Hope you’re well! Happy Bandcamp Friday again!

Mike Keneally’s Boil That Dust Speck (Deluxe Bandcamp Edition) COMING TO BANDCAMP FRIDAY TOMORROW, May 2!

This time ‘round we’re as pleased as rum punch to offer Boil That Dust Speck (Deluxe Bandcamp Edition), an expanded version of my second album from 1994, featuring 20 bonus tracks totaling approx. 65 minutes of extra music – well over two hours of music in total!

This link to Boil That Dust Speck (Deluxe Bandcamp Edition) goes live at 11:59 p.m. PDT this tonight, May 1!

You can also go here now bunches more Mike Keneally musics…

These bonus tracks were originally released as part of the DVD that accompanied the special edition of Dust Speck in 2007, but this is their first-ever exclusively-audio release – we here at Exowax understand that a DVD is not always the most convenient way to enjoy audio, especially while you’re busy dusting the veranda, shredding old receipts etc. We hope that you enjoy the convenience of this format.

These bonus tracks comprise unreleased material (including a 25-minute session reuniting my 1980s-era band Drop Control), alternate mixes, extended mixes, alternate vocal performances, and a radically different mix of the song “Vent.” It’s a bumper crop of unique stuff which provides a unique peek (that’s fun to say!) at the making of this complex album – I find it to be highly illuminating and I hope you do as well. Please enjoy!

(If a reminder be required, Bandcamp Friday is a special day on which the Bandcamp platform foregoes their cut of proceeds, all of which goes to artists/labels – an important day on the calendar for independent artists, who make increasingly less from the sale of their music as time marches boldly forward. We’re happy to encourage you to explore Bandcamp thoroughly on this day and check out the catalogs of multiple artists – see what’s going on out there.)

LOADS O’ GIGS, GIGS A-PLENTY:

DEVIN TOWNSEND NORTH AMERICAN TOUR STARTING IMMEDIATELY

May 2 kicks off a Devin Townsend North American tour featuring his live quartet, a band which I’m very grateful to be a member of. Devin just this week announced that this will be his last tour for the foreseeable future, as he prepares to take a long and well-deserved sabbatical from the road.

Please come out and join us, if you can, for this very special tour – we are busting out some rarely-played tunes and rehearsals this week have been tremendous. Ticket links are at Devin’s website here.

Also, there’s one month remaining for you to access the archived live-stream of the performance of Devin’s The Moththat happened in late March, featuring us in the band, plus orchestra and choir – about 135 musicians onstage. It was phenomenally powerful to be a part of this show, and IMHO a rousing artistic success. The quality of the stream is shockingly good too – please check it out here.

JUNE 22 KENEALLY GIG IN SAN DIEGO at THE HOLDING COMPANY

I’m doing a show at The Holding Company in San Diego on Sunday, June 22, playing a bunch of my stuff with Bryan Beller, Rick Musallam and drummer Nathan Raney. This will be my first time playing with Nathan (Joe Travers was unavailable for this gig but don’t worry, he’s still my dude). Nathan is playing with his own band as one of the openers for this gig (he put the show together and asked me to do it) and when it turned out Joe wasn’t available, Nathan said he’d play on my set too. He’s a damn fine drummer and I said sure, let’s go for it.

It’s a Sunday and things kick off early (the first opener, Maedhira, will hit the stage around 1:30 or 2 in the afternoon). It’s gonna be a fun, blasting gig – come see it if you’re around! Tickets be here.

PROGJECT WEST COAST RUN IN JULY

ProgJect haven’t gigged in a while and it’s time! Come join us for this run of gigs encompassing the geographic region between Escondido and Vancouver. I’m eager to dig into these classic tunes again. Tickets can be boughten here. (We’re planning more shows for later this year, as well as our long-delayed European debut for 2026.)

MIKE KENEALLY AND BEER FOR DOLPHINS HEADLINING PROGSTOCK IN OCTOBER

An expanded version of MK/BFD will headline one of the evenings at ProgStock in Rutherford, NJ in October. In addition to me, Beller, Musallam and Travers, our lineup will be supplemented by the wonderfully talented Dave Bainbridge and Sally Minnear, allowing for the performance of certain tunes that either haven’t been played in ages, or never been played at all. I’m terribly excited about this and will have more to say about it later, but for now please visit progstock.com/2025 for tickets and more info about the festival.

Work is underway to secure further gigs on the east coast around this festival appearance – more on that later, as more becomes real.

I’M PLAYING WITH EDDIE JOBSON/UK REVISITED ON CRUISE TO THE EDGE IN 2026

Yeah! This is pretty huge for me – I’ve never played with Eddie before, and the first UK album in particular was immensely important for me in the ‘70s – I freaking love that album and it means a lot for me to play this music with the man who was so pivotal in its creation.

I think that Eddie was a keyboard trailblazer in a lot of ways – beyond just his technical virtuosity, which was and is gob-smacking, I think the atmospheres he creates sonically are so evocative and influential, and I’m humbled to have been tapped to cover the guitar parts for this Cruise to the Edge appearance. (I haven’t appeared on the cruise since playing there in 2022 with The Zappa Band and Jakko Jakszyk, and I really loved it, so I’m very happy to be returning.) Tickets and info here. 

LOVE!

Hope you’re good! My mental state/sanity level fluctuates from day to day – today it’s really good and I hope yours is too. Love to you!!

This link to Boil That Dust Speck (Deluxe Bandcamp Edition) goes live at 11:59 p.m. PDT tonight, May 1!

