Steely Dan - The Roger Nichols Tape

[@smusik7023]

What a glorious time to be free, and to be able to listen to this gem, thanks Skeevy Daniel for sharing.

[@SquidBlue]

Sketchy Donald

[@srwaite7]

Love Larry’s exceptional double tracked guitar solo in “Were You Blind That Day” (later rewritten and titled “Third World Man” for the Gaucho album. Thanks for sharing 👍🏻🎸🖖🏻

[@thelandofcratedigging]

I wondered why they changed it lol

[@steveswell1]

@@thelandofcratedigging Mostly cuz they had to scrap "The Second Arrangement" from the album due to the fact that an assistant engineer erased a good portion of the tracks and they needed another song. They reworked "Were You Blind That Day" into TWM. :)

[@jtpinnyc]

It sounds more like a missing track from The Nightfly than it does from Gaucho.

[@giovanna722]

Good point! Doesn't suit Gaucho at all.

[@bcs1793]

From what I understand this is not a coincidence. Listening to the "Lost Gaucho", it seems that the album was going in a direction of songs like Time Out of Mind, Glamour Profession, Hey Nineteen and The Second Arrangement. But after the tape was erased and Becker started having issues in his personal life, the album took a bleaker turn. At the same time Fagen started working more on his own, and this work became the chore of The Nightfly

[@dtrayn19]

Omg!!! Here it is!!

[@daniel0-01]

I can't tell you how appreciative as a community we are for this and this channel. Bless you sir. Please let me know if I can help in anyway

[@jamesstansbury959]

I can’t wait for this to be a RSD release!

[@sharronarturi7958]

I love this tape❤❤❤ put it on repeat, turn it way up‼️love Steely Dan 😎🎶🎵Thank you for this music 💕

[@charlespughii3356]

Got a Boz Scaggs kind of sound in the beginning.

[@scottstrang1583]

I'm guessing that cassette was played back on that Tascam in the picture. I've seen a Nakamichi 1000 in some of Nichols pictures. I wonder if this cassette was recorded on that deck.

[@daroob]

Thank you for this gift.

[@drumsticksusa]

Buttery smooth drum groove throughout. Two very nice drum fills at 11:54 to 12:03.

[@Cedric_Harris]

Apparently the greater Dandom hasn't found this yet. It certainly isn't what some of us hoped for, but it is another piece of the puzzle.

[@danrease7505]

It’s been around forever! Us tape collectors have had various versions of this for close to 2 decades!

[@Cedric_Harris]

@@danrease7505 I've had two different mixes since the late 90s but they weren't this exact mix.

[@danielcarlson7516]

Doesn't a "cash grab" usually involve the grabbing of cash? She put the tape up for free, right?

[@kai326]

woosh

[@remixandkaraoke]

Daniel is a man's name. @@kai326

[@Tim091]

I assume this channel was referring to itself illegally making money off this tape, that they don't own the rights to.

[@ProperMusicMatters]

How can anyone own the rights to song that never got completed let alone released?! Pray tell 🙏🏻

[@danielcarlson7516]

@@ProperMusicMatters either the person who created it or the company they were under contract to at the time (or some combination of the two) would own the rights.

[@commador3986]

Finally we can hear it. Good stuff.

[@ngammonsfilm]

Gonna be honest, they’re probably gonna be able to find the whole demo by the time the reissue of Gaucho on vinyl hits shelves, maybe they’ll release a box set with it on it or something. who knows? Maybe Fagen has better quality tapes of the demos on KZbin, and is planning on releasing them at some point, or maybe he won’t but all we need to do is wait and stay alert. So given that we now have a better quality version of The Second Arrangement (or at least a part of it), what’s next? Who Knows?

[@commador3986]

When will they reissue gaucho?

[@stony2494]

Kulee Babba 😎

[@ngammonsfilm]

@@commador3986 since they’ve been rereleasing the album recently for their 50th anniversary’s, probably around 2030🤷‍♀️

[@commador3986]

@@ngammonsfilm good lord

[@MichaelTrogdon1990]

@@commador3986 Gaucho is being reissued on UHQR vinyl on 12/1/2023.

