The Official Mike Keneally Website

THE KENEALLIST: A whole lotta Dog for Bandcamp Friday!

Good day to you!

This Friday is Bandcamp Friday (the one day per month when Bandcamp doesn’t take a cut of any income, it all goes to artists/labels), and the title we are adding to our Bandcamp library this month is 2004’s Dog.

This particular title has never been available for streaming on that demon streaming platform we all know so well – despite our repeated attempts to get it on there, along with a few other missing titles – so for those of you who’ve been desperate to stream Dog, it shall be now streamable for you on Bandcamp.

But there’s more!

Caution! The links to the  Dog (Deluxe Bandcamp Edition) won’t work until the clock strikes midnight (PDT) tonight, ushering in Bandcamp Friday (and Cinco de Mayo!).

Goodness gracious, there’s more! This is not your standard Dog! This is Dog (Deluxe Bandcamp Edition), which has been fortified with 34 additional tracks. THIRTY-FOUR. A bunch of these tracks are audio from the DVD that came with the Dog Special Edition CD/DVD set (a limited edition which is now out of print). Six of the tracks are from a live show at Victor’s in San Diego, and six were played live in the living room of Chatfield Manor.

There is also documentary audio, from the Dog studio sessions, of me doing a vocal on the blistering, unreleased 18-second-long punk-metal workout “Lizard Tongue” (while the rest of the band cracks up in the control room). There are demos of Dog material, including full-band early versions recorded at a studio in Santa Monica, and a recording of “Splane” made in a hotel room during a Taylor Guitars clinic tour. There’s DVD menu music, and a 2 and ½ minute edit-collage of Dog songs that featured on keneally.com at the time of the album’s release.

Finally there’s a lengthy interview, featuring Claudia Russell of San Diego’s Jazz 88.3 FM asking me a bunch of excellent and very specific questions about the songs on the album. Re-listening to that interview today gave me a very enlightening perspective on my mindset at the time – in retrospect I’ve come to think of Dog as a dark album, thickly colored by my feelings in the aftermath of the 2003 Baghdad invasion, but in listening to myself talking about it all at the time, I realize there was a lot more lightness in my intentions.

Enough of this dimestore psychology! My point here is, there is much exciting bonus listening for you in this Dog (Deluxe Bandcamp Edition).

Taking a break from the Dog sessions outside Jeff Forrest’s Doubletime Recording Studio on December 7, 2003 are (l. to r) Nick D’Virgilio, me, Bryan Beller and Rick Musallam.
Taking a break from the Dog sessions outside Jeff Forrest’s Doubletime Recording Studio on December 7, 2003 are (l. to r) Nick D’Virgilio, me, Bryan Beller and Rick Musallam.

For those who download the album, you’ll also receive two separate additional downloads containing all the original album artwork, plus a plethora of era-specific promo graphics to enhance your enjoyment. And all the lyrics will be on the Bandcamp page (even the original album didn’t have those!), so this will be a truly deluxe event for Dog lovers. We hope you enjoy the living heck out of it! Woof!

SAN DIEGO MUSIC AWARDS – LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT AWARD!

On April 25 I was privileged to receive the Country Dick Montana Lifetime Achievement Award at the San Diego Music Awards. It was an extremely humbling experience. You can see it for yourself right here if you’re inclined. That’s the livestream of the entire awards ceremony, nearly three and a half hours worth, which was held at the very lovely Humphrey’s by the Bay in San Diego. At around the 1:53 mark you’ll see Brendon Small’s speech inducting me, then a short film about me and then my acceptance speech.

I was legit overwhelmed but I managed to find things to say. Around the 2:33 mark you’ll find the two songs I played with Larry Grano and Rick Nash, “Hallmark” and “Rosemary Girl.” Many friends and loved ones were at the event and it was a very special freakin’ night for me. My genuine thanks to Kevin Hellman and the San Diego Music Awards for this extremely significant honor, and thanks to Scott Chatfield for taking the photos which decorate this section of the Keneallist (I thank him for much else besides that in my acceptance speech!).

