NOTE: This is the inside scoop for the CD only. For additional scoop on the special edition DVD, just click here.

The whole concept behind the 2005 Mike Keneally Band Guitar Therapy Tour was to put together the dream band lineup, get rough and ready on a down-and-dirty crisscross of the U.S., and audio/video record the final show of the tour (in Sellersville, PA) for this live CD and DVD. The plan made perfect sense. The band lineup aspect took care of itself; drummer Joe Travers and I longed for the world to see this 15-plus-years magic thing we have together as a rhythm section, and he hadn’t been on an album where he could really stretch out in a while (this was a full year before the Zappa Plays Zappa tour, when people got to see what a freak he’s been all this time), Ultimate tastemaster Rick Musallam rounded out (IMHO) the tightest, scariest band Keneally’s ever fielded for a tour.

Our crack outfit did three hardcore weeks on the road, working west to east, and we were more than ready for the Sellersville show, and so the tape started rolling, and we started playing…and we didn’t really nail it. Joe and Mike were hot, but Rick and I were not. Somehow, the band vibe wasn’t raging that night. We were all more tired than we thought we’d be after just three weeks, but it was the last show of the tour and it just seemed inconceivable that we wouldn’t play the magic show when we needed to. But we didn’t. It was frustrating.

Then, on July 30, 2005, we booked a gig on our home court at The Baked Potato in Los Angeles. Keneally and Exowax LeaderGuy Scott Chatfield thought, What the hell, let’s record this one too, you never know. With a month’s worth of equal parts rest and rust, we walked in there and played one of the best shows any Mike Keneally Band lineup has ever played, period. I could feel it while it was occurring, and even more so after it was over. Hell, I played fretless for one of the first times ever in a Keneally show and even that worked somehow.

Baked Potato gigs consist of two sets, and the second one usually lasts well past midnight and into the third hour of playing. While in the past this usually meant some tired renditions of songs were heard in the second half of the second set, on this night the band actually got better in its third hour. The flawless, spirited versions of “Hum”, “Beautiful” and “Top Of Stove Melting” were nearly the last things we played that night. Whatever energy there was in the room that night, it made up for whatever wasn’t there in Sellersville. Pretty soon we knew we had the live album in our hands, though it wasn’t what we expected it to be.

That’s not to say the Sellersville show was bad. (Indeed, “’Cause Of Breakfast” and Joe’s drum solo on the CD are taken from Sellersville, and my very own “Seven Percent Grade” came from a totally different show in North Carolina.) It just wasn’t magic from start to finish. The 7/30/05 Baked Potato show just about was, and it stands in my mind, along with Cardi’s/Houston ’96 (the one nobody taped), the 2/22/95 Half Alive In Hollywood show at Musician’s Institute, and the Upstairs At Nick’s/Philly ’98 shows as just about the best single-show live work this band has ever done. I’m damned proud to be on it.

And a special thanks to Mike Keneally for having my very own “Seven Percent Grade” on the sequence.

Click here for the official Mike Keneally Band website.