FEATURE:
Second Spin
Donald Fagen – Kamakiriad
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ONE great music tragedy…
IN THIS PHOTO: Donald Fagen in 1993/PHOTO CREDIT: Geraint Lewis
is that we may never get another Donald Fagen solo album! The co-creator of Steely Dan alongside the much-missed Walter Becker, his most recent was 2012’s Sunken Condos. I hope that we do get more music from Fagen. He is one of those writers and singers that you can distinguish from anyone. Although Steely Dan did reform and release new albums after 1980’s Gaucho, the two-album return was more, I think, of two friends saying things unfinished - rather than them entering this second phase. The most interesting work post-Dan is Fagen’s solo material. Even if many would rank 1993’s Kamakiriad as the least spectacular of his four solo albums, it still has so many gems and highlights! It has come to mind, as the album was released on 25th May, 1993. Thirty years down the line, and I am still listening to tracks from this brilliant work. Whilst his debut, The Nightfly, came out in 1982 and is seen as his finest solo work (and up there with the best of Steely Dan), it took him eleven years to follow it! One great thing about Kamakiriad is that it was his first collaboration with Walter Becker since 1986. Becker played guitar and bass and produced the album. The album is an eight-song cycle about the journey of the narrator in his high-tech car, the Kamakiri (Japanese for ‘praying mantis’). It was nominated for a Grammy Award for Album of the Year 1994. Although it was a commercial success around the world and was award-nominated, it did not resonate with all critics. If you place the Donald Fagen albums that got most critical love, The Nightfly would be top; Sunken Condos second; Morph the Cat (2005) might just top Kamakiriad.
I do think that Kamakiriad is underrated. If it is not as cool, rich and eclectic as Morph the Cat, and it lacks the genius highs of The Nightfly, people need to check out Donald Fagen’s second studio album. I think that it must have been hard releasing an album in 1993. Sounding like nothing around him, it is testament to his popularity and brilliance that Kamakiriad was a commercial success! I want to bring in a couple of perspectives regarding Kamakiriad. This is what AllMusic said in their review:
“Donald Fagen's second solo album is a song cycle of sorts, following the adventures of an imaginary protagonist as he travels the world in his car, a brand-new Kamakiri. It is an odd concept, and one that is not obvious to the listener, but reflection upon Fagen's liner notes while listening to the album does tend to evoke a vision of a non-apocalyptic near future, where swingers sip cocktails and fresh vegetable juices as they groove to synthesized jazz-rock. Evocative or not, this is not Fagen's best effort. The songs on Kamakiriad are mainly static one-chord vamps, with little of the interesting off-beat hits or chord changes that characterized most of Steely Dan's corpus (although, it must be said, Two Against Nature isn't too far conceptually from what Fagen is doing here). There is a slightly antiseptic feeling to Kamakiriad. Although the drum tracks are not synthesized, they sure sound that way, and even the horns sound electronic at times, a far cry from the lush arrangements of Aja. Another shortcoming of this record is the fact that the verse melodies don't sound very developed. The choruses are as catchy and cryptic as you would expect from Donald Fagen, but the verses are less than memorable. Walter Becker, who produced the record, as well as contributing bass and guitar, also co-wrote "Snowbound." Perhaps not surprisingly, it does the best job at evoking classic Steely Dan. Kamakiriad is pleasant as background music, but in the end it doesn't provide enough interesting moments to rank as a must-have. The static grooves, coupled with the long song lengths, and general lack of dynamic movement makes this record one of the least essential of Fagen's recorded output. However, Steely Dan completists will certainly find enough here to keep them happy”.
I am going to round up soon. Ahead of the thirtieth anniversary of Kamakiriad on 25th May, I think that people should connect with an amazing Donald Fagen. Albumism explored the under-appreciated and terrific Kamakiriad on its twenty-fifth birthday in May 2018. I am excited to see if there will be fresh inspection of this album in the coming days:
“Fagen’s second solo foray Kamakiriad is an examination of aging, heartache, writer’s block and redemption via a sci-fi roadtrip in the steam-powered Kamakiri. Produced by Walter Becker (who also played bass and guitar), the recording of the album re-ignited rumors of a Steely Dan reunion, and the two treated us to one of the hottest-selling concert tours of 1993.
