|
Friday, March 12, 2010 Saturday, March 13, 2010 MyKeneally on Facebook
Words from Mike about Now, by popular demand, The SCAMBOT Holiday Special is available as an instant download for only $5 at MooseMart. (Listen to The SCAMBOT Holiday Specette, a one-minute sampler, here.) ABOUT THE SCAMBOT HOLIDAY SPECIAL
Possibly as a result of all that, I think he had an unusually strong influence on the construction of The SCAMBOT Holiday Special, but I also feel strong echoes of Firesign Theatre in it, and of Brendon Small's work on Home Movies. And also, very specifically, the influence of variety TV shows from the '60s to the present. So that's a little listing of some of the influences on this insane little thing. This is an interesting little holiday presentation which I've written and produced here. It's about fourteen-and-a-half minutes long; five tracks, with tracks 1, 3 and 5 acting as framing devices for tracks 2 and 4, which are full-length studio recordings of the songs "Holiday Face" and "Salve-Dependent Scorpions." "Holiday Face" is a new acoustic instrumental recording done specifically for this CD. It reminds me compositionally of "Thanksgiving" but has an even more intimate studio vibe than that song, and I tracked it with Mike Harris engineering at Chatfield Manor. Me on all instruments: two acoustic guitars, bass, organ, tambourine and other percussion. Bunch of vocals and a wah-clavinet solo at the end that I'm really happy about. "Salve-Dependent Scorpions" is an alternate take of an instrumental piece from the upcoming multi-volume work SCAMBOT. The basic track was recorded on analog tape by Tom Trefethen, and has me on Hammond organ, Rick Musallam on electric guitar, Bryan Beller on bass and Joe Travers on drums. (This was, surprisingly to me, the first studio session of the Guitar Therapy Live version of the Keneally Band.) Later at Chatfield Manor we overdubbed two takes of Evan Francis on alto sax, and two takes of me on lead guitar. The version which will be on SCAMBOT will be entitled "The Scorpions" and will feature such completely different guitar and sax performances that it's essentially another composition. Have to admit to a strong Frank influence on the guitar performance. Tracks 1, 3 and 5 of the The SCAMBOT Holiday Special ("The Quest," "The Swordfight" and "The Owl") are twisted little combinations of electronic music done on a Moog, other added effects, and dialogue/narration/singing which advances a peculiar narrative (I originally wrote it as part of the actual SCAMBOT album-slash-comic book story continuity). I couldn't find a way to wedge it into SCAMBOT comfortably, but it now forms the conceptual backbone of this Holiday Special. It's in these short segments, which illustrate a surreal imaginary late-'60s television holiday special about a quest of some kind, that the Firesign and Brendon influences come to the fore, but there's also some heavy Lumpy Gravy and Läther influence in there. I can't help it, sorry. The CD-R was mastered by Scott Chatfield at the Manor, and served up fresh to those of you who wisely choose to treat themselves and/or their loved ones to fifty bucks worth of quality Moosemart merchandise (a copy each of the hat. and Boil That Dust Speck special editions, for instance, and you're already there. Just saying). *** Thank you for continuing to enjoy and be interested in the stuff I do-- I seem to be getting more fired-up and productive as time goes on, and I very much appreciate you being part of it all. may you soon receive a backrub, Mike |
|
Keneally video profile from Innerviewworld.com
|
|
Check out new KMB videos!
|
|
In addition, all three out-of-print Exowax bonus CDs that helped make the sold-out Special Editions so special are still available for downloading at MooseMart, including the interview/music disc Nonkertalk, the live acoustic Dancing With Myself and the exquisite re-imagined Wooden Smoke Asleep.
