MIKE KENEALLY'S "WINE AND PICKLES" UP ON BANDCAMP

Mike Keneally  just released "Wine And Pickles" on Bandcamp.

It includes a bonus track compared to the original 2008 release.

THE BAND FROM UTOPIA AT THE BAKED POTATO, AUGUST 13 & 14

 

MIKE KENEALLY - - - UPCOMING GIGS

From Mike Keneally's latest newsletter:

I GOT SOME GIGS COMING UP, I ALSO GOTTA GO TO SLEEP SOON SO I’M GONNA TRY TO MAKE THIS QUICK

May 21 – I’m sitting in with the Florence Symphony Orchestra for FSO ROCKS, playing rude electric guitar on a bunch of classic rock tracks – I did this with them two years ago and it was a total blast, very happy to be doing it again!

June 18, 20, 21, 23, 25 and 28 I’m guest soloist at a hugely elaborate presentation of Frank Zappa’s 200 Motels at the Grand Théâtre de Genève in Switzerland, replete with orchestra, choir, percussion ensemble, rock band, vocal soloists, the works...it’s gonna be huge.

End of September throughout all of October I’m in Europe with Banned From Utopia – I’m not automatically seeing a central ticket hub for the tour online, so please reference the charming tour poster you see here for all the dates.

End of November through the beginning of December I’m going to do some shows in the UK and the Netherlands with The Mike Keneally Report (my trio with Jaan Wessman and Schroeder), with Dave Cureton opening – I’ll have a lot more to say about this in a future Keneallist but for now here's the tour poster:

• Nov 30 – Manchester – Night and Day
• Dec 1 – Birmingham – The Flapper
• Dec 3 – Zoetermeer – Poppodium de Boerderij
• Dec 4 – Helmond NL – Cacaofabriek
• Dec 7 – Sheffield – Sidney & Matilda
• Dec 8 – Southhampton – The 1865
• Dec 9 – Fletching, UK – Trading Boundaries

I got some other shows happening through the summer and into the fall that haven’t been announced yet, but let’s just say yer boy is gonna be busy.

-- Mike

MIKE KENEALLY - OFF-BROADWAY

Recorded October 13, 2006 at a small club in St. Louis, this long-buried live document finds Mike Keneally, Bryan Beller, and a 19-year-old Eric Slick colliding for a one-off performance with almost no rehearsal.

The result? Controlled chaos. Uncontrolled energy. Total commitment. Fresh off weeks of restrained acoustic performances, Keneally and Beller plug back in and unleash a set that’s equal parts intricate composition, fearless improvisation, and full-throttle rock abandon. Slick – barely out of his teens – doesn’t just keep up; he detonates, powering through some of Keneally’s most demanding material with jaw-dropping intensity.

This isn’t a polished live album. It’s better than that. It’s raw. It’s unpredictable. It’s alive.

You can hear the room. You can feel the risk. You can sense three musicians discovering just how far they can push each other – in real time.

Unearthed nearly two decades later from original multitrack recordings and mixed in 2026, Off-Broadway is more than a live release – it’s a time capsule of a night that could never happen the same way again.

NEW MIKE KENEALLY RELEASE ANNOUNCED

Unhinged live Keneally album comes to Bandcamp Friday!

Hi! It’s Mike again! Hey! And look:

"OFF-BROADWAY" (a one-off 2006 live performance by Mike Keneally, Bryan Beller and Eric Slick) COMES TO BANDCAMP THIS FRIDAY, May 1!

Off-Broadway will be available at 11:59pm PDT this Thursday, April 30. And you won’t believe all the other MK treasures that you can get right now at Bandcamp!

https://mikekeneallymusic.bandcamp.com/

All the archive releases we’ve put out as Bandcamp exclusives over the past several years have held their share of revelations for me, but probably none more so than this one.

Scott Chatfield and I, the co-cap’ns of Exowax, will periodically scour our respective archives, looking for interesting stuff to release. Recently Scott unearthed a massive, stuffed package, mailed to us twenty years previously by a gentleman named Mark Leaver, and residing undisturbed in Scott’s home since then.

