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Mike Keneally

Long acclaimed as one of the world's most creative and intense guitar players, Mike Keneally's talents as a vocalist, songwriter, arranger, producer and multi-instrumentalist are nearly unequalled in rock music. Keneally has released nine albums of his original music since 1992, and has built a body of work of remarkable inventiveness and originality.

Keneally played in Frank Zappa's last touring band, performing as a vocalist, guitarist and keyboardist. He's appeared on many Zappa albums, and has also recorded or performed with Robert Fripp, Wayne Kramer, Sting, Kevin Gilbert, Steve Vai, The Loud Family, Henry Kaiser, Michael Manring, Screamin' Jay Hawkins, Andy Prieboy, Mullmuzzler, The Persuasions and many others.

Known for his innovative, unpredictable live shows, Keneally plays extensively in the United States and Europe. Matt Resnicoff wrote in Time Out New York: "This band, with such a peculiar genius leading it, is a thing to savor."

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Album Review

Mike Keneally: The Thing That Knowledge Can't Eat

Read "The Thing That Knowledge Can't Eat" reviewed by Mick Raubenheimer


A new Mike Keneally album is always a thing of humming excitement and intrigue. And pending contradictions eloquently resolved. Forever searching along and within nooks and crannies of the soniverse for fresh sounds and patterns, Keneally surveys the majestic reaches and possibilities of music and grins. A shockingly talented musician, Keneally has the calm energy of someone who can pull off the most complex musical riff (on keyboards and/or guitar, sometimes simultaneously) in an effortless manner, in this way appearing ...

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Album Review

Gergo Borlai: The Missing Song

Read "The Missing Song" reviewed by Jim Worsley


The Missing Song has been heralded as a tribute to Gergo Borlai's nine most influential drummers still alive and performing today. This is much more than just listing them and perhaps covering one of their songs. Borlai composed eight of the nine new songs on this album. He plays them all in the manner, or mindset, of each drummer. The thought process, and level of preparation was meticulous for every drummer and every song. The drum kit, cymbals, sticks, pedals, ...

5
Album Review

Mike Keneally: You Must Be This Tall

Read "You Must Be This Tall" reviewed by Glenn Astarita


Virtuoso guitarist and multi-instrumentalist Mike Keneally has been all over the musical radar, spanning the past three decades. Performing with Frank Zappa in 1988, the artist has also aligned with avant-garde guitar hero Henry Kaiser and currently mans the keyboards amid some guitar work in support of iconic progressive rock guitarist Joe Satriani. With his 24th solo album, Keneally propagates some insanely complex time signatures, perhaps deriving influence from Zappa but mixes it up poignantly by infusing humor, slamming backbeats, ...

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Live Review

Jeff Kaiser / Kronomorphic / Keneally-Minnemann-Beller: San Diego, March 11, 2011

Read "Jeff Kaiser / Kronomorphic / Keneally-Minnemann-Beller: San Diego, March 11, 2011" reviewed by Robert Bush


Jeff Kaiser / Kronomorphic / Keneally/Minnemann/BellerPorter's Pub, UCSDSan Diego, CAMarch 11, 2011 The Friday, March 11 show at Porter's Pub, organized by UCSD promoter Brian Ross, was a wild, kaleidoscopic affair. Featuring two Southern California-based creative improvising exponents with a rock-fusion headliner represented a certain degree of risk: would the headliner's fans tolerate the opening acts? Conversely, would the jazz crowd stick around for the main attraction? Well, it all seemed ...

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Interview

Mike Keneally: Behind the Creative Mind

Read "Mike Keneally: Behind the Creative Mind" reviewed by Matthew Warnock


Percussionist Marco Minnemann's Normalizer 2 series grew out of an interesting and challenging premise. The accomplished drummer recorded an hour-long improvisation and then submitted the same recording to other artists, including John Czajkowski, Phi Yaan-Zek, Trey Gunn and Alex Machacek, and asked them to compose accompanying music to pair with his improv. Though this approach to composition sounds difficult to say the least, the results have proven to be highly inventive and musically smooth, if one didn't read the liner ...

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Album Review

Mike Keneally: Scambot 1

Read "Scambot 1" reviewed by John Kelman


If there's anyone carrying on Frank Zappa's legacy today, it's Mike Keneally. A monster guitarist, capable of shredding with the best of them, for many that would be enough. Keneally may have played in Zappa's last touring group before the legendary satirist/composer/guitarist died, too young, in 1993--sharing an equally eclectic, unfettered and label-less view of what music can and should be--but it would be unfair to suggest he sounds anything like the man who was an early mentor. In the ...

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Album Review

Mike Keneally Band: Guitar Therapy Live

Read "Guitar Therapy Live" reviewed by John Kelman


A musical chameleon who can fit into any context, Mike Keneally first arrived on the scene as guitarist/keyboardist/vocalist in Frank Zappa's last touring band. Since then he's recorded and/or performed with the likes of Robert Fripp, XTC and Greg Osby. While his own records have been as eclectic as the company he's kept, Guitar Therapy Live is the rock guitar album fans have been waiting for. Keneally is as comfortable in the contemporary classical context of The Universe Will Provide ...

