Mike Keneally "hat" - clean or explicit?

[Batchman]

So, I finally discovered Mike Keneally in one of those "where have you been all my life?" moments - the Zappa and Henry Cow influences are obvious - and wanted to start at the very beginning with his "hat." album.

On Amazon, they list the album with the designation "Clean" (other albums listed under him have both "Clean" and "Explicit" versions) but no "Explicit" version.

I would never want anything that's censored and I am not interested in any "cleaned-up" version. Are there really two different versions of this album, or is Amazon designating the one and only version as "Clean" for consistency?

[StarThrower]

You can go straight to the source.

https://store.keneally.com/products/ex-2301

[Batchman]

You can go straight to the source.

https://store.keneally.com/products/ex-2301

I prefer an mp3 download; I don't deal with physical CDs anymore if I can help it. And the Amazon download includes a PDF, which is presumably CD liner notes.

[flowerking]

I don't think there's anything on Hat that could be censored. No bad language, I don't recall anything even suggestive on it.

[SteveSly]

So, I finally discovered Mike Keneally in one of those "where have you been all my life?" moments - the Zappa and Henry Cow influences are obvious - and wanted to start at the very beginning with his "hat." album.

On Amazon, they list the album with the designation "Clean" (other albums listed under him have both "Clean" and "Explicit" versions) but no "Explicit" version.

I would never want anything that's censored and I am not interested in any "cleaned-up" version. Are there really two different versions of this album, or is Amazon designating the one and only version as "Clean" for consistency?

Mike is a member of this forum, so maybe he can answer your question personally. I have whatever original version was released and was not aware of different versions.

[mkeneally]

No clean/censored version exists, certainly not on any physical release, and I’ve never heard of any digital release being censored in any way. There are four “fuck”s on the album, none of which have contributed to the downfall of civilization in any way. Three of them are in “Uglytown” and one is in “Heaven Likes You” (the secret message in that one is Kevin Gilbert singing “Kevin likes you” at one point). Batchman, I understand you pivoting away from physical media - I only wish I knew whether or not the Amazon download contains the remastered audio that our physical CD has, which is far better sounding than the original release. I’ll also briefly proselytize on behalf of the CD/DVD we offer at the Keneally store, which has a load of valuable additional stuff. More than anything I very much appreciate your dipping your toe into my catalogue - I hope you find it worthy of continuing on.

[Batchman]

No clean/censored version exists, certainly not on any physical release, and I’ve never heard of any digital release being censored in any way. There are three “fuck”s on the album, none of which have contributed to the downfall of civilization in any way. Two of them are in “Uglytown” and one is in “Heaven Likes You” (the secret message in that one is Kevin Gilbert singing “Kevin likes you” at one point). Batchman, I understand you pivoting away from physical media - I only wish I knew whether or not the Amazon download contains the remastered audio that our physical CD has, which is far better sounding than the original release. I’ll also briefly proselytize on behalf of the CD/DVD we offer at the Keneally store, which has a load of valuable additional stuff. More than anything I very much appreciate your dipping your toe into my catalogue - I hope you find it worthy of continuing on.

Thanks for your reply - you make great music and I am looking forward to exploring it all. I can't really tell from the Amazon page which release it is, but the download is dated January 1, 1992 if that helps at all. Also, one of the reviews of the audio CD version appears to state that it is the remastered version.

[mkeneally]

Thank you Batchman - I’m inclined to think Amazon’s got the remastered audio in spite of the listed 1992 date, which was the year of its initial release (we remastered it in 2006) - if you continue on from there (and continue to prefer downloads to physical), I invite you to check out http://mikekeneallymusic.bandcamp.com/ and https://store.keneally.com/collections/downloads where we’ve got downloads aplenty (although we don’t have “hat.” available in download form yet, I intend to make that one available at Bandcamp sometime in 2024, featuring bonus audio from the soundtrack of the 2006 DVD). Have fun and thank you!

[Batchman]

Thank you Batchman - I’m inclined to think Amazon’s got the remastered audio in spite of the listed 1992 date, which was the year of its initial release (we remastered it in 2006) - if you continue on from there (and continue to prefer downloads to physical), I invite you to check out http://mikekeneallymusic.bandcamp.com/ and https://store.keneally.com/collections/downloads where we’ve got downloads aplenty (although we don’t have “hat.” available in download form yet, I intend to make that one available at Bandcamp sometime in 2024, featuring bonus audio from the soundtrack of the 2006 DVD). Have fun and thank you!

I went to the Mike Keneally Store and grabbed all the free downloads (including the 2 EPs) to start with. Absolutely great stuff. Thanks for making it available so easily, along with the details about the recordings. I detect some lifts from "Court of the Crimson King" in addition to passages in some of the pieces that remind me of National Health and "Western Culture" among other things. Will be sure to follow up with "hat." and the rest of the collection.

[mkeneally]

Thanks so much for the good words. I’m guessing that the “Crimson King” reference you note is in “Inhale” - for that one, Lyle Workman created the instrumental track, playing all the instruments himself, and I wrote and sang the vocal tracks to go along with it. Lyle’s intro/chorus WAS pretty Crimsony :-)

Happy new year Batchman and everyone!

[chalkpie]

Thank you for buying "hay.".....I mean "hat."

