The Official Mike Keneally Website

Side Three of Mike’s Scambot 2 song diary!

Hi! I’m flying home from the Satriani tour right now. This has been perhaps the most enjoyable Joe tour yet. We had some 2 1/2-hour shows with intermission and some 2-hour shows with no intermission. Seven shows were G3 shows with Steve Vai and The Aristocrats, where I sang Police and Nirvana songs during the jam (seriously fun). We had festival shows of various lengths – Hellfest in Nantes and the Lasko Beer and Flowers festival in Slovenia being particularly enjoyable. It was just an extremely fun tour! And once again, everyone on the band and crew (as well as all the Vai and Aristocrats people) were glorious road-rat humans of endless capability and good humor. Cheers to every freaking one of them! And to every freaking one of you who came to a show, or several.

Now I’m very much looking forward to relaxing at home for a couple of days, and then I’ll be signing and numbering huge stacks of Scambot 2 CD sets so that we can start shipping them to you.

I’m doggone grateful for the tremendous response to the Scambot 2 download (which comes your way immediately upon ordering the physical product). I appreciate all the good words with great fervor! (Steve Vai wrote me the nicest email with his feelings about each song on the album. It means so much to me.)

Shipping will begin soon, and I’m excited that people are about to hear the second album in the 2-CD package, Inkling. It really does have a character of its own.

Now I’ll continue yammering a bit about the songs on Scambot 2, as I’ve been doing for the last two Keneallists. Let’s take a look at “side three,” shall we? Yes! Let’s! Take a look!

Race the Stars

This is pop! Super pop. Pop as heck. (Well ’70s pop, anyway.)

The chord progression was written on Scott‘s piano. I captured chunks of the progression on my phone as I was writing them, and it originally went under the working title “Fogerty,” simply because I had been listening to a lot of Creedence in the car at that time, and not because I thought the song was especially Fogerty-y, musically. It was just a name that came to mind.

As I’ve said, working titles often have a way of sticking – and while in this case, the title “Fogerty” didn’t make it to the final draft, it did have a singular impact on the song. I started imagining, as I was working on the backing track: what kind of vocal melody would John Fogerty actually sing over this progression? I then wondered if Kris Myers from Umphrey’s McGee (who is a magnificent vocalist in addition to being a devastating drummer) might be able to provide some Fogerty timbre to the melody. I asked him to sing the song with me and he was way into it.

On the album, you’re hearing me and Kris singing the melody in octaves: me down below, and Kris bringing Fogerty zang to the upper octave. Then Bryan Beller and Joe Travers brought their effortless brilliance to the rhythm track.

The guitar solo section has a really challenging set of chords to play over, so I decided to write the solo out. It took a number of takes, attempted over several months on several guitars, but ultimately it was Jesse the good old green Clapton Strat that provided the right amount of twinkle and twang. It’s a finger twister and it was very satisfying to finally nail it. On the last part of the solo I thought it would sound good to bring back an earlier take of the solo (played on the koa Charvel) and have both guitars playing in unison – it kicks the arrangement into a higher gear right there.

Kris also joined me on the backing vocals to great effect, and it was his idea to do the overlapping “come on” harmonies at the end – a really nice touch. Thank you Kris!

Oh and the title was unquestionably inspired by a game called Race The Sun, which Sarah was playing with some regularity at the time I was writing the lyrics. I’ll grab inspiration from all possible sources.

O

Here’s one that allows me to say, with all the truthfulness on this airplane, that this album has been in the works since the late ’90s. The basic bed of this atmospheric track was made at Lyle Workman‘s studio, for one of the television documentary soundtracks I recorded back then.

“O” originally consisted of the weird noises at the beginning, the bang midway through, and the long synth drone throughout. The acoustic and electric guitars, and the piano at the end, were overdubbed in 2013 for Scambot 2, making this a collaboration between 36-year-old me and 51-year-old me.

Roll

The basic track for this song was recorded in Scott’s living room, by Rick Musallam, Kris Myers and myself, the day after we finished rehearsals for Nearfest Apocalypse 2012. (The same session also gave us “Cram,” which is on Inkling, and which features Rick Musallam on the far-right electric guitar, a fact inadvertently left out of the Inkling booklet.)