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Recording

Wing Beat Fantastic: Songs Written By Mike Keneally And XTC’s Andy Partridge

Wing Beat Fantastic: Songs Written By Mike Keneally And XTC’s Andy Partridge

Source: Michael Bloom Media Relations

Wing Beat Fantastic (Exowax Recordings, July 17, 2012 release), the magical new album from composer/ producer/multi-instrumentalist/vocalist Mike Keneally, is the highly anticipated result of a songwriting union between the famed rock experimentalist and legendary XTC tunesmith Andy Partridge. Their collaboration produced eight new songs, combining Partridge’s innate sense of angular pop melody and beautifully intelligent poeticism, and Keneally’s experimental bent and surrealist tendencies. For Partridge fanatics, the album will be a trove of rare new material from a songwriter who’s ...

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Recording

Willie Oteri's Jazz Gunn CD project w/ Tony Levin, Pat Mastelotto, Mike Keneally and more.

Willie Oteri's Jazz Gunn CD project w/ Tony Levin, Pat Mastelotto, Mike Keneally and more.

Source: All About Jazz

Willie Oteri?s Jazz Gunn CD project with Tony Levin, Pat Mastelotto, Mike Keneally and Ephriam Owen

2/15/02 . Contact Ronan Chris Murhphy 310-200-9010

Tracking for upcoming CD Willie Oteri's JAZZ GUNN, January 3 and 4, 2002

We just finished two wonderful days of tracking at Wire Recording in Austin with Producer Ronan Chris Murphy at the helm assisted by Todd Dillon. The great Tony Levin was on Bass and Pat Mastelotto on Drums plus a little help from Mr. Ephraim ...

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Recording

Mike Keneally Band - Guitar Therapy Live (2006)

Mike Keneally Band - Guitar Therapy Live (2006)

Source: Something Else!

By Tom Johnson I can't even begin to pretend to be impartial here: Guitarist Mike Keneally is absolutely one of my all-time favorites. But that doesn't mean I'm going to steer you wrong: If I thought this wasn't an easily palatable platter of fine phonic fun, I would have little problem saying so. And that is most definitely not the case here. With Guitar Therapy Live, Keneally has whittled the results of several seemingly spectacular shows down to one solid ...

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Recording

Mike Keneally and Metropole Orkest - The Universe Will Provide (2004)

Mike Keneally and Metropole Orkest - The Universe Will Provide (2004)

Source: Something Else!

By Tom Johnson I was a little disappointed with guitarist Mike Keneally's initial release of 2004, Dog. It seemed to be lacking a little something physical, some cohesive element, in the music, but where it worked it worked great. It was just too unbalanced by some out of place avant-garde-ish pieces that didn't really fit in on such an otherwise rockin' release. So when the announcement came that The Universe Will Provide, Keneally's seemingly long-in-production “orchestral" piece would follow shortly ...

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Performance / Tour

Mike Keneally Band & Bryan Beller Band Set to Launch Northeast Tour in Early May

Mike Keneally Band & Bryan Beller Band  Set to Launch Northeast Tour in Early May

Source: Michael Ricci

Musician in Frank Zappa's last touring band and Dethklok hits the road NEW YORK, NY (March 17, 2010) - World-renowned virtuoso guitarist and multi-instrumentalist / composer Mike Keneally is set to launch his first full-band tour in nearly five years, bringing his ever-evolving, remarkably inventive musical vision to the Northeast US in early May for five shows in support of his latest Exowax Recordings release, Scambot 1.

From Keneally's well-documented recorded work as a guitarist/keyboardist/vocalist in Frank Zappa's last touring ...

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Recording

Mike Keneally: Scambot 1

Mike Keneally: Scambot 1

Source: JamBase

By: Dennis Cook

Such strange eloquence is this. While most concept albums, particularly in the rock field, are a dicey bet, at best, there are stirring exceptions like this pop culture obsessed bit o' honey. Mike Keneally - a octopus-fingered guitar wizard who's served ably with Frank Zappa, Dethklok and many others - took years to sculpt the first chapter in a proposed trilogy, and all the care and thinking works in his favor on Scambot 1 (released ), a ...

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Recording

Mike Keneally's Stunning Opus, "Scambot 1" Debuts on Nov. 24

Mike Keneally's Stunning Opus, "Scambot 1" Debuts on Nov. 24

Source: Michael Bloom Media Relations

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. Scambot 1 will be released Nov. 24 on Exowax Records. “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 ...

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Recording

Mike Keneally's New CD Confounds the Critics!

Mike Keneally's New CD Confounds the Critics!

Source: All About Jazz

Mike Keneally + Metropole Orkest The Universe Will Provide Favored Nations 2400

Release date: September 7 In an industry that encourages artists to repeat themselves and to copy the trends of other artists, Mike Keneally is the quintessential square peg. The guitarist, vocalist, keyboardist and percussionist learned from the master, Frank Zappa - an artist who developed a huge following despite creating a rock/classical/comedy hybrid of music that one recording label executive deemed to have “no ...

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Photos

Concerts

Music

Recordings: As Leader | As Sideperson

The Missing Song

Blue Canoe Records
2020

buy

Scambot 1

Enja Records
2010

buy

Scambot 1

Exowax
2009

buy

Gary

From: The Missing Song
By Mike Keneally

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