|
|
SAN DIEGO, CA, February 5, 2008: Ace videographer Steve Laub captured Mike, Doug and Marco as they opened for Robin Trower at 4th & B in early February. Here's "My Dilemma;" many more songs and videos are here! |
| Read about all of Mike's CD releases... |
|
News from Mike: 1/8/10 Oh man, really nice time Wednesday night at the Musallam gig at the Baked Potato. Stephanie Peter is posting videos from the gig at Facebook, I just watched Mammy Anthem and it sounds good. This Saturday I'll be back at the Potato with a Keneally Band consisting of me and Brendon Small on guitars, Rick Musallam on bass and Gene Hoglan on drums. Not necessarily playing the tunes you would expect to hear, although I have no idea what you might expect. Without getting too specific I'll say that the playlist is largely based around songs Dethklok would attempt to play during soundchecks on the last tour. Efforts are being made to actually learn the tunes prior to this Saturday's gig. If you're planning on coming, doors are at 7:00, no way to know when people are going to start lining up outside but it's a small room, so be aware. Fri. the 15th I'll be at NAMM playing at the Dean Markley booth with Bryan and Marco. I think that's a tiny room too, we start playing at 2:00 pm, so if you're a NAMM badge-holder (which you have to be in order to get in) you might want to get to the room a little bit early. Two days after that I'm back at one of my favorite rooms, Alvas Showroom in San Pedro, for another go-round of the Cream Tribute/OHM double-bill which worked so well at Brick by Brick a few weeks ago. If you haven't checked out a gig at Alvas yet, it's one of the most comfortable and satisfying music-experiencing venues I know of. Looking forward to this a lot. Then that gets followed up with by three West Coast MyKeneally, only one of which - one! - is open to the public, a bacchanalian romp in always colorful Arcata, CA. It promises to be memorable. (See here for more gig info.) 2010! It contains the word "10" and is also coincidentally the "10"th anniversary of the album Dancing, so we're running with this whole theme of "10" by making the CD available for only "10" dollars throughout the entire year of two-thousand "10"! That was the best paragraph ever. Some more super-nice reviews of Scambot 1... This is the opening paragraph of Dennis Cook's review at JamBase.com:
Thank you Dennis! A lovely review from John Kelman at AllAboutJazz.com:
Thank you John! Nice words from the very estimable Greg Burk at MetalJazz.com:
Thank you Greg! And a very nice review in the German language is here, written by Volkmar Mantei for the website Ragazzi. Here is an excerpt from a very poor Babel-Fish English translation:
That's one of the nicest things anyone's ever said about my music! Thank you VM! What else am I forgetting? Your friend, Mike Scott Chatfield sent me a small boatload of questions about Scambot; here's my responses:
More Answers! q. What's SCAMBOT 1? a. It's my new album, which has been about ten years in the making. Co de Kloet of NPS Radio, Netherlands, wrote this about it on his Facebook page:
(thank you for saying that, Co)
SCAMBOT 1 is 67 minutes long and contains 18 pieces of music, which are called:
It was written and produced by myself, primarily recorded at Chatfield Manor and engineered by Mike Harris, but ultimately involving six different recording locations and nine engineers. The executive producer is Mr. Scott Chatfield. Artwork was co-created by myself and the esteemed Atticus Wolrab. The concept of Scambot had its genesis in a comic strip I drew in one of my sketchbooks in 2001, while I was working on Wooden Smoke. It was fleshed out further, with the addition of new characters, during the making of The Universe Will Provide and Dog in 2003, and for the past five years it has been my central creative project, one obviously very long in gestating. (The earliest music it contains is "You Named Me" from 1998, recorded during sessions which also resulted in Nonkertompf.) The project evolved in an intentionally relaxed and organic fashion, with no time-related pressure placed on its creation. The three different aspects of the Scambot universe - my character art, music/lyrics, and written plotline/dialogue - each grew individually while they influenced