Phenomenal album right out of the starting gate. Don't miss these tunes on steroids on Half Alive in Hollywood as well, another must-own MK album. That album was in my car cd player for many months when I first bought it. Beller and Toss are an unbelievable rhythm section monster machine on that stuff. I especially love the live "studio" disc.

[pb2015]

I guess I'll ask the "elephant in the room" question...so, Mike, were you involved in making "clean" mixes of the other albums?

[mkeneally]

I don’t think there’s even a “clean” mix of hat.! Just some Amazon mis-labeling weirdness. Nope, never done a clean mix of one of my records and as far as I know no one else has either.

[mkeneally]

Thank you for buying "hay.".....I mean "hat."

Phenomenal album right out of the starting gate. Don't miss these tunes on steroids on Half Alive in Hollywood as well, another must-own MK album. That album was in my car cd player for many months when I first bought it. Beller and Toss are an unbelievable rhythm section monster machine on that stuff. I especially love the live "studio" disc.

Toss and BB are indeed brutally amazing on that album.

[Mister Triscuits]

Amazon is confusing the clean hat with Mike’s X-rated prog-rap opus HAT (Humid-Ass Tushy).

[yesstiles]

Thank you Batchman - I’m inclined to think Amazon’s got the remastered audio in spite of the listed 1992 date, which was the year of its initial release (we remastered it in 2006) - if you continue on from there (and continue to prefer downloads to physical), I invite you to check out http://mikekeneallymusic.bandcamp.com/ and https://store.keneally.com/collections/downloads where we’ve got downloads aplenty (although we don’t have “hat.” available in download form yet, I intend to make that one available at Bandcamp sometime in 2024, featuring bonus audio from the soundtrack of the 2006 DVD). Have fun and thank you!

What did the remastering entail?

[Polypet]

Toss and BB are indeed brutally amazing on that album.

Word

[mkeneally]

What did the remastering entail?

We auditioned the pre-edited master DATs for the whole album in 2006, and discovered that they were of significantly higher fidelity than the edited-together DAT which was used to manufacture the 1992 CD (digital editing was still in its relative infancy back then and I had much to learn - we all thought that digital “in” equaled digital “out” in those days, and so I didn’t A/B the DATs after we got out of the editing bay). For the 2006 edition I had to re-edit the whole album together from those original pre-edited chunks, which (given the roller-coaster, piecemeal nature of that album) took a long time, but it was worth it - and I was also able to restore several minutes of originally deleted audio (including the very ending of the entire album), since CD capacity had increased from 73 minutes to 80 during the interim. So the 2006 “hat.” is really a significant upgrade on various levels.

[Batchman]

We auditioned the pre-edited master DATs for the whole album in 2006, and discovered that they were of significantly higher fidelity than the edited-together DAT which was used to manufacture the 1992 CD (digital editing was still in its relative infancy back then and I had much to learn - we all thought that digital “in” equaled digital “out” in those days, and so I didn’t A/B the DATs after we got out of the editing bay). For the 2006 edition I had to re-edit the whole album together from those original pre-edited chunks, which (given the roller-coaster, piecemeal nature of that album) took a long time, but it was worth it - and I was also able to restore several minutes of originally deleted audio (including the very ending of the entire album), since CD capacity had increased from 73 minutes to 80 during the interim. So the 2006 “hat.” is really a significant upgrade on various levels.

Maybe that's what they meant by "clean" ... a cleaned-up version of the original audio?

[yesstiles]

We auditioned the pre-edited master DATs for the whole album in 2006, and discovered that they were of significantly higher fidelity than the edited-together DAT which was used to manufacture the 1992 CD (digital editing was still in its relative infancy back then and I had much to learn - we all thought that digital “in” equaled digital “out” in those days, and so I didn’t A/B the DATs after we got out of the editing bay). For the 2006 edition I had to re-edit the whole album together from those original pre-edited chunks, which (given the roller-coaster, piecemeal nature of that album) took a long time, but it was worth it - and I was also able to restore several minutes of originally deleted audio (including the very ending of the entire album), since CD capacity had increased from 73 minutes to 80 during the interim. So the 2006 “hat.” is really a significant upgrade on various levels.

Cool! I’ll have to check it out. I do like the dynamics at least of that original 1992 CD. Wing Beat Fantastic was totally squashed so I hope it isn’t as compressed as that one.

[mkeneally]

Aw shucks, sorry you weren’t into the sound of WBF - I love how that album ended up and thought the sonics suited the material, and Andy P. was happy with the finished result (and he was kind of my “audience of one” for that record, my barometer for whether the album was successful or not). That said, the “hat.” remaster sounds nothing like it so fear not :-)

[chalkpie]

"Lightning Roy" is worth the price of admission alone! I love the middle section starting at 7:17, where it becomes very "cinematic" and moody. Mellotron, perhaps? Awesome.

[mkeneally]

Thank you Mr. Pie 🙏 No actual Mellotron with reach at that point, I think pretty much all the keyboard work on that album was the Kurzweil K1200 - a wonderful keyboard.

[chalkpie]

Thank you Mr. Pie 🙏 No actual Mellotron with reach at that point, I think pretty much all the keyboard work on that album was the Kurzweil K1200 - a wonderful keyboard.

Cool...maybe you should do another album with just the K1200 again . "Thank you for buying helmet."

[chalkpie]

And in all seriousness, hat. needs to mentioned when talking about amazing debut albums. Imo.