Chatfield Manor
5:55:19 PM August 24 1999

Scott just showed up with "J-Tull.com" and the new Prince "Vault" CD, both just came out today. We checked out the first four songs on the Tull album - first one sounds strong, classic - wonder if it's one that Jason did "pre-production" drumming on? Now we're listening to Prince - ten songs, under 40 minutes, a mere sliver of a thing (I'll bet Warner Bros. never imagined they'd be unleashing such seemingly anemic Prince product once the real 1999 came around) but it's kicking ASS. First song clocks in at 1:40 and it's sheer delight, the second song has put a big smile on my face too. I guess all this stuff has been bootlegged but it's new to me and it sounds utterly good. Cute ending to song 2, snaky intro to song 3 - cool song, cool album. MK recommends! Hey, what else came out today? Oh, the Mullmuzzler album. I'll do a discography entry for that soon. What else?

"Nonkertompf"! Exclamation point outside the quotation mark 'cause typing "'Nonkertompf'!" is too much trouble! I'll be doing a discography thing for that too, dealing with some details that didn't get mentioned on the interview disc. Opperman thinks that I should write about specifically what instruments I play on each track (the liner notes just say "instruments and vocals by Mike Keneally" - yeah, there are some vocals on there, just no lyrics, so we're calling it an instrumental album just for simplicity's sake). Man. It's intensely satisfying to watch this project develop - Scott and I (aka Exowax) are just the proudest of parents over here. There is GOOD feeling among us and real drive to make this happen. Our extreme enthusiasm is serving the album well - already there's more pre-release buzz and media interest (not to mention advance orders - thank you!) than any of my previous albums have enjoyed. We're excited. Wonder what you'll think of it? Let us know at nonkeroni@moosenet.com, please.

DAMN. Serious sax/drums duet six-and-a-half minutes into track 3 of the Prince CD. DAMN! This is great!

But all I've been listening to lately is Stevie Wonder, over and over and over. "Talking Book" has gotten a thorough rediscovery, I've got the cassette playing in my car on endless repeat. Did you know that the cassette version has a different running order than the LP/CD? I honestly prefer the cassette version. Check it out: Side one: You Are The Sunshine Of My Life/Superstition/Big Brother/You And I/Tuesday Heartbreak/Blame It On The Sun. Side two: Maybe Your Baby/You've Got It Bad Girl/Looking For Another Pure Love/I Believe. Go get your scratchy LP version or CD out and re-record it in that order and see what I mean. And, goshamighty if that album and "Innervisions" and "Songs In The Key Of Life" aren't just about the best things ever. Those are the ones I keep returning to although I'm listening to a lot of everything from a lot of eras, but it's distressing to hear Stevie get infatuated by digital synths and sequencing in the mid-80's ("In Square Circle" has some seriously rinky-tink stuff on it) and lose so much of what made him spectacular in the early 70's. Although every album has some magic on it. And there's so much of it! It's a grand thing to suddenly become excited about an artist again, one who's got so much music to rediscover. Yay!

The new issue of "Wood & Steel," the Taylor guitars quarterly publication, has just been issued, featuring part one of an interview I did with Adrian Belew. It's cool! According to the masthead, "'Wood & Steel' is free to registered owners of Taylor guitars. At this time, paid subscriptions are not available." You can probably get ahold of one at a decent music store - or check out the Taylor website at www.taylorguitars.com, there might be some hints there how to get hold of one.

Sorry I haven't been doing many MTTYs lately. The alt.music.mike-keneally newsgroup has proven to be such an effective way to stay in touch with the hardcore following that, when I find myself parked in front of a computer, I usually find myself there. But not every reader of this website is necessarily a regular there (although they should be!), so I'll endeavor to do this more often, he says.

In fact I'll do another one soon because I have to stop right now, a bit prematurely - there's more I could and should tell you about, especially regarding the Baked Potato shows. I'll be back. See you on the newsgroup.

Best of everything to all,

MK