'Quantum Criminals' explores the wild world of Steely Dan with words and paintings

Jun. 10—"Quantum Criminals: Ramblers, Wild Gamblers, And Other Sole Survivors From The Songs of Steely Dan," by Alex Pappademas and Joan LeMay, University of Texas Press (268 pages, $34.95)

Early in "Quantum Criminals," author Alex Pappademas and artist Joan LeMay's ultra-cool hybrid of music criticism and pop art, we learn Pappademas entered the sleazy, corrupt world of Mr. Steely Dan and his cast of drug-addled, misdirected Major Dudes as an afterthought.

"I bought a copy of Katy Lied in college, almost as a joke ... I figured I'd play it once, then put it aside in favor of the most important music-makers of my time," Pappademas writes. "The joke's been on me ever since."

Pappademas, whose early career credits include work with Spin magazine and MTV, came of age long after Steely Dan founders Donald Fagen and Walter Becker closed up shop for more than a decade after the release of 1980's Gaucho and its Top 10 hit "Hey Nineteen" but in time to experience their return to touring and occasional recording in the mid-'90s.

In that sense, Pappademas's perspective in "Quantum Criminals" about most of the Dan's catalog comes from someone who witnessed the duo's critical reassessment, rather than their often maligned heyday in the '70s, when Fagen and Becker's cryptic, studio-perfect visions like "Do It Again," "Reeling in the Years," and "Deacon Blues" landed on top-40 AM radio and became staples of classic rock.

For older fans, who remember when "Rikki Don't Lose That Number" owned the airwaves in spring 1974, "Quantum Criminals" is a like a tour guide with a music geek friend whose fresh outlook about songs you've heard hundreds of times enables you to experience elements of their greatness for the first time.

I found my copy of Katy Lied, Steely Dan's 1975 release, in the remainder bin at Kmart. It had a hole drilled through the top corner and was reduced to $1.50, an ignoble path for an album that sold poorly but continues to be a fan favorite. (Cue "Bad Sneakers," please.)

I was still in my early teens, not quite ready to decipher the creepy weirdness of "Everyone's Gone to the Movies," a happy, peppy composition about a guy who likes to show films in his den to the local kids. Fagen and Becker reveal just enough to signal that something wrong is going on here, but all that nuance flew past my young ears.

By the time I arrived at the University of New Hampshire, my love for Steely Dan was strong enough that their albums survived the purge I made my freshman year, when I decided to empty my LP crates of records by Foreigner, Foghat, Journey and other platinum-selling shlock. How could they coexist with albums by the Clash, Elvis Costello and Joe Jackson?

Years later, Jackson would reveal his Steely Dan fandom by dropping covers of "King of the World" and "Any Major Dude Will Tell You" into his sets. (Jackson's most recent album, 2019's Fool pays tribute to Becker and Fagen by borrowing their sound for "Friend Better.")

As Pappademas notes, time has finally caught up to Steely Dan's painstaking perfectionism. The "mechanized hum of another world" they sought by mixing a song as many as 250 times and stitching drum loops together can be achieved by amateurs with Pro Tools now.

Since Becker's death in 2017, Fagen continues to tour with Steely Dan, a popular act at outdoor summer venues and theaters 20 years after he and Becker last recorded an album together.

Jazz guitarist Larry Carlton — the subject of one of LeMay's surreal paintings in "Quantum Criminals"— toured this year performing "Steely Dan and greatest hits," a show he recently brought to Jimmy's Jazz & Blues Club in Portsmouth. Carlton's lead guitar solos on "Kid Charlemagne" are among the most imitated on YouTube videos by budding guitarists.

Much of the terrain Pappademas explores will be familiar to long-time Dan fans — the succession of guitarists who tried and failed to nail that guitar solo on "Peg," the band's evolution from disgruntled opening act to a studio-only band, and Becker and Fagen's disdain for the pop culture of their generation.

But he digs deep, devoting an entire chapter to experimental singer Cathy Berberian, whom LeMay depicts wearing a coat of many colors — a nod to Berberian's vocal range and ability to imitate a great range of singers and sounds.

The singer's part in the Steely Dan saga is a single couplet in the 1973 song "Gold Teeth" from the band's second album Countdown to Ecstasy.

"Even Cathy Berberian knows/There's one roulade she can't sing."

For Dan fans like me who were never troubled enough by that cryptic line to look up who this Cathy Berberian was, we thank you, Mr. Alex Pappademas.

Mike Cote is senior editor for news and business. Contact him at mcote@unionleader.com or 603-206-7724.