Back in the innocent days of, say, ’18, I thought to compile an index of Walter’s expansive library as its tomes and I commenced our brisk footrace towards that Great Pulpyard in the Sky. Then came the more sober days of, say, ’19, when I realized that bright BookBuddy (TM) idea was… just not gonna pan out.  Next, the somewhat embittered-yet-still-pathetically-hopeful days of, say,  ’21, when I thought: “Hey! — I’ll just photograph all the spines! Brilliant!”  Probably don’t have to tell you how far that plan went. So in a deflated '25, with the Pulpyard ever closer, ^ ^ uh * * ... I guess ~ ~ … here are a few pics:  One small shelf over one small desk in one small room of one small home.  It’s as Walter left it, save for a single subsequent addition ... which you guys should spot in a flash, right? 🤠 [another random detrital miniature, posted earlier, is here]

At Madison Square Garden last week, the Marxist Woke Mob — aka judges of the Westminster Dog Show — perpetrated a heinous, inexcusable injustice on all Goodest Boys and Bestest Girls everywhere. They’d have you believe their judges “compare each individual to the breed’s ideal, not each other” and quack quack blah blah blah...  … but no amount of quasi-eugenic gaslighting can obscure the simple fact: Mercedes was ROBBED of the Top Honor to which she was obviously entitled I mean, just look at this quintessential GS low-rider glide running2.mov … and this majestic stack! Photo: American Kennel Club It’s a scandal, alright. And oh — who really believes that so-called “Top Dog” Monty’s color is just a coincidence, hmmmm? I’m no dupe; Best in Show was a DEI hire. We here at WBM — well, one of us anyway— have submitted a strongly-reasoned “send your report of fraud or corruption” form online via the DODGY website interface — which was helpfully left unsecured so that any visitor could push their own content onto the server. (Pro Tip: if you want to do the same but it starts scrolling some nuke codes or a few hundred million medical records, just smash [Fn+F12] a few times). But my point is this — we must immediately rip out wrong-headed thinking and practice root and stem — or we’ll soon find the whole world is laffing at us. Again. Now who’s a Good Girl? Photo: Milwaukee Journal Sentinel Of course this has nothing to do with personal history whatsoever PS:

We’re proud of the footprints Walter, his Estate, and his fans are leaving in the online sand — and in the historical record — and want to do right in protecting it.  So in keeping with our new Snitch State Reality, we’re inviting the WBM crew to help us root out the Enemies of the Empire … uh, no, we mean the Lame Fake Media … um, wait, the Corrupt DeepWeb Bureaucrati Grifters, or…well … maybe it’s all of the above.  We’re speaking of course of the online locations, on any platform, that present WBM material and/or media without proper (or any) attribution. It’s one thing to ignore our dictum on the Downloads page (and in the FAQ) that any shared WBM material must be accompanied by its copyright information. But the most egregious vandals present and share WBM material — sometimes a lot of it — with not so much as a mention of its source —  that the media was provided by, originated from, is copywritten through, and resides on walterbeckermedia.com. The violations run the gamut, from innocent or lazy oversight, to wholesale appropriation and misrepresentation. But in any case we’d like to recruit some extra eyeballs — yours — in helping us compile lists of URLs for our followup.  So if you bump into an offending URL as you wander about in the online aether, please emaill us the URL to this address: [working on getting a clickable email link smh] (Of course, you may also elect to log a comment on said offending site — a kind of “Community Note", if you will — that the protected WBM material has a source, and that the source is the official walterbeckermedia.com. Snark setting is entirely up to you).  Thanks, folks — it would truly help

