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What's the current status of Walter's studio in Maui? Does it get used by anyone? If not, are there future plans to make it available to the music community? Also, can you post some pictures of it? Through the years, I've seen a few candid shots of the inside and out, but it'd be cool to see some more recent shots that detail the entire configuration. Thanks!

(Becker/Fagen ©Zeon LLC 1992 / ©Freejunket Music 1992) Trouble on the left, trouble on the right Trouble in front of you The yellow man is still the mellow man You know what you gotta do No mistake my friend they seen your end She'll take it out of you Buddy, it's your skin, where do I come in To begin doubting you You got Dana with the vibe And Annie with the heavenly body Carrie with the furs and diamonds Now that's three sisters shaking At the same time Summertime is here, lust is everywhere This is your lucky day Dance that little dance, give yourself a chance Say what you wanna say Its a trip I swear when they find you there Asleep at the matinee I just wanna be in the balcony When they give the bride away Is it Dana with the vibe And Annie with the heavenly body Carrie with the furs and diamonds You got three sisters shaking At the same time Trouble on the left, trouble on the right Trouble in front of you A yellow man is still a mellow man You know what you gotta do You take Dana with the vibe And Annie with the heavenly body Carrie with the furs and diamonds You got three sisters shaking At the same time

video: Matt Kerns Golden City Walter Becker, © 1994/2018 I pulled my house down and made my invocation To the clapped-out pleasures of a dying world A whole new fresh for ’94 situation A brand new city and a brand new girl Then I went down to the Union Station Where I stood there crying in the lonely queue That’s when I knew my true destination That’s when I come all over again in love with you Poor little match-girl heart I thought I felt you beating Against the crossed rhythms of your chorus line I’m not hard of hearing there’s no need in repeating I guess I already heard you now the second time Spell out your demands on tattered funny pages Hung out like proud banners in the cobalt sky Strung out like a ribbon through the bars and the cages We’ll read them all weeping in the salty by and by Yeah Kingdom come Seven come eleven Yeah Kingdom come Seven come eleven So I quit the pale precincts of your endless evening Of your long-suffering New Jerusalem You won’t do me with any easy loaves and fishes But hey that starlet rising, now that’s a nifty one Last night I walked down to the near side of the river There was a golden city shining in the sun Where we all laughed and loved all our chump change sins forgiven But you know me I’ll believe it when that day is come ------------------------------------------- Matt Writes .... [Excerpted from today’s Newsletter ] Well, that year went a lot like a Steely Dan lyric. 2020. It was a year. A pandemic, calls for social justice, a contentious election, an economic crisis...and none of them contained in just 2020, each threatening to spill over the border of 2021. That’s right, you heard it here first. The first part of 2021 is going to feel an awful lot like the last part of 2020. Except it will feel that way with a new (to you) Walter Becker track. At this point, through the machinations and under the auspices of the Walter Becker Media, we’ve made thirty-four rare, unreleased, or demo tracks available for your listening pleasure, plus offered up a growing sampler of his unique prose to ponder We’ve trusted you to accept these offerings as what they are: examples of Walter Becker the composer, arranger, musician, writer, and lyricist at work, but not necessarily—and in some cases not at all—indicative of what the final product might have been, had Walter chosen to pursue these germinal ideas to a satisfying conclusion. The hope is that with each thing we send out into the world, the public understanding of Walter’s prodigious talents becomes a little bit broader and a little bit clearer...a little bit harder to ignore. --------------------- To me the last lyric stanza really captures my feelings looking into 2021. I’d love to believe we’re heading into the bright golden city of the future, a brand new situation and a brand new lease on life. I’d love to believe that we’ll find peace in a new vaccine or a new political reality or a new tune. But you know me, I’ll believe it when that day is come. In the meantime, I’m glad to have some prescient music to fill the silence. Welcome 2021. -- Matt

Did you enjoy the hunt? Too hard? Not hard enough? There's over-easy and hard-boiled fans alike, I guess. WE hatched this plan way back. Are you shell shocked? We've got all kinds of yolks. Another egg pun? That's eggs-actly what I thought you said!