the development of the other two aspects. It was a blast, I am freaking pleased as punch that it's finally done and that I enjoy it as much as I do, and I'm very happy that you'll get to hear it soon. There is a plot, and a bunch of characters; the CD booklet contains a very long story I wrote which lays out all of the action. Most of the plotline isn't explicitly referenced in the songs; I didn't want exposition to get in the way of a pure musical experience, and I also wanted it to be mostly instrumental, so the heavy plot-lifting is done by the story in the booklet. (If you order the download, you'll receive a digital copy of the booklet.) In brief it's about an embittered composer named Ian McPlant, whose consciousness is hijacked by an industrialist named Boleous T. Ophunji. Much else occurs which I won't detail here, but it's a pretty funny story, and definitely an odd one. I was abashed when I recently re-read Kurt Vonnegut's "Sirens of Titan" after finishing my story, and saw plainly how much of an influence he's had on my fiction writing...anyway I think it's a snazzy read and I hope you like it. (The story will also form the backbone of an online comic strip, called SCAMBOT. More of that, another time.) Musically speaking, it's about two-thirds instrumental. Stylistically, it's my most varied work since Sluggo!, I think. It encompasses a little bit of straightforward-ish rock and pop, a lot of rigorous composition and arrangement, some obsessively intricate vocal and instrumental harmonies, some improvisation which has been orchestrated, some digitally-manipulated musique concrete, some purely uncategorizable stuff and, I think, some of the most interesting melodies I've come up with. It is a peculiar album but I think very satisfying as a journey, and emotionally it hits a lot of different moods. The personnel changes radically from song to song. Some of the material was done by myself; some originated in a Keneally/Beller acoustic album we were working on for a while; some of it was recorded by the Guitar Therapy Live version of the Mike Keneally Band (me, Bryan Beller, Rick Musallam and Joe Travers). One track was recorded with an eleven-piece ensemble including members of the Metropole Orkest, which we dubbed the Minipole. (The rest of the recordings from the acoustic album and Minipole sessions will see release at another time.) Evan Francis played some wonderful sax, clarinet and flute, and many deeply unthinkable drum overdubs were performed by the breathtaking Marco Minnemann - if you enjoy Marco's work, you need to hear this. My daughter Jesse Keneally also does some singing on the album that I personally find to be achingly beautiful, and I swear I would say that even if we weren't family. We devoted intense energy to every second of the album. I'm very happy with how all the songs, and the weird imaginings therein, have been given life. Also! Once Scambot 1 was done, I used the residual energy from making it to quickly create a second album, using some additional material that was done during the Scambot 1 sessions, and a lot of newly recorded music as well. This 2nd album is a 53-minute opus called
which is only available as Disc 2 of the SCAMBOT 1 2-CD SPECIAL EDITION. This is a limited, numbered release of 3000 copies, containing both brand-new albums totaling two hours of music, plus a beautiful slipcover designed by Atticus Wolrab. Here are the songs which make up Songs and Stories Inspired by SCAMBOT 1:
(the great majority of the music on Disc 2 is unique to it; three of the pieces are remixes of songs from Disc 1, plus one demo.) This is a very uncompromising album, with a lot of guitar improvisation, demanding sonorities, alien vocal textures, truly insane song structure and many crucial pieces of the Scambot plot continuity. Plus a very entertaining credit sequence. If you are intrigued by the conceptual world of Scambot, it's heavily advisable to hear both albums. (Songs and Stories Inspired by Scambot 1 is NOT Scambot 2 [my apologies if this is stating the obvious]. Scambot 2 and 3 are projects for the future. I want to make serious progress on three projects I'm working on with Steve Vai, Andy Partridge and Matt Resnicoff, all of which will either be released or heavily nudged forward before future