I wrote the main lick for “Roll” on the spot after we finished recording “Cram.” My inspiration was Tony Iommi, and the reason for that was the dropped-D black SG I was playing. We started jamming on that lick, and then the rest of the pieces of the song emerged through the course of the jam, which I edited way down after the fact to arrive at the final song form. The slow 3/4 lick that runs through the chorus was something I came up with while we were jamming, and I realized on the spot it would make a good chorus, so then I started alternating the two licks. The bridge section in 5/4 (“No one leads a charmed life”) was not played during the initial session – the drums in that section are from the original jam, but everything else was written later and superimposed onto the drums. Lots of editing and shuffling and overdubbing went on to arrive at this final form.

The tone of the main guitar is a combination of my Rivera Quiana mic’d up, plus a DI’d signal going straight to the computer where Mike Harris put it through a SansAmp plug-in. The end result is one of my favorite guitar tones I’ve ever gotten on record.

I originally overdubbed a synth bass track that mostly conveyed the vibe I wanted in terms of notes, but sonically it just wasn’t bringing the rock the way it needed to be brought, so Beller came in and did what was required by the universe. The final piece of the cake, or the icing on the puzzle, as they say, was having Ben Thomas sing the verses in unison with me. We slammed both voices together in the center of the mix to make a new mutant double-voice. This song requires maximum playback volume.

Oh and there’s a bunch of Hendrix-inspired slowed-down vocal stuff that shows up during the guitar solos. It just seemed like the right thing to do.

Constructed

Finally, my first country waltz! (Unless “Never Ever Wrong” counts. Maybe it does. OK, then, my second!)

The seed for this song was a voice memo I recorded on my phone called “Constructed,” which consisted only of the words “Constructed, constructed. Constructed, constructed” (as sung at the 3:00 minute mark of the final song by three overdubbed Mikes in the far left corner of the mix, in a tone and attitude intended to evoke The Jordanaires). In the studio with Mike Harris, I used the rhythm of the words as a starting point for the piano part (the intro piano is playing the same “constructed, constructed” melody that shows up at 3:00). Having recorded that intro in the studio with Mike Harris, I continued on writing sections and recording them, until it got to the ending, when it seemed like the right time to bring back that “constructed” motif. Then I improvised the little Thom Yorke-inspired piano coda, and et voila! A song form.

That little snippet on my phone – just me singing “Constructed, constructed” – originally struck me as so funny for some weird reason. It seemed to me that “constructed” was such a mundane word, not really emotionally redolent of anything, and not at all suitable for use as the main hook of a song. But I started writing lyrics for the song, and with God, Bob, and Dog as my various witnesses, I tried really hard to come up with a concept and title that would be something other than “Constructed.” But the lyrics inexorably wended their way towards that inflexible destination, and gradually I came to feel that the idea of “Constructed” as a song concept ended up really working.

Everyone involved in this song treated it with great delicacy and respect. Kris Myers’ drum performance is really masterful – Mike Harris, who is a drummer himself, was freaking out over it while we were making the song. It was one of the performances that Kris recorded in Chicago in his single-day marathon drum session that yielded seven of his drum tracks. There are so many subtle rhythmic touches to his performance here, little hesitations and incremental groove shifts, which propel the song so beautifully. In the wrong hands this drum groove could really just sit there on the ground like a beech nut, but he gave it so much life.

Pete Griffin, who brings incredible heft and power to his electric bass playing on both Scambot 2 and Inkling, was good enough to haul his stand-up bass down from LA to Chatfield Manor for this song, and it could not have been more perfect – in my recollection, it was Pete who suggested that acoustic bass would work for the song. Man, I am so grateful for that insight and for this performance, beautifully recorded by Mr. Harris.

Jesse Keneally provided angel voices. They float around in the back of the choruses just audible enough to be felt – sometimes when I hear this song I wish we’d mixed them higher, but then other times I realize they lend just the right presence to the choruses – haunting, just beyond reach, chilling and lovely. I just want to hear more of them sometimes, ’cause she’s my daughter you see.

You’ll hear a couple of ghostly western guitar parts, meant to evoke pedal steel.

