Episode 600 - Steely Dan: Any Major Dude Will Tell You

Well today is my 600th post on Reading Between the Grooves and while it takes a commitment to do this nearly every day, I am reassured that it is worth it when I see the stats every 100 posts. I will have to apologize for not being as active during this centum. Since February, I suffered from the flu and have been extremely busy otherwise. I am working on being a little proactive with content – so in case of sickness or emergency, I will have something up online anyway.

This week I received a very nice email from Andy Wahlberg who thanked me for featuring the harp guitar instrumental of “The Water is Wide” on Tuesday this week.

Just a note to say hi, and laud you for putting the harp guitar gathering finale on your blog site. (Proving that you are not only a scholar, but a tasteful one at that!) Great links on your other stuff too!

I appreciated his comments and am glad that the word is getting to the artists as well.

As it is Friday and we normally feature flip sides, here’s one from Steely Dan’s “Pretzel Logic” LP. Their biggest charting single, “Rikki Don't Lose That Number” (number 4 on the Hot 100), featured another great song as its “B” side. “Any Major Dude Will Tell You” is like most other Steely Dan tunes – excellent.

My favorite part of the song is hook lick that is doubled by the electric piano and guitar. I also like clean sounding acoustic guitar at head of the track. The song’s second verse mentions a mythical creature – the squonk and his tears.

With its ill fitting warty skin, the ugly squonk is reported to live in the forests of northern Pennsylvania. Because of his self consciousness, the squonk hides from humans crying about his station in life. If confronted, the squonk dissolves into a mass of tears to escape capture.

According to Donald Fagen, they based the song’s title around the vernacular of Los Angeles in the mid 70s – everyone called everyone else “dude.” So, trying to fit into the LA scene, Becker and Fagen wrote “Any Major Dude Will Tell You.”

RBTG’s 600th Post Retrospect

Like I had reported with the 100th, 200th, 300th, 400th and 500th posts, I took a look backward on how we are doing visitor wise. I began this blog on September 26, 2009, but did not start monitoring the visits until October 16, 2009. Currently, we have 26 declared followers of the blog – up from 18 in February 2011. There are many others who have visited frequently without declaring themselves as followers. The statistics are listed below:

Variable	Statistic
Unique Visitors	25,540
Times Visited	29,109
Number of Pages Viewed	44,704
People Visiting 200+ Times	784
People Visiting 101-200 Times	308
People Visiting 51-100 Times	225
People Visiting 26-50 Times	139
Number of Visitor Countries Represented	133
Percentage of Visitors Referred from Search Engines	53.40%
Percentage of Visitors Referred from Other Sites	36.08%
Percentage of Visitors via Direct Access	10.53%

The Top Ten Charts

As one would find in music trade magazines, I have prepared some Top Ten Charts for "Reading between the Grooves."

The Top Ten Visitor Countries

Since the 500th post on February 24, 2011, the number of visitor countries increased from 120 to 133. The same countries made the Top 10 since the 200th anniversary and have remained in their respective spots since the 400th anniversary.

Since picking up 13 new countries, we are still 3 away from having all of South America – we are missing the Guianas – French Guiana, Surinam, and Guyana. Central America is represented by every country with the exception of Nicaragua. The biggest hole in the Americas remains the Caribbean. As with last time, Europe is nearly covered with the exception of Svalbard and Jan Mayen, Moldova, and Montenegro; however, I didn’t realize that we were and still missing Jersey, Sark, and Andorra.

New areas were represented in Asia and only a handful of states remain missing. These include the following: North Korea, Yemen, Myanmar, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Timor-Leste. Some of these countries we may never reach; however, I was surprised by our penetration into Asia since the last anniversary.

While several smaller island countries in Oceana have not visited the site, the largest non-participating area is Papua New Guinea. Africa remains the continent (excluding Antarctica) that has most countries that have not visited Reading Between the Grooves.

