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THE KENEALLIST: Nonkertompf Live Premieres On Bandcamp This Friday!

May 2, 2024 Mike Keneally Album, Exowax, Live, News, The Keneallist

Buenas noches! La llama es un cuadrúpedo!

THE KENEALLIST: Nonkertompf Live Premieres On Bandcamp This Friday!

Links to Nonkertompf Live go live at 11:59 p.m. PDT Thursday night, May 2!
If you’ve got an itchy clicker finger, go here for all the other available MK titles…

For this month’s Bandcamp Friday (which is the last Bandcamp Friday until September – BC Friday being that glorious occasional Friday when all financial proceeds are given to artists/labels without Bandcamp itself taking its customary cut), we are premiering Nonkertompf Live – Groningen, The Netherlands October 19, 2001.

This album documents an evening when I, along with ten other trusted musical compatriots (and the music-preparing assistance of equally-trusted Exowax confidante Chris Opperman), offered a special live performance of music from the Nonkertompf album. That instrumental album had been played in the studio by me alone, so the music underwent significant transitions in order to be played live by this sizable ensemble.

For this special festival event, the band were:

Me on guitar and a little piano and very little vocal
Rick Musallam on guitar and equally little vocal
Nick D’Virgilio on drums and just as little vocal
Bryan Beller on bass
Tricia Williams on vibes and percussion
Evan Francis on alto sax and flute
Marc Ziegenhagen on keyboards
Bart van Lier on trombone
Jan Willem van der Ham on bassoon and alto sax
Oene van Geel on violin
Ruben van Roon on electronics and samples

The event was produced by Pieter van Hoogdalem and Co de Kloet, and Scott Chatfield was charged with keeping us all in line and ready to play.

This was my first experience crafting charts for a relatively large group (I consider more than ten musicians to be relatively large – the Dancing charts were for a mere eight players), and a crucial step on the journey that eventually led to The Universe Will Provide.

In early 2002, Co de Kloet asked me and Scott to prepare a special edit of the concert for an NPS Radio promotional CD to be distributed at a convention in The Netherlands, and that edit is what you’ll find on Bandcamp.

Apart from that one convention, it’s never been distributed or presented in any form. The quality of the recording and mixing is absolutely top-notch and everyone put all of their hearts into the gig.

Included in the download is a ginchy booklet with the complete story of the project, lots of photos, art from the concert program, and the original score from “Hum,” one of the Nonkersongs souped up just for this one-off performance. (Li’l sampler above.)

It’s a real pleasure to finally welcome Nonkertompf Live, an official edit of a one-time-only performance, to the Exowax catalogue. We hope you enjoy it tremendously!

THE NEWEST KENEALLY/RADULOVICH COLLAB, WEDNESDAY

Marcelo and I continue our series of day-of-the-week instrumental releases with a new installment, Wednesday. I’ve loved them all, but this one feels really special to me. It’s completely impossible for me to describe it, but I’m hopeful that you’ll give it a listen – maybe you can describe it to me?

You can find the four albums we’ve done so far, along with the rest of Marcelo’s remarkable catalogue of recordings, here.

I’M GUESTING WITH THE FLORENCE SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA FOR FSO ROCKS 2024

I’m honored to be guesting as guitar soloist (along with a little bit of piano and vocal) with the Florence Symphony Orchestra for FSO Rocks 2024 at the FMU Performing Arts Center in Florence, SC, a beautiful venue.

Last year’s special guest at this event was the transcendent Andy Timmons, so I’m pretty floored to be the guest this time around, unleashing fusillades on classic rock tunes we all know and love. You can see some of the artists whose music will be played if you visit this ticket link. It’s a long time since I’ve played with an orchestra, and I’m eager to get onstage with this wonderful ensemble.

PROGJECT ARE GOING BACK ON THE ROAD

We are excited to welcome Alessandro Del Vecchio, a brilliant and powerful lead vocalist, into the ProgJect lineup for our 2024 gigs (Jonathan Mover, Ryo Okomuto, Pete Griffin and I will also be there). The first batch of shows have been announced – we’ll be in Chicago, Hamilton/Toronto, Quebec, New York City and Glenside, PA. Many more shows will be coming in 2024.

I’m especially jazzed for this first bunch of shows for two reasons: these will be our first gigs in Canada, and the NYC and Glenside show will have a very special opening act: Bill Bruford will be interviewed live onstage by Innerviews’ Anil Prasad. Bill doesn’t set foot on very many stages nowadays, and although he won’t be playing, he will still be hugely entertaining, and any opportunity to see him in person is one to be treasured.

Find ticket links here.

MK/BFD WILL BE AT THE BAKED POTATO JULY 19/20

Ticket links are not yet live for these shows, but I wanted to give you a heads-up in case you need to make travel plans. This will be me, Joe Travers, Rick Musallam and Pete Griffin.