Before I worked out the final lyrics, I actually did an instrumental version of the song with a guitar playing the vocal melody all the way through – I thought that it might work, but although I was infatuated with it for a day or two, it didn’t make me the feel the way this version does. I needed to hear the words “snowy train” in order to see the snowy train. (Some remnants of that melody guitar track do remain in the final mix however.)

Thanks for reading all this. I’ll talk about the last four songs on Scambot 2 in the next Keneallist, and then get into Inkling a little later on once you’ve all had a chance to listen to it.


MK/BFD gigs in October

Also, hey: I’m bringing the trio version of Beer For Dolphins (me, Bryan Beller and Joe Travers) to Chicago and the Northeast in late October of this year. I was a bit stunned to realize that this particular configuration, with whom I gigged so much in California in the ’90s, has never played in the Midwest and Northeast as a trio. There is a certain ferociousness that takes hold on when it’s just me, Bryan and Joe, and it’s going to be fun to finally bring that vibe to the other side of the country for once. We might tack on a few more shows in other locations in the U.S. if the stars align, but our window is small because of Bryan’s and Joe’s prior work obligations. I’m jazzed about being able to do even this many shows though. The very wonderful Travis Larson Band will be opening for us in the Northeast.

In Chicago we’re playing at Progtoberfest II which will be hosting a wonderful slate of adventurous bands. The night before the BFD gig, I’ll be guesting at a tribute to Keith Emerson, which is going to be a heavy emotional situation for me but I’m really looking forward to it. (I don’t think I need to go into much detail here about how much Keith Emerson means to me. But, boy, he means a lot.) I know that Luis Nasser of Might Could and Sonus Umbra, and Jonathan Schang of District 97, are also taking part in the Chicago Emerson tribute, which is nifty – I like those guys a lot but this will be my first time playing with them.

These are the dates! Date it up, date it up, date it up!:

MIKE KENEALLY
as special guest in a tribute to KEITH EMERSON
also featuring JONATHAN SCHANG of District 97
and LUIS NASSER of Sonus Umbra and Might Could
FRIDAY, OCTOBER 21
At Reggie’s Progtoberfest II, Chicago IL.

MIKE KENEALLY & BEER FOR DOLPHINS TOUR
trio with BRYAN BELLER and JOE TRAVERS:
opening all the Northeast shows is the TRAVIS LARSON BAND

SATURDAY OCTOBER 22: Reggies’s Progtoberfest II in Chicago IL

TUESDAY OCTOBER 25: River Street Jazz Cafe in Plains, PA

WEDNESDAY OCTOBER 26: Iridium in NYC

THURSDAY OCTOBER 27: Jammin’ Java in Vienna, VA

FRIDAY OCTOBER 28: Kennett Flash in Kennett Square, PA

SATURDAY OCTOBER 29: NJ Proghouse in Dunellen, NJ

SUNDAY OCTOBER 30: The Wheelhouse in Narragansett, RI


The exclusive Scambot 2 Exowax Pre-Order

You probably already know, but I’ll say it again, that we’re currently taking pre-orders for the 2-CD Scambot 2 signed, limited edition of 2000. These will be shipped in a few days, after I sign and number them. The double-CD set consists of the Scambot 2 album (65 minutes of music) and the Inkling album (48 minutes of music) in a colorful digi-pak, with two handsome booklets nestled within. You’ll get an immediate download of Scambot 2 as soon as you pre-order. (You’ll have to wait until your CD set arrives to hear Inkling, which, by the way, features the brilliant RICK MUSALLAM on the song “Cram”!!)

Scambot 2 itself will be available as a single-album paid download in late July – we’ll shoot you another note when it’s officially available. (Inkling won’t be available as a download – it’s only available as part of the 2-CD set.)

For the moment, the Scambot 2/Inkling 2-CD limited edition is only available through Exowax. It will go into wider release, through other distributors and retailers worldwide, starting September 9.

Y’all rock and you know it.

