7/22/2025 update: (I started a post after I uploaded this video, and apparently never actually published it... sigh.) Here's my second effort at restoring the 2006 tour closer. Sound quality is excellent (you'd never guess it came from a mono source!, and for the video I used the newest AI upscaling model and it's a night and day difference from what I was able to do before. Combine that with painstakingly editing every scene to adjust color grading and brightness, and you get a superb looking video to go with that great audio! Steely Dan 2006-09-04 St Louis, MO | Remastered Concert | 4K AI Upscaled

5/11/2025 update: I've got something special for you all... someone was kind enough to send me a soundboard recording that, from what I can tell, has not been widely circulated before. It sounds incredible, and it's a pretty fun one too. They open the night with the rarely heard "Club Mix" version of Reelin' in the Years, but then during the encore Elliott Randall comes on stage and they play the original arrangement of Reelin' for the first time since the reunion! (And this video is mostly a slideshow, but I do have a few video clips here and there... including a fan jumping on stage and being chased by security during that Reelin' encore!) Steely Dan 2009-07-01 London | Remastered Full Concert I've also included the original version with just very mild EQ and edits to fix some noises since I'd hate for my creative choices version to be the only version out there: Steely Dan 2009-07-01 London | Original Audio version

We actually didn't read Of Mice and Men either! (Which is a shame since it's a good one. I even caught a local community theater performance of it a couple of years ago, and despite the bare bones production, it still was riveting.) However, The Great Gatsby was one of the few books we read in school that I actually enjoyed at the time. I have re-read it a couple of times since then, and still love it (even if the pre-Depression wealth disparity and excess feels a little too prescient for comfort today). Can't say I recall many of the books we had to read in school though to be fair... Certainly Gatsby and To Kill A Mockingbird in high school or even perhaps middle school. I also remember The Jungle being particularly powerful. And we had required summer reading a couple of years in high school that we were tested on the first weeks of the fall semester. While I can't remember anything else about it, I do remember that one of the books had a character that spoke in a dialect that drove me up the wall, it was a slog just trying to comprehend what the character said. The other summer reading I do recall with 100% certainty was the first Lord of the Rings book. That is when I also discovered that I really, really do not enjoy that style of fantasy.

I must say, it was impossible for me to read this and not have this pop into my brain: Andy Griffith: Citizen's Arrest

Well, I can sadly say I have only read one of these books. However, I can happily say that it was our very own Matt's.

Jeez, it's been so long since I put together that video for the full band rundown that I had forgotten I even did it, and how, um, unrefined my video editing skills were back in 2019. Apologies for that... "The interior of one’s own brain is a relatively small space, after all; there’s not a lot of ringing and sound decay and big room ambiance in there. Thoughts (and plaintive aches) seem to thwack against close-in walls with flat, echoless color. So — maybe his sonic choices are substantively of a piece with his adoption of an internal narrative voice." Agreed. I've always felt the sparse, empty, flat sound of the final track really drives home the internal struggle present in the lyric. And yet... I love the contrast in approaches with all that sparse, dry sound being broken up by the big echo on the loud guitar stabs that pop up every few bars. It harkens back to the opening "Alone in my cave" line as it, yes, echoes like it's being played in a cave. But if everything had a big decay or echo on it, it'd become sludgy noise and lose the impact. Full band rundown: Excellent! I do still prefer the final arrangement of this song because of how well it fits the lyrics, but as its own unique thing, this full band approach is a treat. Trio rundown: What a vibe! I wish the kick drum was more syncopated, but other than that, man those drums are tight. The lack of bass does something kind of interesting with the feel here that I actually like, but on the other hand, I can imagine how it'd sound with bass added in, and that also would be quite nice. Strip-tease, erm, overdubs: I love this so much. I am always trying to check out multitracks or stems of songs whenever I can find them, since there's so much to learn from breaking the full arrangement down into the individual components.

