Angular Banjos

I recently dusted off a few older posts from Angular Banjos’ earlier life. I kept them pretty much in tact, including original publication dates, with just a few minor edits, broken link repairs, etc. The ones I selected have special meaning for me. One I wrote just after taking my son to his first college football game, where he was impressed with the half-time show. He has since taken up the bass clarinet and will play in a marching band himself next year. There’s one about the return of Music Midtown, which has thrived, though it felt somewhat tentative at the time. Two others I wrote back in August 2011 during Steely Dan’s Shuffle Diplomacy tour. These all brought back vivid memories. Makes me glad I wrote them. One of the benefits of blogging I suppose.

The Shuffle Diplomacy Tour had a lot of firsts for me, the first time I heard “Your Gold Teeth” live, the first time Dan visited my hometown of Tuscaloosa, and the first time I was crazy enough to buy tickets to back-to-back shows.  One of my resurrected posts  is a review of those two Atlanta shows. The other is my meditation on Dan’s visit to T-town, a show I didn’t attend, but a show that nevertheless made me contemplate growing up and the origins of my love for this band.

Revisiting Shuffle Diplomacy, I am also reminded of something a bit less sentimental — perhaps a good thing — a video interview Jon Herington did with Jason Shadrick of Premiere Guitar. Jon Herington has been Steely Dan’s go-to guitarist, in-studio and live, since the Second Coming.  He has also toured with Donald Fagen, Boz Scaggs, Phoebe Snow, Madeleine Peyroux, Bobby Caldwell, and The Dukes of September (Don’s collaboration with Boz and Michael McDonald).  Jon also fronts his own Jon Herington Band and has five solo albums under his belt to date. In the video below, Jon does a complete rundown of his rig for the tour.  He discusses his guitars (Gibson, Telecaster, and Les Paul), his custom mods, his pedal boards, amps. Fascinating discussion, and the ease with which he breaks into classic Dan riffs inspires awe.