[@rileysdad1923]

Lovely! What do you mean by "cynical cash grab"?

[@jojojojo4332]

Incomplete demo, sold as the real deal.

[@jmdavison62]

Don't begrudge Cimcie Nichols for making a few dollars off of the cassette tape after it was transferred. Roger Nichols didn't die wealthy, and Cimcie Nichols has put in a lot of work digging through what her father left and posting interesting artifacts.

[@Genesisdoes87]

Probably the only band without a bad song.

[@spencermccormick1448]

East Saint Louis Tdodeloo…

[@kholathekid]

@@spencermccormick1448 ST Louis was a cover of Duke Ellington's original. Even then, it's still an incredible song. Especially going into the fact Steely Dan played all the brass and horn parts using guitars with talk boxes and slides.

[@tropicaldoodad]

I love these guys, always have. But "Through With Buzz" and "With A Gun" are not good songs. Both are on Pretzel. The rest of the album is dynamite.

[@SolarMumuns]

They are good songs. Not great, but good. ​@@tropicaldoodad

[@jmdavison62]

@@kholathekid That's not true. At the very least, there's a tuba.

[@gregedenfield1080]

I really hope this is the only copy...love the story...kind of like the Jimmy Iovine , Double Fantasy story, where as an assistant he erased part of a song while trying to do record cal. was fired and John had him rehired...so the story goes.

[@EddieG1888]

Where did this come from? Is this the Cimcie Nichols tape? I presume if it is that it finally confirms the order of the various versions, ie the version on here was V1.0, and the one billed on KZbin as the 1979 version is the remake, yes?

[@bingus3671]

I believe it’s implied that this is the cimice nichols tape

[@EddieG1888]

@@bingus3671 She posted the tape over the weekend, and a DAT rip of TSA as well, so it is.

[@brianbrandt25]

Yes, this is it. It is by far the best version, I believe it only lacks some horns in the outro. This was made the day the masters were accidentally erased. Cimcie found it, along with dozens of cassettes Roger had brought home over a long period.

[@captainblaze4903]

Gaucho outakes have been circulating for years

[@ethanoreilly2002]

I'm missing a complete version of this song in my life:(

[@Sand_Salad]

hate it when jive miguel's videos go down

[@ethanoreilly2002]

@tatesemmelink82 I miss his versions, they sounded the most complete

[@rabbithowls71]

Check out Josh Turner Guitar, he did a great version a few months back.

[@jakemorris4089]

Do you think you’ll try touching up anything off this?

[@tparker2095]

What happened to the original video?

[@canaconn2388]

​@jdscho88A ton of uploads of TSA were taken down by universal

[@wertymerm]

Holy shit!

[@berns.4210]

DAT tape was better anyway, i think further reissues should use that almost complete sample than these demos.

[@canaconn2388]

The dat tape is way too muffled

[@noaharkadedelgado]

Bro said cash grab 💀

[@SteffyCush]

we got em boys

[@kerry_flynn]

niiiiice

[@gregedenfield1080]

thanx

[@talkingtadpole3001]

A bit overhyped for what it is, but hopefully the audio wizards in the Dan community can make good use of this new resource in their quest for the perfect Second Arrangement mix.

[@zephyravalon7326]

This is far and away better than anything we have heard in the past for this song. Wtf are you even saying?

[@jaymedearagao4309]

♥

[@ivydog2009]

I added a horn section from Tim Smolens recreation kzbin.info/www/bejne/ipzMaJSpYt-mhLc

[@thelandofcratedigging]

Have you tried reuploading?

[@LoyalOpposition]

using real horns?

[@shoobs6848]

j o h n c o n e

[@nickgodalin6487]

The Second Arrangement is a good song, but I don't understand what all the hype is about. It always reminded me of Glamour Profession, a basic standard disco beat, you might argue a catchy melody, but I will say that the lyrics make this particular SD song.

