yirm's mike keneally page

11/18/03 - Taylor Clinic, Hix Bros. Music, Aurora, IL
11/9/01 - Quartet '01 Tour, Martyrs', Chicago, IL

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11/18/03 - Taylor Clinic, Hix Bros. Music, Aurora, IL

Mike blew away a crowd of about 100 people at Hix Bros. Music in Aurora, IL. He has an endorsement deal (is a "clinician") with Taylor Guitars, and has toured solo and with compadre, bassist Bryan Beller (buy his new album, View). Bryan was on majority of this tour, and I believe this was the second show which Mike did solo. It was evident that he missed Bryan, however, he clearly found his groove and delivered a great performance with plenty of excellent playing, teaching, anecdotes, humor, *and* fabulous prizes!

Hix Bros. (especially Pete - thanks!) were amazing as far as helping me tape. I explained how I try to gather up as much source material as possible for a given show and then edit together and create DVDs for trade and share. So we ended up with my Digital 8 camcorder in back on Hix Bros.' tripod, with a mono board feed going into the camcorder. Meanwhile I was taping up front using their MiniDV recorder on my tripod. Also, the Ice Weasel (Joe P.) was there, and he did an audience audio tape, which I'm hoping to get a hold of.

Okay, so everything seems great -- two video feeds, and soundboard audio. Unfortunately, there are a couple of problems:

The soundboard feed into the camcorder was way to hot, and is all distorted. This really sucks, because I can tell it would have sounded fantastic. I swear, it sounded okay in headphones while I was recording, but when I played it back after I got home.... I wish I had thought of having Ice Weasel do the sbd audio. Dammit. The sound from the front camcorder isn't bad. I'm hoping to get Ice Weasel's audio which will probably sound better.
The camera in the back was unattended, and for the first tape, it was zoomed out too far. (I zoomed in closer when I changed tapes.) The problem with the first tape is that I during editing I would have (and probably still will) zoom in on Mike's face. Of course the more you zoom in digitally, the worse the distortion, so it was wasn't a great idea to have the wider shot.
The camera in front took some great looking video, but Mike's head is obstructed most of the time by the mic. Also, the horizontal angle is pretty much the same as the camera at the back of the room. When I placed the camera, I didn't know the mic would obstruct, but I should have realized that the ideal position would have been to the left so there would be a bigger difference between the two camera views (one would be head on, and the other more of a profile).

So, from a production point of view, this had the potential of being great, but will probably end up being merely good. But hey, it's just a hobby, it's just a (sanctioned) bootleg, and this is how we learn, right?

This show will be available for trade as a (probably) two-DVD set. I may do one DVD with the whole clinic (I may have to cut some of the discussion of Taylor guitars as I can get about 1.5 hours on DVD and the clinic was about 2 hours) as well as one with just the songs. Please make sure that your DVD player accepts the DVD-R format. For more info, write yirm at tiferet daht com.

Know ye that this is not an official Mike Keneally product, and is being distributed in compliance with the Official MK Taping Policy.

If you are here, you may also be interested in my Project Object and Frank Zappa pages.

Tracks (preliminary):

01 - Hello
02 - Father's Day
03 - Live in Japan
04 - Desired Effect
05 - Dee 'n' A
06 - Weekend (14.2 MB)
08 - Natty Trousers
09 - Spearmint Pup
10 - Tug
11 - Pride is a Sin
12 - 5 Legs
13 - Dancing
14 - Thanksgiving
15 - Aye-Aye Monster (22.6 MB)

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11/9/01 - Quartet '01 Tour, Martyrs', Chicago, IL

This here is selected video of the 11/9/01 show at Martyrs', Chicago. This show marked the first live performance of the Quartet. Here are some comments Mike made regarding this show on the Alt.Music.Mike-Keneally newsgroup which help put its significance in context:

"My goals and ideals, musically speaking, are much less about presenting a slick and flawless show, and much more about achieving a kind of transcendence through music. I certainly wouldn't claim that transcendence was achieved at the Martyrs' show under discussion, but I'll happily claim that it was achieved at the Victor's show we did a couple of weeks ago, and the Martyr's show (being the first quartet show) was the first move towards that. The Martyr's show is a starting point on a graph. Not that that makes it immune from criticism."

The video clips are Windows Media Video (WMV) format, and should work on both Windows and Mac versions of Windows Media Player.

There are three distinct video sources and an additional audio source. Soundboard/Audience audio mix was provided by Da9ve. Hi-8 and 8MM video were provided by Fastbulb and Fragbert. And I did the Digital-8 video from Stage Right. Video editing was done in Vegas Video 3.

This show is available for trade as a two-DVD set. Please make sure that your DVD player accepts the DVD-R format. For more info, write yirm at tiferet daht com.

Know ye that this is not an official Mike Keneally product, and is being distributed in compliance with the Official MK Taping Policy.

If you are here, you may also be interested in my Project Object and Frank Zappa pages.

Tracks:

Set I
01 - Career Politicians
02 - Skunk / Top of Stove Melting (38.0 MB)
03 - Clumpy Clumpy O / 2001 / Talk (Porno Shoes / The Price of Milk)
04 - My Dilemma (26.6 MB)
05 - Beautiful
06 - Dream In Red
07 - Improv / Wild Horses

Set II
08 - Thanksgiving
09 - 5 Legs
10 - Fathers Day
11 - Nonkerchunk (I Just Got Here / Naked Horse / Blue Jean Baby / The Knife and Drum) (50.1 MB)
12 - I Was Not Ready for You
13 - Ankle Bracelet
14 - Hum / Performing Miracles
15 - Martha My Dear
16 - Aye Aye Monster / Paloma (40.2 MB)

Encore
17 - Here Is What I Dreamed / Here Is Why / Scotch