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One listen and you will know that Mike was a very attentive apprentice during his time in Frank Zappa's band. And like Frank, Mike pulls his influences from everywhere he can. I have never had a more difficult time selecting soundbites from albums than I did in pulling these from Mike's solo albums and that of his group, Beer for Dolphins. Because of all the radical diversity within, it seemed impossible to find a soundbite that would truly do any one of these albums justice while feeling representative of them as a whole. If you want a good representation of these incredible albums, my recommendation is to take all the soundbites and string them together as one. Keneally fans should also check out other projects in which he participated including Neil Sadler's Theory of Forms, Mullmuzzler's Keep It To Yourself and a tributes to Yes.
Mike Keneally Band/Bakin' @ the Potato! ....CD + DVD $25.99
Five years after the Mike Keneally Band's Guitar Therapy Live triumph at LA's intimate Baked Potato club, a most worthy sequel is born. This time, Mike raises the stakes by adding guitarist Griff Peters to the mix, allowing the quintet to rise to new heights of musical power, diversity and subtlety. Live favorites are mixed delectably with seldom-played gems from Mike's catalogue to create a truly astonishing DVD and CD set. The DVD of the entire September 15, 2010 concert features stereo audio, DTS 5.1 Surround and Dolby 5.1 Surround, and the CD comes in just seconds short of the maximum possible 80 minutes. Mike Keneally Band is Mike Keneally: guitar, keyboard and vocals; Bryan Beller: bass and vocals; Rick Musallam: guitar and vocals; Griff Peters: Guitar; and Joe Travers: drums and vocals. (DVD includes bonus commentary tracks featuring all band members.)
Mike Keneally & Marco Minnemann/Evidence of Humanity ....CD + DVD $21.99
And! We are nearing completion of the video-editing phase on the DVD which will accompany the new CD Evidence of Humanity, by me and Marco Minnemann. Evidence of Humanity is my entry in the Marco Minnemann Normalizer 2 series, in which a variety of artists create an album's worth of music to accompany the same 51-minute improvised drum solo. Already released have been albums by John Czajkowski, Trey Gunn, Kerry Chicoine, Alex Machacek and Marco's own take on it. All completely different albums, which all use the same drum track in wildly divergent ways. Now, a bit later than I'd expected to finish it, here comes my version... ...and since it took a while for me to finish, and it's been two years already since the music on Disc 1 (the CD) was recorded, we decided a more current collaboration would round out the package nicely. We videotaped a 54-minute live duo improv that Marco and I did a few weeks ago (and also videotaped a bass overdub I did a few days later), and this additional album-length musical performance appears on Disc 2 (the DVD), Elements Of A Manatee. The DVD also features interview footage with Marco and me talking about the making of Evidence of Humanity, about the entire Normalizer 2 concept, and an oodle of additional topics, conducted in the car on the way to the album cover photo shoot at the Salton Sea.
Mike Keneally/Scambot 1 ....CD $15.99
(excerpt from 'Life's Too Small')
Calling the first volume of Mike Keneally's Scambot trilogy "ambitious" might be understating things a bit. For five years Mike held it close to his heart as his main project, employing nine engineers and many musicians at six studios. "We devoted intense energy to every second of the album," says Mike. "There is a plot, and a bunch of characters. The CD booklet contains a very long story I wrote which lays out all of the action. Musically speaking, it's about two-thirds instrumental. It encompasses a little bit of straightforward-ish rock and pop, a lot of rigorous composition and arrangement, some obsessively intricate vocal and instrumental harmonies, some improvisation which has been orchestrated, some digitally-manipulated musique concrete, some purely uncategorizable stuff and, I think, some of the most interesting melodies I've come up with. It is a peculiar album but I think very satisfying as a journey, and emotionally it hits a lot of different moods." And here's another clue for you all: Scambot 1, Mike adds, is "dedicated to anyone who still listens to entire albums with their headphones on."