This 3-parter on "11 Tracks of Whack’s" Girlfriend has been in the works for a while.  But we've finally pulled together a few interesting and, we hope, illuminating bits from the voluminous Vault versions of this popular tune.  But it’s more than just a full-band rundown, which many of you have requested over the years.  Because the twists and turns and — some would say — surprising resolution for this cut are pretty good Exhibit-As for one of our WBM lief motifs: the persistent and oftentimes iterative process of songwriting and track production.  It also happens to illustrate that sometimes the right step forward may be a step back.  And zooming in to the personal, we’ll consider that Walter really seems to have dug in ... to get this tune emotionally, psychologically right; to discover and distill some core subjective truths which he felt compelled to express.  1) Full Band Rundown "I am a person! “  We’ve noted your requests for a (any) full band versions of GF that might exist, We know some of you have live versions from the SD ’93 tour, and several folks even mis-remembered it being in the Slim's ’94 set (it wasn't). Here is one of several rundowns* from “the Maui band” of Perowsky, Ephron, Rogers, Parks, and Beasley. It’s not necessarily the “best” rundown, nor even their last — but it does have W's audible singalong,** and is roughly representative of other rundowns we’ve heard.    *Rundowns: meaning, the tryouts and rehearsals and all the playing and tweaks and arrangements and part decisions and sound/tone choices etc that proceed moving on to a “take”.  A “take” track is when the band, having all those rundown adjustments and decisions under their belt, quiet down, take a breath, Dave Russell runs tape, and the tune is played— without vocals (which will be booth-recorded later) or overdubs. A selected “Take” track — many are rejected! — becomes the base upon which subsequent vocals and overdubs are laid.  ** Luckily for us archivists and Beckerphiles, Walter decided to sing along during most rundowns — not necessarily a choice that other artists automatically make. He decided to do this early on (and even noted as much in his preparatory project notes), thinking that the band would benefit  from hearing the melodies, lyrics, and — he emphasized this — the rhythmic swing and emotional feel of his vocals. Of course it also gave him a chance to try out and rehearse his vocals — seeing as he was, after all, a novice solo singer in those days.  Walter Becker - Girlfriend (Full Band Rundown) Dean Parks - Guitar || Adam Rogers - Guitar || John Beasley - Keys || Fima Ephron - Bass || Ben Perowsky - Drums || Walter Becker - Vox Dave Russell - Engineer Video Stem: Dan Belcher (thanks!). 2)  Trio Rundown "No?? OK…”   A stripped-down trio session. Surely Walter didn’t conceive of the track as a bass-less trio. More likely, rundowns like these were opportunistic experiments in “feel” —  which apparently Walter wasn’t hearing to his liking just yet. Walter Becker - Girlfriend (Trio) Dean Parks - Guitar || John Beasley - Keys || Ben Perowsky - Drums || Walter Becker - Vox Dave Russell - Engineer 3) Walter and Dean do a Strip-tease But in the end, the on-record Girlfriend used neither of these approaches, nor built upon any of the several other band rundowns of this tune. Question: How then did they execute the final track? Answer: Piece by piece   That’s right. In the end, Walter and Dean Parks built the song up from components they recorded themselves, one at a time, and the final 11TOW version added tweaks, overdubs, some re-done vocals, and a few effects to this LegoLand creation. The audio below contain excerpts of each component part. The visuals point to relevant parts of the DAT label containing the component audio, with some of Walter’s working lyric notebook pages appearing about halfway though.  Walter Becker - Girlfriend (In Pieces) Dean Parks - Guitar and machines || Walter Becker - Vox, keys, and machines Dave Russell - Engineer Hearty kudos to First Lieutenant Atticus Matticus, Director of Operations, Technology, Motivation, and All-Around Righteous Action — Matthew Kerns —  for splicing up the DAT contents and laying them together so beautifully in this AV— all without benefit of the reel-to-reel timestamps. Thanks Matt! So — Walter chose what was essentially a demo recreation, over some great-sounding band renditions.  Why? Why would the manifestly “skilled enough” co-creator of some of the most lush audio soundscapes of the 70s — also apparent in his pre-Whack production jobs —  elect to build so much of his solo debut on such a relatively stripped-down sonic base?  God knows it’s been asked often enough. The “Demo Aesthetic” (???)  