ME GUESTING WITH ONE SHOT DEAL AT ALVAS SHOWROOM ON MAY 12

A little while back, Joe Travers started a Zappa cover unit called One Shot Deal, populated with amazing musicians that he used to play with in ZPZ – Ben Thomas, Scheila Gonzales, Jamie Kime, Pete Griffin and Billy Hulting.

I think Joe might have named it One Shot Deal because he wasn’t sure if they were going to play more than once, but they’ve continued gigging and audiences have been ecstatic. I’ve been excited to finally see them, but instead of sitting in the audience for this gig on May 12 I’m going to have to watch them from my place onstage, because I’m going to play the entire show with them as their special guest.

This is happening at Alvas Showroom in San Pedro, and I just went to their website to share the ticket link with you here, but now I see on the website that the show is sold out. Well then! If you’ve already got a ticket, see you there!

DREAMSONIC 2023 – NORTH AMERICA TOUR WITH DEVIN TOWNSEND, DREAM THEATER AND ANIMALS AS LEADERS

I still feel like I’m recovering from the European Devin Townsend tour, which was really just amazing, and soon enough I’ll be getting back on the bus for the next round of shows, as the middle band of three bands on the DREAMSONIC 2023 tour. Animals As Leaders start off the evening, then us, and finally Dream Theater. Epic nights of music will be ensuing. I’m immensely happy to be a part of it.

This is the inaugural run for this annual Dreamsonic event which Dream Theater has dreamed up and it’s just a dream for me to be a part of it. I promise to never write anything like that last sentence again! Anyway if you’re a North American I hope you can make it to one of these shows. Here’s ticket links to every dang show on the tour. It’s going to be bigger than really huge.

SOME MORE PRESS FOR THE THING THAT KNOWLEDGE CAN’T EAT

I remain very grateful for the amount of coverage the new album continues to receive!

The Thing That Knowledge Can’t Eat - Mike Keneally

SIGNING OFF

See you all soon and thank you again and always! Oh and I’ve also been working on a whole big bunch of new music lately (by myself and with others). So there’s that! More of which later!

All right, now have yourself a fine meal and pat yourself on the back, you did great today.

Love,

Mike!
Exowax Recordings
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THE KENEALLIST: Bandcamp Friday For April – Live At Mama Kin

The Keneallist

Hey, thou —

This is just a quick message to let you know that our Bandcamp Friday release for tomorrow, April 7 is Live at Mama Kin – Boston, MA – August 15, 1998.

Never previously available for download or streaming, this title has only been purchasable, until now, as part of the Sluggo! SuperDeluxe package. For those of you who remain adorers of physical, tangible music delivery objects, and who haven’t yet experienced the joys of Live at Mama Kin, this option still exists here.

(Bandcamp Friday, I hasten to tell you even though I’m certain you know this already, is that special first Friday of the month when the Bandcamp service waives all of its own fees and every bit of income generated goes to the artist/independent label. A very good day to browse the work of the many multitudes of artists who make their work available via Bandcamp.)

'Live at Mama Kin' on Bandcamp Friday!

Live at Mama Kin finds the quartet BFD of the era (me, Bryan Beller, Marc Ziegenhagen and Jason Harrison Smith) in serious fighting trim – almost literally fighting as we found ourselves in near-fisticuffs with unhappy locals when we parked our truck to unload our gear that afternoon – ah, Boston!

It features our covers of “Immigrant Song” and “Inca Roads,” as well as the rarely played originals “Tug,” “Vent” and “Pencil Music,” an opening improv here entitled “BSSOC,” and a heaping helping of additional live faves. The vintage 1998 recordings were given a shiny new mix in 2013 by Mike Harris and myself. It is a wonderful-sounding document of a ferocious show.

'Live at Mama Kin' on Bandcamp Friday!

One hopes you’ll choose to give it a listen, and by “one” I mean me! Revel in the now quarter-century old (good lord) sounds of MK/BFD!

Good luck!

Mike!

P.S. We’d still love to know what MK vinyl you’d like to own!

Well-worn vinyl LPs from your imaginary collection.
Above is currently non-existent Keneally vinyl that may turn actual, with your input!

