MIKE KENEALLY UPDATE

2010/07/30 - THE KENEALLIST

Mike's Satriani Tour, Vai Piano Shows
& Evidence of Humanity CD/DVD!

Careful with that! It's inky!

It's Wednesday afternoon and I'm back. Back in the land of devising new Vai piano arrangements, inch by inch. It's not easy living in this land, but what I'm hearing is crazy. This week is devoted to "Under It All." Intense. I'll be playing three new piano arrangements, and four older ones, at the Steve Vai festival in Groningen in October. It'll be the first time I've ever done live performances of these arrangements. I'll be in fighting trim as a keyboardist, because in order to do those two performances for the Vai festival, I have to take a break for three days from the Joe Satriani European tour that I'll be playing keyboards on.

The Satriani tour. In response to a lot of questions: yeb, I'll be touring with the Satriani band late this year and early next. I'm extremely excited to tour with this group, as I had such an amazingly good time making Joe's new album (the mixes for it are just finished, and the release date is scheduled for just before the tour starts in October).

The two shows I won't be able to play with Joe, because of the Vai solo piano gigs, are the ones in Glasgow and Birmingham - sorry not to be able to make those, but Jem Godfrey will be subbing for me at those gigs and he is superb.

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. This album 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.

The CD/DVD package will cost $20, and the music on Disc One will also be available for digital download. More information, including pre-order data, coming terribly soon!

A couple of weeks ago I did about 90 minutes of recorded improvising with Marco and Julie Slick. What I heard played back sounded really good! And Julie's food was really just unfairly wonderful.

I want to thank Megaphone of Destiny, and Ovidiu, for the really marvelous Scambot 1 reviews. (Megaphone of Destiny's review made me feel very "understood." Thanks MoD.) I would love for more people to know about Scambot 1 - I'm so happy with that album. Please continue spreading the word about it if you get a chance.

In the misty future dep't: I've got about 35-40 minutes of material recorded for Scambot 2, well, a little more probably. In the planning stages to record an album-side-length suite based on the music I've written with Andy Partridge over the last few years (which I'd love to release next year on vinyl and download). And we've got these Sluggo! multi-track files staring us in the face...hmmm...haven't mixed anything in surround for awhile...

Back to the piano! Yaaah! *whipcrack*

Mike

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Wednesday, September 15, 2010
Mike Keneally Band
with special guest
The Bryan Beller Band

The Baked Potato
Studio City, CA 91604

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