We’ve mused about it here before — as in our Paging Audrey Demo post : " If the writer has written a successful demo for a particular song ... knows what must be included, and knows what must be cut … some writers — Walter among them — believe that they’ve acquired both a map to and guardian for the soul of their song, " Walter spoke many times in interviews about both the found and the lost of life with your song. You find your song when you decide that this demo, as you've crafted it, has the essentials you need to always recognize, if you are to remember its soul, and what of yours you gave it. Walter once described good demo like a fire pot. It will carry what’s alive and crucial in your song wherever you may need to go". Walter also said it’s all too easy to leave the firepot behind on the way to a track, to loose touch with the essence of the song, or what made the demo comfortable to sing with, or otherwise Just Not Sound And Feel As The Writer/Performer Wants It To anymore.  That sounds tautological, but it isn’t, really. Consider, first, that Walter’s demos are themselves the product of work and change and time and adjustment; he didn’t just smash the “SpaceGroove Bass N' Drum #51” module on a Casio and...bam-done. He often labored over a demo for days and weeks and sometimes months; tweaking the drum pattern and sounds; bouncing the baseline just so; all the while singing over every version — even before he had all the lyrics or even, sometimes, the verse melodies locked.  It’s about support He was doing that because writing a song through to demo form isn’t just transcription — at least not for most musicians, and certainly not for Walter. Writing is discovering —and in crafting his demos Walter was, among other things, building the best, most natural support structure for presenting and singing a song with ease and flow; with pocket and bounce* *For every professional singer I know — and as Walter said in more that one interview and notebook page —  the flow of their best performance (or, sometimes, any performance at all) is completely reliant on a just-right (to them) feel of the backing track or band. People, I’ve got pages of rough drafts on this idea;  testimonies from performers; first-hand observations of recording and touring; tales  of discarded tracks and unreleased songs…  but all that's for another time, perhaps. So thinking of 11TOW features in terms of a “demo aesthetic” really isn’t a complete or accurate categorization. Rather, Walter simply invested heavily in finding that just-right feel. Sometimes that came from a band of musicians — his dispositional preference,  stalwart as he was for Live vs ProFools music. He certainly brought everything he had to a band, to different players, in Maui and in LA. And often enough, those great bands delivered the track that Walter wanted to hear — and bones he felt comfortable in.  But … sometimes not. So in the end, we’re compelled to acknowledge that Walter Becker simply chose; he went with what felt and sounded right — to him.  And he did so utterly unbothered by the prospect of listeners’ somehow expecting “a Steely Dan album without the singer from Steely Dan”. ( There’s already some really good group discussion of this and related notions on the site here and here).  Not to mention multiple interviews in which he expresses his explicit intent for a  “very stripped down sound, with strong emphasis on melody and bass line, and not too much in the way of chording. The idea was to get a kind of spacious feel, where the harmonies were more defined by melodies and roots than spelled out with static vertical comping type chords.”  and an "emphasis on the songs and the groove.” and a  " minimalist approach that would enable me to focus on the overall thrust of the song, rather that bogging down in harmonic complexities and ornaments that were perhaps irrelevant ...” He had a vision for his songs and his sound.  He was drawn to a new, different musical vocabulary.  And he had nothing to prove.  Perhaps his most direct and potent mission statement appears in a very early note for 11TOW — written in large letters in the center of the page:    All that really matters: Songs Structure Soul An Interior World (and sound). Finally, consider for a moment something obvious about bands: they ring; there’s room sound; there’s ambient aural space; there’s natural decay of notes and sounds. Live music played on band instruments makes music and sounds we mentally place somewhere “out here”.  