But wait, there’s more! Check out the rest of Mike Keneally’s mind-blowing creations at Bandcamp right now!

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Hi dear people. We hope you’re okay and we are sending you all a bunch of love.

Mike Keneally’s Wooden Smoke Asleep –

A dream you might dream
after listening to Mike’s 2001 masterpiece, Wooden Smoke.

COMING TO BANDCAMP
THIS FRIDAY, March 7!

Look at that! It’s Bandcamp Friday time again and we are introducing to our Bandcamp catalogue a magical little item from the year 2001, Wooden Smoke Asleep.

This link to Wooden Smoke Asleep goes live at 11:59 p.m. PDT this Thursday night, March 6!

You can also go here now for all the other available Mike Keneally titles…

After we had completed the recording sessions for Wooden Smoke, Scott Chatfield and I batted around ideas for what a companion disc for the album might be like. Our first two special editions had featured an interview disc (Nonkertalk) and a live show (Dancing with Myself); for this album we decided to create something that would really extend and deepen the concept of the main album. Scott came up with the title Wooden Smoke Asleep during a walk on the beach, along with the overriding concept behind it: you, the listener, have just listened to Wooden Smoke, after which you fall asleep…and Wooden Smoke Asleep is the dream that you have about what you just listened to.

As such, the album combines some stripped-down remixes of songs from the main album, twisting around a bunch of additional material from the sessions such as “Me, Innate,” “Kane St.” and two “episodes” of “David Lynch’s Curtains” (and we humbly offer the timing of this Bandcamp release to the memory of Mr. Lynch). These pieces were then combined into two long suites, Side One and Side Two-style (“The Canyon” and “Bob Sleep”).

Scott and I had tremendous fun weaving these two long suites together, and as the studio was in Scott’s house, he would sometimes get up to some audio mischief without my knowledge – including what turned out to be my favorite piece on this album, “Boom 2001,” wherein he layered the voices from “Boom” atop the rhythm track from “2001.” It works perfectly and I would have never thought to try it.

There are some nice musical conversations on this album – “Kane St.” (named after a street my family lived on in 1973) is a peaceful two-guitar improv by Rick Musallam and myself, and “Me, Innate” (a play on “me and Nate”) is a construction featuring Nathan Hubbard’s atmospheric percussion and two grand piano tracks. Lee Elderton’s sax soloing on “Curtains” and “Manhattan” takes things in a more urbane direction – his playing on the closing song “Manhattan” (played over the guitars from the song “New England” – a New England/Manhattan chowder reference) is meant to be the sound of reality awakening you from the dream this album represents.

Associate producer Matt Resnicoff gave me the “Indian banjo” you hear on the song “Paloma,” the first piece of music I wrote on this unusual instrument (Paloma is the brand name).

The making of Wooden Smoke was a very special time and this album is a treasured part of it for me. Ch-ch-ch-check it out!

As a reminder, Bandcamp Friday is the occasional Friday when the Bandcamp platform takes no percentage of income – all proceeds go directly to artists and labels. We’ve got at least two other Bandcamp projects well underway for later this year, including Volume 3 of Freaks in a Mellow Mood by me and Bryan Beller – watch! this space.

 A NEW MARCELO RADULOVICH/MIKE KENEALLY ALBUM on BANDCAMP: THURSDAY

The collaboration between me and Marcelo continues on its hectic pace of productivity – this is our sixth album in a year-and-a-half! Thursday is the fourth installment of our days-of-the-week instrumental album series. The kick-off point for this album was Marcelo’s request to me to find some old cassettes in my garage archive and bring them around to his place to transfer them to digital and see what we could do with them.

The first song on the album, “Seul sur son étoile,” is built around a recording of my 11-year-old playing the pop standard “It Must Be Him” on the Hammond organ (“Seul sur son étoile” is that classic melody’s original title), and “On a Green Shell” is based on an acoustic guitar improv I recorded when I was 16. A good amount of the otherworldly sounding stuff on this album was played on my Lava Drops fretless guitar, an instrument I love and which gives me access to new ways of approaching melody. And Marcelo’s amazing chops as a rhythm-maker and sonic architect continue to take my breath away.

Each of our albums has a unique character all its own; I love them all and Thursday is yet another very special addition to our ongoing collaboration.

DEVIN TOWNSEND – THE MOTH and NORTH AMERICAN TOUR

Devin’s ambitious orchestral/choir/rock band suite The Moth has been occupying my mind a lot lately – as I type I’m sitting on a plane to Canada preparing to work with him on it some more – and it will finally receive its world premiere later this month in Groningen, Netherlands (at the Oosterport, the same building where we did Nonkertompf Live all those years ago, but in the big room this time!). The shows sold out quickly I’m afraid, but aha!! The second show on March 28 is streaming live! The link to get your shockingly non-expensive live ticket to the stream is here!

Tickets can now be purchased for the Devin Townsend North American tour in May – this won’t be The Moth, this will just be the Devin rock band quartet slamming through a bunch of tunes for you, but it’ll still be plenty epic and I’m really looking forward to it. This tour will be promoting Dev’s PowerNerd album which came out at the end of last year, but we had to get through The Moth before we could tour PowerNerd – all things in due time!

There’s lots more live stuff coming later in the year and you will hear about it all here, proud traveller. Please stay well, I’ll do the same. Here’s hoping for the best for everyone.

<3
xomk

This link to Wooden Smoke Asleep goes live at 11:59 p.m. PDT this Thursday night, March 6!

Why not purchase ALL THE OTHER delightfully diverse Mike Keneally releases at Bandcamp right now?

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