Rank	Country	Visits
1	United States	15,259
2	United Kingdom	2,325
3	Canada	1,569
4	Germany	1,219
5	France	737
6	Brazil	639
7	Italy	607
8	Australia	605
9	The Netherlands	445
10	Japan	367

The Top Ten Pages via Direct Access

While most people (2,579) have visited the home page for “Reading Between the Grooves,” others enter distinct pages through page specific links and via search engine returns. Two new pages joined the list – Derek and the Dominoes: “Layla and other Assorted Love Songs” and The Art Reynolds’ Singers “Jesus is Just Alright.” Fairport Convention’s “Matty Groves” continued to move up from 4 to 3. This particular chart is slow moving as it is cumulative – newer features on this site will have to be really popular to catch up to the total direct accesses of these ten songs.

Rank	Artist: Song	Visits
1	Deep Purple before “Smoke on the Water”	1,640
2	Mungo Jerry: “In the Summertime”	1,129
3	Fairport Convention: “Matty Groves”	584
4	Dan Hicks and the Hot Licks: “How Can I Miss You When You Won’t Go Away”	532
5	Derek & The Dominoes: “Layla And Other Assorted Love Songs”	526
6	The Talk Box Guitar Effect	518
7	Walter Egan: “Magnet & Steel”	501
8	The Who: “Join Together”	461
9	The Art Reynolds Singers: “Jesus Is Just Alright”	459
10	The Hooters: “And We Danced”	434

The Top Days by Total Visits

This chart represents the days that encountered the most visits and the content that was featured on those particular days. Only two were on the list at the 500th post – Mason Proffit’s “Eugene Pratt” and Thunderclap Newman’s “Something in the Air.” Every other song was new.

Rank	Day	Date	Associated Content	Visits
1	THU	14 APR 2011	Placebo Running Up That Hill	205
2	SUN	27 MAR 2011	Beach Boys: Our Prayer	205
3	SAT	2 FEB 2011	Mason Proffit: Eugene Pratt	188
4	SAT	14 MAY 2011	Novo Combo: Too Long Gone	187
5	WED	15 JUN 2011	Timmy Thomas: Why Can’t We Live Together	173
6	WED	23 FEB 2011	Thunderclap Newman: Something In The Air	171
7	SAT	21 MAY 2011	R.E.M.: It's The End Of The World As We Know It (And I Feel Fine)	171
8	MON	28 MAR 2011	Concrete Blond: Crystal Blue Persuasion	169
9	TUE	15 MAR 2011	Davey Graham: Anji	166
10	SAT	26 MAR 2011	Blodwyn Pig: It’s Only Love	165

The Top Days by New Visitors

This chart represents the days that encountered the most visits by first time visitors and the content that was featured on those particular days. All of these songs are new to this chart and none is older than 100 posts. Two of the songs were posted in the last 10 days: Sonny Boy Williamson’s “Unseen Eye” and Timmy Thomas' “Why Can’t We Live Together.” The content of this chart is very eclectic and shows what types of songs are driving new people to this blog. Highly interesting.

Rank	Day	Date	Associated Content	New Visitors
1	SUN	27 MAR 2011	Beach Boys: Our Prayer	108
2	THU	9 JUN 2011	Sonny Boy Williamson: Unseen Eye	107
3	TUE	5 APR 2011	Ian Matthews: Reno, Nevada	104
4	MON	14 MAR 2011	Eric Clapton: Knockin' On Heaven's Door	103
5	MON	28 MAR 2011	Concrete Blond: Crystal Blue Persuasion	101
6	SUN	9 MAR 2011	Steven Curtis Chapman: Tuesday's Child	101
7	SAT	14 MAY 2011	Novo Combo: Too Long Gone	97
8	SAT	16 APR 2011	Be-Bop Deluxe: Sister Seagull	96
9	SUN	8 MAY 2011	Elton John: Abide With Me	95
10	WED	15 JUN 2011	Timmy Thomas: Why Can’t We Live Together	94

As always, I want to take this time to thank all of you for your support of this site and the encouragement to keep going forward. Thanks again for Reading between the Grooves.