Love and a balloon,
Mike


SCAMBOT 2

1. In The Trees (10:28)
2. Roots Twist (3:02)
3. Sam (3:20)
4. Clipper (4:36)
5. Forget About It (0:46)
6. Pretzels (4:25)
7. Buzz (4:32)
8. Race The Stars (3:44)
9. O (1:26)
10. Roll (6:23)
11. Constructed (3:46)
12. Freezer Burn (5:23)
13. Scores of People (5:22)
14. Cold Hands Gnat (4:00)
15. Proceed (3:19)


INKLING (More from the Scambot 2 Sessions)

1. Presence (0:48)
2. Scambot (2:17)
3. Boghe (4:01)
4. Sickness (2:01)
5. The Coma (2:11)
6. I Named You (0:45)
7. Falafel (1:29)
8. O Elastic Love! (1:23)
9. Cram (8:10)
10. Mystery Song (0:04)
11. E (0:37)
12. The Scorpions (5:32)
13. Skating Backwards (2:15)
14. Tom (7:01)
15. Mayday! (1:25)
16. Lovesong (1:27)
17. Back It Up (2:54)
18. Inkling (1:37)
19. Uncompressed Rag (2:04)

Mike Keneally’s Scambot 2 song diary, Side Two!

Scambot 2 2cd set
Hello all – I’m back on the bus, right now in the midst of an 18-hour drive to Gijon, Spain, on the heels of four G3 performances in Italy featuring Satriani, Vai and the Aristocrats. There are eight more shows on this tour, including another three G3 bills in Germany. This is continuing to be a very enjoyable European adventure indeed. The camaraderie is slamming (I wonder if anyone has ever utilized that phrase before) and the music and audiences every night are a thrill. Is my favorite part of the tour curling up in the bus bunk at night, strapping on the headphones and hitting “shuffle” on my seven-hour playlist of Radiohead B-sides and non-album tracks? Well, it might be tied for first.

As I mentioned last time, I’m going to take a look at the virtual “side two” of Scambot 2 [now available for exclusive pre-order] – “Clipper,” “Forget About It,” “Pretzels” and “Buzz.” The prog side. A 14-minute side, for maximum fidelity should it ever hit vinyl (just like side two of English Settlement if I remember correctly).

Clipper

Scambot 2Why is “Clipper” called “Clipper”? Well, a lot of the songs were named before they had lyrics – when we’d start a new session, Mike Harris would ask me what the song was called, and very often there would be no name for it so I’d have to make one up on the spot. In this case I was thinking nautical, because I knew the Quiet Children were going to be in their yacht in this song, and the word “Clipper” came to me as a good working title, but one I expected to change somewhere down the line. Which of course hardly ever happens – nine times out of ten, working titles stick to a song and refuse to be displaced. This song is simply “Clipper” whether it makes sense or not.

(Actually, I later made “Clipper” the name of Campland Standish‘s engineer on his radio show…for the little excerpt from the Standish show heard in this song, I originally recorded a bit more material, and the part right after Campland says “It’s a Monday” had him saying “Clipper, can you turn up my headphones please?”

But when I played a rough mix of this song for Sarah Crochet, she suggested that it would be better to cut the radio show right after “It’s a Monday,” which worked hugely better with the music in that spot, and also conveyed more than enough of the vibe of the radio show without overegging the pudding, as people who say things like that would say. Sarah was outlandishly helpful to me all the way down the line in suggesting things to improve the mixes as they were in progress, as well as the final sequence of songs, which I’d probably still be trying to figure out now if it weren’t for her help. I’m especially grateful to her in the case of “It’s a Monday,” which delighted Bryan Beller to no end first time he heard it and resulted in “It’s a Monday” becoming a running gag between us for a few weeks.)

Doug Lunn and Gregg Bendian played the bass and drums for “Clipper,” recorded at Chatfield Manor. We were rehearsing at Scott’s for some Southern California Keneally/Bendian/Lunn dates, and I took the opportunity to record them for this song (as well as “Pretzels” and “Scores Of People”). I’m terribly glad to have Doug’s unique fretless bass tone on one of my records again for the first time since Boil That Dust Speck. And it’s a real privilege to hear Gregg’s compositional approach to drums and percussion applied to my music. This song has a very episodic feel, moving through wildly varied landscapes, and I knew these two were the ones to help me construct the skeleton for it.

