Friday, June 17, 2011

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:

VariableStatistic
Unique Visitors25,540
Times Visited29,109
Number of Pages Viewed44,704
People Visiting 200+ Times784
People Visiting 101-200 Times308
People Visiting 51-100 Times225
People Visiting 26-50 Times139
Number of Visitor Countries Represented133
Percentage of Visitors Referred from Search Engines53.40%
Percentage of Visitors Referred from Other Sites36.08%
Percentage of Visitors via Direct Access10.53%

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.

RankCountryVisits
1United States15,259
2United Kingdom2,325
3Canada1,569
4Germany1,219
5France737
6Brazil639
7Italy607
8Australia605
9The Netherlands445
10Japan367

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.


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.

RankDayDateAssociated ContentVisits
1THU14 APR 2011Placebo Running Up That Hill205
2SUN27 MAR 2011Beach Boys: Our Prayer205
3SAT2 FEB 2011Mason Proffit: Eugene Pratt188
4SAT14 MAY 2011Novo Combo: Too Long Gone187
5WED15 JUN 2011Timmy Thomas: Why Can’t We Live Together173
6WED23 FEB 2011Thunderclap Newman: Something In The Air171
7SAT21 MAY 2011R.E.M.: It's The End Of The World As We Know It (And I Feel Fine)171
8MON28 MAR 2011Concrete Blond: Crystal Blue Persuasion169
9TUE15 MAR 2011Davey Graham: Anji166
10SAT26 MAR 2011Blodwyn Pig: It’s Only Love165

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.

RankDayDateAssociated ContentNew Visitors
1SUN27 MAR 2011Beach Boys: Our Prayer108
2THU9 JUN 2011Sonny Boy Williamson: Unseen Eye107
3TUE5 APR 2011Ian Matthews: Reno, Nevada104
4MON14 MAR 2011Eric Clapton: Knockin' On Heaven's Door103
5MON28 MAR 2011Concrete Blond: Crystal Blue Persuasion101
6SUN9 MAR 2011Steven Curtis Chapman: Tuesday's Child101
7SAT14 MAY 2011Novo Combo: Too Long Gone97
8SAT16 APR 2011Be-Bop Deluxe: Sister Seagull96
9SUN8 MAY 2011Elton John: Abide With Me95
10WED15 JUN 2011Timmy Thomas: Why Can’t We Live Together94

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.

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