The Official Mike Keneally Website

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THE KENEALLIST: The final episode! Freaks in a Mellow Mood 3 on Bandcamp Friday!

Album, Exowax, Live, News, The Keneallist
The Keneallist!

People! Toreadors! Weavers! Lend an ear!

I’ll be writing to you again within the week, with news of multiple things live music-wise, but this teeny tiny missive is meant to inform you of one specific thing happening on August 1:


THE FINAL FREAKS ALBUM COMES
TO BANDCAMP FRIDAY
THIS FRIDAY, AUGUST 1!

It’s the release of FREAKS IN A MELLOW MOOD VOL. 3 by MIKE KENEALLY and BRYAN BELLER!!

Coming to Bandcamp, the platform that continues to respect artists and listeners alike.

Additionally, August 1 is BANDCAMP FRIDAY, the occasional blessed day where Bandcamp itself doesn’t take even a miniscule cut of the proceeds – all money earned on Bandcamp Friday goes only to the artist and/or label.

(We still love and appreciate it when you buy something from us at any time on any day, but boy Bandcamp Friday has been a tremendously helpful phenomenon for us and for countless other independent artists and labels. In a world that is running short of such things, it’s been an absolute blessing, and we appreciate your support of it.)

Freaks in a Mellow Mood Vol. 3

This link to Freaks in a Mellow Mood Vol. 3 goes live at 11:59 p.m. PDT Thursday night, July 31!

You can also go here now for Volumes 1 and 2, along with many more Mike Keneally musics…

These are THE SONGS of FREAKS IN A MELLOW MOOD VOL. 3:

1. SELF ‘N’ OTHER  (Williamsport, Nov. 10 ‘03)

2. I’M AFRAID  (Paramus, Nov. 12 ’03)

3. MY DILEMMA  (Rochester, Nov. 8 ‘03)

4. NONKERCHUNK (medley of I Just Got Here/Naked Horse/Blue Jean Baby/The Knife & Drum, edited from the Cambridge and Paramus shows)

5. PARANOID ANDROID (Radiohead cover, Wilmington, Nov. 11 ‘03)

6. LIVE IN JAPAN (Fairview, Nov. 9 ‘03)

7. TUG (Paramus, Nov. 12 ‘03)

8. BEAUTIFUL (Rochester, Nov. 8 ‘03)

9. 2 + 2 = 5 (Radiohead cover, Rochester, Nov. 8 ‘03)

10. SUPERMARKET PEOPLE (Bryan Beller song, Rochester Nov. 8 ‘03)

11. SPEARMINT PUP (Cambridge, Nov. 6 ‘03)

12. INCA ROADS (Zappa cover, edited from the Cambridge, Paramus, Williamsport and Littleton shows)

The download also comes with a snazzy pdf booklet featuring numerous Scott Chatfield photos of me and Bryan at Niagara Falls during the tour, and detailed song-by-song liner notes from me.

As the title would indicate, FREAKS IN A MELLOW MOOD VOL. 3 is the third volume of recordings (also the FINAL volume, as it happens) from November 2003, when Bryan Beller and I were traveling across the land along with Scott Chatfield (in multiple roles as road/tour manager, driver, merch man and digital recordist), flitting from music store to music store, staging acoustic duo performances on behalf of Taylor Guitars. In addition to the standard acoustic guitars they were renowned for, they’d also started to manufacture for a while some very spectacular acoustic bass instruments, so both Bryan and myself were representing their products.

Scott recorded a bunch of the shows, and those recordings lay on a hard drive for a couple of decades. At some point semi-recently, our trusted Exo-associate Chris Opperman got his ears around those dusty old recordings, and produced an invaluable spreadsheet listing each song from each performance, with special attention paid to those songs he felt were worthy of release.

When I took delivery of the recordings last year and began loading them into Pro Tools at home, I gratefully referred to the notes made by Mr. Opperman, and got myself to mixing. And now we’ve reached Volume Three of this groundbreaking venture. (All right, I’ve gone too far now – we’re not necessarily breaking ground, but I do think all three of these acoustic albums are really nifty.)

This album goes live this Friday August 1, Bandcamp Friday. Scott says it’s probably his favorite of the three volumes. We hope you enjoy it at least as much as he does!

I’ll be back soon,

Mike!
Freaks in a Mellow Mood Vol. 3

This link to Freaks in a Mellow Mood Vol. 3 goes live at 11:59 p.m. PDT Thursday night, July 31!

Check out the rest of Mike Keneally’s mind-blowing creations, including Volumes 1 and 2, at Bandcamp right now!

Exowax Recordings
Visit the Mike Keneally Store!

Sign up for The Keneallist

I’m playing in Ocean Beach (San Diego) at THE HOLDING COMPANY this Sunday June 22

Live, News

Hey everyone hey hi!! I’m gonna be posting on keneally.com more frequently. This is my promise to you. If I don’t keep that promise, that is tangible proof of my moral turpitude and I expect you to call me on it. If you DON’T call me on it, my failure to post becomes YOUR fault, which is really what I’m aiming for here. My reason for posting is:

I'm playing in Ocean Beach (San Diego) at THE HOLDING COMPANY this Sunday June 22

I’m gonna be at THE HOLDING COMPANY this SUNDAY JUNE 22 in OCEAN BEACH in SAN DIEGO with a band consisting of BRYAN BELLER, RICK MUSALLAM and NATHAN RANEY.

Did all those capital letters and bold type convince you to attend? NO? I’m gonna keep going then.

Nathan Raney is a highly multitalented individual – he plays guitar and writes great, powerful, intricate songs for his band Nathan Raney Band who are going to be opening for us at this show. He’s been wanting to do a double bill with my band in San Diego for a long time, and we thought this was gonna be that, but my beautiful drummer Joe Travers is unfortunately unavailable this week, and without Joe it just ain’t BFD.

Nathan also plays ridiculously good drums! He offered to drum on my set! And now we get to go to the beach this Sunday and have an insanely fun time playing a bunch of my ’90s tunes, pretty much exclusively songs from hat., Boil That Dust Speck and Sluggo!. Couple things from Nonkertompf and Dancing. Nathan was all “throw your hardest shit at me,” so I did not shy away from that. We’re playing together for the first time the day before the gig and I’m kinda buzzing from the danger of that. I’m super freaking excited about it.

(The great news is that Beer For Dolphins, as God intended, with Joe Travers on drums, will be playing at ProgStock in New Jersey in October, and doing a run of road dates right after that, but I’m gonna cover that in another post very, very soon.)

Thanks to Bar None Productions for promoting this gig at The Holding Company. June 22 is a Sunday and we know that a lot of people can’t all be partying down ’til all hours on a Sunday night, so doors are at 1:30, with the first band Maedhira going on at 2pm, then Nathan’s band, then us.

Here’s a ticket link: https://theholdingcompanyob.com/show/mike-keneally/

It’s only a $15 ticket, 20 at the door! I mean, jeez! See you there!

THE KENEALLIST: Mike’s Boil That Dust Speck Deluxe Edition comes to Bandcamp Friday!

Album, Exowax, Live, News, The Keneallist
The Keneallist!

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!

Boil That Dust Speck

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

DEVIN TOWNSEND NORTH AMERICAN TOUR

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.

The Moth

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

MIKE KENEALLY 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

WEST COAST TOUR WITH PROGJECT JULY 10-19

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!!

Mike!
Boil That Dust Speck

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!

Exowax Recordings
Visit the Mike Keneally Store!

Sign up for The Keneallist