Mike Keneally
- ️Thu Mar 06 2025
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?
Ho ho ho! Please to imagine that I am four Beatles on a toboggan in the movie Help!, saying “ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho!”
FREAKS IN A MELLOW MOOD, VOL. 2 – MORE 2003 LIVE ACOUSTIC PERFORMANCES BY MIKE KENEALLY AND BRYAN BELLER COMING TO BANDCAMP THIS FRIDAY, DECEMBER 6!
Exowax is inordinately pleased to present Freaks in a Mellow Mood Vol. Two by Mike Keneally and Bryan Beller, the second in a series of collections drawn from live recordings of me and Bryan in November 2003, playing acoustically in music stores on behalf of Taylor Guitars.
Now getting it ready for you!
This link to Freaks in a Mellow Mood Vol. Two goes live at 11:59 p.m. PDT this Thursday night, December 5!
You can also go here now for all the other available MK titles…
I must admit I love this album. Once again, diligent preliminary work done by Chris Opperman (who made recommendations for the most primo takes of this 2003 acoustic tour) made it possible for me to quickly choose a bunch of good tracks and mix them at home.
For 21 years, the multitracks from this tour rested unheard in a hard drive. Scott Chatfield – our tour manager, driver and merch man for this run of gigs – had recorded twelve of the shows in pristine, multitrack digital. This trove of recordings proved to be something of a time machine for me – I really felt transported back to these music stores when I heard them and felt privileged to mix them for you in a way that feels contemporary.
Chris, Scott and Bryan have all expressed to me that they think Vol. Two is at least as strong as Vol. One, arguably stronger (even though Vol. One is really good I promise), and I hope you find it an enjoyable adjunct to your holiday season as you wrap gold-plated chestnuts for the local chamber of commerce while burning huge stacks of wreaths in the fireplace (I’m not the only one who does this during the holidays, right?).
Here’s the list of tracks on the new album:
1. Skunk
2. I’m Glad You’ve Got Lemon-Freshened Thorax in You
3. Li’l part 1
4. Blue 68
5. Li’l part 2
6. Pride is a Sin
7. Dee ‘n’ A
8. Bear Divide (a Bryan Beller song, and it is beautiful)
9. We’ll Be Right Back
10. Dear Prudence (a Beatles song! Ho ho ho ho ho ho ho!)
11. Father’s Day
12. Lhai Sal
13. The Desired Effect
14. Dancing
15. Your Quimby Dollars at Work
16. I Can’t Stop
17. Thanksgiving
A strong batch of tunes I think! I hope you like!
This comes out for Bandcamp Friday this week y’see. I hasten to remind!: Bandcamp Friday is the occasional day when Bandcamp takes no cut of the generated income on its platform – all proceeds from purchases on this day go directly to the labels/artists.
There has not yet been any indication as to whether Bandcamp will continue having BC Fridays in 2025. So just in case this is the last chance for you to so potently demonstrate your solidarity with the struggling musicians of this world, please check out your many entertainment options on Bandcamp this coming Friday, December 6. I and all my fellow fringe-level entertainers thank you, a lot!
GIGS THIS VERY WEEK! BFD and OSD!!
Other job requirements hath rendered Beer For Dolphins gigs a rarity in 2024, but we’ve managed to squeak in two more Baked Potato bookings for the year – Tuesday and Wednesday, December 3 and 4. Two sets each night. Each set will feature one unusual cover tune unique to it. Special guests will appear. Luminaries will dot the audience, and vie for deluxe potatoes from the kitchen. By the way if you’ve never actually eaten a baked potato at the Baked Potato, you are missing a really good bet. They’re outrageous.
BFD for these shows is me, Joe Travers, Rick Musallam and Pete Griffin. I love these hearty fellows and the way they play my songs. Please come celebrate our union, as they say.
Then at the end of the week a bunch of us will pile into a teetering Beverly Hillbillies-style jalopy with all our gear strapped to it (not really) and drive south to the east county of San Diego, me olde stomping grounds, for a One Shot Deal gig at Full Circle Saloon in Santee on Friday December 6.
