

As usual, the album is highlighted by the unique blend of Fagen’s imaginative storytelling and the groove-oriented, backing vocal-laden pop for which Steely Dan is renowned.

He woos an airport security screener on “Security Joan” (“Girl you won’t find my name on your list / Honey you know I ain’t no terrorist”), talks shop with Charles on “What I Do” (“He says, ‘Don don’t despair — just take some time / You find your bad self — you’re gonna do just fine'”) and imagines a “thuggish cult” taking over the U.S. government on “Mary Shut the Garden Door” (“So if you ever see an automaton in a midprice luxury car / Better roll the sidewalks up, switch on your lucky star”).

“Morph the Cat” is the follow-up to 1993’s “Kamakiriad,” which debuted at No. 10 on The Billboard 200. Plans are in the works to release a boxed set featuring that set, “Morph the Cat” and Fagen’s 1981 solo debut, “The Nightfly.”

Here is the track list for “Morph the Cat”:

“Morph the Cat”
“H Gang”
“What I Do”
“Brite Nitegown”
“The Great Pagoda of Funn”
“Security Joan”
“The Night Belongs To Mona”
“Mary Shut the Garden Door”
“Morph the Cat” (Reprise)

Source billboard.com.

Willie Nelson rarely lets a month go by without at least a few performances, and next spring he’s planning to give his northerly neighbors a healthy dose of country with a Canadian tour scheduled to last three weeks.

The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band will accompany the Redheaded Stranger on the trek, which begins April 27 at the John Labatt Centre in London, Ontario. Shows are booked in Ontario, Quebec, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island, Nova Scotia and Newfoundland, finishing at Mile One Stadium in St. John’s May 14.

The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band won a Grammy earlier this year for “Earl’s Breakdown,” a collaboration with Earl Scruggs, Randy Scruggs, Jerry Douglas and the late Vassar Clements. The nearly four-decade-old group released its latest album, Welcome To Woody Creek, last year.

Willie has had a busy year, organizing the 20th annual Farm Aid this past summer as well as a hurricane relief benefit from his Texas truck stop theatre, Willie’s Place. He also starred in the film “Dukes of Hazzard” and released his long-awaited reggae album, Countryman.

Source pollstar.com.

Despite the boost the Shins received from being featured in last year’s indie buzz film, Garden State, the Portland, Oregon-based rockers are insisting on creating their third album, the follow-up to 2003’s Chutes Too Narrow, at their own pace. “I told SubPop, ‘We go on tour so consistently that when we get home we’re not rarin’ to jump into the studio, OK?'” recalls singer-songwriter James Mercer.

That’s not to say the band hasn’t been getting it done. The Shins — Mercer, drummer Jesse Sandoval, keyboardist Marty Crandall and bassist Dave Hernandez — laid down drum tracks with producer Phil Ek (Modest Mouse, Built to Spill) this September in Seattle, and are finishing their album in Mercer’s home studio. They hope to release the album — either under the title Wincing the Night Away or Sleeping Lessons, both references to Mercer’s crippling insomnia — next summer.

“I’ve been mixing mikes to get really weird sounds,” says Mercer, who has yet to write most of the album’s lyrics. “That’s probably the last thing I do.” But Mercer will allow that the songs on the “twenty-five-percent complete” album chronicle “human-condition stuff.” “One song is about the Fifties, when all of these modern conveniences were being invented — like microwave ovens,” he explains. “People predicted that we wouldn’t work as much, but we work just as much, just more efficiently. Human life is about enjoying it, and this American worth ethic prevents people from really experiencing life.”

Sonically, Mercer is exploring new territory, with more synth, piano and finger-picked guitar than on previous records. And where their creative process is concerned, the band wants to return to the laidback feel of recording their debut. “Oh, Inverted World, was a lot of sitting around with headphones on, smoking pot at five in the morning,” Crandall confesses. “Sometimes it’s crap, and other times it’s great.” Mercer adds, “Instead of mixing in a hurry, we want to get back to the ability to treat each sound with special effects and have it be a more atmospheric-sounding record. We really think of ourselves as a psychedelic band. That’s the shit we listen to.”

Or, as Hernandez puts it, “Our roots are getting high and listening to Pink Floyd.”

Source rollingstone.com.