This package proved to contain a trove of CD-Rs, with attendant and copious documentation generously provided by Mark, of a one-time show played in St. Louis by what was billed that night as The Mike Keneally Trio – me, Bryan Beller, and Eric Slick, a drummer I’d played with at several Project/Object gigs, but I’d never played my own music with him before. Mark had wired his digital recorder into the soundboard that night and ended up with a serviceable batch of multitracks.

Bryan and I had been traveling together for three weeks prior to this show, doing a bunch of Taylor Guitars clinics in music stores, with Scott tour-managing and merch-slinging. Several months before, a MySpace friend in St. Louis named Dan Kinney had taken note of our upcoming clinic schedule, and reached out to me via the MySpace private message pipeline (the very same pipeline I’d use to secure a gig in Dethklok the following year! MySpace works!!) and proposed that we end our tour with an electric gig in a St. Louis venue, which he then proceeded to set up. It was also Dan who suggested using Eric Slick for the gig, a perfect choice – I’d heard him absolutely eat Zappa material alive, and he was only 19 years old at the time of this St. Louis gig.

Keneally, Slick and Beller post-show huddle, October 13, 2006. (Photo by Mark Leaver)

The three of us rehearsed the songs, some of my hardest stuff, for the very first time at the venue during soundcheck, and a few hours later we played this gig, and pretty much laid waste to the place. There is a really ferocious energy to this show that seems entirely connected to its one-and-done nature – we didn’t have any other gigs booked afterwards, for us to refine and hone the material further – this was IT, our one shot, and we just sank our teeth into the stuff.

After Scott had found the multitracks after their twenty years spent in a box, I spent several weeks in March and April mixing them at home (with sonic insights offered by Sarah Crochet upon request) and I was frankly flabbergasted by what I heard in the tracks. It understates the case considerably to say that the recording exceeded my expectations. I think it’s fantastic. It’s loud and raw and real and I sure do hope you enjoy it very much; I’m freaking thrilled with it.

Bryan, Eric and I all wrote liner notes for the pdf that comes with the Bandcamp download (as did Dan Kinney who made the gig happen, and Mark Leaver who recorded it). Bryan’s notes make reference to how someone might assume, given Eric’s youth and the fact that he’d never played this material before, that Bryan and I might have needed to sort of coach Eric along during the gig, and this is very much not the case – Eric unapologetically OWNS these tunes, and my unavoidable feeling when listening to this is, why didn’t the three of us do more of this?? Apart from that day’s soundcheck, this is literally the only time this trio ever played together (so far anyway - none of us are done yet), and I’m so grateful to have this recording documenting it.

The tracks:

1. “You Guys Gonna Start Right Away, or…?”
2. Snowcow
3. Father’s Day
4. Intro to Dolphins
5. Dolphins
6. Pride is a Sin
7. My Dilemma
8. Intro to 2001/The Entertainer
9. 2001
10. Intro to Supermarket People
11. Supermarket People
12. Not Really Roy/Intro to Uglytown
13. Uglytown
14. Haugseth
15. Performing Miracles
16. The Mystery Music
17. Panda
18. “Can I Get Some Water?”/Intro to Nonkerchunk
19. Nonkerchunk
20. “Eric, You Rock Tonight”
21. Potato
22. Inca Roads
23. “I Know What You Wanna Hear”/Intro to Breakfast
24. ‘Cause of Breakfast

I’ll leave this here: Bandcamp Friday is the periodic Friday wherein Bandcamp does not take a cut of artist/label proceeds, so the income from every Exowax product you purchase on Bandcamp Friday goes 100% to Exowax. We are continually grateful for the support you’ve shown us on Bandcamp Friday – thank you, friends!

THE MIKE KENEALLY REPORT & DAVE CURETON

 It looks like Mike Keneally will be doing some concerts in Europe in December.

THE MIKE KENEALLY BAND - BAKIN' @ THE POTATO (DELUXE BANDCAMP EDITION)

I'm enjoying the Deluxe Bandcamp Edition of Mike Keneally's "Bakin' @ The Potato".
Originally released in 2011 as a CD / DVD set, the album is know being made available on Bandcamp.

Audio only, but with:
a 25-page digital booklet with rare stuff, each song appears in its unedited form in amazing sound quality, and you get two uncut commentary tracks from the band!

