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Mike Keneally With James Morton

LET'S MAKE RHYTHM! instructional cassette (Mel Bay)
released in 1987

MK involvement:
Keys, bass, guitar, vocal

Comments:
This is a tape which accompanies a book which teaches tots to bang on percussion devices. 'Twas recorded on the same machine which brought the home demo Tar Tapes material to life, a four-track reel-to-reel Dokorder for which "Let's Make Rhythm!" was a last mighty wheeze before entering itself into early retirement. (The noise-to-signal ratio on this cassette is pretty stunning.) The format consists of narration about different percussion instruments alternating with simple ditties designed to show off each instrument's unique qualities. My fave memory of the recording process would be James' intro to "Giddy-up", which found him on his stomach on our kitchen floor banging coconut shells on the tile, then craning his neck upwards to speak into the mic in audibly labored tones. Other tracks include "Cymbal Blues" (which I attempt to sing like Kermit the Frog, but Bryan thought sounded like Bachman-Turner Overdrive), "Shave Haircut Two Bits" (the single), "The Old Soft Shoe" and "Crash Goes The Cymbal" (both of which I sang in a voice which I imagined at the time would be soothing and pleasant for kids, but which frightened Scott when I played it for him a couple of hours ago - he's probably having nightmares about it as I type). Instrumentally the star of the day is my old deceased Oberheim OB-SX which provides a variety of doingy synth noises. "The Knee Fist Song" (that's really the title) and "My Triangle Has Three Sides" sound like outtakes from a really misguided They Might Be Giants session.

(Possibly still available from Mel Bay Productions, Inc. #4 Industrial Dr. Pacific, MO 63069-0066)


ROCK STUDIES FOR DRUMS instructional cassette (Mel Bay)
released in 1991

MK involvement:
Composition, guitar, bass, keys

Comments:
Well, after the massive worldwide success of the "Let's Make Rhythm!" tape secured me an audition with Frank Zappa, it was a while before I got back into the studio with James Morton, but our reunion produced much of lasting value. To whit: there are a number of things on this cassette that I actually really like for actual musical reasons, and as James allowed me utter leeway regarding the harmonic content of these pieces (my task was to set James' 10 drum charts, highlighting rock styles, to whatever music I deemed appopriate), this is kind of the lost Keneally album. As with "Let's Make Rhythm!" this tape accompanies an instructional book, and I guess it's still somewhat available as I continue to receive quarterly royalty cheques in the seven-to-eighteen dollar range for my work herein. The songs are untitled, but my rough mix cassette at home has titles for the pieces (the only ones I clearly recall is the opening Aerosmith pastiche which I called "Love On An Escalator", a Winwoodeque organ grinder which I called "Night Night" because a few years ago it seemed like any song with "Night" in the title got sub-let into a Michelob campaign so I thought I'd double my chances, and "Buzz Buzz Buzz", the closing shred tune). Each song is heard twice, once with drums and once without. My favorites upon listening to it again yesterday are the second song on side one (which I'll probably rework into a link on the next album) and the Steely Dan rip-off song on side two, which has a really nice little melody that I can't believe I wrote. In the eighties and early nineties I did a number of shows playing James Morton's original pieces (he writes a lot of odd-time stuff); we co-wrote an interesting instrumental called "Samba Di Quince", one line from which I co-opted for inclusion in "My Dilemma" (the fast little melody which comes before the middle instrumental, and later before the bass solo). This tape also constitutes my first work at DoubleTime Studios and, gosh, we know where that led, don't we?

(Mel Bay Productions, Inc. #4 Industrial Dr. Pacific, MO 63069-0066)

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