Released: 2000
Tracks: Live in Japan; Ankle Bracelet; Poo-Tee Weet?; Backwards Deb; We’ll Be Right Back; Joe; Pretty Enough for Girls; Taster; Dancing; Selfish Otter; Only Mondays; Lhai Sal; The Mystery Music; The Brown Triangles; MM; I Was Not Ready For You; Ragged Ass; Skull Bubbles; Friends and Family; Kedgeree
Best tracks: changes every time I listen to it, usually goes between Joe, I Was Not Ready For You, Japan & Kedgeree
Track to skip: Brown Triangles, it’s mostly just a noisy improv. Thankfully it’s short
I’ve been listening to music for a long time and I’ve more than reached that point where I know what I like. I’m at that point where I’m pretty discriminating in my musical tastes. True, I love hearing new music and although it may not seem so, I like discovering new stuff. For the most part though, most of my favorite albums are things I’ve been listening to for years (Iron Maiden, Journey, King Crimson, Phish, Beatles, etc.). It takes something pretty massive to rock my world these days. The only other albums by “new” bands (for me) I’ve bought recently that blew me away are things like OK Computer, Lateralus and Skylarking. And of course, Dancing. This is one of those strange albums, like XTC’s
Skylarking, that
instantly became one of my favorites on the very first listen. I mean, this album was and still is an instant top 5, Desert Island Disc & absolute favorite album for me.
After hearing some of this material live, and the sound clips on the website, I was sold on buying this album. From the first chorus of Live in Japan (like give, not dive) I was hooked not only on the album, but also Mike Keneally as well. One thing that I really love about Dancing is how everything comes together. To me, Mike’s entire career had been leading up to this album. The stuff before this was great, but this album was really the crowning of Mike Keneally as the king of good music or whatever. I don’t know! I love this album, OK! The songs are excellent on here. Live in Japan is a fantastic pop song (that should have been all over the radio) with some great prog-guitar playing on it. Any time I’m depressed or sad I pop this song in and boom, instant big smile. The songwriting is consistently excellent on Dancing and also Mike’s guitar playing is at its best. Check out the excellent solo on We’ll Be Right Back; probably my favorite of his. He’s a better singer on here, better arranger, better bandleader…all of it.
The cool thing is, honestly, this isn’t a “Mike Keneally” album. It’s a Beer For Dolphins album. The band is stellar on this. There’s keyboardist Marc Ziegenhagen, percussionist Tricia Williams, drummer Jason Harrison Smith, sax and flautist Evan Francis, trumpeter Chris Opperman, guitarist Rick Musallum (check out his lead on I Was Not Ready For You…damn) and especially bassist Bryan Beller. OK, I said how this album as a whole rocked my world. Beller rocked my bass world (and thus, my whole world). He has got such perfect tone on this album! Oh, it’s amazing. He comes up with fantastic and unpredictable basslines all over this thing. It’s just perfection. He automatically jumped into my group of favorite bassists after hearing this album. Yeah, it was a life-changing experience, this album. And, it hasn’t lost one bit of its importance or excellence in the billion times I’ve listened to it since I bought it. As far as current bands go, Mike Keneally’s is at the top…and this is the best place to go to hear it.
Rating: 98
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