The Official Mike Keneally Website

THE KENEALLIST: Get Wing Beat Elastic on Bandcamp Friday!

The Keneallist!

Jeez it’s almost September!

Hi, to all of you! Hi, additionally, specifically, to those of you who signed up for The Keneallist at the Dreamsonic tour merch table this summer – it’s extremely great of you to join us here.

Hi, also and finally, to everyone who’s been coming out to the ProgJect shows that have been happening in the US over the past few weeks. Man these shows have been fun. As was the ArcTanGent festival with Devin in the UK, which was, like, a week ago or something. I’ve been traveling like crazy and have utterly lost track of time and place.

All the shows have been great though, and as always I’m very grateful to be able to go to a bunch of places and play music for people – it’s a true privilege.

GIT READY FOR WING BEAT ELASTIC ON BANDCAMP THIS FRIDAY

WING BEAT ELASTIC

Listen, this Friday is BANDCAMP FRIDAY again, when the artiste (moi) gets 100% of the income!, and we’re adding a new title to our Bandcamp page. It’s WING BEAT ELASTIC – REMIXES, DEMOS AND UNHEARD MUSIC, an album of music related in various ways to the Wing Beat Fantastic album what I wrote with Andy Partridge.

WING BEAT ELASTIC is concocted from a variety of sources: demos that Andy and I made during the writing process (including a version of “Your House” where Andy and I trade off the lead vocal); additional music recorded during the WBF album sessions (including an eight-minute instrumental suite, heavily acoustic piano-focused, called “Wingbeat Fantasia,” which is really nice); and some special remixes, including a clutch of highly entertaining ones by Scott Chatfield and Mike Harris (aka The Glimmer Twins) which offer a highly creative, trippy and forensic examination of what exists on the multi-tracks of the parent album – I especially love the mash-up they did of “Land” and “That’s Why I Have No Name.”

I also did a pretty psychedelic deconstruction of “Bobeau,” executed in various hotel rooms while I was on the road with Satriani, which highlights the maddeningly fantastic drumming of Marco Minnemann. Rounding out the album is a beautiful remix of the title song from WBF by acclaimed Northampton-based producer Mark Vidler of Go Home Productions.

If you haven’t heard this release yet, please check it out! 

A NEW COLLABORATION WITH MARCELO RADULOVICH, called MONDAY

A NEW COLLABORATION WITH MARCELO RADULOVICH, called MONDAY

Marcelo Radulovich, a San Diego multi-instrumentalist who I’ve known for almost forty years and is one of the most creative and visionary artists I know, was an immensely important part of my Wooden Smoke album, creating many of the background environments that were so crucial to that music. Twenty-two years on, we’ve collaborated again on a new 24-minute instrumental collection called MONDAY. (This is the opening salvo of an ongoing collaboration, as we also have an album of songs with vocals in the works.)

It’s very hard to know how to describe MONDAY. At first we were thinking that it’s our ambient album, but that’s really not an accurate descriptor. We both play multiple instruments on it, and multiple moods are generated. You should really just listen to it. I love it. It also premieres as a new BANDCAMP FRIDAY release this very Friday.

I’M ON A NEW ALBUM BY RAFA BONILLA, CALLED ALMA MATER

NEW ALBUM BY RAFA BONILLA, CALLED ALMA MATER

I’m on a song called “Answer to the Ego” on the new Rafa Bonilla album. Rafa is a phenomenally talented guitarist and this collaboration was born in kind of an unusual way… I’m gonna let Rafa tell the story:

“It was January 8th 2019. I met Mike Keneally in Joe Satriani G4 guitar camp, and as his student, after the class time I requested for him to write a random kinky melody on my guitar, and after that, unusual chords to fit that. And that’s it. From the genius and his generosity he gave me a song on my guitar. After that I started to work on an arrangement for it with my dear friend Ethan Weissman, and after some suggestions from Ethan, the song was born. We submitted the song to Mike later asking for his approval, and why not a solo to finish it?”

“That process took a lot of time, but those pandemic times were strange and beautiful to make weird music, and this song is something I am very honored to help make. For me that moment was just amazing from a creative, human, and musical perspective. A highlight in my journey!”

I too am honored that my random scribble on Rafa’s guitar has been fleshed out by Rafa and Ethan into a substantial composition, with some amazing playing on it. I was humbled to contribute my solo. Please investigate the song, and Rafa’s entire, excellent album

MORE LIVE SHOWS A-COMIN’: PROGJECT in the US, ONE SHOT DEAL at the POTATO, DEVIN TOWNSEND in AUSTRALIA

PROGJECT

The ProgJect US tour picks back up on Sep. 7 at Sweetwater in Ft. Wayne, IN, and continues until early October. There are more new dates being added even at this late date, so please continue to check our tour page for the latest info. Lots more ProgJect to come next year, including plans currently underway for Europe and Japan.

