Alongside Pappademas' explorations, LeMay's paintings render touching portraits of Steely Dan's influences and inheritors, and speculative illustrations of the personalities who populate its world. In the new book Quantum Criminals, Pappademas and artist Joan LeMay give a roadmap to the Steely Dan extended universe through the lens of the characters at the heart of the band's songs. You might recognize the chorus of "Dirty Work," for example - but did you know that the man singing lead vocals on that track, David Palmer, once played a high school show alongside The Velvet Underground - its first under that name? Did you know that "Rikki Don't Lose That Number" was written for the wife of a faculty member at Bard College, where Steely Dan's Walter Becker and Donald Fagen studied? Or that one of MF Doom's earliest solo tracks samples the opening song on Aja? This is true even if you only know a few of those enduring hits. includes at least a dozen enduring radio hits" - two guys who continually found a way to "embed blue-ribbon misanthropy in music designed to go down as smooth as creme de menthe." And like many great paradoxes, there's more to learn about the band the longer you spend considering it. As writer Alex Pappademas puts it, it's a "cult band whose catalog.
This interview originally appeared in NPR Music's weekly newsletter. Illustrations by Joan LeMay/Courtesy of the University of Texas Press
What does it mean to illustrate Steely Dan?
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