Mike Keneally/Scambot 1 (Special Edition) ....double CD $29.99
(excerpt from 'Tomorrow (Karaoke Mix)')
The Scambot 1 Special Edition includes the complete Scambot 1 CD, plus a second 53-minute CD crafted by Mike entitled Songs & Stories Inspired by Scambot 1, all packaged in an attractive Atticus Wolrab-designed slipcover made of genuine cardboard. This Special Edition is made even more special because Mike is individually numbering and signing the first 3000 copies! Here's what Mike has to say about Songs & Stories Inspired by Scambot 1: "This is a very uncompromising album, with a lot of guitar improvisation, demanding sonorities, alien vocal textures, truly insane song structure and many crucial pieces of the Scambot plot continuity. Plus a very entertaining credit sequence. If you are intrigued by the conceptual world of Scambot, it's heavily advisable to hear both albums." The great majority of the music on Songs & Stories Inspired by Scambot 1 is unique to it; three of the pieces are remixes of songs from Scambot 1, plus one demo.
Mike Keneally/Wine And Pickles ....CD $16.99
(excerpt from 'Feelin' Strangely')
Download Stream
Mike describes Wine And Pickles as "the album I didn’t know I was making over the last ten years." Lovingly assembled from a wide array of archived sources, W&P serves as a surprisingly cohesive alternative history of Keneally music. Notable among the 21 gems are the legendary original version of "Backwards Deb;" "4S," a piece written for Holland's acclaimed Metropole Orchestra; "Inhale," a gorgeously melodic collaboration with Lyle Workman; and "The Endings Of Things," a stark, confessional performance from 2000's Dancing sessions. The CD contains an eight-page booklet with Mike's original artwork, pithy personal notes about each song, and lyrics.
| Mike Keneally/hat. ....CD $15.99 Mike Keneally/hat. ....CD + DVD (NTSC region 0) $29.99 |
Mike Keneally/Boil that Dust Speck ....CD
$15.99 Mike Keneally/Boil that Dust Speck ....CD + DVD (NTSC region 0) $29.99 |
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| (excerpt from 'Open Up') Download Stream |
(excerpt from 'Bullys') Download Stream |
The moment many doubted would ever come has finally arrived. After years of helplessly witnessing Mike Keneally's much-sought-after early albums become unavailable one by one, Keneally fans will be happy and relieved to learn that Mike's classic Immune Records titles are now safely home at Exowax Recordings, the label co-owned by Mike and his manager Scott Chatfield. The first two records to be reissued will be Mike's amazing 1992 debut, hat., and what has become the Holy Grail of the Keneally canon, 1994's Boil That Dust Speck. Each title will be remastered in a single-disc version with its original track order and each title will also be available as a Special Edition. The Special Editions will contain a remastered CD plus a region-free NTSC DVD featuring bonus tracks, rare studio footage, vintage live concert material, interviews with participants, and video from a 2006 reunion of the original core band (Mike Keneally, Doug Lunn and Toss Panos) performing songs from both albums. And of course, the first 3000 copies of each Special Edition will be personally signed and numbered by Mike.
Mike Keneally Band/Guitar Therapy Live ....CD $15.99
Mike Keneally Band/Guitar Therapy Live (limited edition) ....CD + DVD
(NTSC region free) $29.99
(excerpt from 'Uglytown')
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The new Mike Keneally Band album is called "Guitar Therapy Live," drawn from three shows they did in 2005. Featuring the current band lineup of Mike, Bryan Beller, Rick Musallam and Joe Travers, the Guitar Therapy Live CD features over seventy minutes of overexcited musicians playing very loudly at the peak of their capabilities simply because it's fun to do so. Mike, Bryan, Rick and Joe all going way over the top just for you. The two-disc Special Edition of Guitar Therapy Live is a signed limited edition of 3000 containing the CD, a marvelous Guitar Therapy guitar pick, and a region-free DVD of their July 30 2005 show at the Baked Potato (featuring an exceedingly yummy 5.1 mix by Mike Harris and full band commentary track). Some have suggested that this Potato gig may have been their best show ever. Do I feel like arguing with that? Frig no!
