IN: Steely Dan is an American rock band founded by core members Walter Becker (guitars, bass, backing vocals) and Donald Fagen (keyboards, lead vocals) in 1972. Blending elements of jazz, traditional pop, R&B, and sophisticated studio production with cryptic and ironic lyrics, the band enjoyed critical and commercial success starting from the early 1970s until breaking up in 1981. Throughout their career, the duo recorded with a revolving cast of session musicians, and in 1974 retired from live performances to become a studio-only band. Rolling Stone has called them "the perfect musical antiheroes for the Seventies".

Pretzel Logic was released in early 1974. A diverse set, it includes the group's most successful single "Rikki Don't Lose That Number" (No. 4) and a note-for-note rendition of Duke Ellington and James "Bubber" Miley's "East St. Louis Toodle-Oo".  During the previous album's tour, the band had added vocalist-percussionist Royce Jones, vocalist-keyboardist Michael McDonald, and session drummer Jeff Porcaro (of Sonny & Cher). Porcaro contributed significantly to Pretzel Logic (as he would on future Steely Dan recordings), reflecting Steely Dan's increasing reliance on session musicians (including Dean Parks and Rick Derringer). Drummer Jeff Porcaro and Katy Lied pianist David Paich would go on to form Toto. Striving for perfection, Becker and Fagen sometimes asked musicians to record as many as forty takes of each track.  Pretzel Logic was the first Steely Dan album to feature Walter Becker on guitar. "Once I met (session musician) Chuck Rainey", he explained, "I felt there really was no need for me to be bringing my bass guitar to the studio anymore".  A rift began growing between Becker-Fagen and Steely Dan's other members (particularly Baxter and Hodder), who wanted to tour. Becker and Fagen disliked constant touring and wanted to concentrate solely on writing and recording. The other members gradually left the band, discouraged by this and by their diminishing roles in the studio. However, Dias remained with the group until 1980's Gaucho and Michael McDonald contributed vocals until the group's twenty-year hiatus after Gaucho. Baxter and McDonald went on to join The Doobie Brothers. Steely Dan's last tour performance was on July 5, 1974, a concert at the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium in California. A recording of the show's opening track, "Bodhisattva", was released as a B-side, and later appeared on the compilation album Gold.  Becker and Fagen recruited a diverse group of session players for Katy Lied (1975), including Porcaro, Paich, and McDonald, as well as guitarist Elliott Randall, jazz saxophonist Phil Woods, saxophonist/bass-guitarist Wilton Felder, percussionist/vibraphonist/keyboardist Victor Feldman, keyboardist (and later producer) Michael Omartian, and guitarist Larry Carlton -- Dias, Becker, and Fagen being Steely Dan's only original members. The album went gold on the strength of "Black Friday" and "Bad Sneakers", but Becker and Fagen were so dissatisfied with the album's sound (compromised by a faulty DBX noise reduction system) that they publicly apologized for it (on the album's back cover) and for years refused to listen to it in its final form. Katy Lied also included "Doctor Wu" and "Chain Lightning".

how did they do on the charts?

OUT: The album went gold


IN: Tristan Tzara (French: [tRista dzaRa]; Romanian: [tris'tan 'tsara]; born Samuel or Samy Rosenstock, also known as S. Samyro; April 16 [O.S. April 4] 1896 - December 25, 1963) was a Romanian and French avant-garde poet, essayist and performance artist. Also active as a journalist, playwright, literary and art critic, composer and film director, he was known best for being one of the founders and central figures of the anti-establishment Dada movement. Under the influence of Adrian Maniu, the adolescent Tzara became interested in Symbolism and co-founded the magazine Simbolul with Ion Vinea (with whom he also wrote experimental poetry) and painter Marcel Janco. During World War I, after briefly collaborating on Vinea's Chemarea, he joined Janco in Switzerland.

Tzara was born in Moinesti, Bacau County, in the historical region of Western Moldavia. His parents were Jewish Romanians who reportedly spoke Yiddish as their first language; his father Filip and grandfather Ilie were entrepreneurs in the forestry business. Tzara's mother was Emilia Rosenstock, nee Zibalis. Owing to the Romanian Kingdom's discrimination laws, the Rosenstocks were not emancipated, and thus Tzara was not a full citizen of the country until after 1918.  He moved to Bucharest at the age of eleven, and attended the Schemitz-Tierin boarding school. It is believed that the young Tzara completed his secondary education at a state-run high school, which is identified as the Saint Sava National College or as the Sfantul Gheorghe High School. In October 1912, when Tzara was aged sixteen, he joined his friends Vinea and Marcel Janco in editing Simbolul. Reputedly, Janco and Vinea provided the funds. Like Vinea, Tzara was also close to their young colleague Jacques G. Costin, who was later his self-declared promoter and admirer.  Despite their young age, the three editors were able to attract collaborations from established Symbolist authors, active within Romania's own Symbolist movement. Alongside their close friend and mentor Adrian Maniu (an Imagist who had been Vinea's tutor), they included N. Davidescu, Alfred Hefter-Hidalgo, Emil Isac, Claudia Millian, Ion Minulescu, I. M. Rascu, Eugeniu Sperantia, Al. T. Stamatiad, Eugeniu Stefanescu-Est, Constantin T. Stoika, as well as the journalist and lawyer Poldi Chapier. In its inaugural issue, the journal even printed a poem by one of the leading figures in Romanian Symbolism, Alexandru Macedonski. Simbolul also featured illustrations by Maniu, Millian and Iosif Iser.  Although the magazine ceased print in December 1912, it played an important part in shaping Romanian literature of the period. Literary historian Paul Cernat sees Simbolul as a main stage in Romania's modernism, and credits it with having brought about the first changes from Symbolism to the radical avant-garde. Also according to Cernat, the collaboration between Samyro, Vinea and Janco was an early instance of literature becoming "an interface between arts", which had for its contemporary equivalent the collaboration between Iser and writers such as Ion Minulescu and Tudor Arghezi. Although Maniu parted with the group and sought a change in style which brought him closer to traditionalist tenets, Tzara, Janco and Vinea continued their collaboration. Between 1913 and 1915, they were frequently vacationing together, either on the Black Sea coast or at the Rosenstock family property in Garceni, Vaslui County; during this time, Vinea and Samyro wrote poems with similar themes and alluding to one another.

Did he have any jobs in his early years?

OUT:
In October 1912, when Tzara was aged sixteen, he joined his friends Vinea and Marcel Janco in editing Simbolul.