“Countermoon” brings the funk back in, but it’s got a sneer on it, as all the women (Snakehips, perhaps?) turn on their boyfriends and husbands, leaving them weeping in payphones and pleading for a second chance against a nighttime force of nature. It’s got that wry, quirky charm we’re starting to see emerge as the hallmark of Fagen’s solo work, leaving the darker stuff to Becker. The bright, full melody serves as a precursor to songs like “Cousin Dupree” and “Gaslighting Abbie” on Steely Dan’s Grammy-winning Two Against Nature in 2009.
The Laughing Pines of “Springtime” pull a pretty neat trick—starting out sounding like you’re about to go to your death with a smoky drag, but quickly slipping into something a little more comfortable as our narrator relives some of his old romances, enjoying them even more this time around. The keyboard opens right up and Becker’s guitars come along for the ride, and although the threat of nostalgia is a dangerous one, the music never quite suggests that our narrator is in for anything but a little fun before setting off on the journey again.
“Snowbound” is one of those songs that gets better with every listen, especially in the wake of Becker’s death from esophageal cancer last September. Becker and Fagen have always exuded a quiet sort of male intimacy, what the kids today might call a “bromance” and this song really solidifies that. That’s Becker (with a co-writing credit) on guitar, reviving a song the two of them had written back in 1985. But more than that, as Snakehips and the other women have dropped off, it’s just our narrator and an unnamed friend alongside him in a frozen city. “Let’s stop off at the Metroplex / that little dancer’s got some style” is probably not something you’re going to say to your girlfriend.
This song also contains what Fagen says is his favorite line in the whole album, “We sail our IceCats on the frozen river / some loser fires off a flare, amen / for seven seconds it’s like Christmas day / and then it’s dark again.” It’s a bittersweet image, one I think about in late December as each year winds to a cold and quiet close.
The transition to “Tomorrow’s Girls” is somewhat jarring. Although the song is heavy on the sci-fi themes that populate the album, there’s a certain ‘60s sensibility that threads throughout (the hyper-suburban video, starring Rick Moranis, may be contributing to this feeling) that might have fit a little better on The Nightfly than on Kamakiriad. That being said, I love this song forever and his wire-tight inflection on “A virus wearing pumps and pearls” is one of my turn-ons.
The second co-writing credit on this album goes to Fagen’s wife, Libby Titus, on “Florida Room.” I swear Legend of Zelda ripped off some of this intro for the Fortune Teller’s intro in A Link to the Past. It’s a sweet enough tune, somewhat reminiscent in tone to “Lazy Nina,” which Fagen wrote for Greg Phillinganes’ Pulse in 1984. I passed a bar called the Florida Room while on vacation in Portland, Oregon this past February, and took great delight in texting it to my friend (and fellow Steely Dan fanatic) Matthew.
The album ends with Fagen’s best closing track, “Teahouse on the Tracks.” Flytown doesn’t sound much better than “On the Dunes” (Flytown exists “where hope and the highway ends”) until he discovers a place where he finds old friends and good tunes waiting for him. The horns are at their hottest here, Fagen’s keyboards simultaneously crisp and flexible, each turn of melody delightful and unexpected.
I don’t think there’s a single other song in Fagen’s catalogue—or perhaps even the entire Daniverse—that makes me feel the sort of joy that this one brings me. It makes me think of my wedding, college parties, future plans for having all of my friends in one place for one more night of music and dancing and good times. “Someday we’ll all meet at the end of the street” is how I like to think of Heaven, although I still want to know what he means by “bring your flat hat and your ax”.
On 25th May, Donald Fagen’s Kamakiriad turns thirty. GRAMMY-nominated and a commercial hit, that kudos was not mirrored by a lot of critics. It is unfair, as his second solo album has some brilliant moments! I would recommend any music fan to go and listen to it. Let us hope that we have not heard the last of Donald Fagen when it comes to music. His incredible songs make the world…
A much better place.