We obviously love to play this room, it’s so intimate and completely focused on the music, and I consider myself really fortunate that this venerable institution has been so welcoming to me over the years. It’s always over the top and intense and hilariously fun and fiercely musical in there, so I hope you can join us.

Thank you so much for reading this! You’re great! Bye bye!

Links to Nonkertompf Live go live at 11:59 p.m. PDT Thursday night, May 2!

THE KENEALLIST: Out-Of-Print You Must Be This Tall Returns This Bandcamp Friday!

February 28, 2024 Mike Keneally Album, Exowax, Live, News, The Keneallist

Heya, fellow humans! How’s it going? I aim love at you!

THE KENEALLIST: Out-Of-Print You Must Be This Tall Returns This Bandcamp Friday!

Links to You Must Be This Tall go live at 11:59 p.m. PST Thursday night, February 29!

You Must Be This Tall from 2013 is probably one of the less-discussed titles in my album catalogue, but I think it’s really nifty.

I’ve been thinking more about this album since the BFD gigs at the Baked Potato a few weeks ago, during which the song “Cornbread Crumb” was featured pretty heavily (as it will be again at our upcoming gigs at Alvas). The album is an eclectic collection of mostly instrumental material (although there are four vocal tracks, including “The Rider” which is one of my most classic-rock-type tunes), largely played by me, and I think it makes for a very involving listen.

The CD has been out of print for a while, so when Scott Chatfield proposed it as the newest addition to our Bandcamp roster for this week’s Bandcamp Friday, I metaphorically leapt to my feet, and literally said “yes!” with great enthusiasm.

Fortifying this Bandcamp release is the addition of three bonus tracks: “Pitch Pipe (Vocal Version)” (which is completely bonkers), “The Upkeep of My Volcano” (a radical reinvention of the song “Kidzapunk”), and “Popes Instrumental Mix” (which is just groovy as heck). Plus some additional artwork and promo ephemera which come to you alongside the complete original artwork in digital format. It’s a neat package of neat stuff.

Just in case you never got this album when it first came out, this might be a nice opportunity for you to invite it into your life. And even if you do have it already, perhaps the bonus enticements will, er, entice you.

It premieres on our Bandcamp page THIS FRIDAY, March 1, aka Bandcamp Friday. Yes! (And as yet another enticement, the artists get every cent o’ the dough you spend on Bandcamp Friday!)

NEW KENEALLY/RADULOVICH COLLABORATION: it’s called TUESDAY

Marcelo Radulovich and I released two albums last year, called Monday and Bask – now comes the sequel to the first one, the all-instrumental Tuesday (do you sense the beginning of a trend?).

This ongoing series of albums can be viewed as an episodic examination of Marcelo’s and my friendship and musical collaboration, which has gone on for decades now. Or can just be viewed as a bunch of really unusual and hopefully interesting music.

Tuesday has got a lot more of me on guitar than Monday did, but it’s a minimalistic approach compared to my usual playing, and almost cinematic at times in its vibe. Marcelo’s arrangements, production choices and multi-instrumental contributions remain as vibrant and unique as ever.

Please investigate Tuesday, which premieres on Bandcamp Friday, along with our other two collaborations and Marcelo’s many other stellar projects here.

GIGS A-COMIN’:
BFD at ALVAS, and ONE SHOT DEAL at THE GRAPE and CAMPUS JAX

Gonna sneak in a few gigs in March –

Mike Keneally & Beer For Dolphins (me, Rick Musallam, Pete Griffin and Joe Travers) will be appearing at Alvas in San Pedro on March 29 and 30, 8pm each night. These gigs are going to be absurd, I can tell already. You should be there.

Alvas is at 1417 W. 8th Street, San Pedro, California 90732. I love it there and I love this band.

If you go to this page and scroll downward, ticket links to both Alvas gigs await you.

And I will twice again be guesting with Joe Travers’ scintillating Zappa band, One Shot Deal…
first at The Grape in Ventura on March 9 (link here, click the purple button that says “8:00 PM show”)…

…and second at Campus Jax in Newport Beach on March 15. New room for me, I’m very into it. Tickets very, very easily located here.

DEVIN TOWNSEND PODCAST EPISODE #5: MIKE KENEALLY

‘twas nothing but a delight to appear recently on Devin’s podcast – if it pleases you, you can watch it on YouTube right here.

Now I’m gonna leave you to it! More later! ‘Bye!

Love,

MK & BFD - LIVE AT LYNAGH’S - LEXINGTON, KY MAY 18, 2001

Links to You Must Be This Tall go live at 11:59 p.m. PST Thursday night, February 29!

THE KENEALLIST: Brand new live MK/BFD release this Bandcamp Friday!

