duggup

Artist: Kaki King
Website: Kaki King
Track Name: Playing With Pink Noise
Playback: mp3/flash
Download?: Yes

Jools and I happened to catch a bit od the Arts show on the ABC last Sunday and I caught this woman playing one track live and was just blown away by her. All I could think (when my brain finally kicked back in) was “WOW”, I got the same rush of excitement that I did the first time I heard Leo Kotke way back when. Her thumping basslines, unconventional tunings, fluid melodies, and slapping percussion in her compositions mean that her style lies somewhere between funk, flamenco, jazz and rock. This is why I like guitars, the totally endless possibilities of a wooden box with some wire on it.

Here is a YouTube video of the piece we watched her play.

NPR recorded a show with her a while back …
Kaki King, Queen of the Acoustic Guitar

Acoustic guitarist Kaki King honed her unusual fingerstyle technique playing in New York City subway stations. She does amazing things with the simple six-string: she slaps the wood, rubs the strings and hammers her fingers over the frets. In short, she treats her guitar like a percussion instrument, creating a sound that one reviewer describes as “somewhere between funk and flamenco.”

But the real goldmine comes from Archive.org. Here there are about five concerts recorded, the one I picked was a concert recorded in October 2003 by Jason Sobel at Boston’s Avalon Ballrom

Once again I am left with the question “How the hell did I miss this?” Highly, highly recommended.

thatch is fascinated by guitars, music, guitars, production, silly noises, guitars and used to be a musician. Did I mention the thing about the guitars?
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