"Wendy Eisenberg: If I’m totally honest about what I actually listened to this year, it’s the demos for this Walter Becker record from 1994 called 11 Tracks of Wack. The demos feel like how Suicide feels, but if Suicide was funny. Literally 90 percent of the time, I’m listening to that album."
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Great catch, Matt.
What she says later in her interview really vibes with my understanding of what W was doing all those days/months/years sitting with his notebooks and little midi set-up and his mic: It was just what he did -- "being for music, for himself"
"Aside from being a stupidly huge fan of Steely Dan, and related projects, I think the reason those Walter Becker demos have meant so much to me is it’s very I’m-alone-and-this-is-really-funny music. .... Not only is this record absolutely hilarious to me on, like, 400 different levels, but this is the labor of someone who’s by himself, making himself laugh .... So much of 2021 — and not even just the later stuff, but all of it — was thinking about the example of this guy being for music, for himself."