The Official Mike Keneally Website

ProgJect tour – coming in April

A few weeks ago I joined a new band called ProgJect, which is the brainchild of drummer/mover/shaker Jonathan Mover, whose work you may know from Joe Satriani, or Marillion, or GTR, or the Musical Box, or his work as editor of Drumhead Magazine or various other entrepreneurial  (MAN that’s a hard word to spell) activities with which he’s found himself entwined over the years.

A couple of years ago he got it into his head to put together something of an all-star band playing a bunch of the progressive rock of the ‘70s he grew up loving (Genesis, Yes, Crimson, ELP, Floyd, Gentle Giant, Bruford, etc.). He joined forces with Ryo Okumoto, the keyboardist from Spock’s Beard, and very soon Michael Sadler (vocalist from SAGA) and Matt Dorsey (bassist from Sound Of Contact and In Continuum) became a part of the enterprise.

ProgJect tour – coming in April

Apparently they had it mind at the beginning of the whole process that they’d like me to play guitar, but thought I was too busy, and then the pandemic happened, and in the event I didn’t hear anything about the project until October 2021. I went up to LA to play with them in January of this year, and basically right away I was going “oh yeah, this needs to happen.”

I love all these songs so much – I grew up loving them just like Jonathan did, and it is absurdly exhilarating to play all these different, fantastic songs one right after the other. We’ve been rehearsing every weekend pretty much and I promise you, it’s a really powerful set of music. I think audiences are going to be extremely happy about this band.

The ProgJect website is this here: www.progject.com

If you want to go directly to the tour dates, that’s here: www.progject.com/main/#tour

This is pretty much an east coast tour, although it starts with an LA show on Apr. 1. Jonathan has very ambitious long-term plans for this band, so don’t be concerned if we’re not coming to your town right away – the idea is to play everywhere. I hope you get to see us soon.

Mike!

“Pup” EP Now Streaming For The First Time – On Bandcamp

Today is Bandcamp Friday! We are participating in this now-venerable tradition by releasing, for the first time in a streaming format, the Mike Keneally Band Pup EP from 2004. This was a very private pressing made available at the time only to those who pre-ordered the Dog album.

In addition to three otherwise unavailable live Keneally Band tracks, it contains a long studio take of the song “Li’l.” This freaky instrumental, in a later recording, ended up on Wine And Pickles, but this earlier version is longer, faster and rawer, and also contains the mysterious sounds of the Mattel Optigan that was available for our use at Stanley Recordings. 

There’s also two one-man-band studio recordings, “Sun Flute” and “Party Poopers,” both recorded at Chatfield Manor in the span of time after Wooden Smoke and Dog, and very different from both of those albums. This was during the period when I was just beginning to sink my claws into Pro Tools. They are pretty sturdy examples of bizarre home-recording experimentalism.

All the music pieces are tied together with radio-style announcements and jingles, as this EP also functioned as promo for the then-brand-new Radio Keneally streaming service (no longer with us, and may its light forever shine in our memories). Pup captures the vibe of Radio Keneally in kind of the same way that The Who Sell Out captured the vibe of pirate radio of the ’60s.

Thank you to Chris Opperman for suggesting to Scott Chatfield and I that we make Pup available on Bandcamp, and then put his hard work where his ideas were and uploaded Pup to Bandcamp himself along with all of the supplementary textual material I prepared to accompany it. The hope is to continue uploading recordings from my catalogue to Bandcamp every month until we finally have it all up there. 

For now, this is the first step, and it is here: https://mikekeneallymusic.bandcamp.com/releases

Mike!
"Pup" EP Now Streaming For The First Time - On Bandcamp

Keneally Grano Nash Lee in San Diego Feb. 4

This will be my third show with these lovely folks, and this time we are joined by two highly special guests, guitarist Larry Mitchell and violinist Jamie Shadowlight. The venue, called Navajo Live because it’s on Navajo Rd., used to be called the Navajo Inn in the ’80s, which I think is the last time I played there. It’ll be a nostalgic rush to be in that building again!

8515 Navajo Rd, San Diego CA 92119

Music starts at 8:30. Thanks all.

Keneally Grano Nash Lee in San Diego Feb. 4