Stars imploding The long night passing Electrons dancing in the frozen crystal dawn Here's one left stranded at the zero crossing With a hole in it's half-life left to carry on …and because this inky Maui midnight shakes the memory as a madman shakes a dead geranium *, it seems right for this snake to eat its tail and double back to the beginning of the after. The first video I posted after Walter passed was of a Grimes arch top, the dinner table, and him — doing his best to recall an amusing ditty from the depths of memory. Today we post the live version — his encore from Slims (April 7, 1995). That night, he had all the verses. Enjoy. * T.S. Eliot Video by Matthew Kerns, using the AI program Mid Journey And hey, here's Matt with more on his most productive journey through The Uncanny Valley:

One of our goals here at WBM is to provide a peek into the processes of creating music which is, at every stage — from infant idea through shrink-wrapped adult — nourished by revision, refinement, and experimentation. At the player level, arguably no Whack-era tune received more exploration, in feel and arrangement, than did Becker and Dean Parks' Cringemaker. A true survey of this vast terrain would require an aural version of a topo map….but we’ll sketch it out by planting just two ranging rods here [both to be compared, of course, to the shrink-wrapped version on 11TOW] Photo: Amanda Parks ------------------------------ This first clip is a run-through from the crew at Hyperbolic Sound in Maui, with John Beasley on the venerable B3. I labeled this audio “Swamp Cringe” in my files, which you may or may not understand after listening. No man can control that, y'know. Dean Parks - Guitar || Adam Rogers - Guitar || John Beasley - Keys || Fima Ephron - Bass || Ben Perowsky - Drums || Walter Becker - Vox ------------------------------ BONUS ALT-TAKE: This is an instrumental of the same keys-forward arrangement, but has several hallmarks of an actual “track take” (which are to be distinguished from the more casual or exploratory “run-throughs with vox” like the audio clip above). By Download Only ------------------------------ This second clip is a run-through from the truncated Signet Studio experiment. Although it’s not radically different from what you’ve heard before — except for an outro of crazy couplets — it may be of interest as we all continue to ponder the compelling (but often opaque) issue of a writer’s progression through the iterative process of choice — as in W's ultimate preference on Whack for either his “machine” versions, or tracks from the Maui band. Interested to read your thoughts ... (Provisional: some credits may be corrected) Dean Parks - Guitar || Bob Sheppard - Sax || John Beasley - Keys || Neil Stubenhaus - Bass || John Keane -Drums || WB -Vox

Another one from the illustriously fecund Whack era, buffed up in ’96 and arriving on one of those DAT cassettes w/ a Maui postmark. It’s a fun one; it lopes along, lulling you all LouReedlike, trance-y, but then … O — that chorus! He never fails to surprise; ever a master of the delightful juxtaposition. That’s my thesis. Happy birthday, dear Walter. movie: Matt Kerns One in the a.m. Walter Becker, © 1996/2019 One in the a.m. on the coldest night of the year Trucking down Lexington blinking back frozen tears Thinking on the way it was the night you finally disappeared There are heartaches that don't quit, girl in my life you are it You come up fast gliding past a night where not much mattered at all Dead end kids on the skids burning up and off the wall Psychedelic rhythm drops the DJ's pulling out the stops Eyes locked up across the floor I followed you on out the door On the sidewalk standing there snowflakes nestling in your hair I seen the cruel wind stole your light lucky I come out tonight Maybe you'd like to go somewhere you don't know you don't care Girl you're going to need a ride don't you know it's cold outside Little pieces little pieces Mighty stabs and quick releases All that's left is little pieces Little pieces tiny pieces That's what I say that's my thesis Picking up on little pieces There are things I don't know still and other things I never will Like for instance where you are did you get a good price for my guitar Was that a snarl or was that a smile when I surprised you doggy style For the money for the fun you can't tell me stony one Your sparkling eyes the night we met the way you smoked that cigarette Your doomed angelic semi-smile Mona Lisa in the sundries aisle Candles and the Warhol prints your indestructible innocence Golden days and then the rest the worst as slammin’ as the best Zero Zero Fahrenheit baby it's a bitter night Little pieces little pieces Every night the count increases What we got here is little pieces Little pieces tiny pieces Taking off on random breezes All that's left is little pieces Crack of dawn wallet gone head feels like it weighs a ton Guess you could have slipped away most anytime in the last two days Records strewn across the floor you didn't even shut the door You're still a diamond in my eyes counterfeit or otherwise

Someone recently posted this to Facebook. From Automated Sound, an EQ mix sheet for the song The Second Arrangement, the notorious lost track from Gaucho. I know this song so well, which is why the last line really hit me. I'm 98% certain that this lyric sheet is in Walter's handwriting, though @Moderator: D-Mod can for sure confirm. A home cooked meal and a hand job goodbye. What a line.