So we’re toying with the idea of issuing an “it’s about time!” LP version of an MK album or two. And we’re asking you what Top 3 albums you’d most like to hear on vinyl. If you’re so inclined, please respond by replying to this email or emailing us at hello@keneally.com.

If you’ve already shared your wishes, thank you! Many of you are very passionate about your choices, and we find your responses super encouraging. By the way, the most requested title so far is… oops, sorry, out of space!

Exowax Recordings
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THE KENEALLIST: TTTKCE downloads out now! The Mistakes are on Bandcamp today!

The Keneallist

Hi!

It’s me, Mike again, with a few things to discuss with you. Well I guess it’s a little bit one-way on my end, so not exactly a discussion, but I absolutely welcome you to respond verbally, even if I can’t hear you.

Today’s items of interest:

1. THE THING THAT KNOWLEDGE CAN’T EAT now available for download-only purchase!

The Thing That Knowledge Can’t Eat - Mike Keneally

We are pleased to announce, for those of you who prefer to sidestep (for personal and/or environmental reasons) the physical Compact Disc issue of my new album The Thing That Knowledge Can’t Eat, that you can now purchase it as a high-quality 320kpbs mp3 album, or an absurdly high-quality FLAC album. Both come with a high-res digital replica of ALL of the album art (right down to the CD label) with all the lyrics, liner notes, a photo of a windmill I saw out of a van window in Germany last year, another photo of the rabbit-shaped finial that lives on top of my bedroom lamp etc. etc.

Those of you who’ve requested this download-only option, we have heard you and we aim to please you! All you need do is visit the download page at the Keneally Store and there it awaits, along with another three pages worth of album, EP and single downloads you might really enjoy filling up your hard drive with (including a passel of free downloads you should know about).

2. THE MISTAKES are now on Bandcamp!

Released in 1995, only 1000 copies ever printed, this collaboration between me, Henry Kaiser, Andy West and Prairie Prince once prompted Matt Resnicoff to suggest in the pages of Guitar Player magazine that we should “consider this all-star aggregate the new Traveling Wilburys – roaming the underground and armed with automatic weapons.”

It is undoubtedly a unique release, and one of the more notable one-shot deals in the history of avant-rock.

Several tracks from The Mistakes – most notably “Aye-Aye Monster” and “Career Politicians” – became staples in the live Beer For Dolphins repertoire, so if you know those songs but haven’t heard the original versions, now’s a good time to get acquainted…especially since today is Bandcamp Friday, the magical day when all proceeds go to the artist without Bandcamp taking their customary cut – a selfless act, thank you Bandcamp!

Your Bandcamp download includes all original artwork, plus newer liner notes I wrote in 2009.

The Mistakes are on Bandcamp today!

3. European TTTKCE distribution in the works!

To our friends in Europe who would like to order the new The Thing That Knowledge Can’t Eat CD, but have been understandably put off by excessive postage costs, talks are in the works to defray some of those costs for you by obtaining new distribution on the European continent. Please remain patient a while longer while the details are worked out – we really do want to make this easier for you, and we’re sorry that the postage situation is so ridiculous. Hang tight, please, and thank you.

4. Two new YouTube vids of note!

Here’s a two-and-a-half hour conversation I did with Chris Siebold this week, discussing pretty much my entire solo album catalogue:

This was an epic talk, and I’m tremendously grateful to Chris (who is a really amazing guitarist) for his passion on the subject, for instigating this conversation and for pulling so much information out of me. Even if you’re super familiar with my work and past discussions about it, I’m hopeful that there’s something in this talk that will be new and interesting to you.

Another YouTube interview hit the airwaves this week, this one with Kyle Yates at The Vibes Broadcast – Kyle is a very attentive, patient interviewer and I enjoyed this talk a great deal.

5. Anything else?

TTTKCE review by Kevan Furbank at The Progressive Aspect

For now I’ll just leave you with this review by Kevan Furbank at The Progressive Aspect of the new album. I was really moved by this review – many thanks to Kevan for this.

That’ll do! Thanks everyone, have a marvelous weekend! If pizza is involved, just you enjoy the heck out of that pizza!

Love,

Mike!
Exowax Recordings
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