It has been quite a number of years since I've listened to this album and I feel a bit bummed about that.
This is such a great album.
Well, that's a good thing about these Bandcamp re-releases. You get to revisit some fine albums.

Adding to the melancholic mood: "Bakin' @ The Potato" includes '1988 Was A Million Years Ago', a piece that Mike wrote in remembrance of Frank Zappa, originally released on the 1995 “Boil That Dust Speck” album.

Play it loud !

MIKE KENEALLY

“The Mike Keneally Band's live tour de force, "bakin' @ the potato!" is now coming to Bandcamp Friday! This is a very special version of the now out-of-print DVD and CD package, it features every song, including music that was left off the CD for space reasons, and two uncut commentary tracks. Plus a pretty cool booklet! The sound quality is amazing. Hope you like it!”

A MESSAGE FROM MIKE KENEALLY

from Mike Keneally's newsletter:

Dear,

 Asti spumanti!

I write to you from a brief patch of breathing space between the shows I just played with EDDIE JOBSON/U.K. REVISITED in Japan, and the shows we’re doing next week on Cruise to the Edge (Miami > Key West > Nassau). If tickets are still available for the cruise (and I just looked at their website and tickets do indeed seem to be available - see the screenshot from their homepage below, which boldly declares “Book now”), and if there’s a part of you that’s saying to the rest of you: “the world is absolutely insane right now, I can’t think of anything I need more than a five-day prog cruise...self, we’re goin’ to Miami,” then yes, you should come see us.

I can’t even tell you how much I enjoyed the Jobson/U.K. shows in Japan, with the incredible Marc Bonilla and Marco Minnemann in the band, and Keith Wechsler and Robert Frazza our brilliant crew, and the utterly remarkable Eddie Jobson, and how much I appreciate our legendary promoter Leonardo MoonJune (see attached screenshot of him and us backstage in Osaka) and everyone from Billboard Live and all the beautiful people who came to the shows – I mean, I could tell you how much all of that means to me, it’s not like I’m legally barred from telling you – it’s more that it’s hard for me to find the words. I’m so excited to play on the cruise next week and I send love and gratitude to all involved.
But hey, let’s not get maudlin here! LOOK:

EPIC 2011 LIVE ALBUM bakin’ @ the potato! IS COMING TO BANDCAMP FRIDAY!

ALL THE SONGS FROM THE WHOLE SHOW
    (with four songs previously only on the DVD)

PLUS THE UNEDITED FULL RECORDING SESSIONS
    OF BOTH ORIGINAL COMMENTARY TRACKS

Yeah! It’s bakin’ @ the potato! for Bandcamp Friday!

This link to bakin’ @ the potato! (uncut) goes live at 11:59 p.m. PST this Thursday night, March 5,
https://mikekeneallymusic.bandcamp.com/album/bakin-the-potato
but now you can click here for a bunch more MK titles…
https://mikekeneallymusic.bandcamp.com/

This album captures the MIKE KENEALLY BAND (me, Bryan Beller, Rick Musallam, Griff Peters, Joe Travers) on a particularly good night at the Baked Potato in September 2010. It was a lucky night for us (we captured Bryan Beller’s live album/DVD Wednesday Night Live on the very same night), and Mike Harris and I dedicated ourselves afterward to making sure that the audio mix on bakin’ served the performance well. This is a really good live album – everyone in the band is at the top of their game, and it features some lush arrangements unique to this era, taking full advantage of the Keneally/Musallam/Peters triple-guitar combo.

The physical edition of bakin’! was a DVD/CD release, and it’s been out of print for a number of years, so we’re highly pleased to bring this title to Bandcamp. Crucially, the Bandcamp version features every song that was on the original DVD; four of them (“Hallmark,” “Cold Hands,” “Natty Trousers” and “Career Politicians,” all solid renditions) originally had to be cut from the CD for time reasons.

Also in the Bandcamp release are the complete, unedited recording sessions for the DVD’s two commentary tracks (one track with me, Joe, and Rick, and another one with me, Griff, and Bryan via Skype from a hotel room during an Aristocrats tour). Both of these unedited tracks contain entertaining previously unreleased stuff at the beginning and ends of them. Plus you’ll get our usual quirky digital booklet with unseen photos, ephemera and maybe a surprise or two.

