Skunk’s guitar an imaginary being

Little do millennials know, let alone Gen Zs, that there was once a secondhand vinyl store just below the Raon footbridge in Quiapo in the late ‘70s to early ‘80s. In truant college days, this was where you could source rare records sometimes locally unreleased or simply unavailable in the more popular record stores at Cubao Farmer’s Plaza.

You had to take a special trip to the other side of town for those finds, such as Steely Dan’s Countdown to Ecstasy, with the inimitable duo of Walter Becker and Donald Fagen, featuring the spot-on guitar of Jeff “Skunk” Baxter.

Along with Denny Dias, Baxter was the guitarist for Steely Dan’s first three albums – Can’t Buy a Thrill, Countdown to Ecstasy and Pretzel Logic – which hold up well to this day, not in the least do they sound dated. But maybe that’s just the biased blitz speaking, though one listen to a song like Reeling in the Years could well get you nodding in agreement, now how the hell did Skunk do that?

Pretzel Logic was a different animal all together, you could hear it in the talk box wah-wah in East St. Louis Toodle-loo, or the subtle phrasing and pared down lines of Any Major Dude and Ricki Don’t Lose That Number. In a time of glam and glitter and some self-pity, that was guitar that did not call attention to itself.

Skunk left the Dan soon after the band decided to forgo touring and concentrate on being a studio entity, which didn’t suit well the guitarist who sought inspiration from the road. It was on to another ‘70s fixture the Doobie Brothers for him, tagging along Steely Dan session player and keyboardist Michael McDonald, and together they helped reshape the Doobies’ sound.

A trio of Doobies albums late that decade – Takin’ it to the Streets, Livin’ on the Fault Line and Minute by Minute – were hugely successful experiments in blue-eyed soul, whose catchy, funky rhythms could rival the work of the blind genius Stevie Wonder and can be considered as more songs in a different key of life. You don’t hear music much like that anymore, and it seems a little disconcerting that these days such is labeled as easy listening or worse, yacht music. Back then, it was just music, whether you were sailing in the high seas or walking the ghettoes of Quiapo.

Many years later, a.k.a. flashforward into present, who should suddenly come up with a sort of solo album after long hibernation but the roadworthy guitarist Skunk the Baxterman whose reputation precedes him. The Speed of Heat takes the vantage point of a wizened virtuoso who actually never gets tired of the varied iterations of the instrument, like the inexhaustible combinations or variations on a chessboard. Skunk plays his hand well with the trademark poker face and walrus mustache, from recasting of Steely Dan songs to one featuring old compadre McDonald on lead vocals.

Do It Again literally does it again but this time with a twist because instrumental, no need for the biting melodic sarcasm of Fagen’s voice, and in its place, some slip sliding guitar. My Old School also proves that Skunk can’t return to the old school, here given a more southern rock arrangement complete with brief a cappella section which old Dan fans might deem sacrilege. Yet the guitar never wavers, the ad-libs tongue in cheek as if dissing past ghosts.

McDonald’s old foghorn is front and center of Place in the Sun, and shows the Doobies partnership still steady and true. A ballad more in the mode of Echoes of Love than the spunky Takin it to the Streets, the song seeks safe space in an album of which around half are instrumentals.

The song that opens the album, Ladies from Hell, is the expected guitar showcase which has Skunk trying a variety of styles that in fact suggests the musical instrument as imaginary being. It cavorts to and fro like many dancing ladies on parade, some in tutus others in loose fitting Middle Eastern jams, slip sliding away into the joyful debauchery of forgotten, long spent youth.

Not for a moment should you think that the Skunk’s best work is behind him, neither with the Dan nor the Doobies, because as long as the guitar is before him the possibilities are endless. Showbiz kids making movies of themselves, let alone millennials and Gen Zs might give a quizzical look if you mention Skunk the rock and roll hall of famer, but the man’s guitar is a separate being in and of itself, at times imaginary and other times not, the riff in the room.