Mike Keneally - Hat (CD)
Mike’s comments (2013):
Everyone has to make a first album (everyone who makes albums does, anyway), and (barring the cassette-only Tar Tapes releases, which sort of count, but sort of don’t) this was mine. All these years later I’m still not ashamed of it…in fact, there are far fewer cringeworthy-moments for me on this album than on several that were to come; something to do with the purity of innocence, or not knowing enough yet to really screw things up. I was still heavily in thrall to Frank Zappa, and the music on hat. reflects that, as does the sequencing/pacing, the use of sped-up vocals, some of the lyrical content, the crazy-ass unison lines etc. etc.
It’s also the only record of mine that Frank actually heard, and to my delight he didn’t dismiss it as a second-rate copy of himself – he told me he thought it was “great” and went on to praise it in some interviews. At that point I could probably have given up album-making entirely and still considered the whole adventure a rousing success just on the basis of his approval, but I decided to forge on, until album-making became an addiction which I’ll happily never be able to shake.
This album contributed a bunch of songs to my live repertoire, many of which are still staples to this day: “Uglytown,” “The Car Song,” “Performing Miracles,” “I Can’t Stop,” “Lightnin’ Roy,” the “Cowlogy” (our shorthand setlist-speak for the trilogy of songs “Day of the Cow 1,” “Snowcow” and “Day of the Cow 2”), “Spoon Guy,” “Cheddar,” “Open Up!” and “Rosemary Girl” have all logged countless hours on many stages by a number of my bands, and a few of the other tunes have made occasional cameo appearances as well. There is something enduring about these early songs that makes them a real pleasure to return to time and again.
The full 14-minute “Lightnin’ Roy” (dedicated to Frank Zappa) has never gotten an airing on the live stage – instead a shortened, sort of fusion version (as heard on Guitar Therapy Live and Half Alive In Hollywood) was devised for performance purposes. The complete piece pretty much defines self-indulgence, but it’s something I’m very glad to have done and remain grateful to have been able to share it with the world, whether the world found it useful or not. Someday I’d really like to work up a live arrangement of the whole thing, but I always feel too guilt-ridden to force one of my bands to learn it. Someday I’ll get a budget to do the full-production worldwide tour of my dreams, with a whole frigging month of rehearsals to prepare for it with my musicians getting paid the whole time, and nothing will stop me then, boy.
There’s some crazy guitar playing on this record, some of my most unfettered and freewheeling ever recorded. There really is something to be said for not really knowing what you’re doing, sometimes. The harmonized guitar epic “Fencing” (so glad that I got Scott Thunes to play bass on this one, by the way) is a rigorous musical workout which demonstrates a lot of crazy, youthful hunger – I was truly obsessive about working out those harmonies. It was important!!! to do. And also really fun. Not a single one of my guitars was run through a standard guitar amp on this album, by the way – all the guitar recording was done direct through a SansAmp pedal. Pretty badass guitar tones, actually. The sounds I got on stuff like “Cheddar” and “Backstage With Wilson Phillips” were fairly face-shredding, I have to admit.
But some of my favorite moments on this album are the tiny, unassuming ones. “Spoon Guy” is a rarity for me in that all the parts were entirely written out on paper prior to playing it, and I do think there’s something special and complete about this recording, even though it’s barely over a minute long. It’s one of those times when there’s absolutely nothing I’d want to change about the final result.
Another track I really love is “Eno And The Actor,” and it might be because I don’t think anyone else understands why it exists. I’m not sure even I do, but it’s a little puff of absurdity that just makes me giggle a lot, the sort of thing where it just pleases me to no end that something so strange and indefensible is actually being listened to by a decent number of people in a variety of corners of the planet. It scratches a particularly idiosyncratic itch for me in a very satisfying way. I’m also delighted that Kevin Gilbert was able to play the role of The Actor – I’d wanted to do more work with him, in fact was planning to ask him to co-produce Sluggo!, but it wasn’t to be, so I treasure the small sliver of collaboration that we did manage to do. (He also sang the angelic backing vocals on “Heaven Likes You,” at one point slipping in a sly “Kevin likes you” as a secret message to y’all.)
Many of the players and singers on the album are drawn from the hotbed which was the early ‘90s San Diego music scene, including Doug Booth and Alan Silverstein, the rhythm section from the band my brother Marty and I had in the ‘80s, Drop Control. The songs they play on, like “Rosemary Girl,” “Performing Miracles,” “I Can’t Stop” and “The Car Song,” were all regularly performed as part of Drop Control’s live act.
Another buddy who’s no longer with us, Buddy Blue, provided dobro and a little opening narration assistance on “The Car Song.” Buddy was a great guy, a legend in San Diego roots rock and a hell of a journalist too.
When we set about preparing this album for reissue, I auditioned all available master tapes and learned something pretty startling: the digital tape containing all of the discreet pieces of music, PRIOR to digitally editing it all together, was unquestionably richer and more detailed sounding than the final, edited-together version released on CD in 1992. Somehow, the signal path or software that was used during the editing stage back in 1992 degraded the audio, and we didn’t catch it at the time (too excited by the idea of digital editing in the first place, I just wasn’t careful enough). So, we reverted back to the pre-edited master, and I replicated all of the original edits (with some intentional differences – I messed around with the pacing in certain sections, just for a laugh) – and also took advantage of the increased playing time now available on CD to include the complete versions of “Snowcow,” “Here Is Why,” “The Car Song” and “Lightnin’ Roy,” all of which I had to edit down for the original 1992 issue. Between the wildly improved audio, the newly restored music, and the vast quantity of valuable material included on the DVD that comes with the special edition (including a live take of “Here Is Why” with Doug Lunn and Toss Panos that I really enjoy a hell of a lot), the reissued hat. is a release I’m exceedingly happy with.
Behold:
https://youtu.be/7YnOE1wByeY?list=PLWg-ElXZ_aNzEFYAy8I9zbEyQ66TiOi6k
https://youtu.be/867i0Qz1keE?list=PLWg-ElXZ_aNzEFYAy8I9zbEyQ66TiOi6k
https://youtu.be/U41IKH3_5iY?list=PLWg-ElXZ_aNzEFYAy8I9zbEyQ66TiOi6k
Tracks:
- 1. Your Quimby Dollars At Work
- 2. I Can’t Stop
- 3. Ugy Town
- 4. Open Up!
- 5. Dhen Tin
- 6. Spearmint Pup
- 7. Fencing
- 8. Always Man
- 9. My Immense Superiority Over The Silverfish
- 10. Eno And The Actor
- 11. The Car Song
- 12. Heaven Like You/Apple Pie
- 13. Backstage With Wilson Phillips
- 14. Here Is What I Dreamed
- 15. Here Is Why
- 16. Performing Miracles
- 17. Spoon Guy
- 18. And That’s Why It’s Called Spunk
- 19. Johnny One-Note/The Exciting New Toothpaste From Mars
- 20. Day Of The Cow 1
- 21. Snow Cow
- 22. Day Of The Cow 2
- 23. We’re Rockin’ All Night With The Tangy Flavor Of Cheddar
- 24. Rosemary Girl
- 25. Lightnin’ Roy
Format: CD
Artist: Mike Keneally
Release Date: 1992, remastered/expanded/reissued 2007