Another important building block for this song and album were the two days Mike Harris and I spent at the studio of Jeff Berkley, brilliant San Diego guitarist/percussionist, taking advantage of his boundless collection of guitars and amplifiers. I’m the worst interview subject in the world for guitar magazines because I can never remember what gear I used for what songs, and that’s amplified (so to speak) ten-fold in the case of this record, because I was picking up different instruments all over the place and recording bits with them, and all details would be wiped from my memory as I moved on to the next thing. But I do clearly recall using Jeff’s six-string banjo (tuned like a guitar) for this particular song. It was a texture I’ve long wanted to get on one of my records.

I was very happy to get my daughter Jesse singing on this tune; in particular the sound of her crystal-clear voice, layered into a choir and delivering the line “You suck,” is very pleasing.

The outro has a vibe that Scott Chatfield had previously mentioned to me as being hypnotic and worthy of preserving in its pure form (when I was wondering if it needed additional melodies, vocals, a solo or something), and I wasn’t sure whether or not I should fade it out or let it continue to hypnotize until it stopped cold, but ultimately it worked best for me in the context of the record to have it fade away. And then J.D. Mack asked on Facebook if this is the first song on one of my records to actually fade to complete silence. Wow, is it? I can’t think of another one. That’s kind of amazing to me. (The original “Egg Zooming” mix comes close but doesn’t get all the way there.) Only took me 23 years to have a good old-fashioned fade-out.

Forget About It

“Forget About It” is the sort of thing which feels so peculiar to me, makes me practically wonder if it’s irresponsible to do, it’s so idiosyncratic and odd (other songs in this category include “Eno And The Actor” and “I Guess I’ll Peanut”), but it makes me so happy to hear. I love Evan Francis‘ saxes and flutes on this, which I recorded in the back room of the condo Sarah and I used to live in. Evan couldn’t play too loudly because we didn’t want to freak out the neighbors too badly, and I really enjoy the subdued tone of his playing here. My friend, the brilliant keyboardist/composer Matt Mitchell, says he hears something of the Uncle Meat album in the brief use of harpsichord on this track. Not intentional, but yep, can’t deny the influence – I adore the way keyboards and woodwinds were arranged on UM and I imagine there are a lot of accidental echoes of it in my stuff through the years.

Pretzels

“Pretzels” (and the following track “Buzz”) are where the Gentle Giant influence comes on strong in this album, possibly stronger than they ever have before in my stuff. On “Pretzels” it’s in the main vocal melody and timbre, which absolutely nod towards Kerry Minnear, and on “Buzz” it’s in the interlocking architecture of the instruments in the verses and the use of clavinet. It would be impossible to overstate how much I respect Kerry Minnear’s work, and how much I love the music that he and Gentle Giant created.

“Pretzels” probably went through more re-workings and remixes than any other song on the album. At one point it had an entirely different lyric and vocal melody, and large swaths of additional background vocals. But it’s such an intricate piece and I needed to not layer on so much stuff; I had to keep reminding myself of my stated desire to have this album be less dense and demandingly abstract than Scambot 1 was. Scott Chatfield mentioned to me, while he was listening to the album come together in his home, that he really couldn’t see that this album was any less crazy and jam-packed with information than the first one had been, and I vowed internally to keep an eye on that while working through all these ideas and textures that were driving me forward. Once I stripped away the original lyrics and melody for “Pretzels” and went with a new melody that simply echoed already existing aspects of the layered piano parts underneath, it smoothed out the song a lot.

Of course I made things tough by needing to hear a guitar solo over the middle section of this tune, which is a crazy tower built out of multiple guitar, keyboard and vocal overdubs. Again I can’t overstate the amazing work Mike Harris has done with the mixes on this album. He made it all work together beautifully and the final mix is pure honey to my ears.

You can hear “Pretzels” starting to come together in its very early stages in this “making-of” video we posted a couple of years ago.

Buzz

“Buzz” was the song that resulted in the most traumatic crisis of confidence during the making of the album. I was listening to a VERY early rough mix of the song while driving home from working on it, basically consisting of nothing but clavinet and click track, and became convinced that there was nothing of value in it, and that possibly the whole album was equally valueless. This is what you call poor perspective: I was just overworked and needed a few days off. Now I get a huge kick out of the groove of this song, and it’s one I especially gravitate toward for headphone listening. Pete Griffin and Kris Myers sound especially huge on it. Kris does magical things on the drums on this song; subtle but so satisfying. I presented him with my fake drum tracks (drum patches played manually on a keyboard) as guides for the tracks he recorded on his own in Chicago, and gave him carte blanche to go off and try whatever he liked, but his general approach was to stick pretty close to what I had done on the demos rhythmically, but obviously make them sound like a real drummer, with soul and grit and a million beautiful embellishments. I could listen to just the drums on this song and have a fine old time forever.

