'Eminent Hipsters' By Donald Fagen -- Book Review

Eminent Hipsters is a 2013 book by Steely Dan co-founder Donald Fagen. It was published by Penguin and thus a major-market release.

The book is short at just 176 pages and it is mostly hilarious too. Fagen is a curmudgeon and I think he was that way at birth. Eminent Hipsters gives a look at Fagen's early childhood, his obsession with jazz music as a kid (he would stay up all night and listen to the radio, pissing off his parents), his awkward way with girls, his time at Bard College where he met his Steely Dan partner Walter Becker and his road journal from a tour with Michael McDonald and Boz Scaggs, known as the Dukes of September. (Walter Becker died in 2017). 

The tour journal is eye-opening, scary, silly and sad. It really shows the toll a tour takes on a person, in both their mind and physical body. The rigors of the road have been well documented in books, movies and songs themselves. Fagen's journal is very honest about the hatred of touring, buses, hotels and boring crowds. He notes how the acoustics of most venues suck and how the crowds are all full of "grey hairs" like himself. He makes commentary on "TV babies" which is anyone he believes to come after the graduating class of 1968. That's because Fagen says television became a ubiquitous babysitter of sorts for American kids, allowing crap entertainment to eat the minds of entire generations (he isn't wrong).  Fagen loathes people who attend concerts and then watch through their cell phones (AMEN!) and also folks who don't know any songs other than a radio hit.

Basically, if you are a Steely Dan fan, nerd and surly like me, you will love this book. If you are an eternal optimist and have only ever heard "Reelin' In The Years" this one probably isn't for you.

Comments

[Gogmagog]

Gonna have to try and find this, given my love for "Pearl Of The Quarter," among many others.

[Him]

Allyson, love this and the next (up) post (as I read from top to bottom). Nice to see you stretching this site out a bit again.

I like SD. Don't love them. But they are one band, that now is missing 1/2 the essential pieces, that I probably wouldn't seek out live unless it was easy. And, from what I have heard from others who did said seeking, the live performances weren't that great, just good.

Thanks again, Allyson.