We hope you enjoy this comprehensive bakin’ release, and we sincerely appreciate your patronage on Bandcamp Friday, the semi-regular day when the Bandcamp platform forgoes its pie slice, and all proceeds go to the artists/labels (a large percentage of whom are independent artists for whom this particular occasional Bandcamp event has become a crucial part of their/our survival).

Our gratitude to Bandcamp, my gratitude to Scott Chatfield and Chris Opperman for keeping the Exowax Bandcamp engine stoked while I’m gallivantin’ around, and of course our thanks to you for supporting our musical efforts.



IN CLOSING

Sorry to get all whatever, but – does humankind have to be a warlike species, y’think? Do our nervous systems/bloodstreams offer us no option of finally working out how to behave in another way; has it been scientifically verified that we have no choice but to inevitably and continually resort to war and violence and killing? (I could go online and research this myself, but you know, it’s a Sunday and I’m jetlagged and blah blah blah.)

Are we irreversibly programmed this way, with no real hope of ever reprogramming ourselves via any means or methodology, be it spiritual, medicinal, or what have you?

I surely don’t know, but I’m asking myself these questions a lot, and I guess I’m asking you here to ask yourself the same – maybe the combined energy generated by our collective musing could yield something positive. My heart goes to the families of the lost children at Shajareh Tayyebeh girls’ elementary school in Minab, and to the families of the troops who have already begun dying, and to all the people in Iran now experiencing and processing this moment, whether they be celebrating or mourning, or numb with disbelief.

My heart is with all of you, too – see you soon.

-- Mike

MIKE KENEALLY'S "NONKERTOMPF / NONKERTALK" RE-RELEASE IS OUT ON BANDCAMP TODAY

Mike adds:

This Bandcamp release is the digital equivalent to the original 1999 Nonkertompf special edition. That very limited issue (500 copies, as I recall) came packaged with a second CD, called Nonkertalk.

Nonkertompf is a 73-minute album, containing 35 instrumental pieces featuring me playing all the instruments. It was the first album released by Exowax Recordings, soon after Scott Chatfield and I formed the label in 1999, and was the result of Scott asking me if I harbored any long-held dreams about albums I’d always wanted to make. I instantly thought back to an album I’d first envisioned at age 12 – all instrumental, me on all instruments, and very eccentric. I was already into weird progressive music at that age, and I knew the album would reflect that love.

I also knew that I wanted to call it Nonkertompf, which was just a made-up word, signifying nothing, but somehow it captured the feeling of the music I wanted on this album. I even had the basic cover design (black & white close-up portrait, only part of the head showing) figured out when I was 12. So I’d carried the whole vibe of this album, musically and visually, around with me for about a quarter-century by the time Scott asked me about my “dream album.”

Nonkertalk is primarily occupied by an interview between me and Scott Chatfield about the album. Scott takes me on a deep dive into each of the 35 pieces, and given that we’d just finished making the album when we did the interview, all the details were very fresh in our minds, so this is as thorough a dissection of Nonkertompf as you could get. Dividing up the interview segments are pieces of music from the sessions that didn’t make the album proper, and appearing underneath the dialogue are numerous stripped-down mixes from the multitracks.

200 MOTELS PERFORMANCE IN GENEVA WILL FEATURE MIKE KENEALLY

 And even more news from Mike Keneally:

200 MOTELS in GENEVA in JUNE 2026

I’m also immensely grateful to have been invited to perform Frank Zappa’s 200 Motels in Geneva next year, as a special guest with the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, the Chœur du Grand Théâtre de Genève, the HEM percussion ensemble, and a fantastic organ/bass/drums trio called Steamboat Switzerland – myself and Steamboat will be the “rock band” for this presentation, and it’s gonna kill.

This is the version of 200 Motels that was originally performed at the Holland Festival in 2000, a legendary performance, and one which I believe incorporates much of the writing that wasn’t heard in the original soundtrack album, but which was later released on the 200 Motels: The Suites 2-CD release in 2015 (an album I really love – the version of “The Pleated Gazelle” on that album is one of my favorite recordings of Zappa music ever).