The music underneath the part that goes “Who are you wearing? Who are you wearing?” was actually the first music written for this song, but I knew as I was writing it that it wasn’t meant to be the beginning of “Buzz.” I recorded it with Mike Harris then had him put it aside as we worked on the rest of the piece, while I continually wondered where that initial chunk was eventually going to fit in. I remember the feeling when I finally got to the part of the song where I thought that section would work, and I asked Mike to drop it back in – ahhhh. Listening to that fitting together was a highlight of the album-making process for me, like pushing in the last piece of a jigsaw puzzle.

NOTE! AN IMPORTANT NOTE!

InklingThis won’t be relevant until you actually get the physical 2-CD set containing the booklet for the Inkling album, but I need to start atoning and spreading the word about this now: there’s a song on Inkling called “Cram” which I am REALLY happy with, and which found its way on and off the main Scambot 2 listing multiple times until I finally decided that the main album flowed better without it. “Cram” is now a major highlight of Inkling, and it arose out of a session with Rick Musallam and Kris Myers which also resulted in the song “Roll” on Scambot 2 (which I’ll get to in the next Keneallist).

Anyway, I’m mentioning this because I’ve just realized that I forgot to list Rick Musallam in the credits for “Cram” in the Inkling booklet, which is already printed. Arrrrrgggghhh. This is really galling…I spent hours proofreading these things and yet it repeatedly eluded me. It’s just a dumb oversight from my original Word document, and it’s especially upsetting because Rick played so beautifully on the track. I will continue to beat myself up in public over this because I really want people to know Rick is on “Cram.” Heartfelt apologies to Rick, and to all of you, because this is going to get tiresome, I know it.

The exclusive Scambot 2 Exowax Pre-Order

Again, in case you haven’t already received this memo: we’re currently taking pre-orders for the 2-CD Scambot 2 signed, limited edition of 2000. These will be shipped in late July (at this writing there are eight more shows on this Satriani European tour; then I’ll come home, rest for a moment, and get to signing the CD-sets, which have just been shipped to Scott’s place). The double-CD set consists of the Scambot 2 album (65 minutes of music) and the Inkling album (48 minutes of music) in a handsome digi-pak with two booklets. You’ll get an immediate download of Scambot 2 as soon as you pre-order. (You’ll have to wait until your CD set arrives to hear Inkling, which incidentally features Rick Musallam on the song “Cram.”)

Scambot 2 itself will be available as a single-album paid download in late July. (Inkling won’t be available as a download – it’s only available as part of the 2-CD set.)

For the moment, the music is only available through Exowax. It will go into wider release through other distributors and retailers starting September 9.

More soon – thank you everyone!
Mike


Scambot 2SCAMBOT 2

1. In The Trees (10:28)
2. Roots Twist (3:02)
3. Sam (3:20)
4. Clipper (4:36)
5. Forget About It (0:46)
6. Pretzels (4:25)
7. Buzz (4:32)
8. Race The Stars (3:44)
9. O (1:26)
10. Roll (6:23)
11. Constructed (3:46)
12. Freezer Burn (5:23)
13. Scores of People (5:22)
14. Cold Hands Gnat (4:00)
15. Proceed (3:19)


InklingINKLING (More from the Scambot 2 Sessions)

1. Presence (0:48)
2. Scambot (2:17)
3. Boghe (4:01)
4. Sickness (2:01)
5. The Coma (2:11)
6. I Named You (0:45)
7. Falafel (1:29)
8. O Elastic Love! (1:23)
9. Cram (8:10)
10. Mystery Song (0:04)
11. E (0:37)
12. The Scorpions (5:32)
13. Skating Backwards (2:15)
14. Tom (7:01)
15. Mayday! (1:25)
16. Lovesong (1:27)
17. Back It Up (2:54)
18. Inkling (1:37)
19. Uncompressed Rag (2:04)