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THE KENEALLIST: Mike’s dreamy WOODEN SMOKE ASLEEP album comes to Bandcamp Friday!

The Keneallist!

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.

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

A NEW MARCELO RADULOVICH/MIKE KENEALLY ALBUM: 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

The Moth - Devin Townsend
Devin Townsend Powernerd North American Tour 2025

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

Mike!
Wooden Smoke Asleep

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?

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

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

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

BFD at ALVAS

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.

ONE SHOT DEAL at THE GRAPE

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”)…

ONE SHOT DEAL at CAMPUS JAX

…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,

Mike!
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!

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THE KENEALLIST: This Bandcamp Friday, it’s Tar Tapes Vol. 1!

The Keneallist!

Greetings of the incipient holiday season to you and yours! All of us over here wish you all the best.

Now, here’s an MK rarity for Bandcamp Friday…

The Tar Taoes Vol.1

As alluded to in last month’s Keneallist, the recent sale of Bandcamp to Mephistopholean Industries, Inc. (hereinafter referred to as MII) has had some unhoped-for ramifications, but hey it’s 2023 and what are you gonna do?! We’re gonna keep on adding to our roster of recordings there, and MII has (for the time being at least) pledged to keep Bandcamp Friday going.

It would seem that there is now more incentive than ever to take advantage of Bandcamp Friday (the one day a month where 100% of all revenue generated at Bandcamp goes only to the artists and labels, and not to the overlords)!

This month our new Bandcamp entry is THE TAR TAPES VOL. 1. This was originally an extremely limited-edition CD, released in the late ‘90s, compiling some of the best tracks from the Tar Tapes cassette releases I put out with my brother Marty Keneally throughout the 1980s. Mostly home recordings, but also containing live and studio recordings done with our band Drop Control. Definitely young and innocent days.

The songs I selected for VOL.1 (and the later VOL. 2) are the cream of the crop of the original cassette releases. On VOL. 1, you’ll find original versions of some tracks which later became live favorites throughout my whole career (like “Killer Fish,” “Tug” and “Performing Miracles”), but mostly you’ll hear songs which never got re-recorded or introduced into the live repertoire later on.

It all makes for an interesting listen – if you haven’t checked it out before, you might like to now. Thanks!

Over-nite Sensation was released half a century ago!

Last week I was chuffed to join several friends at Hollywood’s Dolby Theatre to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Frank Zappa’s endearingly enduring Over-nite Sensation album. Dolby Atmos engineers Karma Auger and Erich Gobels,along with Vaultmeister Joe Travers, were there to describe how they fashioned another multi-channel masterpiece with their brand-new surround mix of the album, taking their cues from Frank’s own quadraphonic mix.

Snapped hanging in the lobby (above) after this stunning aural presentation were (l. to r.) my essential Exowax partner Scott Chatfield, indispensable engineer Mike Harris, crucial guitarist and longtime cohort Rick Musallam, the vitally important Ahmet Zappa, and the arguably fundamental me.

Chris Opperman’s got a brand new album

Chris Opperman and I have been dear friends and collaborators since way back in the the 20th century – you might remember Chris doing the work of an entire horn section on my Dancing album.  He’s a successful composer of wildly original music, a top orchestrator/arranger, a visionary educator, and a trusted music industry advisor (he’s been a great asset to my career).

This Friday, Chris is releasing Still Waters, a superb collection of solo piano recordings to warm you up as it simultaneously chills you out on a cold winter’s night. Still Waters features music written by Chris and other excellent composers including Pulitzer Prize winner Ellen Taaffe Zwilich, Ann Southam, Philllip Schroeder, Kimberly Osberg, and Tyler Kline.

You can listen and buy at his Bandcamp page (he also gets all the dough on Bandcamp Friday!), or pick up a CD copy at his website.

So, just to wrap up a couple of things:

The final four ProgJect California shows, and the three One Shot Deal shows in LA last week, were all an amazing time for me. The audience response was so gratifying, the music was completely satisfying, and every one of the musicians was inspiring and fantastic. What good fortune I’ve been granted to be able to take part in these kind of shows, both with, and for, such wonderful people.

The upcoming Devin Townsend shows in Australia will be similarly moving for me, I know. These shows will mark the end of this year’s Devin touring cycle, with this particular quartet, a band I’ve really come to love. I’ve logged a lot of hours on the road with them in 2023, and Devin is about to enter a lengthy period of no touring, covering all of 2024 and possibly 2025 as well – and once he decides it’s time to tour again, it could easily be with an entirely different ensemble.

So just in case this Australian run is the last roundup for this particular bunch of guys, I’m going to treasure every second of it.

All the best to you, good people! Talk again soon.

Love,

Mike!
Sluggo!
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