Written by Dennis Cook a mere two days after Walter’s passing. Relatively speaking, likely this was read by practically no one. Yet in my view, it captures so many ineffable truths about a man who defies categorizations that rely on pedestrian language and cliche. Deeply and fiercely cherished -- oh yes. Thank you, Mr. Cook. What do you think? ---------------------------------------- No marigolds in the promised land. There’s a hole in the ground where they used to grow. Walter Becker was Steely Dan’s spirit animal, the impossible to pin down mojo pumping through the bloodstream of one of the most switched-on, wide-awake, and gorgeously carved outfits of the past 50 years and one of the rare rock acts whose output sits comfortably next to the jazz giants like Duke Ellington that sparked them more than anything in the 60s Summer of Love (outside of stated and somewhat obvious influence The Beatles). Perpetually scraggly even in a suit and wearing a bemused expression that let us know he knew more about this whole human condition than most ever will, Becker seemed to bask in this knowledge in recent years, the man in the shadows finally able to step into the spotlight as creative foil and partner-in-crime Donald Fagen warmly introduced him in concert. It seemed to surprise him a little each time how rapturous the applause was, how deeply and fiercely this odd, detail-minded, often-prickly and never easy to pin down fellow was cherished by thousands. Well, the danger on the rocks is surely past, still I remain tied to the mast. Could it be that I have found my home at last? Knowing Becker got to experience such well-earned love and respect on a regular basis since Steely Dan’s return in 1993 takes some of the sting out of his sudden passing on September 3. As idiosyncratic and distinct a personality to ever hit popular music, Becker was like a character that wandered out of a band-name-inspiring William S. Burroughs story or perhaps a Hunter S. Thompson tale, a guy who’d seen and understood too much too young but retained his faith in the possibility of love and connection as well as his humor about how people behave with one another, his keen eye snatching beauty from ugliness and marrying these thoughts to seductive melodies woven with an off-handed complexity that made them challenging and fun for those daring enough to try hanging with the Dan. He was the devil in the details, his knack for unearthing insightful, impactful brevity in language, composition, and performance of the highest order. Becker was as singular as any artist to have multiple platinum albums and countless sold out amphitheatre tours to his credit, and the world already seems a touch diminished by his absence. I hear you are singing a song of the past. I see no tears. I know that you know it may be the last for many years. You’d gamble or give anything to be in with the better half, but how many friends must I have to begin with to make you laugh? My earliest memories of Steely Dan are of my stoner uncles, giant headphones on with the music bleeding out due to the insane volume, rolling and smoking joints, smiling and nodding in knowing understanding. They were a band I knew belonged to the world of adults and thus all the more tantalizing to a kid anxious to be grown as soon as he hit kindergarten. My understanding of the lyrics and technical nuances has evolved with every passing year, the songs an ever-giving source of inspiration and sonic succor, especially as I stumble into middle age, perhaps the natural habitat for Steely Dan’s mortality pondering, ennui-drenched epics. If you come around, no more pain and no regrets. Watch the sun go brown, smoking cobalt cigarettes. There’s no need to hide, taking things the easy way. If I stay inside I might live ‘til Saturday. Steely Dan has a well-deserved reputation for being cynical. Their 1972 debut album, Can’t Buy A Thrill, was released the same year as Fear And Loathing In Las Vegas, and there’s a kindred underlying philosophy to each work reflected in this passage from Thompson’s book: There was madness in any direction, at any hour. If not across the Bay, then up the Golden Gate or down 101 to Los Altos or La Honda…You could strike sparks anywhere. There was a fantastic universal sense that whatever we were doing was right, that we were winning… And that, I think, was the handle – that sense of inevitable victory over the forces of Old and Evil. Not in any mean or military sense; we didn’t need that. Our energy would simply prevail. There was no point in fighting – on our side or theirs. We had all the momentum; we were riding the crest of a high and beautiful wave… So now, less than five years later, you can go up on a steep hill in Las Vegas and look West, and with the right kind of eyes you can almost see the high-water mark – that place where the wave finally broke and rolled back. True cynics tend to spring from places of wounded hope and bruised love, the sharpness and negativity a response to feeling too much not too little – one can’t be REALLY disappointed in the world if one wasn’t once enraptured by it. While Fagen’s solo work reflects some of the key Steely Dan characteristics, Becker’s solo efforts lay bare where the Dan’s weird soul resides. For example, one suspects it was Becker that pushed for Steely Dan’s comeback single (“Cousin Dupree”) to be a lightly incestuous ditty in a songbook dotted with them, another wicked joke on a mainstream that rarely understood their songs, motivations, or much else about them besides their preternatural ability to move units. One night we’re playin’ gin by a cracklin’ fire and I decided to make my play. I said, “Babe, with my boyish charm and good looks, how can you stand it for one more day?” She said, “Maybe it’s the skeevy look in your eyes or that your mind has turned to applesauce – the dreary architecture of your soul.” I said, “But what is it exactly turns you off?” Like the resounding impact Bernie Taupin has on Elton John, Becker brought out the finest in Fagen. They etched best when drawing together, and Becker kept things a touch off-kilter, leaving cracks and backdoors for the weirdos, grifters, and sad sacks to sneak in, smoke a bowl, and feel less alone in this big, cruel world. More so than Fagen, who frankly I don’t think likes humanity all that much, Becker saw our wounded, shuffling ranks and opened his arms, inviting us to laugh at our foibles and failings while divine guitars danced around our heads. On the counter by your keys was a book of numbers and your remedies. One of these surely will screen out the sorrow but where are you tomorrow? There will countless think pieces dissecting the musical savvy and inspired intricacy Becker displayed in his musical endeavors but for this book loving boy it was and will always be the words – and the way the music twirls so achingly gracefully with them – that cement Steely Dan as my favorite rock lyricists, surpassing even the Bard-like Bob Dylan for me because of their embrace of common charms and everyday disasters, the compassion they show the weary and overlooked, as well as their saucy naughtiness and tales of wrong side of the tracks adventure. And I think much of that too-fucking-much-to-fully-explicate power flowed from Walter Becker, channeled and artfully sculpted by the least enthusiastic frontman ever. In the night you hide from the madman you’re longing to be but it all comes out on the inside eventually. Of course, all of this is pure conjecture. Part of Steely Dan’s appeal is how the men behind the curtain never fully reveal how the magic happens. I didn’t know Walter Becker personally but I felt like he knew me and a me I don’t often share with the outside world, the quiet me that emerges in the still hours before dawn on sleepless nights or on long, solitary road trips where the veils necessary to societal interaction fall away and I can allow my frustration, loneliness, questionable appetites, and other close-held thoughts to roam around in the open. To feel understood in our complicated fullness is rare and Walter Becker helped usher into being a catalog that serves as a safe space for clear-eyed romantics and guardedly loving nihilists to mingle with shark-suited slicks and other gamblers on life’s uncertain fortunes. It is a blessing that he was here at all and walked the path he did, but I’m still gonna miss this charming instigator for a long, long time. Drive west on Sunset to the sea. Turn that jungle music down, just until we’re out of town. This is no one night stand, it’s a real occasion. Close your eyes and you’ll be there. It’s everything they say. The end of a perfect day, distant lights from across the bay. Dennis Cook September 6, 2017

