Rarities & Unreleased

Yes yes we know and you know; nostalgia ain't what it used to be.

Still, something must be in the wind tonight, blowing our way, as it did, two mighty jolts of historical Hz, crackling.

I. A Gig Anniversary

Hard Core Beckerphiles know the date:

April 7, 1995.

That makes it 24 years today since 

Adam Rogers (Guitar)

Fima Ephron (Bass)

Ben Perowsky (Drums)

John Beasley (Keyboards) and

Bob Sheppard (Sax)

joined Walter for the first and last live gig of his "new music" from

the 11 Tracks of Whack era at Slim's, in San Francisco.

For roughly 23 of those years, it was presumed that no record

of the evening existed. But Lo, in amongst the stacks of DATs

and cassettes we  found a great-sounding recording by Dave Russell,

engineer extraordinaire -- still in good condition and sounding pretty great.

So to mark the date, we've dropped a cut from that rainy San Francisco evening:

Cinder Annie, which was the last song of the evening before his encore.

So to our resident show-goers, count off please;

What’s the delta between what you hear on this tape and how you remember it in vivo?

II. A Classic Web Thread

By coinkidink or by quantum entanglement, one of us (D-Mod) also found

herself running smack up against the classic Hall Of Fame thread --

Countdown to Infamy -- on the steelydan.com archive site.

 I must have read or sampled this thread dozens of times since its publication and

knew well why it was a classic.

Or so I thought.

People I swear that reading through the whole thing -front to back -- opening every entry, following every link -- produced more chuckles, spit-takes, and belly laughs than I remember having in years, taken together.

You think you remember why it was so funny, and so great --- but you don't.

If you give yourself 30 minutes with this thing, you'll see all you've forgotten. Many of us bemoan that Becker didn't write, He was so talented. Well, he did write, and this short story is among his finest work. 

Today I really needed lifting up, I really needed something to lighten

something that was pinning me down...and I found it. That's why I'm

pestering you all with this personal review; maybe I'm not the only

one who needed this kind of lift tonight.

Did anyone revisit the archive site ? Did anyone find

something they had forgotten there?