February 2, 2024 Mike Keneally Album, Exowax, Live, News, The Keneallist

Hello, greetings, welcome and hi!

Brand new live MK/BFD release this Bandcamp Friday!

Hi!

I want to wish you the best of everything this year, so I just did. I just wished you that, sitting here, and I hope it works.

And now on with the show!

MK & BFD – LIVE AT LYNAGH’S – LEXINGTON, KY MAY 18, 2001 – OUR NEW BANDCAMP RELEASE

We’re excited about this. This new release, Live at Lynagh’s – Lexington, KY May 18. 2001, is a live recording of the seven-piece BFD that toured in support of the Dancing album:

Me: voice, guitar, limited keys
Bryan Beller: maximum bass
Nick D’Virgilio: drums and life-saving vocal abilities
Rick Musallam: guitar and utterly sweet vocals as well
Tricia Williams: magical vibes and percussion
Marc Ziegenhagen: wizardly keyboards of varying sorts
Evan Francis: direct line back to Trane and Dolphy via sax and flute

This is an audience recording, one of unusual fidelity and vibrancy. I subjected it to some light remastering this week and I think it delivers a hugely effective jolt of early-oughts BFD excitement.

Everyone plays their heads off. And I find it very interesting to hear non-Dancing songs interpreted in Dancing-style big band arrangements – there were a lot of arrangement details on this short tour that were unique to this band, and which I’d forgotten about. For me it’s very great to hear these arrangements again, and I hope you get a kick out of it also.

Here are the songs on Live at Lynagh’s:

Intro/Snowcow (7:17)
Click (5:55)
Aye-Aye Monster (8:10)
Hello (3:03)
Live in Japan (5:24)
Pretty Enough for Girls (6:13)
Taster (5:09)
Lhai Sal (7:27)
The Mystery Music (10:38)
Mexican Radio (7:42)
Free at Last (aka the coda to Selfish Otter) (3:35)
Joe (6:13)
Why Am I Your Guy? (5:11)
We’ll Be Right Back (8:45)
Kedgeree (14:02)

This show of ours, opening for Project/Object, was lovingly recorded by a faithful audience member – really nice frequency range, and you can totally feel the room – but we don’t know the identity of the audient who did the taping. We will happily credit the unknown recordist once/if their identity is made known to us. Is it YOU?

We are very pleased to premiere Live at Lynagh’s as our first Bandcamp-exclusive album (meaning, this is the first Bandcamp release we’ve put out which has never before been released in any format), in recognition of the first Bandcamp Friday of 2024.

(As a reminder: Bandcamp Friday is the day – always the first Friday of a specific month, and usually several times a year – that Bandcamp takes no percentage of income from purchases. On Bandcamp Friday, all money goes to the artist/label. In a cultural environment where musicians really have to struggle to find income streams that make any kind of sense, this is no small potatoes.)

We think this is a special concert recording and we’re very happy to make it available to you. Please! Please, enjoy!

MK/BFD will be at ALVAS on MARCH 29/30

Speaking of potatoes, small and otherwise, the two nights of Beer For Dolphins at the Baked Potato that just happened on January 18/19 were absolute balm for my soul. It had been about a year since I’d played any of my own songs live and it was a true pleasure – such a fantastic response from the crowds and the staff, and the guys in my band (Joe Travers, Pete Griffin and Rick Musallam) were in magnificent form. (Even Bryan Beller unexpectedly popped up, in a very narrow window of his busy touring schedule, and played “Performing Miracles” with us on the second night.) Both nights, all four sets, were filmed by our long-time pal Steve Laub, and maybe there will be something on those tapes that we’ll be sharing at some point.

I am still buzzing from those Potato gigs, so it delights me to report that MK/BFD shall be returning soon to the Southland, on March 29 and 30 at Alvas Showroom in San Pedro. (Is San Pedro part of “The Southland”? I say yes.) Travis Larson will be opening for us solo, and the magnificent Jen Majura will be manning the merch table. Come say hi!

Here are ticket links – March 29, March 30.

Working on booking more shows! If you own a venue and want MK/BFD to play in it, get in touch!

MK guesting with ONE SHOT DEAL on MARCH 9 and 15

I will once again (or should I say twice again) be sitting in with Joe Travers’ remarkable Zappa band One Shot Deal, during March. On the 9th we’ll be at the Grape in Ventura, and on the 15th at Campus Jax in Newport Beach.

Tickets to the show at The Grape are not yet available online, but you can call and bug them about that at (805) 212 6130.

Tickets to the Campus Jax gig are entirely available here.

PROGJECT REPORT – JUNE 29 and 30 with BILL BRUFORD in NY and PA

There will be lots more ProgJect action this year; shows are in the works for a number of venues around the world. It’ll be great to get this band to a bunch of new places and countries. Details will be shared when they become available – but for now, the first two shows to be announced are at Sony Hall in NYC on June 29, and the Keswick Theatre in Glenside, PA on June 30.