| Mike Kenneally & The Metropole Orkest/The Universe Will Provide ....CD $13.99 | Mike Kenneally & The Metropole Orkest/The Universe Will Provide ltd ed ....CD $21.99 |
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Mike Keneally's initial foray into orchestral composition, The Universe Will Provide is Mike's stunningly beautiful imaginary collaboration with himself at age eight. Commissioned by NPS Output and recorded during a sunny, dreamlike week in Holland, TUWP features the talents of the 52-piece Metropole Orchestra supporting Mike, who plays guitar and keyboards. You have never heard music like The Universe Will Provide. The limited edition of Universe will Provide includes a bonus CD entitled "Parallel Universe," Mike's captivating documentary collage of original TUWP computerized demos, additional material, live TUWP performances and more! Parallel Universe comes in a full-color cardboard sleeve with a URL link to online liner notes and documentation.
| Mike Keneally Band/Dog ....CD $16.99 | Mike Keneally Band/Dog (Special Edition) ....CD/DVD $29.99 |
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Mike Keneally's first album in over two years is also the recorded debut of the Mike Keneally Band: Mike on guitar, keyboards and lead vocals, Rick Musallam on guitar and vocals, Bryan Beller on bass and Nick D'Virgilio on drums and vocals. It's a powerful, electric album of music that the fierce foursome has been honing onstage for months, along with the surprises you've come to expect on a new Keneally album. The special edition will also contain a first for Exowax: a region-free NTSC DVD that includes live MKB performances, behind-the-scenes studio footage and several extras. And in the time-honored Exo-tradition, Mike will hand-number and autograph the first 2500 copies.
Bryan Beller/View ....CD $15.99
Long known as a uniquely talented yet tasteful hired gun bassist for the
more adventurous rock guitarists of recent times (Mike Keneally, Steve Vai, Dweezil Zappa,
Wayne Kramer), Bryan Beller ventures out on his own with his debut solo album, View, on
his own Onion Boy Records label. Those familiar with his main body of work - nine
years, five albums and countless tours with former Frank Zappa guitarist Mike Keneally -
are well aware of his ability to navigate the complex, sometimes impossibly dense forms
and styles present in Keneally's work…all with the polish, simplicity and
accessibility one might expect from a pop bassline. Both a repeat feature subject and
three-year columnist for Bass Player Magazine, Beller has long drawn the attention of
music fans with a discriminating taste for high-caliber playing.
But far from aspiring to bass heroism, Beller instead builds a carefully crafted emotional
tapestry of interweaving themes and styles – a true album in the old-fashioned sense.
Drawing on influences as disparate as John Scofield and Rage Against The Machine, Michael
Landau and Pink Floyd, Nine Inch Nails and his mentor, Mike Keneally, the resulting body
of work runs the gamut from hardcore jazz/rock to vocal pop to world beat while somehow
staying thematically intact, all the while displaying equal parts density and sensitivity,
melody and dissonance, tranquility and furious release. Musicians include guitarists
Mike Keneally, Rick Musallam (Ben Taylor Band), Griff Peters and Yogi; drummers Toss Panos
(Toy Matinee, Steve Vai) and Joe Travers (Dweezil Zappa, Lisa Loeb).
Mike Keneally/Wooden Smoke ....CD $15.99
Wooden Smoke is Mike Keneally's brand new solo album. It's primarily acoustic. It's not your typical "acoustic album" though – there's a lot of interesting sounds happening, generated in some fairly unorthodox ways, which will make more sense after you've heard it. There are elaborate vocal arrangements on a number of songs, but the album is about half instrumental. The music is a little hard to describe. It's mysterious, but intimate and inviting. It has a kind of plot, but you can't figure it out. It's a solo Keneally album rather than a BFD release, although it is graced by the appearances of several band members (Rick, Tricia and Bryan) on a few of the songs. Mike plays most of the instruments himself but multi-instrumentalist Marcelo Radulovich and percussionist Nathan Hubbard, members of the Trummerflora Collective, were crucial collaborators on several of the songs. Also making important contributions were saxophonist Lee Elderton, drummer Chris G and Matt Resnicoff, who sang on three tracks and provided intense amounts of creative assistance in the studio.