So... what?  So … bear with me a bit:  Walter’s notebooks and text files show that he really worked and re-worked the lyrics to this one; he dug in to get them emotionally, psychologically right.  And just as writing is discovering in the demo realm, so it is especially for lyrics and prose. Those pages and files weren’t just refinements of words and lines — although there was plenty of that too — they contained a lot of what is considered “emotive free-writing”; uncensored phrases or feelings or images that were never headed for “lyric”-land, but which helped him discover, explore, and distill some core subjective truths which he felt compelled to express.  To my ears at least, it lands as an intensely internal dialog. Consider the central phrase “Girlfriend — if it can’t be you…”. It sounds like a question sent out to another —  but in context, it’s more a rhetorical, hopeful-but-hopeless, almost anguished phrase put in an oddly affecting form (is it a "counterfactual conditional interrogative”...or something? eek! grammar nerds, help me out here). Somehow, it feels more characteristic of how we express our hopes and needs —  and fears — to ourselves. And of course the rest of the lyrics are recognizable as similarly interior ruminations. All of this is just one listener’s impression.  But if it holds any water, then perhaps Walter’s opting for flatter, more controlled, less ringing sounds for his track — especially in the verses and interstitials —  comported well with his lyrical sentiments and expressive intent. Compared to a live kit, the tom and kicks here thud; the beats flatly thump; the guitar lines are small, picked, and palm-muted ... with that eerie opening twilight-zone clock tick-tocking the seconds away. It all sounds so inside to me. The interior of one’s own brain is a relatively small space, after all; there’s not a lot of ringing and sound decay and big room ambiance in there. Thoughts (and plaintive aches) seem to thwack against close-in walls with flat, echoless color. So — maybe his sonic choices are substantively of a piece with his adoption of an internal narrative voice.  I’d hoped to also consider the momentary exceptions to this sonic “interiority”: when an instrument suddenly breaks through with an expansive, ringing gliss or honk. And of course how the chorus  opens up — as any good Becker chorus is want to do.  But... a posting deadline looms.  In fact, that deadline is looming bigly, telling me to pack it up here. Make like a tree and split. So.  Looking forward to your discussion and comments…

Just happened upon Gandhi's ‘Seven Social Sins’ transcribed onto the first page of one of W’s many pocket notebooks.  His heading was 7 things that will destroy us

We’ve pointed before to Walter’s earliest recorded cassettes from 'the modern era' (circa 1989-90).  He used these “little instrumental pieces” to teach himself his new MIDI set up, and mentions them in the 11TOW EPK clip below: [you can see the full EPK here].    Mystery Whack - Walter Becker They’re what you’d expect from someone just learning keystrokes and sound banks: skeletal; monostructured; experimental. Here's a short clip from one of them  [© Zeon Music: 1990/2019] Since he soon moved on to writing “tunes that had some lyrics to them” (the EPK again), nothing more became of these early exercises. Or so we thought….  A few years ago, we happened upon an unlabeled cassette boxed with an entirely different project. In the middle of the project's audio, we suddenly heard 40 minutes of live guitar, bass, and keys running down one of those earliest MIDI riffs.  We’re sharing a bit of that live segment here: [Pro Tip: the vamping only starts near the end, c. 4:20] [© Zeon Music: 1990/2019] We have to call this Mystery Whack for now, because despite months of digging, deducting, and poking the memory banks of sundry living musicians, we've yet to obtain a definitive account of the who, when, and where. I think one attribution is clear, however: the hyperactive maniac leaping about on the drum machine track? That’s gotta be our boy. Hopefully, our favored theories will get sorted out if and when “new shit comes to light”. Stay tuned ...