It’s happening at the Bâtiment des Forces Motrices on the following days and times:

• June 18 and 20, 2026 – 8PM
• June 21 and 28, 2026 – 3PM
• June 23 and 25*, 2026 – 7PM (*Glam Night)

The 25th is Glam Night! You gotta come on that night and get all fancied up! See you there. Here’s all the info.

https://www.gtg.ch/en/2025-2026-season/200-motels/

MIKE KENEALLY & BEER FOR DOLPHINS TO PERFORM AT THE BAKED POTATO IN JANUARY

A message from Mike Keneally

MK/BFD at the BAKED POTATO in LA on JANUARY 20/21, 2026

We’re coming back! The BFD quartet (me, Bryan Beller, Rick Musallam, Joe Travers) are returning to the Baked Potato January 20 and 21. These are immediately before the beginning of the NAMM Show in Anaheim, so if you happen to be in SoCal around then for NAMM-ish activities, you ought to come see us play.

Two sets each night! Here are the ticket links (replete with some really exciting misspellings of nearly all of the band members – part of the charm of this venue for decades now):

https://www.thebakedpotato.com/events/mike-keneally-beer-for-dolphins-january-20-2026/

https://www.thebakedpotato.com/events/mike-keneally-beer-for-dolphins-january-21-2026/

MIKE KENEALLY'S "MKAF '03" IS OUT ON BANDCAMP

Recorded in Germany and in Finland in 2003, during the Mike Keneally & Friends tour, "MKAF '03" is now available on Bandcamp.

33 tracks.
I've been listening to this all morning (and I've just reached track number 20, a superb cover version of 'Inca Roads'.)
Comes with a beautiful 25-page pdf booklet.

And just maybe, '40,000 Headmen' ends with the arpeggio of 'The Deathless Horsie'. Or am I imagining this?
Plus, the collection includes '1988 Was A Million Years Ago', a track written in remembrance of FZ.

NEW BANDCAMP RELEASE BY MIKE KENEALLY

"MKAF ‘03"
Mike Keneally & Friends
Live Adventures in Europe

COMING TO BANDCAMP
THIS FRIDAY, DECEMBER 5!

The album will only be added to Mike's Bandcamp page on Friday:

https://mikekeneallymusic.bandcamp.com/

Mike added:

What is MKAF ‘03? Here’s some background:

Since the early ‘00s, concurrent with my Beer for Dolphins activities and the other stuff I get involved with, I’ve also had what I guess you could call my European Power Trio, consisting of me, Jaan Wessman (who lives in Finland) on bass, and Schroeder (who lives in Germany) on drums. We play when we can – three years ago we did the Zappanale Festival in Germany, and last year we played a few shows in Finland. I dearly love any opportunity to play with these guys – it’s a very special, and not widely known, part of my life and music.

Since 2016 we’ve been called The Mike Keneally Report, but when we started doing shows in 2002, and up until 2004, we were called MIKE KENEALLY & FRIENDS.

NEW RELEASE BY CHANAN HANSPAL

Chanan Hanspal's latest album, "Space Nordic", features Mike Keneally !

GUITAR WORLD INTERVIEW WITH MIKE KENEALLY

EXCELLENT Guitar World interview with Mike Keneally.
Talking about playing in Frank Zappa's band, but also discussing performing with Dweezil Zappa, Steve, Vai, XTC,...

 

MIKE KENEALLY TALKS ABOUT HIS ZAPPA AUDITION

THE KENEALLIST

THE KENEALLIST
Mike Keneally's newsletter

Happy autumn! What better time than now to introduce to our Bandcamp catalogue that most autumnal of Keneally releases, Wooden Smoke?

Once again Bandcamp Friday is upon us (the day when Bandcamp takes no cut of proceeds, it all goes to the artists and labels), and it’s our pleasure to bring Wooden Smoke to our ever-swelling Bandcamp roster.

WOODEN SMOKE

COMES TO BANDCAMP

THIS FRIDAY, OCTOBER 3!

Wooden Smoke goes live at 11:59 p.m. PDT Thursday night, October 2!

