< >> *** STEELY DAN SUNDAY INDEX *** “Just when I say: ‘Boy we can’t miss, you are golden’ … Then you do this.” Steely Dan rolled into 1979 with a big head of steam, having established themselves as consistent hitmakers as well as pulling in the critical kudos.

At first blush, this Danger Mouse-produced effort sounds like post-modern mood music, with Jones’ reliably languid cries of loneliness surrounded by gurgling synths, fuzzy guitars and swooning strings. But there’s something else going on here

This time out, I’d like to delineate how it is for me when I go somewhere to appear as a guest artist. Specifically, I’m thinking about the time I headlined the Cathedral Park Jazz Festival in Portland, Oregon.

So, these days, when most people think about the hard-rock scene of the late 1980s and early 1990s, they think of a swirling mass of cookie-cutter bands that were much more about style and image than music.