Matt is off working on his own thing for next time, which will come along with a newsletter. Meanwhile, I thought why not celebrate our nation’s proudest moment—that would be now, am I right? — with a story of the American dream—or one version of it anyway: Red Guitar. I'm not really sure when Walter wrote this. Early 90s for sure but what else is new? ( I’ll share some more recent vintage soon). It showed up on his song lists about then, but as I've learned, sometimes he had song titles on these lists before he had the songs. Obviously he never got very far with this---no bridge, no solo section, a big hairy 2 minutes, etc. But it has always been one of my real favorites and if you can't hear it already I'm not sure I could explain it. There’s the fantastic swinging syncopation over a great popping’ bass, the optimum Becker dissonant note in the riff , of course — — but what really gets me is the singing. So free, casual, even as the narrative voice tells a sad story with affection but no sentimentality. He's saying there was, after all, nothing to be done. And in his easy, swinging style, we hear he’s managed once again to write himself a ditty that he really enjoys singing. Clever gent. And because our experience of life is comprised largely of contrasts, comparisons, distinctions, and similarities — we are pattern-recognition animals, above all—sometimes I find myself thinking of this little tune as Becker's N Gang Would that be so wrong? Enjoy, D-Mod RED GUITAR (Walter Becker) Back in school we were no damn good Terrorizing the neighborhood The one cool thing we ever did Was Bad News Nicky And The Dead End Kids Hey now! C’mon Nicky, tell the people who we are Oh there you go, playing on that Red Guitar C’mon Nicky, some day you will be a star Oh don’tcha know — playing on that Red Guitar Reviews are good, fans are legion Tearing’ it up in the Tri-state region Goin’ station-to-station, coast-to-coast Now who do you think they like the most? The time roll on and it just don’t stop And it sure turns ugly at the top Ahhhh I got out while the gettin’s good You hung back..and did what you could C’mon On! Now they call me back to town To make this speech, lay you down The one true thing I got to say Was we had some times along the way C’mon Nicky, tell the people who we are Oh there you go, playing on that Red Guitar C’mon Nicky, some day you will be a star Oh don’tcha know — playing on that Red Guitar