One Shot Deal

I’ll be a special guest with Joe Travers’ FZ unit One Shot Deal for three nights at the Baked Potato in LA, Oct. 25-27. I sat in with these folks at Alvas earlier this year and totally loved it, and this three-night run will be quite the celebration. Links to all the shows are on the Baked Potato calendar page.

And then, for my final live appearances of the year, I’ll be doing four gigs with Devin Townsend in Australia. This will be the end of this year’s Devin touring cycle, which has been such a fulfilling ride. Those of you reading this in Australia, please make it your business to get to one of these shows…this is a really special band and you should see us while you have the chance.

And then I’ll go home for the last six weeks of the year and just sit there and ruminate over the prior six months of incessant traveling and playing and think to myself “wow that just happened.”

THANKS EVERYONE!

Love,

Mike!
Wing Beat Elastic

THE KENEALLIST: No more teasing – TTTKCE is officially out!

The Keneallist

Hallo there!

Hey, this weekend marks the official worldwide release of The Thing That Knowledge Can’t Eat! Happy TTTKCE Weekend!

Obviously a good bunch of you have already ordered it directly from store.keneally.com, which is brilliant and we are immensely grateful.

Now it’s going to be making appearances a bit more out in the wild, for the convenience of online shoppers and listeners who perhaps aren’t on this mailing list and/or are in the habit of visiting The Keneally Store directly. Astonishing to think that such people exist, I know, but modern life is full of surprise. In any case, the little album that could will be more widely available moving forward.

The Thing That Knowledge Can’t Eat - Mike Keneally

Also, know now that TTTKCE has hit those big time streaming platforms like Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube, Amazon Music, and Sneedfisher (okay I made that last one up).

And for everyone in Europe who’s been holding off purchasing the CD ‘cause of those ridiculously high postage costs from the U.S., the album will soon be available at Burning Shed in the U.K., where several of my titles already reside!

Unrelated Sound Guy premieres with TTTKCE music!

In the meantime, the entire short film depicting five of the new songs visually, The Complete Adventures of the Unrelated Sound Guy, has now premiered in full at unrelatedsoundguy.com. If you’ve seen Mikko Keinonen’s separate videos for “Big Hit Song,” “Celery” and “Spigot,” this film pulls them all together along with additional videos for “Lana” and “The Carousel of Progress.” It all makes for fascinating viewing, I think – I sure do like it a lot and am very grateful to Mikko for his wonderful creativity and generosity.

I was just in Tampere, Finland, at the wonderfully-named venue Tampereen Tullikamari, where we played the third show on the current Devin Townsend European Tour. The first two shows, in Oslo and Helsinki, went incredibly well – if things are going this well this early in the tour, it should be getting utterly astonishing as things progress. I love this little band (Devin, Darby Todd, James Leach and myself) and feel very grateful to be out here doing these shows.

Premiere party for the Unrelated Sound Guy film

Between soundcheck and show, I wandered over to a little bar nearby called Telakka, across the street from the venue, where Mikko Keinonen arranged an intimate premiere party for the Unrelated Sound Guy film.

My dear friend Jaan Wessman (bassist in The Mike Keneally Report) was also in attendance at the premiere party, as were James and Darby from Devin’s band, and many of the actors who appear in the film (whom I’d never met before, since my appearances in the film were done remotely at home).

So it’s already happened by the time you read this, but I still wanted to capture for posterity the fact that it happened!

More things to read, watch, and listen to

Here, have a bunch of recent reviews and interviews:

  • Why, there’s one on Page 20 of the North Coast Voice.
  • Here’s another from S.Victor Aaron at Something Else!, a really nice site who’s been there for us multiple times in the past and I’m really grateful for that.
  • And how about this happy exchange with Groovy Moody Music TV, a new YouTube channel created by my dear friends Rick Musallam (of Beer for Dolphins fame) and Stan Ausmus?
  • Not to forget Cedric Hendrix’s CirdecSongs Interview from a couple of months ago – a very engaging session that unfortunately loses my Zoom feed at 57:00. But it was fun while it lasted!
  • Pete Pardo has been a longtime booster of my music on his Sea of Tranquility website, and he shares his thoughts on TTTKCE in this YouTube review. I appreciate your insight, Pete!

I am most thankful for all attention being shown to this album! Damn!

Soundcheck

Yipe, soundcheck is about to begin, I have to transition to band-guy mode. I’ll be back soon enough I’m sure! Thank you, as always, for being attentive and supportive and great.

Oh I want to mention my Patreon page again because at the beginning of this month I posted a bunch of unreleased audio and I’m going to be posting more soon, and you might want to check it out – patreon.com/MikeKeneally.

All right thank you I love you bye!

Mike!
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
Visit the Mike Keneally Store!

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