Steely Dan Music Group

Owen Wilson has denied any connection between his new movie, "You, Me and Dupree," and '70s supergroup Steely Dan, a spokesman for the actor said Friday. The band recently posted a letter on its website claiming that Wilson's Dupree character was based on their Grammy-winning song, "Cousin Dupree," about a couch-hopping houseguest. In a statement released by his spokeswoman, Ina Treciokas, Wilson said: "I have never heard the song 'Cousin Dupree' and I don't even know who this gentleman, Mr.

For a short time after Sept. 11, some pundits pronounced irony and cynicism dead. Had that been true, it certainly would have meant the end of the line for a pop-rock band as thoroughly and fundamentally drenched in those qualities as Steely Dan. Almost two years later, Donald Fagen and Walter Becker have released their first album since the day the world stopped turning, and, sure enough, "Everything Must Go" finds them back in all their irony- and cynicism-laced glory.

Steely Dan, the reclusive studio wizards who left the music scene for 20 years, won the best album award Wednesday at the 43rd annual Grammy Awards, but the duo's long-awaited victory was overshadowed by Eminem, the firebrand rapper whose performance and nominations fed a yearlong furor over his lyrics.

Michael Jackson still doesn't get it, does he? The 16th annual Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction dinner here Monday was the ideal opportunity for the self-proclaimed King of Pop to begin humanizing himself--to start making us think of him again as an electrifying talent, not just a bizarre pop curiosity.

"What record company are we on, by the way?" Donald Fagen wants to know. "I'm not kidding." You can excuse the Steely Dan man's disorientation. Fagen and his partner, Walter Becker, last released a studio album of new material as Steely Dan in November 1980, the month Ronald Reagan was elected to his first term. And that one, "Gaucho," had been anguished over for half of Jimmy Carter's administration.

They were elusive titans, hunkering down in studios to turn out pop songs with liberal references to the languages of jazz and literature. Donald Fagen and Walter Becker, twin architects of the '70s super-group Steely Dan, rarely surfaced in much of a public way. Mystique and inaccessibility only served to enhance their legend, without damaging their commercial potential. They were heroes in the dark, invisible pop stars. That was then, this is now.

Flash back to the late '70s, exact date undetermined. You turn on "The Donny and Marie Show," and see one of the most weirdly funny things ever on national television: The teen sibling hosts in spangles and bell-bottoms are doing a tribute to nostalgia, in the form of a bouncy duet of Steely Dan's "Reelin' in the Years."

Donald Fagen is known nearly as much for his reclusive nature as he is for his role in Steely Dan, the cerebral rock duo that combined commercial clout with artistic distinction before dissolving in depression and drug problems at the end of the '70s. It took Fagen two years after the breakup of Steely Dan to release his own album, the widely admired "The Nightfly." And when its success had him poised for a thriving career, he virtually dropped out of sight.

A few minutes before Steely Dan took the stage to play the entirety of its 1977 album, "Aja," a man wandered the Gibson Amphitheatre dressed as Jesus. He was wearing shapeless sackcloth, with wavy, honey-colored hair that slipped past his shoulders, and he offered a benevolent gaze to every sinner who cheered him on. It was a fitting image for a band that has been both worshiped as melody masters and reviled as purveyors of buttery jazz-rock. The split reputation still dogs the band to this day among the revivalist hipsters who bitterly argue Steely Dan's iconoclast status.

Faye Dunaway's isn't the only mystery voice around. After more than two decades in the public eye, formerly close-mouthed Steely Dan co-founder Walter Becker put himself into the public ear in a direct way for the first time last summer on the duo's reunion tour by singing a few new numbers of his own. Becoming a lead vocalist this late in the game, and in front of tens of thousands to boot, bespeaks a certain confidence, one would assume.

A few minutes before Steely Dan took the stage to play the entirety of its 1977 album, "Aja," a man wandered the Gibson Amphitheatre dressed as Jesus. He was wearing shapeless sackcloth, with wavy, honey-colored hair that slipped past his shoulders, and he offered a benevolent gaze to every sinner who cheered him on. It was a fitting image for a band that has been both worshiped as melody masters and reviled as purveyors of buttery jazz-rock. The split reputation still dogs the band to this day among the revivalist hipsters who bitterly argue Steely Dan's iconoclast status.

Owen Wilson has denied any connection between his new movie, "You, Me and Dupree," and '70s supergroup Steely Dan, a spokesman for the actor said Friday. The band recently posted a letter on its website claiming that Wilson's Dupree character was based on their Grammy-winning song, "Cousin Dupree," about a couch-hopping houseguest. In a statement released by his spokeswoman, Ina Treciokas, Wilson said: "I have never heard the song 'Cousin Dupree' and I don't even know who this gentleman, Mr.

For a short time after Sept. 11, some pundits pronounced irony and cynicism dead. Had that been true, it certainly would have meant the end of the line for a pop-rock band as thoroughly and fundamentally drenched in those qualities as Steely Dan. Almost two years later, Donald Fagen and Walter Becker have released their first album since the day the world stopped turning, and, sure enough, "Everything Must Go" finds them back in all their irony- and cynicism-laced glory.

Michael Jackson still doesn't get it, does he? The 16th annual Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction dinner here Monday was the ideal opportunity for the self-proclaimed King of Pop to begin humanizing himself--to start making us think of him again as an electrifying talent, not just a bizarre pop curiosity.

Steely Dan, the reclusive studio wizards who left the music scene for 20 years, won the best album award Wednesday at the 43rd annual Grammy Awards, but the duo's long-awaited victory was overshadowed by Eminem, the firebrand rapper whose performance and nominations fed a yearlong furor over his lyrics.

"What record company are we on, by the way?" Donald Fagen wants to know. "I'm not kidding." You can excuse the Steely Dan man's disorientation. Fagen and his partner, Walter Becker, last released a studio album of new material as Steely Dan in November 1980, the month Ronald Reagan was elected to his first term. And that one, "Gaucho," had been anguished over for half of Jimmy Carter's administration.

They were elusive titans, hunkering down in studios to turn out pop songs with liberal references to the languages of jazz and literature. Donald Fagen and Walter Becker, twin architects of the '70s super-group Steely Dan, rarely surfaced in much of a public way. Mystique and inaccessibility only served to enhance their legend, without damaging their commercial potential. They were heroes in the dark, invisible pop stars. That was then, this is now.

Faye Dunaway's isn't the only mystery voice around. After more than two decades in the public eye, formerly close-mouthed Steely Dan co-founder Walter Becker put himself into the public ear in a direct way for the first time last summer on the duo's reunion tour by singing a few new numbers of his own. Becoming a lead vocalist this late in the game, and in front of tens of thousands to boot, bespeaks a certain confidence, one would assume.

Flash back to the late '70s, exact date undetermined. You turn on "The Donny and Marie Show," and see one of the most weirdly funny things ever on national television: The teen sibling hosts in spangles and bell-bottoms are doing a tribute to nostalgia, in the form of a bouncy duet of Steely Dan's "Reelin' in the Years."

Donald Fagen is known nearly as much for his reclusive nature as he is for his role in Steely Dan, the cerebral rock duo that combined commercial clout with artistic distinction before dissolving in depression and drug problems at the end of the '70s. It took Fagen two years after the breakup of Steely Dan to release his own album, the widely admired "The Nightfly." And when its success had him poised for a thriving career, he virtually dropped out of sight.