volumes of Scambot see completion.) There will be three ways to invite SCAMBOT 1 into your life: 1. The 2-CD limited Special Edition including two new albums: SCAMBOT 1 and Songs and Stories Inspired by Scambot 1, 2. The single-CD SCAMBOT 1, 3. The SCAMBOT 1 single album download, available when the CD is released. Want a taste? Download for free, right now, the SCAMBOT 1 song "Tomorrow" HERE! ********** What else? The last My Keneally tour I did with Bryan Beller was fantastically worth doing. It ended up being a really moving experience for Bryan and I, and I hope it was as well for our friends who booked us for that incredibly varied and exciting run of shows. We played in people's houses, behind their houses, in venues small and not-so-small, on a pier, and on the wings of a hang glider (that one, not really). It was awesome and we want to do it again starting January 18, starting on the West Coast this time, and encompassing as much of the US that we didn't visit last time as it is possible for us to encompass. Wanna book Beller and I for a gig? We dig the house concert vibe but you can put us anywhere you want. Please contact us at mykeneally@keneally.com for details if you're into it. Be aware, too, that exclusive live tracks recorded during the first My Keneally tour in August are now available to request and hear at www.radiokeneally.com. The first date of the Dethklok tour is Portland, Oregon on October 2, and we'll be out for about a month and a half. Seriously, this band is killing right now, and I can't wait to hear Mastodon every night - I love those guys. I'm excited to be introduced to the music of our two opening bands, High on Fire and Converge. What a ridiculously good time this is going to be. I did an extensive road diary on the last Dethklok tour - we'll see if I have the stamina to do anything similar this time around. Thanks you guys. I'm way grateful for all of you. Pavement reunion next year! Love - Mike |
|
Wine And Pickles -- studio recordings 1998-2006 being a collection of unreleased things, rarities and allsorts from the last several years or so Mike describes Wine And Pickles as "the album I didn't know I was making over the last ten years." Lovingly assembled from a wide array of archived sources, W&P serves as a surprisingly cohesive alternative history of Keneally music. Notable among the 21 gems are the legendary original version of "Backwards Deb;" "4S," a piece written for Holland's acclaimed Metropole Orchestra; "Inhale," a gorgeously melodic collaboration with Lyle Workman; and "The Endings Of Things," a stark, confessional performance from 2000's Dancing sessions. The CD contains an eight-page booklet with Mike's original artwork, pithy personal notes about each song, and lyrics. Download "Inhale" from Wine And Pickles for free! Here's a wonderful complete song that you can download for free to get an idea of what Wine And Pickles sounds like (although there's an embarrassment of variety on the album). It's track 9 (a high-quality 256k VBR mp3 and a 12.3 MB zip file download) directly from the master, and we hope you'll want to hear more. Mike describes the genesis of the track: "Lyle [Workman] composed, performed and produced the instrumental backing track by himself, then asked me to write a vocal part for it. His track was so fantastic, I could hear the vocal parts screaming at me just listening to it and I had the lyrics and melody written inside of a couple of hours. It was recorded in 1998, and released in 2000 on Lyle’s brilliant second album. I’ve gently begged Lyle to record an album’s worth of killer instrumental tracks that I can stick vocals on, but he’s been busy providing the soundtrack to the Judd Apatow cinematic empire-- and good on him – Lyle is entirely a genius and a sweet man and deserves all great things." Click here to get your free download. And if you like what you hear, you can get the whole CD from MooseMart. JazzTimes' review of Wine And Pickles
Down Beat's review of Wine And Pickles
|
- The Buffalo News' Jeff Miers ranks Scambot 1 second on his Top Ten of 2009, over Springsteen, U2, etc.
- Jambase.com gives props to Scambot 1, courtesy of Dennis Cook
- John Kelman of All About Jazz on Scambot 1: "It rarely gets any better than this. [One of the] Best Releases of 2009."
