Chalkhills Digest Volume 18, Issue 14
Date: Thursday, 23 August 2012
Chalkhills Digest, Volume 18, Number 14
Thursday, 23 August 2012
Topics:
Colin in a prog supergroup?
Wing Beat Fantastic!
new colin ...
Wing Beat Fantastic lyrics
Wing Beats and Zappa Memories
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You want some lovely, I got some lovely.
---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 27 Jun 2012 12:14:02 -0700 (PDT) From: Tyler Hewitt <tahewitt@yahoo.com> Subject: Colin in a prog supergroup? Message-ID: <1340824442.85235.YahooMailNeo@web39304.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Just came across this: http://www.antimusic.com/news/12/June/27Yes,_Asia,_Porcupine_Tree_and_XTC_Members_Form_The_Prog_Collective.shtml Could be interesting. I'm kind of meh about Yes, and not an Asia fan, but it will be good to hear Colin in any form. My blog: http://lastlightbender.blogspot.com/
------------------------------ Date: Wed, 11 Jul 2012 10:39:25 -0400 (EDT) From: "sgot@busydigits.net" <sgot@busydigits.net> Subject: Wing Beat Fantastic! Message-ID: <1158694469.244200.1342017565822.JavaMail.open-xchange@email.1and1.com> Hello, Good Chalkfolk, Here's the latest from Mike Keneally... and ANDY, on the release of Wing Beat Fantastic. Pre-order can be done here: http://store.keneally.com/products/mike-keneally-wing-beat-fantastic "Fellow humans! Hail! Finally it's time to say this, and it's a sincere pleasure to do so: Wing Beat Fantastic, my new album made up primarily of songs co-written by myself and Andy Partridge, will be released on July 24! Of this year! And it's available for pre-order now! It's available on CD and/or digital download (mp3 or FLAC, beginning July 24). There's also a Wing Beat Fantastic T-shirt you can buy at the new Mike Keneally Store. WBF is a 12-song album, eight songs of which were co-written by myself and Andy (while either stuffed into his tiny backyard shed studio, or sprawled around his large old wooden dining room table. Or seated at the piano in his front room). We had two separate one-week writing sessions, in 2006 and 2008, and I recorded the final versions of the songs in San Diego, mostly in 2011 and 2012. We're REALLY happy about this one. This is a nebulous term, but to me it really feels like an album, probably more than anything of mine since Wooden Smoke (which some people feel this album at least tangentially resembles). Like that album, there is a good amount of acoustic playing on this record - but a lot of electric as well, in a lot of styles and tones. And a lot of other stuff. But really this album is about songs, and about a collaboration that was years in coming... I first met Andy, whose music I frankly idolized throughout the '80s, after he and fellow XTC member Dave Gregory came out to a Frank Zappa concert in 1988 (at Scott Thunes' bold and blissfully successful invitation: he was as devoted an XTC fan as I was, and when the Zappa Band came to play in the UK on our '88 tour, Scott had the majestic brainstorm to leave a message with XTC's record label inviting the band to our Birmingham show - and Dave and Andy accepted the invitation. It felt like a miracle). Scott and I were flies on the wall during the recording of XTC's Oranges And Lemons in Los Angeles in 1988. I've been friends with Dave and Andy in the years since. A beautiful situation, the whole shebang is. I was rocked and delighted a few years ago when Andy suggested we try a songwriting collaboration. We decided to write some songs just to see what would result, we didn't necessarily know that it would result in an album, but happily, it has. (In anticipatory response to a rather frequently asked question, Andy himself doesn't sing or play on the album. He did provide some percussion sequences on a couple of songs. Some people have asked me if it was my idea that Andy shouldn't perform on this album... Please! Trust me, I would have been more than happy for Andy to contribute some performances and I gently prodded him to do so on occasion - but he felt strongly that keeping his voice off of the album would allow it to exist more fully as a Keneally record. Oh, OK Andy. I think his impulse was probably correct, and it definitely sounds like a Keneally album, but man, Andy's DNA is strong on this thing - as is the sound of his home studio, because in some cases I wove elements of the demos we made in his shed into the final mixes. If you love his music and have been waiting patiently for years for some new Partridge tunes, I think you will be very happy with this. And if youave been waiting for an unashamedly accessible and melodic pop-rock album from me, you've now got it in spades. Although it still goes through a lot of shifts of mood and texture etc. etc. - soncially, it's a really adventurous record I think. Amazing engineering by Mike Harris. Oh, and glorious artwork from Atticus Wolrab. Everyone was on their game for this record.) Hereas the names of the songs: 1. The Ineffable Oomph of Everything, Part One (Keneally) 2. I'm Raining Here, Inside (Keneally/Partridge) 3. Wing Beat Fantastic (Keneally/Partridge) 4. The Ineffable Oomph of Everything, Part Two (Keneally) 5. You Kill Me (Keneally/Partridge) 6. Friend Of A Friend (Keneally/Partridge) 7. Thatas Why I Have No Name (Keneally) 8. Your House (Keneally/Partridge) 9. Miracle Woman And Man (Keneally/Partridge) 10. Inglow (Keneally/Partridge) 11. Bobeau (Keneally/Partridge) 12. Land (Keneally) I play a lot of the instruments and sing a lot of the voices. Other musicians and singers who perform on the album include Marco Minnemann, Nick DaVirgilio, Rick Musallam (on drums!), Bryan Beller, Evan Francis, Matt Resnicoff, Allen Whitman (on vocals!) and April West on trombone. Depending on how things go, if you pre-order now you might very well receive your copy a little bit prior to the official release date of July 24. Thanks for everything and for sharing this moment - this album is a dream come true for me and I'm really, really freakin' happy to offer it to the world. Yer pal, MK" Andy