Mike Keneally & Beer for Dolphins/Dancing ....CD $15.99
Sometimes it seems that actual human feeling, conveyed through passionate musicianship and songwriting, is all but absent in popular music nowadays. Mike Keneally is thrilled to prove otherwise with his eighth album, "Dancing." Mike has invited Beer For Dolphins, his masterful eight-piece band, into the studio to lay down nearly 80 minutes of the most gleefully adventurous, yet heartfelt, Keneally music ever. This album is truly a feast for the ears. While last year's acclaimed Keneally solo release "Nonkertompf" was an instrumental album, "Dancing" is mainly based around songs with vocals. Keneally (known by many as a guitarist from his work with Frank Zappa and Steve Vai) here delivers highly emotional vocal performances which may come as a surprise to a lot of people. The style of the album's 20 tracks veers from upbeat pop to free-form improv, introspective balladry to ferocious rock raveups, Beach Boys and Bacharach sugariness to utter uncategorizability and beyond. Yet it all hangs together, thanks to the powerful and freewheeling sound of Beer For Dolphins, and the personal quality of Keneally's composing. A genuinely individual rock songwriter, Mike has developed a whole lot of heart and confidence through the eight years of his solo recording career. A music-lover in the extreme, he makes music which embraces all other music-lovers– and listeners the world over are gratefully embracing it in return.
Mike Keneally/Nonkertompf ....CD $15.99
Mike's seventh album, Nonkertompf, is an instrumental effort featuring Keneally playing everything, including guitars, keyboards, drums, sax, a stool and about a dozen other devices. It's a 74-minute stream-of-consciousness flight-of-fancy that takes the listener on an unparallelled sonic journey. Countless styles and moods are explored and seamlessly sewn together, always with extraordinary musical precision, rich orchestrational sense and a very big heart. After two successful U.S tours of his own in 1998, Keneally is set to embark on a worldwide tour with Steve Vai, during which he'll be aggressively promoting Nonkertompf on each stop of the journey. Nonkertompf is Mike's very first release on his own brand new label, Exowax!
Henry Kaiser & Wadada Leo Smith: Yo Miles!/Sky Gardens ....double SACD/CD $19.99
Among the giants enthroned in jazz's pantheon, no one made as big, as broad, as bad-boy brazen of an impact on popular music in many manifestations – jazz, rock and improvisation - as Miles Davis. At the same time, he pioneered new routes for rock. The innovations Davis made in both jazz and rock spawned immediate followers in his time, and continue to infuse and energize the music of today. But even during the revival that began in the 1990s, "… only one band has had the courage to throw itself full bore into the thorniest Davis era, the mid-'70s years when he created a dark, dangerous, haunting, ecstatically wondrous body of music that no one has ever attempted to duplicate."(San Francisco Chronicle). That band is Yo Miles! Yo Miles! was formed in 1998 to explore, expound and expand on Davis' mid-70's electric music. For Sky Garden, Yo Miles!'s 2nd recording and 1st release on Cuneiform, Kaiser and Smith have assembled an all-star cast culled from both the jazz and rock communities. The lineup here includes Smith on trumpet; Kaiser, Mike Keneally and Chris Muir on electric guitars; Michael Manring on bass; Steve Smith on drums; Karl Perazzo on percussion; Greg Osby (alto) and John Tchicai (tenor and soprano) on saxophones; and Tom Coster on percussion. It also features special guests Zakir Hussain on tabla, Dave Creamer on guitar, and the ROVA Sax Quartet. This set is about equally split between Miles' compositions and original compositions in the electric Miles style. The group's studio performance at The Site was recorded live, directly to a stereo DSD (Direct Stream Digital) recorder. The result is a set of two hybrid SACDs playable in either an SACD player or on a standard CD player.