The gig is 8:30-12:30! Four hours of Zappa! I mean we’ll take a break in there somewhere, but this night will be heavily saturated in the sounds of Frank.
One Shot Deal for this gig is Joe Travers, Pete Griffin, Scheila Gonzalez, Billy Hulting, Ben Thomas and me. In times past when I’ve sat in with OSD, I’ve mainly been focused on keyboards (because Jamie Kime was there holding down the guitar fort so magnificently), but Jamie can’t make this week’s gig so I’ll be the primary guitarist with this band for the first time evahhh.
I been shedding hard for this one – learning several tunes I’ve never played before, re-learning parts I have played before but finding ways to play them better now, just drilling down like a mofo on this stuff. Come experience the results, with your ears!
A PHOTO OF ME SITTING IN WITH GONG AT PROGSTOCK A FEW WEEKS AGO
I’m gonna knock it off and get back to practicing now but I wanted to share this photo of me sitting in with Gong on the song “Master Builder” at ProgStock in New Jersey back in mid-October. The photo is by John Giordano, and thanks to him for letting me use it here. It captures a moment that was magical for me – I was already completely drawn into Gong’s set, standing sidestage in a spell watching them, and when Kavus Torabi gestured to me to join the band onstage towards the end of the show it felt like being invited into an actual dream. I haven’t seen too many live photos that so accurately depict the feel of a moment the way this one does for me, I hope you can feel it too.
I wish you all a joyous holiday season and a superb 2025, and to those of you who’ve been on this ride with me for awhile (some of you for decades now), and to those who’ve more recently jumped on ship, thanks to you all for maintaining a connection with me, it means a lot.
Much love and gratitude to you, always.
This link to Freaks in a Mellow Mood Vol. Two goes live at 11:59 p.m. PDT this Thursday night, December 5!
Check out all the other delightfully diverse Mike Keneally releases at Bandcamp now!
Hi again!
Hey wow I’m in Finland, had a long pretty amazing rehearsal yesterday with Jaan Wessman and Schröeder, gonna have another one today in Mikko’s backyard and film the whole thing, then tomorrow we’re filming in nature with Chanan Hanspal joining on guitar, then we got these four gigs we’re doing right dang here in Finland.
I’m a little sleep-deprived/jetlagged, but I’m abuzz with musical excitement for everything that’s going to happen over the next month.
Links to gigs down below, but first…
WING BEAT FANTASTIC
Songs written by Mike Keneally & Andy Partridge
COMES TO BANDCAMP
THIS FRIDAY, OCTOBER 6!
First off, thank you for the wonderful response to our Bandcamp Friday release of last month, Freaks in a Mellow Mood Vol. 1 (live acoustic performances from 2003 by me and Bryan Beller), I’m delighted that so many people were into it and I’m excited to begin preparing Vol. 2 at the end of this month.
This link to Wing Beat Fantastic goes live at 11:59 p.m. PDT this Thursday night, September 3!
You can also go here now for all the other available MK titles…
For this month’s Bandcamp Friday we’re welcoming an old favorite to our steadily growing catalogue of music at Bandcamp. It’s 2012’s Wing Beat Fantastic – Songs by Mike Keneally and Andy Partridge, one of the most special collaborations I’ve ever been privileged to engage in.
Given the respect/regard/admiration I’ve had for Andy for decades now, it still feels like a dream that we were able to work together and bring these songs into existence. The album stands alone in my catalogue in a way, fully unlike anything else I’ve done.
It was a mission of mine and Exowax’s to help bring new Andy music into the world, and even though our songs together were true collaborations (comprising 2/3 of the album; the other 1/3 are songs of mine), the Andy stamp is strong.
For this Bandcamp release we’re adding a bonus track, the original solo piano recording that was the basis for my song “That’s Why I Have No Name,” recorded on the old upright piano in Scott Chatfield’s dining room. I remember when the rhythm/chords for the song showed up all of a sudden and I got enmeshed in its rolling groove for ages, totally hypnotized. The album version is so totally layered with overdubs, it’s nice for me to hear this original unadorned performance and re-enter the zone I was in for that moment, hopefully you can feel it too.