2/6/2025 update: I redid the 2008 Cincinnati show. I was at this show, and remember it very fondly. What a setlist! Took me several attempts to get this one looking and sounding good, I had to blow it up and start from scratch multiple times, and take breaks out of frustration and the accompanying burnout, hence the long wait. Steely Dan 2008-07-13 Cincinnati, OH | Remastered Full Concert | 4K AI Upscaled

8/22/2024 update: I've redone another show I've tackled before, and as with the others I've posted recently, this is a must-listen, even if you've heard this concert before. Absolutely pristine sound quality, and I mean really, you should be listening anyway since you get to hear the entire Royal Scam album and Larry Carlton throughout the entire show. Steely Dan 2009-09-03 Chicago, IL | Remastered Full Concert

8/4/2024 update: I've redone another video... From the "Steelyard "Sugartooth" McDan (and the Fab-Originees.com)" tour ("Who are they? What does it all mean? We don't know." - Walter Becker) with the back half of the show featuring Michael McDonald on a mix of lead and background vocals. This time the sound quality went from pretty good to AWESOME. I'm very proud of my work on this one, I can listen to it in the car head-to-head against profesionally released live concerts. The video also looks quite nice overall, there are quite a few scenes with poor lighting that were beyond saving (can't do much when poor Jon's face is nothing but a blob of bright blue pixels...), but overall it is super sharp and clear. It took an insane amount of effort... the drum track was giving me fits because the kick drum was way too loud period and emphasizing all the wrong frequencies (sounded like a basketball bouncing!), and the rack toms were also way too loud. I had to use gates to try and filter out those sounds as much as possible, but then manually split every single kick and tom hit after that so I could adjust just those sounds. It was certainly worth it. Steely Dan 2006-08-12 Charlotte, NC | Remastered Full Concert | 4K AI Upscaled

Sounds great!

6/15/2024 update: Back in 2009, Steely Dan started doing album night concerts. This Boston show was the first of those album nights, it was originally billed as being Aja night, but they ended up doing Aja AND The Royal Scam back-to-back. Then they really got the crowd fired up by playing The Boston Rag and a cover of Dirty Water. Certainly a memorable show. I remastered this soundboard recording a few years ago, but I went back and redid it from scratch, and good grief it sounds WONDERFUL. My best remastering effort yet. Steely Dan 2009-07-22 Boston, MA | Remastered Full Concert

5/17/2024 update: A couple months ago, I posted my remastered version of the 2000 concert at Pine Knob in Detroit. Now I'm back with the 2003 show! If you've seen my 1st attempt at this one from a few years ago, this is a significant improvement. Looks and sounds better than ever! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AO6yZCiZgi8 (I tried embedding the video, but it doesn't seem to be working...)

I'll send you an email in a bit.

4/18/2024 update: My 2nd remaster attempt of the 1993-09-12 show at the Shoreline Amphitheatre. This is the best video we have of the '93 tour!

4/9/2024 update: My 2nd attempt at this Donald solo show. YouTube bots blocked this specific performance of Viva Viva Rock 'n' Roll, but not others from other concerts, so this concert was completely missing from YT for a while. I removed that song and totally redid the remaster to look and sound better than before.

I didn't expect what I got to even come close to fitting me (even disregarding the baggy mid 90s style), so the fact that it fits as well as it does is actually a pleasant surprise. But the mental image of the Don Johnson thing is making me cackle. 🤣

First and foremost, thank you D! Anyway, how wonderfully cool is this jacket??? A bit on the big side for me (you can't tell until I lift my arms up, but the sleeves are seriously poofy), but I am thrilled to have such a unique piece of memorabilia! (P.S. If it's not clear in the picture, it says "Steely Dan / Europe 1996 / I.T.B.")

3/6/2024 update: I've re-remastered a video! I went back to one of my earliest efforts and saw huge room for improvement. I have gotten better at this over the years, and the tools I use have gotten better too. This new version of the 2000 Detroit show looks great and sounds PHENOMENAL. Here's a neat before/after comparison video. Also, I recently remastered the full band version of I Can't Write Home About You that just found its way onto Steve Khan's website a couple weeks ago.

Heartbreaking...

The Newsletter that was sent out on 2/20 said "Labels are now being wrested from the printer and envelopes are getting stuffed — all soon to be submitted to the not-so-tender mercies of the US Postal Service (or Int’l mail, as the case may be)."