In the meantime, you can click here for a bunch more MK titles…
https://mikekeneallymusic.bandcamp.com/

This acoustic album, by far the mellowest and most willfully soul-soothing of my releases, was originally released in 2002, and proved to be a balm for me personally during a hectic time in my life. We at Exowax were heartened and humbled to learn, at the time of release, that it also provided therapeutic value for some people in the wake of the horrific events in September of the previous year. Perhaps it could provide some similar service for you now?

If you avail yourself of the Bandcamp version of Wooden Smoke, you will find that it has been enhanced with five additional tracks.

Four of these are special new mixes from the multi-tracks that I did for my Patreon subscribers earlier this year, including an improvisation done by me on two pianos and Rick Musallam on one acoustic guitar, music that’s never been released before in any form - other than to my Patreon folks (which, if you’re not one, I am frequently uploading unreleased material there, so you might like to check it out here https://www.patreon.com/MikeKeneally).

The fifth bonus track is “Wooden Chips,” the edit-collage created by Scott Chatfield as an audio link for keneally.com, back when we made the album originally available. Scott would always make such a collage back when we announced a new album, and they are true time capsules of early ‘00s web-based content.

Your download of Wooden Smoke also comes with a digital booklet and a batch of oddly compelling bonus photos (there’s one at the end of this Keneallist), reviews, and ephemera. As always, we thank you for your support!

MIKE KENEALLY & BEER FOR DOLPHINS
OCTOBER 2025 TOUR of the EAST COAST and the MIDWEST of the USA!

The MK/BFD tour is seriously right around the corner, holy cow!

We just had a couple of fantastic nights at the Baked Potato in LA, and we are feeling entirely prepared to bring the craziness to the East Coast and Midwest in a couple of weeks. It was great fun to once again have Bryan Beller in the ranks – the rhythm-section relationship he and Joe Travers share (they’ve been playing together since the early ‘90s when they were Berklee students together) is unparalleled, as is their comprehension of my music, and they provide the most amazing foundation for the marvelous Rick Musallam and myself to do our respective things.

We’ll be playing in Rutherford NJ, NYC, Annville PA, Cleveland, Fort Wayne, and Chicago from October 12-18. A mere six gigs, but a lot to bite off financially for our hard-driving little band of buckaroos, so please come if you can, and haul a bunch of your friends to the gigs with you. I promise you’ll have a great time.

Opening for us will be the truly superb Dave Bainbridge & Sally Minnear. They wowed me with their set at ProgStock last year. They will perform as a duo on their own set, and for the last half-hour of our set they will also act as honorary Beers For Dolphin, allowing us to play several of my more intricate compositions that rarely if ever get an airing live.

And starting off each evening will be my uber-talented buddy Matt Dorsey, kicking off the festivities with a solo set (and he just might be wandering onto the stage during my set as well).

We start with an October 12 appearance at the ProgStock Festival in Rutherford, NJ – festival passes available here.

October 14 finds us at The Cutting Room in the well-known metropolis of New York City

A venue and city which are new to us, The Allen Theater in Annville, PA, plays host to our shenanigans on October 15. I have now seen some footage of the interior of this place and it looks fantastic – we’d love to have a good crowd at this gig!

Fun times of no small velocity await us all on October 16 at the Beachland Tavern in beloved Cleveland.

I eagerly anticipate returning to play at the Sweetwater performance venue in Fort Wayne on October 17 – I played there with ProgJect a couple of years ago and had a fantastic time.

We conclude this whirlwind trip by returning to visit our good pals at Reggies in Chicago on October 18.

I really don’t manage to get my band out of California very often, and I’d love to do it more often, and some good attendance at these gigs will make it far more likely that that can happen. Please come join us if you can!

THANK YOU!

You are an extraordinary person and I thank you profusely for your attention and kindness and support!

Love,

Mike

MIKE KENEALLY

While Mike Keneally / Beer For Dolphins perfomed at the Baked Potato a couple of days ago, I was happy to give "Sluggo!" another listen.
Here's a snapshot of the Japanese version that I recently picked up.

-

PROGSTOCK 2025

Make Weird Music discusses the upcoming Progstock festival with Mike Keneally & Tom Palmieri and Ann Rinaldi.

Excellent discussions, info & beautiful music !

The festival will be held October 9-12, 2025 in Rutherford, NJ

https://www.progstock.com/2025/