And then there’s a mini-bonus, a four-minute distillation teaser of the album, entitled “Little Wing Beat.”
NEW KENEALLY/RADULOVICH ALBUM: BASK 2
Speaking of collaborative albums, I’ve just listened for the first time to the completed/mastered Bask 2, which also comes out this Bandcamp Friday.
This is the fifth album to come out from me and Marcelo Radulovich over the last fourteen months. This collaboration feels to me like it’s reached an apotheosis with this album. Marcelo has a way of mixing, and the two of us apparently have a way of quickly creating music, that has now arrived at a very precise destination, a sound world I can’t describe, it has to be heard.
Our ongoing collaboration is not over yet, and in a way it’s hard for me to imagine where it’s going to go next, but with this album it really has gotten to a place that fascinates me completely and I love it. I hope you can get behind the singular and peculiar nature of this new album.
We’ve got two separate parallel sets of albums going on – the series of instrumental albums named after the days of the week (so far we’ve done three of those, Monday through Wednesday), and the two vocal Bask albums. If you’re a headphone music listener, hoo boy just you wait ‘til you hear this new one. Just you wait! Our entire Bandcamp catalogue can be found here.
SOME GIGS
Mike Keneally Report in Finland happens this weekend!! Dang! What next?
- Thu. Oct 3 at 6 p.m. Heinävesi, Varjentiini hall (tickets €30 / €25) with special guest Chanan Hanspal. Tickets here.
- Fri. Oct 4 at 9 pm Tampere, Telakka (€30) with special guest Chanan Hanspal. Tickets here.
- Sat Oct 5 – 7 p.m. Pori, Validi Karkia club / Pori Mies-Laulu (€39). Email kukkesand@hotmail.com to reserve tickets.
- Sun Oct 6 – 7 pm Helsinki, On the Rocks (€25 / €28) with special guest Malcolm Mortimore. Tickets here.
Right after Finland I’m going to work with Devin Townsend, helping out with the final stages of constructing THE MOTH, his hugely elaborate and entirely extraordinary musical/rock opera, which is having its stage premiere in Groningen, Netherlands next March.
No ticket links provided here by me, because both nights of performances sold out pretty instantly. It will involve orchestra, choir, and us guys in the rock band, and in Devin’s words “arguably, my entire career and life have led up to this moment.”
I’m grateful indeed to be a part of it, and beyond excited about the March ‘25 performances (Groningen is maybe my favorite place in the world?) and only wish that more people could get a chance to experience it. Hopefully later on, but you know, getting orchestral events together is a lot.
Later in October I go to ProgStock in Hamilton, NJ – on October 17 I’m sitting in with ABACAB playing a Genesis classic, as well as joining in on four tunes at the Last Call Live jam that night, then and I’ll go on to sit in with several other prestigious personages during the remainder of the festival. ProgStock tickets, for all your ProgStock ticket needs, are surely here.
Immediately after the festival is a day of heavy rehearsal, followed by the first-ever performance of me with Gregg Bendian and Teddy Kumpel. Teddy is a super brilliant guitarist who is going to be playing my tunes on bass, and I can’t wait to experience that aspect of his musicianship on my tunes. Gregg is of course the masterful percussionist/composer who I toured with along with the dear late Doug Lunn several times this century, and it’ll be great to gig with him again. The three of us will be opening for prog powerhouse Lifesigns at The Strand Theater in Hudson Falls, NY on Oct. 22. Tickets can be got here.
And then I’m doing some other gigs, playing solo, on the east coast right after that, and a special gig in Chicago a few nights later, but those gigs aren’t announced yet I guess so I’ll hold them tight to my vest a short while longer, but will announce them eventually on my social networks and website and stuff so keep an eye out.
CLOUDS REALLY ARE INTERESTING
That’s the thought I leave you with today! Have good times and I’ll see you later.
Accordingly,
This link to Wing Beat Fantastic goes live at 11:59 p.m. PDT this Thursday night, October 3!
Check out all the other delightfully diverse Mike Keneally releases at Bandcamp now!