About Steely Dan

Steely Dan's trek goes '8 Miles to Pancake Day' (Updated 9/13/13)

Steely Dan's Donald Fagen and Walter Becker aren't just in the midst of a tour. They're in a midst of a tour with an eyebrow-raising title called the "Mood Swings: 8 Miles to Pancake Day." Wanna know what it means? Read on.

It turns out that nostalgia for old TV shows served as the inspiration to the tour name. They've claimed in various interviews that "Mood Swings" was the easy part. The other half came from reminiscing about the show "Route 66" and how each episode was named using very eccentric titles. Thus the subtitle for the duo's current trek.

Steely Dan's live shows have been compared to a journey back I time, featuring an 11-piece band (or some alteration of that number). Their two-hour set includes the jazz instrumental "Blueport," not to mention the jazz/rock tune "Your Gold Teeth" from their "Countdown to Ecstasy" album. There's also the title track to the album "Aja," followed by a solo from trombonist Jim Pugh on "Hey, Nineteen." The list goes on, of course, and the guys are performing one of their classic albums in its entirely before performing "selected" hits at every stop.

The set lists on the "Mood Swings" tour apparently come from survey questions that go out to the fans at every venue – the songs the people are clamoring for. And something else they've been asking about that may come to fruition is another album from the guys, though they are still mostly mum on the subject. (They've put out just two studio albums since the 1980's project "Gaucho.")

If you want to hear Steely Dan, it sounds like it's going to have to be on stage, as they breathe new life into old hits. But most die hards wouldn't have it any other way.

Steely Dan still 'Heavy Rollers' in the industry (Updated January 23, 2013)

Looking back, it's hard to believe that Steely Dan was once a studio-based band. Following the release of "Everything Must Go" in 2003, the band directed its focus to touring and live performances by 2006. They embarked on the Steelyard "Sugartooth" McDan and The Fab-Originees.com Tour, which featured Michael McDonald as part of the encore.

Certified road warriors at that point, Steely Dan rolled on with The Heavy Rollers Tour in 2007. By the time it closed, the band had played in Australia, Europe, Japan, New Zealand and North America. The tour continually expanded as promoters rushed to add more dates in response to ticket demand. The multiple-night stands in Japan marked their first visit to the "Land of the Rising Sun."

Four more years, four more tours marked 2008-2011. It started with the Think Fast Tour. Then came the Left Bank Holiday and Rent Part Tour, in which the band alternated performances at larger venues with multi-night theater shows. The following year, the touring supergroup Dukes of September Rhythm Revue and members of Steely Dan's live band came together on the road, and in 2011 the Shuffle Diplomacy Tour continued to showcase greatest hits and deep cuts alike.

The band celebrated the 40th anniversary of 1972's "Can't Buy a Thrill" in 2012, and opened 2013 by giving a masterclass to music students at Sunderland College. And though the band currently has no tour dates scheduled, it's only a matter of time until they're back on the road and rocking again.

A History of Steely Dan tickets

One of the most respected rock groups in history, Steely Dan can always be counted on to weave sophisticated jazz-based compositional techniques into the fabric of their songs and wry, clever humor into their lyrics. The band, which has always consisted of the base of Donald Fagan on keyboards and vocals, and Walter Becker on bass and vocals, has existed more as a studio group throughout its history than as a live performing act, except at select times. Fagan and Becker started Steely Dan while they were students, at Bard College in Annandale-on-Hudson, New York, in the late 1960s. They added guitarists Denny Dias and Jeff 'Skunk Baxter, drummer Jim Hodder and singer David Palmer and chose the name Steely Dan, based on a literary reference from the William S. Burroughs novel The Naked Lunch. After a couple false starts with the band's first singles releases, 'Dallas' and 'Sail the Waterway,' Steely Dan made an immediate impression with their first album Can't Buy a Thrill, in 1972, which featured the hit singles 'Do It Again' and 'Reelin' in the Years.' Those tunes, plus 'Dirty Work,' sung by David Palmer, have endured as signature tunes for the band and continue to receive classic rock radio play. The following year, Steely Dan released Coundown to Ecstasy and again struck well with the hit singles 'Show Biz Kids' and 'My Old School.' In 1974, Pretzel Logic, with 'Rikki Don't Lose That Number,' and Katy Lied in 1975 saw the band becoming significantly more sophisticated in its songwriting. Meanwhile, rifts between Fagan-Becker and the remaining members of the band caused some turnover in personnel, when singer and pianist Michael McDonald joined and they began bringing in a succession of studio musicians for their albums, such as the critically acclaimed Aja , with several jazz musicians and Gaucho in 1978. By then, Steely Dan had ceased touring and only produced music in the studio. A number of hiatuses have followed through the years, but the new millennium has seen a resurgence of activity for Steely Dan, with the 2000 album Two Against Nature , which won a Grammy Award, and Everything Must Go in 2003, as well as several concert tours. **Steely Dan tickets_ are a chance to see one of rock's most respected musical groups.