And now for something completely different: It’s the Shameless Self-Promotion hour on the Walter Becker Network, and I (Matt) would like to take a moment and encourage you to buy my book: One of the reasons it's been a little quiet around here for the last little bit is that I've been busy getting ready for the May 1st release of my first book, a tome entitled Texas Jack: America's First Cowboy Star. Some of you might remember from some of my writings about Walter and my love for his music that I was first exposed to Steely Dan on many trips my family took "out West" in the springs and summers of my youth. So in a weird way, the sound that immediately takes me to the long drive from Moab, Utah up into the Manti-La Sal National Forest and to Warner Lake Campground is Aja on cassette. Medicine Wheel in Wyoming sounds like Black Friday. Well, in much the same way that Steely Dan was a ubiquitous part of my childhood that loomed ever larger as I became an adult, the West has never really left this southern boy alone. At some point, I started researching the history of the reality behind the Wild West myth, and came upon an interesting anecdote: in 1874 many Americans in the eastern part of the United States could go down to their local theatre, pay a quarter, and see live on stage three giants of the American West in reality and legend—Buffalo Bill Cody, Wild Bill Hickok, and Texas Jack Omohundro. Now, if you're like most people you're well aware of Wild Bill, the deadliest gunslinger of them all and arguably the most famous lawman in American history. You likely remember Buffalo Bill as well, the famous scout and buffalo hunter turned showman, and the driving force behind our mythologized version of the west in literature, art, and film. So if this Texas Jack guy was worth equal billing with those luminaries, why had I never heard of him? I set myself to answering that question. The short answer is that Texas Jack was the first cowboy in American history to achieve notoriety, standing at the foundation of all of our cowboy tropes. The long answer took me three or four years to put into words and takes about 368 pages to get right. To tie it back in and make it (loosely) relevant, without Texas Jack Omohundro Steely Dan would have never sung about “a natural man / wearing a white Stetson hat.” Anyway, I'm incredibly proud of the book and hope that those of you with a passing interest in pop culture, cowboys, westerns, American history, or supporting me as a writer give it a shot and pick it up. Texas Jack: America's First Cowboy Star is available in both hardcover and e-reader formats at most of the usual suspects where book buying is concerned. For those of you without a local independent bookstore, check: or: If you'd rather find a copy of Texas Jack locally, the first edition hardcover can be purchased, while supporting your favorite local bookstore, from: While awaiting the book's release, I decided to put a picture that my wife took of me proudly holding my first copy of my first book on Reddit. Due to the wild machinations of fate, the post somehow took off, with 54K+ upvotes and more than a thousand comments. That led a whole slew of people to my site (www.dimelibrary.com), and according to what I can gather from the web, to purchasing the book. For a little bit that day, my book was ranked in the Top 100 for several Amazon categories, and it isn't even out yet! Given some time and the just right circumstances... A quick glance through the comments shows a lot of support from the larger Steely Dan community, which really means a lot to me. Thanks guys! If you need a little more convincing before you give the book a shot, check out author Julia Bricklin's review, which reads in part: This groundbreaking work by Matthew Kerns brings to light a lesser-known but vitally important figure in any history of American pop culture...Kerns meticulously reconstructs the fascinating—if sadly shortened—life of Texas Jack Omohundro. What emerges is the story of the man who actually was the driving force behind Buffalo Bill's decision to go into show business, and perhaps was too authentic to shine as brightly as Cody through the ages. Until now.