James LaBrie's Mullmuzzler/Mullmuzzler 2 ....CD $13.99
James LaBrie's powerplant of players - Matt Guillory, keyboards/piano; Trent Gardner, keyboards/piano; Mike Mangini, drums; Mike Keneally, guitars; Mike Borkosky, guitars; Brian Beller, bass - has convened once more for an album that is a rainbow of expressions stridently apart from the man's vocal and lyrical mastery emanating from the man's work with Dream Theater. And "Mullmuzzler 2", as the title would suggest, is the follow-up to a debut ('99's "Keep It To Yourself") that quickly became one of the most highly regarded albums ever released through the Magna Carta label. James LaBrie's "Mullmuzzler 2" takes some chances, chances that one would not imagine coming from a progressive rock icon such as James. LaBrie has tapped deep emotional wells within this record, expanding on the themes of communication and the lack thereof that he handled so well on "Keep It To Yourself", while setting these sincere confrontations with the self to musical soundtracks that are lush, melodic, and wholly committed, in two cases, to the concept of ballad.
Mullmuzzler/Keep It to Yourself ....CD $13.99
James LaBrie has seen stunning commercial and critical success throughout the '90's with his band, Dream Theater, that pantheon of progressive rock, this past decade. But gathering steam before the millenium, each and every member of the band has also been busy with side projects. But unlike his bandmates, LaBrie's record is a true solo offering (despite the playful band moniker), perhaps reflecting that special place we hold for both vocalists and lyricists, perhaps reflecting the highly personal place words hold within our heart. So, with the help of the venerable Terry Brown, producer of Rush's output during the '70's, James built, shaped, then fine-tuned nine distinct, heartfelt and often bombastic tracks, all of them co-writes with an army of the field's hottest creators including members of Shadow Gallery, Matt Guillory of Dali's Dilemma, and Trent Gardner from Magellan and Exploreres Club. So the writers planted the seed and the plaerys made it grow. Towards that end, Jame tapped co-writer and keyboardist Matt Guillory, scary Zappa-orbiting guitarist Mike Keneally and his gravity-defying bassist from Beer for Dolphins, Bryan Beller, plus Mike Mangini (best known for his work with Extreme and Steve Vai) for a little musical witchery down in LA. The result is a banquet of purifying rock, some of it slamming in a Zeppelin frame of mind, some of it reminiscent of Queen and possibly Styx, some of it simply the most elegant classic rock you will ever hear.
Neil Sadler/Theory of Forms ....CD $11.99
Featuring Neil Sadler, keyboards and percussion; Mike Keneally, guitar; Walt Fowler, trumpet and flugelhorn; Steve Fowler, alto sax; Bruce Fowler, trombone; Albert Wing, tenor sax; Kurt McGettrick, tenor sax; Bryan Beller, bass; Joel Woods, bass.
"This is my kind of delightfully frenetic, jazzish and fusiony art. It's quirky, energetic, odd-metered, free-blowin' yet structured abandon. Sadler's seven compositions are whirlpools of beat, whole tonal scales, staccato attacks and explosions -- all geared for great improvs and dynamics. Ah, there is room for Keneally fusion riffs and Torn-like howling sustain. Walt, Steve, and Bruce Fowler bring in a definite Miles Davis / Mark Isham aura along with that Steve Coleman, David Binney, and Brecker feel in many places. I hear Lost Tribe echoes. That Zappaesque or Raymond Scott eclectica fills many a niche in these complex pieces. I caught a sense of early Larry Coryell and the Eleventh House on "Suehiro". If you're into hot sax, brash brass, wild-n-weird guitar, bizarre synth atmospherics, complex percussion lines, and tight compositions, you'll get off on this. Guaranteed. This is beyond acid jazz, eludes fusion, twists tighter than freeform, and just flat out SMOKES!" - John Patterson/All About Jazz.
"Sadler's music sounds like some of the darkest dreams I've ever had - and I really like bad dreams. His is a unique voice and the absolute integrity of his vision oozes out of every fractured melody, foreboding rhythm pattern and sideways chord sequence he conjures up. I adore his music and I'm honored to have been a part of it." - Mike Keneally (who is all over this album!)