Partridge speaking about Wing Beat Fantastic: "How does he do it? When Mike took away the demo we made for a freshly co-written song "You Kill Me," he had in his hands a rather lumpen campfire strum on acoustic guitars. What came back to my ears sometime later was a totally pulled apart, beautifully arranged mini-film for the ears, flowing like sonic liquid from one section to another, effortlessly moving from one time signature to the next. He'd made a tiny symphony, turning a bitter little protest tune into a well-crafted, cool, gliding, chrome...well...big protest song! Mike, what is your secret? I didn't know how any of the tunes we'd agreed to write together were going to come out, but I know one thing, SO musical is this man that him just sitting with a guitar across his lap or perched at a keyboard pulled things from me that I can honestly say "I don't know where they came from." One such piece was "Your House." One morning I said "give me a chord," he did, and another..."go up this time," and he did. Suddenly the basis for a whole bittersweet tale flew out. This is tough to talk about as I'm internally fighting the anti-vanity police writing this, but Mike and I wrestled from nowhere as beautiful a song as my best XTC work. Sat in my microscopic garden shed studio, I was privileged to be part of some rare magic that day. His inherent musicality set something off in me that was like a lovely bomb. No wonder Frank Zappa wanted to work with this man. When he sent me my copy of the finished album, and I got to this song, I couldn't hold back the tears. Thank you Mike, there are not many pieces of music that can do that to me. Love all the short between-song vignettes that Mike includes on the album. Sometimes commenting on the song past, sometimes lifting motifs from a forthcoming piece. Like scenes in a film, a prequel of what you are about to hear, bending the timeline of the whole album to his musical will. This is filmic sense Mike, who taught you that, show me? Sat at my kitchen table wrestling out the words to title track "Wing Beat Fantastic" was a bit of a roller coaster thrill ride. Don't think I've been head to head with such a sharp mind. I'd come up with a good line, he'd come up with better, I just HAD to beat it with a better one yet...or he's not leaving this table. A privilege to be goaded by you, man, good results." Can't wait. Scott Nuckles
------------------------------ Date: Fri, 27 Jul 2012 13:44:42 -0700 (PDT) From: PMFPS <freeq27870@yahoo.com> Subject: new colin ... Message-ID: <1343421882.10678.YahooMailNeo@web140701.mail.bf1.yahoo.com> Man oh man oh man!! Has anyone here heard the new tracks featuring our own Colin Moulding lately? "It's Raining Again" taken from the forthcoming "Songs Of The Century - A Tribute To Supertramp" featuring not only CM on bass, but LEAD VOCALS as well!!!!! Sounds absolutely WONDERFUL! Then there's "The Prog Collective" - a new release forthcoming from Billy Sherwood (formerly of Yes), in which he explains ...... "The idea of assembling a collection of amazing artists from the progressive rock genre all on one record was an especially exciting concept to me. Inspired, I began writing and recording the 7 songs that would become this album. I then sent those recordings out to some of my friends and musical heroes from bands like King Crimson, XTC, Asia, Gentle Giant, and of course my former band Yes. Soon, I started receiving vocal tracks and guitar and keyboard overdubs from studios all over the world, which I then mixed at my recording studio in Los Angeles. Despite the distances in geography, however, the feeling of the entire production is one of musical and spiritual unity - The Prog Collective! - (Billy Sherwood)" I'm not sure at this point which particular track Colin's involved in, but AT LEAST HE'S INVOLVED IN SOMETHING NEW!!!!!! I'm aching to hear this new material like you wouldn't believe. But like our good friend J. Garcia once said, "All good things in all good time." :-) Bring it on then!!!!! /Danny Phipps (NC XTC fan) -- "We shall be the bridges over the valleys of our being." (Yogi Lang / RPWL)
------------------------------ Date: Mon, 13 Aug 2012 13:37:50 +0200 From: "Jan Bletz" <jan@xs4all.nl> Subject: Wing Beat Fantastic lyrics Message-ID: <20120813.113750.652.11@JANBLETZ-PC> The lyrics to the fantastic Wing Beat Fantastic album can be found on DVDlyrics.com, http://www.dvdlyrics.com/albums-m-mike_keneally-wing_beat_fantastic.html Jan Bletz
------------------------------ Date: Fri, 17 Aug 2012 13:24:41 -0400 From: Kevin wollenweber <dancingweed@optonline.net> Subject: Wing Beats and Zappa Memories Message-ID: <0M8W00LAXTPMPF60@mta3.srv.hcvlny.cv.net> Wow, I just picked up the WING BEAT FANTASTIC compilation of songs by Mike Keneally and Andy Partridge, and I like it a lot. I still think that Colin Moulding added a lot to the XTC mix and is missed here, but this is a good batch of tracks. Ironically, this came to my door at the same time I ordered the remastered editions of the first wave of Zappa/Mothers albums, and I have to say that I'm impressed by most of these as well, although they seem to be the original vinyl masters in most cases. In cases where Frank Zappa had added sections of music from the same sessions that made up the original albums, these additions are omitted, as in the case with WEASELS RIPPED MY FLESH where the first piece was nicely expanded on the Rykodisc imprint. However, since the entire Zappa catalog found a new home, maybe those in charge will be amenable to documentary-like expansions of some notable individual albums so that we get terrific rareties like the MOTHERS AHEAD OF THEIR TIME disk that allowed us to hear jams that were abruptly and comically cut off on WEASELS. Sorry, folks, I know that this is an XTC zine, but since Keneally was once a member of Zappa's band, I thought I'd mention that reissue wave as well. Since Andy Partridge is a Captain Beefheart fan, I'm sure he might also find it semi-important, no? Kevin Wollenweber
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