- Scambot 1 tops the year's 25 best on Jedd Beaudoin's Strange Currency radio program
- Volkmar Mantei of Germany's Ragazzi-Music.de reviews Scambot 1 (crummy automated English translation here)
- Beppe Colli of CloudsAndClocks.net describes Scambot 1
- MetalJazz.com's Greg Burk encounters Scambot 1
- Mike digs this Scambot 1 review by Mark S. Tucker for the Folk and Acoustic Music Exchange
- AC.tv visits with Mike backstage at the final Dethklok show of the Fall '09 tour
- Sea of Tranquility's John Neudorf and Pete Pardo each give Scambot 1 four stars
- Troy Van Horn of Hardened Magazine conducts an incisive, Scambot-centric interview with Mike
- Ghostland.com's Chad Hutchinson reviews Scambot 1
- Jeff Kent's Aural Addict spotlights Scambot 1
- TheProgFiles.com's Hande Burdg and Dale Juday present a very cool audio interview with Mike and Bryan
- Beppe Colli ties up some loose ends with Mike for Clouds and Clocks
- Here's a video profile of Mike from Innerviewworld.com
- The San Diego Reader profiles Mike
- Wine And Pickles gets the MetalJazz.com treatment
- Clouds and Clocks' Beppe Colli reviews Wine And Pickles
- George Varga of The San Diego Union-Tribune profiles Marco Minnemann and KMB
- Audio/Video Revolution's K.L. Poore calls Wine And Pickles "exquisite"
- RollingStone.com reviews Dethklok's New York concert
- Mike talks with DDDorian at Sevenstring.org
- Modern Guitars Magazine's Mark J. Rabuffo interviews Mike and reviews the hat. and Boil reissues
- The Chattanooga Pulse's Bill Colrus spotlights the Keneally reissues
- Barry Cleveland of Guitar Player recommends the hat. and BTDS reissues
- The hat. and Boil That Dust Speck reissues get five stars each from Sea of Tranquility.com
- Jeff Tamarkin of Relix relishes the hat. and Boil That Dust Speck reissues
- MetalJazz.com reviews the first two Keneally reissues
- Ytsejam.com's enlightening revisitation of hat. and Boil That Dust Speck by Jedd Beaudoin
- CD HotList recommends Guitar Therapy Live for libraries
- Jedd Beaudoin's extensive MKB profile in the Wichita City Paper
- Guitar Therapy Live rated "Best of 2006" by Jazziz's Bill Meredith
- All Music Guide's Sean Westergaard names Guitar Therapy Live among 2006's best
- Jay Roberts from Rock Is Life.com doesn't get it
- Jazziz reviewer Bill Meredith calls GTL a "lesson in creativity, improvisation, and interplay."
- Sean Westergaard of All Music Guide digs that GTL Special Edition DVD
- AudioVideoRevolution's KL Poore likes GTL, but thinks the vocals are mixed too low
- Guitar Therapy Live nominated for Best Rock Album by San Diego Music Awards
- GTL is an "improvised feast," says Guitarist UK's Simon Bradley
- Barry Cleveland of Guitar Player digs the GTL Special Edition
- Guitar Therapy Live among "Best of 2006 So Far," says All Music Guide
- Robert Fripp blogs about MK & GTL
- John Kelman at AllAboutJazz.com reviews GTL
- San Diego Union-Tribune's George Varga calls GTL "mind-bending"
- Marc Harris writes about GTL in Wood&Steel
- AllAboutJazz.com's Glenn Astarita inspired by Guitar Therapy Live
- Caley Cook of San Diego CityBeat is uninspired by Guitar Therapy Live
- Joe Doherty of Jambands.com takes a hit off Guitar Therapy Live
- All Music Guide's incisive 4 1/2-star review of Guitar Therapy Live by Sean Westergaard
- ProgSheet.com on the "happy, noodly, bopping" GTL
- BlogCritics.org writer Tom Johnson enjoys GTL
- Beppe Colli interviews Mike on many topics at CloudsAndClocks.net and also reviews GTL
- Michael Senft of the Arizona Republic reviews Guitar Therapy Live
- The Anchorage Press announces GTL's release
- The Chattanooga Pulse's Bill Colrus responds well to Guitar Therapy
- Eric Porter's GTL review at ProgressiveWorld.net
- Pete Pardo of Sea of Tranquility gives Guitar Therapy Live four-and-a-half stars!
- Dave Connolly's Progrography site reviews GTL
- Vyuz.com's David Moye talks with Mike about Guitar Therapy Live
- The Humboldt Beacon reviews MK at Lost Coast Live
- Mark S. Tucker reviews Guitar Therapy Live on OpEdNews.com
- Eugene Baak blogs about Mike, Zappa, The Universe Will Provide and more
Like the Bat Signal, The Keneallist is only used for super serious email emanating directly from MK Central to you. We're talking stuff like album release info, live performance updates, discounts on MK merchandise and such. Your secret info will be held dearly by us and not shared with anybody mean without your prior permission.
To join The Keneallist, please click here.
All rights reserved. Obvious Moose (our host) now offers web hosting for only $10 a month!