Various Artists/156 Strings ....CD $12.99
Curated by guitarist and producer Henry Kaiser, 156 Strings is a compilation designed to showcase some of the most unique and highly personal work currently being done on the acoustic guitar. A longtime fan of the master creators of American, steel-string, instrumental guitar, musicians such as John Fahey, Robbie Basho, Peter Lang, and Leo Kottke, Kaiser created this compilation to highlight, in his own words, some of the many players today who are operating at those elevated levels of acoustic eloquence. The early Takoma Records sampler lps compiled by John Fahey, and Fred Frith's Guitar Solos lps provided Kaiser with editorial inspiration; as he says in his liner notes: Those releases were portals that many listeners went through to discover new artists and sounds. 156 Strings includes pieces by the following 19 acoustic guitarists. Each and every one of them, in Kaiser's words, sound like themselves and have something special to say.: Duck Baker, Stefan Basho-Junghans, Raoul Bjorkenheim, Jean-Paul Bourelly, Nels Cline, Janet Feder, Fred Frith , Michael Gulezian, Richard Leo Johnson, Henry Kaiser, Mike Keneally, Peter Lang, Scott McGill, Shawn Persinger as Prester John, Rod Poole, Gyan Riley, Miroslav Tadic, Richard Thompson, U Tin.
Various Artists/Tales from Yesterday ....CD $13.99
A View from the South Side of the Sky - Magna Carta's tribute to Yes featuring such artists as Steve Howe & Annie Haslam, Peter Banks, Steve Morse, Robert Berry, Kevin Gilbert & Mike Keneally, Magellan, Shadow Gallery, World Trade, Cairo, Enchant, and Adam Wakeman
Various Artist/Tribute to the Titans ....CD 10.99
The perfect introduction to Magna Carta's tribute albums to Pink Floyd, Yes, Genesis, Jethro Tull, Rush and their Keyboard Hall of Fame Volume 1, Steinway to Heaven. Also included are a couple tracks from their forthcoming tributes to Emerson Lake and Palmer which is not slated to be released until April. This collection features performances by Steve Howe & Annie Haslam, Keith Emerson, John Wetton, Rick Wakeman, Kevin Gilbert, Jordan Rudess & Jerry Goodman, Magellan, Robert Berry, Mike Keneally, John Petrucci and many, many more!
Andy West with Rama/Rama 1 ....CD $13.99
Bassist Andy West has been in and out of the Dixie Dregs; he's played with experimental guitarist Henry Kaiser's Crazy Backwards Alphabet; he's recorded with Steve Morse, Vinnie Moore, and Paul Barrère; he's a cofounder of Zazen, a new-age instrumental band that released over a dozen albums; he collaborated with Henry Kaiser, guitarist Mike Keneally, and drummer Prairie Prince to form the Mistakes, whose self-titled CD offered a level of improvisation rarely heard since the heyday of Charlie Parker; and he and former Zazen guitarist Joaquin Lievano recently got back together under the uncapitalized moniker fwap. And now, with the release of Rama, West is a solo artist too. Rama (named for the Arthur C. Clarke series of novels) features a stellar supporting cast including drummers Rod Morgenstein (Dixie Dregs), Jonathan Mover and Mike Portnoy (Dream Theater); guitarists Toshi Iseda and Mike Keneally (Frank Zappa, The Mistakes, Beer for Dolphins); keyboardists Jens Johansson, T Lavitz (Dixie Dregs) and Kit Watkins (Happy the Man, Camel). Mike Keneally who appears on every track also co-produced and co-mixed the album. "Progressive" should mean just that: Progress. Newness. Adventurousness and fearlessness. Andy West plays progressive music, no question, but he takes it where even the most open minded of us hesitate to go.
Frank Black ~ Tommy Bolin ~ Dixie Dregs ~ French Frith Kaiser & Thompson ~ Fred Frith & Henry Kaiser ~ Jellyfish ~ Henry Kaiser ~ Henry Kaiser & David Lindley ~ Todd Rundgren ~ Richard Thompson ~ The Tubes ~ Steve Vai ~ Tony Williams ~ XTC ~ Frank Zappa
Also, check out the following at Sheetmusicplus
Rundgren, Todd ~ Vai, Steve ~ Zappa, Frank
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