Free legal MP3s (1 Viewer)

[Michael St. Clair]

Here are a bunch of MP3s from live recordings of Mike Keneally.
Anybody who likes Zappa, XTC, Steely Dan, or other music that doesn't suck should check him out.
Spock's Beard fan's should note that Nick D'Virgilio is the closest thing to a 'regular' drummer Mike has right now.

 

[Carl Johnson]

Most of the music I like sucks but I'll try anything for free.....

 

[Mike Broadman]

Wow, Mike Keneally. He is a talented sonuvabitch. I saw him play with Steve Vai. He was singing, playing keyboards, and guitar, sometimes all at the same time. He was even tutoring a girl how to play Black Dog on stage. Very cool.

I've never heard any of his solo stuff. Didn't he have a band called Beer for Dolphins? What ever happened to that?

 

[Michael St. Clair]

I've seen Mike live 6 times now, plus with Vai.

BFD is now 'Mike Keneally Band'.

Mike B, you are going to buy all of his albums. Trust me.

 

[Mike Broadman]

Mike B, you are going to buy all of his albums. Trust me.

I'm sure I would.

I saw a tape of Frank Zappa tribute concert with Keneally leading the band. It was fun. He sang "Jazz Discharge Party Hats" and "Brown Shoes Don't Make It."

I believe he is also on James LaBrie's (singer for Dream Theater) solo albums, but I don't have those.

 

[Michael St. Clair]

I saw a tape of Frank Zappa tribute concert with Keneally leading the band. It was fun. He sang "Jazz Discharge Party Hats" and "Brown Shoes Don't Make It."

Zappa's Universe. Mike kicked in a window in anger at Tower Records in NYC when the disc won a Grammy.
Yes, it won a Grammy...specifically the song "Sofa" which won for Best Rock Instrumental Performance. At the time that the nominations were announced I was at the height of my disgust at Polygram and at my own involvement in a project which brought Frank far more pain than pleasure. I hated the fact that the only reason that the song was nominated was because Frank was dead, and that now Polygram could pump out their collective corporate chest with unctuous pride at how they were paying proper tribute to such a great man, and stick a shitty little Grammy sticker on the "ZU" cover to boot. It all just stunk to me. On the night of the Grammies, Z just happened to be in New York during a tour. Joe Travers and I were at Tower Records in NYC and the Grammies were being shown on the many television sets positioned around the store. I was already in a foul mood anticipating the coming victory, and because I'd been denied entry to a Grammy oriented press junket earlier that day, where I'd intended to spread as much poison about the event and about Polygram as I could muster. I was stalking an upper floor of the store when the victory was announced. I remember looking down a staircase and seeing Joe looking up at me disbelievingly as I screamed "no" at the top of my lungs, thrashed around pathetically, spit several times, then made a mad beeline for the Zappa section, grabbed all the copies of "ZU" and hid them in other artists' sections, then prominently displaying "Yellow Shark" in its place. This small act of defiance calmed me momentarily and Joe and I left the store, at which point the cool night air further assuaged my anger. As we walked along the side of the store, Joe made a tactical error: he made a joking reference to the fact that Steve Vai had re-recorded his guitar part for "Sofa" in the studio (this is supposed to be a big secret, by the way). Now, I have no moral compunction regarding adding studio tracks to live tapes, obviously; Frank did it incessantly, and the fact that Steve did the same is no cause for alarm in my book. But the fact that Steve's decision to get his track "just so" was supposed to be such a huge shameful secret always rubbed me the wrong way, and now that the piece had won a Grammy it suddenly just smelled like a mondo fucking deception. At that point I was simply filled with rage like I've never felt before or since, turned to the right and kicked in an outer window of Tower Books (Tower pretty much occupies that whole block of the city). I continued walking and was met by a large gentleman racing out of the front door, an employee of Tower. He asked if I'd just kicked in the window. I said yes, I'm sorry, I'm in a really bad mood and I fucked up. He looked me up and down and said yeah, you fucked up all right, and walked back into the store. He didn't say follow me, he didn't say wait here, he just went back in. Joe and I looked at each other for a couple of seconds. Joe then asked "how do you feel about leaving?" I said it seemed like a good idea and we walked quickly around the corner. Then I said "how do you feel about running?" and we ran like fucking maniacs for two blocks, hailed a cab and went to a strip joint to drink beer and cool off. I'm not proud of any of this.
The story's not over...three nights later Z played an in-store at the very same Tower Records. The place was packed and I kept looking over my shoulder for the employee, who never made his presence known. I started to feel pretty smug; Ahmet and Dweezil were late in arriving, and the store manager asked me to speak to the crowd and assure them that everything would go according to plan as soon as the boys arrived, and just hang tight. The crowd was glad to see me and I started seriously loosening up, culminating in my suggestion that they relax by shoplifting a few things until the show started. Even this brought no repercussions. The show and autograph session went splendidly and I scored about $40 worth of free stuff from the store.
I really don't know what the moral of this story is.

 

[Mike Broadman]

Well, that was a fun read. Of course, I envy you being so close to the Zappa Empire. I wish I got to do cool things like that.

Zappa winning a Grammy is nothing new, though. They did give him one for Jazz From Hell and he was nominated for other things.

 

[Michael St. Clair]

Well, that was a fun read. Of course, I envy you being so close to the Zappa Empire. I wish I got to do cool things like that.

I'm not close to the Zappa Empire...I've met MK and Adrian Belew a few times (and had email correspondence with MK for a while), that's it.
I never saw Frank live, I was going to in '88 before the tour blew up and was canceled halfway through.
I said 'hi' to Robert Fripp in a parking lot once, not really expecting to see him...he practically ran away from me...a half-hour I was walking into the shithole bathroom in the bar...Fripp walked out, he had changed in the stall as they had no changing room.

 

[Mike Broadman]

I said 'hi' to Robert Fripp in a parking lot once, not really expecting to see him...he practically ran away from me...a half-hour I was walking into the shithole bathroom in the bar...Fripp walked out, he had changed in the stall as they had no changing room.

Yeah, that sounds like Fripp alright. I love reading about how he flees from people. So many people hate him for that kind of stuff.
Though it seems like he's being an asshole (and he probably is), I can see where he's coming from. He just comes off like a jerk.
NP: Patricia Barber, Nightclub, SACD

 

[Michael St. Clair]

I never stuck my hand out (I never do to a 'celebrity') or asked for an autograph (ditto), I just said 'hello' and he was out of there!
I wasn't offended, I knew all about him, and plus if I were in the same situation I might be pretty wary of people. Hell, if I were an influential musician I'd be waiting for my own Mark David Chapman to show up any second. Sad but true.