Mike Keneally

Ed Palermo: Prog vs. Fusion: A War of the Ages

by Jack Bowers
May 21, 2025

Well, if it walks like a big band and talks like a big band...chances are it's a big band, even though, in the case of Ed Palermo's New York-based 18-piece ensemble, it neither walks nor talks much like any other big band on planet earth. On Prog Vs. Fusion, Palermo casts aside many established harmonic principles in favor of fomenting and supervising a colossal struggle between the powerful forces of progressive rock and fusion. In doing so, ...

The Ed Palermo Big Band: Prog vs. Fusion: A War of the Ages

by Kyle Simpler
May 15, 2025

Sometimes musicians with serious chops take their music a little too seriously. Others, however, manage to combine talent and humor in a way that proves infectious. The Ed Palermo Big Band is one of the best examples of the latter. With albums drawing on such diverse influences as Frank Zappa, Paul Butterfield, and King Crimson, Palermo delivers a foundation of solid jazz infused with a spirit of experimentation and an eye for the absurd. With Prog vs. Fusion: A War ...

Mike Keneally: The Thing That Knowledge Can't Eat

by Mick Raubenheimer
April 12, 2023

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 ...

Gergo Borlai: The Missing Song

by Jim Worsley
May 29, 2020

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, ...

Mike Keneally: You Must Be This Tall

by Glenn Astarita
October 12, 2013

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, ...

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

by Robert Bush
March 31, 2011

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 ...

Mike Keneally: Behind the Creative Mind

by Matthew Warnock
November 10, 2010

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 ...

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

Source: Michael Bloom Media Relations
July 12, 2012

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 ...
read more

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

Source: All About Jazz
April 14, 2012

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 ...
read more

Mike Keneally Band - Guitar Therapy Live (2006)

Source: Something Else!
July 28, 2011

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 ...
read more

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

Source: Something Else!
June 2, 2011

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 ...
read more

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

Source: Michael Ricci
April 15, 2010

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 ...
read more

Mike Keneally: Scambot 1

Source: JamBase
December 22, 2009

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 ...
read more

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

Source: Michael Bloom Media Relations
November 13, 2009

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 ...
read more

Mike Keneally's New CD Confounds the Critics!

Source: All About Jazz
July 31, 2004

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 ...
read more

Upcoming Willie Oteri release with Tony Levin, Pat Mastelotto, Mike Keneally, etc.

Source: All About Jazz
June 24, 2002

read more