We will be double-billed with a very special guest at both of these shows: Bill Bruford, being interviewed by Innerviews’ Anil Prasad. (Bill will not be playing – as you probably know, he doesn’t play publicly anymore – but Bill simply speaking is hugely entertaining in and of itself.) These will be very special evenings indeed.

IT’S THE HAPPY HAPPY DAY MIKE KENEALLY VIDEO PARTY FEATURING DIRECTOR/SCREENWRITER ETHAN COEN!!

Hi! I’m famed director/screenwriter Ethan Coen!

No I’m not, I’m still just Mike, but I wanted to point you towards a bunch of videos that have premiered online since the last time I spoke to you here.

IT’S THE HAPPY HAPPY DAY MIKE KENEALLY VIDEO PARTY FEATURING DIRECTOR/SCREENWRITER ETHAN COEN!!

• Let’s start The Happy Happy Day Mike Keneally Video Party with a video of Steve Vai’s real-time responses to Mikko Keinonen’s videos for my songs “Big Hit Song” and “Celery” from The Thing That Knowledge Can’t Eat. Steve’s responses are fascinating, generous and wise.

The video of Steve watching my videos is here. The original “Big Hit Song” video is here. And the original “Celery” video is here.

• Continuing the video party, we find the delightful Chanan Hanspal interviewing me – he’s done a number of excellent Zappa and XTC-themed vids pretty recently – check out his YouTube channel – so it’s not too shocking that he eventually found his way to me. He’s a superb cat (brilliant guitarist as well) and I sure enjoyed speaking to him in this vid.

• I recently guested on a track by The Powhida/Perdomo Hotline, a cover of a deep Hall and Oates cut I’ve always loved, “Don’t Blame it on Love.” I was real happy to be asked to take part in this cover, especially when I found out the bassist would be John Siegler, the amazing bassist on the first two Todd Rundgren’s Utopia albums (if you tell me to think of a classic solo bass moment on a prog record, I will involuntarily and immediately think of John Siegler’s ultra-cool solo passage in “Freak Parade” from the first Utopia album. It’s one of those musical moments that make life worth living, and I love that I’m on a track with him now).

John Powhida and Fernando Perdomo both bring the rock hugely on this song. Let the Happy Happy Day Video Party rage on with “Don’t Blame it on Love.”

• Let’s invite the avant-garde to the party! One of my favorite albums for decades now has been 1977’s Kew. Rhone. by John Greaves, Peter Blegvad and Lisa Herman, and if you know this album too I think you’ll agree with me that it is undersung, so I was delighted to bring it to the attention of Vaylor Trucks (another brilliant guitarist and great guy), for him to dive into at length on an episode of his YouTube series “The Albums I Have Missed.” His dissertation on the album is inspiring, and he was kind to have me onscreen at various crucial junctures to have my say on the matter as well.

• Where to now St. Peter? Let’s go to the Garden of Earthly Delights for a long dive into my history with XTC, Andy Partridge, Wing Beat Fantastic and Oranges & Lemons. I had a talk with Adam Gimbel regarding all of these things for the We Will Rank You podcast recently – a portion of our conversation was made part of a special Oranges & Lemons themed-episode which is here, but you can also find our unedited, complete hour-long conversation here. XTC geeks rejoice!

• We’ll finish this video party with a beautiful creation from Marcelo Radulovich, that being his new video for the song “Always Make It So” from the album Bask. After I got done with the Baked Potato shows a week and a half ago, I drove to San Diego and stayed at Marcelo’s for a few days and worked on eighteen new pieces of music with him. We definitely have a rapport. And I love that he has the ability to take some improvised guitar parts of mine, work his magic with them, turn them into a heartbreakingly beautiful song and then fashion an utterly haunting video to go with it…he’s a remarkable creator and I get so much joy from working with him.

Here’s the “Always Make It So” video.

And here’s all the info about our two releases so far, Bask and Monday, including where to stream and buy them.

BRAND NEW SONG ON MY PATREON PAGE

At the end of last year I made a new Christmas song called “The Day it Snowed Upside Down.” It’s a very fun tune with a bunch of twists and turns. It’s not exactly the holiday season anymore, but since it’s a brand new song of mine you might be interested to check it out, as well as the other vast amounts of stuff I’ve uploaded to my Patreon page over the last 3 ½ years.

As always, all patrons have access to all of my posts – whichever tier you choose to join at is entirely up to you and how much you’re able to support, and for the lowest tier, a mere $5/month gains you access to everything. Check it out if you dare here.

THAT’S ENOUGH!

Thank you! We love you! See you soon!

Yours,

Ethan Coen

I mean,

Category: The Keneallist