Back to the famous Half Moon in Putney. How else could you spend a better evening on a Monday in early July?!
Start time approx 8pm. Please see venue website for ticket details.
Posts By Stanley Dee
Ascot
It’s American Independence Day! What better way to celebrate the music of your favourite US act than to come and watch Stanley Dee’s joyful tribute to Steely Dan in the always wonderful atmosphere of Jagz in Ascot. Last time here was an absolute blast, so please come along again and join in the fun.
Start time approx 8:30 – see venue’s website for ticket info.
Stanley Dee United FC
In the spirit of World Cup Fever (soon to be dampened quite a bit for many when the ‘Lions’ make their all too customary early exit) it’s probably appropriate to now formally announce the expansion of Stanley Dee to an 11-piece. With the addition of Paul in the horn section, we now officially have sufficient members to put out a decent side for any upcoming jazz-rock band based football tournaments. What do you mean, there aren’t any?!!
The keen-eyed amongst you would have spied Paul doing his saxy stuff at recent gigs, but we’ve only just got around to updating this on the website…apologies Paul!
Paul’s induction into the band initially came from a desire to beef up the harmonies on some of those lush SD horn arrangements, but also because we noticed at some gigs there was at least a 30sq centimetre gap of floor space on the stage that we felt needed to be filled. You may have noticed we tend to favour the ‘cozy’ formation (at some venues more so than others) and Paul admirably fulfils both the musical-harmony and space-management roles with aplomb. Welcome aboard Paul!
We’ll be playing him in central midfield in our next fixture away at Jagz FC in Ascot on Friday 4th July – please come along and cheer on the team!
St Albans
Tring
We’re pleased to have been invited to kick-off the day at Dunfest in Tring.
This is a fundraising festival at Dundale School in Tring, and Stanley will be opening proceedings at 2:30.
Please see LINK for details – more updates from the school to follow in due course.
Festival season is almost upon us…
…and rather than playing the same old predictable ones such as Glasto, V, Latitude etc, Stanley is pleased and proud to be playing the much more compact and bijou ‘’Dunfest 2014’’ in Tring on Sat 17th May!! We’ll be opening up the proceedings so keep your fingers crossed for some Saturday afternoon sunshine.
Some event blurb below…
‘’Dunfest 2014 will take place on Saturday 17 May 2014 on The Field, Dundale School, Tring., starting at 2pm till 9pm As well as chilling out and relaxing to the live music we are planning to have a variety of stalls.
Come and join us for a great family day out – an afternoon with live music, great food and stalls to browse and buy something unusual! Again we will have a licensed bar selling beer and cider from Tring Brewery as well as a selection of wine and lager. ‘’
And you can keep up to date with more event info, and details of the other wonderful bands on the line-up, by checking out the Dunfest Facebook page:
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Dunfest-2014/267350966779994
See you there!
A Drinking Dictionary..
We’re fast approaching the Easter Hols and if you’re anything like Stanley, a cheeky drink or two may be consumed over the long weekend. So what an opportune moment to share this link from Classic Rock magazine, celebrating Steely Dan’s top 10 songs mentioning beverages of various degrees of ‘exoticness’ (if that is indeed a word…….once you’ve drunk enough, it will make sense I assure you)
http://ultimateclassicrock.com/steely-dan-drinking-songs/
I’m pretty sure some of those drink names were unfamiliar, eh? I mean when was the last time any of you drank Kirschwasser from a shell?!
Part of the beauty of Don and Walt’s lyrical landscapes is the obscure references they often throw in to confuse us all. However, help is at hand when you feel the need to dig a bit deeper into the meanings of their songs. This great resource will enable you to uncover the explanations to Squonks, Bodhisattvas, Custerdomes and many more!
http://www.steelydandictionary.com/
Happy reading, and…..Cheers!!
I Got The News….sort of
So then…the Half Moon was great last Sunday! Good to meet some new people and we got some more suggestions for songs to add to the list. Show Biz Kids was proposed, although it would be funny to imagine Cavan and Stanley’s ‘angelic’ backing singers belting out the F word in public!!
Talking of backing singers, there’s a lot of interest around the new movie ’20 Feet from Stardom’. Stanley’s BV section (our very own Babylon Sisters!) are rightly admired by all those who come along to our gigs and the following article is worth a read to get some of the low-down behind the movie and the stories of those often un-sung heroes:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-26068091
And while we’ve got you in a reading mood, check out this article in praise of ‘the Don’….good to know the man’s talent is still being widely recognised:
http://www.gq-magazine.co.uk/comment/articles/2014-02/12-/donald-fagen-steely-dan-aja
Happy reading folks, and remember…..please feel free to share your thoughts, anecdotes, and general all-round wisdom with the band either by Email, Facebook or Twitter.
Won’t you Sign-in Stranger?………
Putney
Our second gig at the famous and fabulous Half Moon in Putney. We’re really looking forward to coming back to this wonderful venue and hope to see lots of new and familiar faces to make it a great evening.
Start time approx 8pm. Please see venue website for ticket details.
Spring has finally sprung….
..and Stanley has emerged from the bleak wet winter ready to get back out there again!
We’ve been busy on the new songs front and over recent months have added several more to the list including: Bad Sneakers, Any Major Dude.., Things I Miss the Most, and most recently Black Friday. Always plenty more in the pipeline to get working on, and Aja continues to be a ‘rehearsal-room-dabbler’ with hopefully an appearance in the set later in the year!
Trouble is, we’re now at the stage where we have to leave some quality tunes out of the set to make room for new stuff and to to keep things varied from gig to gig! We all have our personal favourites that we’ve reluctantly had to agree to leave out from time to time. It must be a bit like deciding which one of your kids to leave behind while the rest of the family goes for a fun day out!! Anyway…it’s a good problem to have and hopefully keeps things interesting for those who come and see us regularly.
Sun 23 March sees us back at the wonderful Half Moon in Putney again. Hope to see some familiar faces there as well as some new friends looking for a Steely Dan fix! Check out the venue’s gig list and see some of the great names they have playing there…..thanks to places like that for continuing to do so much for the live music cause.
It’s been noticed that the Steely Dan vibe has been present in a few recent tunes by other artists lately. We’re thinking Pharrell Williams and Mayer Hawthorne in particular. Great to know that Don and Walt’s influence is continuing to infiltrate the charts! If you know of anyone else we should be checking out for SD sounding grooves then please drop us a line!
Anyway, hope to see more of you at future gigs this year. Keep checking the gigs page on this site, and look for our random musings on Facebook and Twitter…..the cryptic photos are getting madder all the time, and we’re not entirely sure which band member is the main culprit!
Keep in touch folks……….and don’t lose that number.