Photo: Joni Sarkki Just got the hideous news. Don't have details. Don't need any Just ... fuck —————- Maybe it’s just me. But when a human vanishes, trying to acknowledge it with mere words feels like the ultimate fools errand. Still, I know it counts for something to express our most sincere compassion for all those who loved the vanished one. And we do. But mostly, we acknowledge to them that such unfathomable loss resides in a wordless, silent void — and that we will just sit with them there for a while —————————————————————— Jim had a stunningly prolific musical life. In fact he was perhaps the prototypic ‘SD collaborator Iceberg’. The education, experience, achievement, and artistry of most everyone who played with Donald and Walter rendered the label of “sideman” a hilarious, inside joke. Many saw but tiny tips of the mighty, massive talents mooring those few hours of magic on stereo or stage And shameless fan-girl that I truly am of all SD collaborators, I will still share my humble opinion that when Jim joined the band, the final tumbler clicked into place; the secrets to presenting SDs music in its fullest flower were finally click-click-click-unlocked. And fan-girl nerd that I am, I could tediously dronesplain for hours on the particular whys, the picayune wherefores, whereby I imagine that locked was picked — how a particular individual contribution synergized into a band’s Group Mind. I could also share how Walter understood, with the deepest gratitude, the centrality of Jim’s sensitive contribution to the heart and intention of Circus Money, and how only Jim could have inspired a loony idea (unrealized, alas, because of lack of time) that Walter and Larry had for those last few hours in Avatar; an idea inspired solely by their faith in Jim’s ability to leap tall, ‘impossible’ musical challenges in a single, fluent, beautiful bound. All perhaps for another time. For now … just a silent void in which unfathomable loss resides

I'm loathe to send you on a scavenger hunt through a teeth-grindigly bad TV commercial but... does anybody else recognize anyone/anything here? Maybe I'm just truppin'.

Recipients of our Sept 3 Newsletter read all about our “Goodwill Giveaway” pilot program We pretty much know it’s a tacky idea. But we want to know — we need to know — how tacky? Here's our poll collecting your votes You can also leave your free-form comments there, so make yer voices heard! Remember, the fate of Goodwill Giveaway: The Sequel may well rest in your hands. 4/24/24: Inquiries, acknowledgments, etc. have finally slowed to near zero (remember, Wieners were selected from Newsletter Subscribers — only a tiny fraction of whom frequent these WBM boards). So I think we can officially call this first tranche a wrap. Thanks for playing! Will there be a Sequel? Time (and some other stuff) will tell...   General Notice: The return address PO Box is wrong. Long (embarrassing) story. Don’t waste a stamp 🫠 Wow!: Looks like some % of The Mainland US Goods have already dropped. Maybe we caught the USPS on a good week 🍒 PS: learned that sending an 8x10 flat cello package "by regular mail" from Hawaii means...IT GOES ON A F***ING BOAT! 😤, Uh....No Thanks to that. Lately: Even as we speak, a decrepit USPS is busy mishandling, mangling, misdirecting, and misplacing the Giveaway goods, lord save us. <—- Wieners will get (?) a parcel festooned with these. Ignore them at your peril; packaging is tighter than an SD rhythm section 1/31/24: Response Deadline for Round 2 drawing is Thursday, Feb 8, 11PM EST. I suspect some of my notification emails are gettig caught in Spam filters so please check your Junk/Spam folders 1/14/24: With the holidays over and most everyone now reunited with their email, contact with selected Newsletter subscribers begins later tonight (HST)! [Check your Junk/Spam folders too]. The mailing includes instructions for how to claim an item, with a response deadline of Friday, Jan 19, 11PM EST. Those who reply as instructed before the deadline will receive a randomly selected item via USPS. (If you receive a mailing and do NOT want an item, simply do nothing; another subscriber will be selected for contact after the deadline passes).