[@randybutternubs4647]

It's because of all the incredible odds stacked against its existence. It was considered lost forever for the longest time. Some of the band members were notorious perfectionists who weren't content with the retakes and simply couldn't recreate the "magic" of that first recording. Well, from what I understand, this is that first recording in a more "raw" form. (Correct me if I'm wrong) There's just something amazing about hearing a track that by all means should not exist. From likelihood standpoint that is. I personally love it.

[@wereleeroads9311]

Not a disco beat. The bass drum isn't "4 on the floor."

[@nickgodalin6487]

@@wereleeroads9311 Right, but you CAN kinda sorta argue that it wouldn't look strange if you saw people dancing to it on a disco floor in 1979 or 1980, unlike, say, "Throw Back the Little Ones", a more interesting song

[@nickgodalin6487]

@@randybutternubs4647 Well, that's true, sure. Except for being considered lost forever. I had read somewhere that it was standard studio practice to make copies and copies of copies of stuff all the time. And there was a safety copy of the completely final version made anyway, but that it was the master that was erased and lost. And Fagan/Becker ALWAYS required the master when compiling tracks for their albums. It would have been unthinkable to even consider a safety copy going on the final album... degraded sound quality. I could be inaccurate on that.

[@wereleeroads9311]

@@nickgodalin6487 Isn't "Throw Back the Little Ones" a blow-by-blow account of what ladies on the dance floor are accomplishing?

[@BillySBC]

"The unreleased Steely Dan song "Were You Blind That Day" is about the aftermath of a riot. The song's narrator is watching the aftermath of the riot, and they are wondering how anyone could have been so blind to the underlying causes of the violence. The rest of the song is a meditation on the causes of the riot. The narrator suggests that the riot was the result of years of neglect and oppression. They sing about how the people who lived in the riot-torn neighborhood were "safe in their disguise" and "who lives behind those eyes / I could swear there's no one there.". The song ends with the narrator asking the question again: "Were you blind that day?" The question is left unanswered, but it is clear that the narrator believes that the riot was a preventable tragedy." (BARD AI, Google Artificial Intelligence Software)

[@kedro5]

I'd have thought it was about the tape operator pressing the "erase" button.

[@spikesmundranos3308]

You’re spot on about the ‘riot’ reference…the L.A. Watts riots. LAPD Col William Parker inspired the lines, “Who lives behind those eyes/I could swear there’s no one there”. en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_H._Parker_(police_officer)

[@BillySBC]

I asked BARD AI what the meaning of the song is, it's response: "The song is about divorce or conflict in marriage. The narrator is singing about how they go to stay with their friend (the second arrangement) when their marriage (the first arrangement) isn't going well. The song is full of imagery of movement and escape, as the narrator tries to leave behind their old life. The lyrics are also very clever, with lots of wordplay and double meanings."

[@michaelcaplin8969]

This is more or less spot on. The second arrangement is also a lover, maybe even the lover involved with breaking up the first arrangement.

[@giovanna722]

Probably one of the most transparent lyrics they ever wrote. No mystery here.😊

[@nickgodalin6487]

AI is the devil's invention. It will bring civilization as we know it to a total collapse and destruction through mind control/biological warfare/manipulation of graphene oxide INSIDE the human body for torture purposes/Matrix-like scenarios & dystopia (& it has started already..... Morgellons Syndrome)

[@LoyalOpposition]

BARD AI? What is that?

[@BillySBC]

@@LoyalOpposition Bard is now named "Gemini Ai".

[@chickenman2097]

Bruh, this is so dookie

[@HuntChicagoHomes]

this is THE tape though people have been waiting years for this

[@thelandofcratedigging]

Fuck naw wym

[@noaharkadedelgado]

@@thelandofcratedigging💀

[@peterrichards931]

Sorry but this is 3rd-rate Steely Dan material...

[@fartbrinkman3749]

Sorry you can’t enjoy good music.