Image: Jon Neidert [Scroll down for August 2024 Update} Doubtless you know the sad news from Maui. The phrase utter devastation has been overused to breaking. But that’s pretty much it: Utter devastation  --  and devastating heartbreak.  Most of the world knows Lahaina Town as a quaint, delightful tourist mecca. But Lahaina was home for over 12,000 Kama'aina, many of whom worked as backbone for the “hospitality” (tourist) industry. It was also once the capital of the Hawaiian Kingdom, and has been witness to — and survivor of — wave upon wave of quasi-colonial stressors relentlessly seeking to extract, not plant: to earn, not invest. In many ways, Lahaina holds the historical, cultural Braveheart of Aloha.  With the exception of over 100 lost souls (and counting), Lahaina’s amazing people are still here. But everything else is leveled: businesses, cultural and historical artifacts, homes, too many beloved pets — now nothing but ash.  Upcountry also suffered grievous losses in the (relatively) smaller wildfires during the same period. Although the rest of the island  —  including the Becker burg  — was physically untouched, the ripples of dislocation and disruption (along with waves of grief, confusion, and anger) have quickly engulfed us all. Anyone who's moved to help can visit  MauiNuiStrong for some ideas. From my local vantage point, emergency and short-term goods and supplies appear well stocked, thanks to the generosity of all. But now the real work begins: clean-up: rebuilding: somehow reconstituting a new Lahaina while fending off the vultures. With that in mind, you might especially consider local, grassroots groups who, long after the alphabet agencies decamp, will be on the front lines for the long haul. The Maui United Way (not the National United Way!) is just one for your consideration. Note to potential visitors: all other areas of the island are most definitely ‘open for business'  and rely on your spending to survive. And if you do visit, perhaps you'll consider donating some of your time in Paradise to one of the many restoration activities and projects available to vacationers. Mahalo Nui Loa ----------------------------------------- Update August 2024 “Lahaina” One Year After  It’s a year since wildfires leveled the community of Lahaina, Maui, killing 102 people. At least 2,200 structures were reduced to ash: businesses, shops, historical sites, apartments, multigenerational homes. An estimated 8,000 people lost shelter, along with every other earthly possession — jobs, clothes, keepsakes, furnishings, heirlooms, documents, pets. Over 3,000 students were without schools. Expanding waves of disruption, grief, and loss widened to engulf the whole island, and beyond. I’d like to say that various governments and agencies stepped up to effectively and efficiently re-home the displaced and stand up the town again.    I’d like to say that.  [John Oliver’s recent episode touches on but a few of the issues here]  On the other hand, the people of Maui Nui have been nothing short of astounding — from the very first hour up until today — creating collectives, organizations, and projects that offer substantive support and immediate community solutions. Perhaps the most dispiriting aspect of this year has been watching how many of these people-powered projects are slowed or obstructed by sclerotic bureaucracies and/or the usual bigwig and corporate interests. [:-{   Still, these are resourceful, resilient folks — and fundamentally optimistic at heart. Matt’s reflection on his 2021 visit rhymes with this vibe (below). That said, it's haunting to think that Matt's first trip will be his last; Lahaina is somehow “Lahaina” now, as whatever comes next, the only place we’ve ever known is consigned to memory. Matthew’s Thoughts:  Just over a year ago, fire tore through the town of Lahaina, on the west side of Maui, claiming over 100 lives and reducing much of the historic town to rubble. Among the many losses was the iconic banyan tree in Lahaina’s park, which had just celebrated its 150th anniversary. When my family visited Maui in 2021, I spent an enjoyable afternoon sitting under that very tree, thinking about that stanza from the title track of Aja. It was a place that embodied serenity and history, but a year ago it was engulfed in flames, consumed in the conflagration, and partially reduced to charred remains. The tree, like the town itself, faced an uncertain future. Remarkably, despite the intense flames that charred its branches and scorched its trunk, the banyan tree has begun to show signs of life. Much like Lahaina’s determined effort to rise like a proverbial phoenix from the literal ashes, the tree’s new growth is a testament to the unyielding spirit of this community. Arborists and volunteers have worked tirelessly, nurturing the tree with water and nutrients, hopeful that it will fully recover in time. The banyan’s revival mirrors the town’s own journey—a slow but steady rise from devastation, embodying the undeterred resilience of a place and its people who refuse to be broken. As new leaves sprout from the charred branches, Lahaina and its banyan may never be what they once were, but are well on their way to whatever they will become.   The tree when I visited.                        The tree and vicinity just after the fire.