“Cargo Cult”

So in the torpor of last year’s blogging, I never really had a chance to expatiate upon just how much I love Kaki King, not only because she is a superb guitarist & gifted compsoer, but also because she is such a wonderful creative force—there was a series planned about her, but it never quite got off the ground. So that’s one thing I can set right straight away.

Of course, Kaki King is far from “a new thing” at this point—she’s in the prime of a career that dates back to the 1990s, & her recordings go back to 2003, with Everybody Loves You on the Velour label. In the interim, she has established herself as one of the top guitar instrumentalists & composers, & is clearly one of the preeminent contemporary fingerstyle players.  “Cargo Cult,” here from a 2012 performance in Livorno, Italy, is from her most recent album, Glow from 2012.

But my purpose here is not to be on the leading edge, but simply to communicate about music & artists I care about (among other things), so while Kaki King isn’t a new discovery, she’s a musician who’s worth getting to know better if you’ve already heard her—& if you love guitar music & you don’t know her work, then I can’t recommend her highly enough!

Enjoy.




Image of Kaki King by Daniel Temmesfeld, (cc) 2010, who allows its re-use with a Creative Commons Attribution.

“Goby”

Happy Friday, friends! A short post in terms of words, but some very beautiful music.

If you checked in last Friday, you know that I’m featuring the music of guitarist Kaki King this month on the blog. Indeed, Kaki King is a personal favorite guitarist, not only because of her amazing chops & stunning compositional skills, but also because of her singular & intense creative spirit.

Actually, the video I wanted to use for today’s post has been disabled for embedding—something I discovered in the eleventh hour (literally true in more ways than one), & that’s part of the reason for this post is a bit short—there was some scrambling involved at an hour when I didn't intend to be doing any such thing. But I found King’s performance of “Goby” from the same concert as last week’s post (“Playing with Pink Noise”), & that is also a fine version with good audio. If you’d like to listen to my first choice, you can watch it on YouTube here. The audio on that one is really high quality. There are also some cool versions of King playing “Goby” with her guitar rigged to a synth set-up—great fun! One such performance—& a good one at that—is here. 

“Goby” was released on Kaki King’s third album, Until We Felt Red on Velour. As I understand it, the tuning is CGCFGC  (again, as with the tuning I mentioned in last week’s post, this doesn’t come from an authoritative source, & I haven’t double-checked it.) Those who are familiar with alternate guitar tunings will notice that this is a full step down from the D suspended tuning, better known as DADGAD (these being the notes of the open strings), & I understand King likes that tuning, so this all seems quite plausible.

While “Playing with Pink Noise” featured much of King’s percussive playing—fretboard tapping, slapping the strings, drumming on the guitar, “Goby” is a bit more of a “conventional” fingerstyle piece, though it very much carries her individual stamp, & her playing is both powerful & exquisite.

Enjoy!





Image of Kaki King at the 1st Adelaide International Guitar Festival links to its source on Wiki Commons. Its creator is Mandy Hall, & this file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license.

“Playing with Pink Noise” – Kaki King

Hello, friends! What do Acoustic Guitar magazine & the Robert Frost’s Banjo blog have in common? Easy: we’re both featuring the music of Kaki King this month. Now I know that for quite some time banjo music has held sway on Fridays, but at least for this month I’m giving that series a rest in order to feature a performer whose music is, to my mind, as exciting as anyone on the scene today.

As is the case with so many exceptional musical performers, Kaki King showed an inclination toward music at a young age, & was first introduced to the guitar around age five. She also played bass & drums starting in adolescence, & one can hear & see this background in her approach to the guitar both as a player & as a composer. As Kaki grew up, her musical tastes broadened, & she notes that performers like Nick Drake, the Red House Painters & some of the Windham Hill artists were early influences.

Kaki King signed her first record contract, with Velour in 2002. Her debut album, Everybody Loves You, which was released in 2003. From this album on, much of the basics of King’s style already became clear: a percussive technique with both the right & left hand, as she employs fretboard tapping as well as flamenco type soundboard percussion; in addition, King employs altered & open tunings to great effect.

Kaki King followed her first release with Legs to Make Us Longer on Sony in 2004, which was also a solo effort but one that involved more looping & multi-tracking with other instruments. After this, Kaki King moved into a band setting with a more electric sound for Until We Felt Red (on which she returned to Velour.) King has produced a string of high quality recordings in the past few years, with Dreaming of Revenge, the EP Black Pear Tree (both 08), the Mexican Teenagers EP in 2009, Junior in 2010, & Glow—which is an amazing record at so many levels—last year. In fact, King is currently on tour in support of Glow, in the wake of the successful Traveling Guitar Freak Show (which I stupidly missed here in Portland—still kicking myself for that.)

“Playing with Pink Noise” comes from the Legs to Make Us Longer record. King is playing her customary Ovation Adamas guitar—she has a signature model, the 1581-KK model, tuned CGCGAD (as I understand; I haven't tested this, & it's not from an official source), which is almost like the guitar simply being taken down a whole step from drop-D tuning, except that the 3rd string remains at concert pitch. For those of you who are inclined to take a shot at playing this tune (hint—you need a guitar with low action to do all the slap style & hammer-ons!), you can listen to Kaki King explaining the tune here on YouTube. I should also mention that King played this song as her contribution to Guitar Art Show at the Littlefield  in Brooklyn with her hands covered in pink paint. That 2009 performance can be seen at this link.

This is truly exciting music from an important contemporary performer & composer! Hope you enjoy it.





Image of Kaki King at TED 2008 connects to its source on Wiki Commons. The photographic image was produced by Steve Jurvetson of Menlo Park, California & has generously been made available & published under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license.

“Carmine Street”

Happy Thursday! Sorry to have missed Photo of the Week yesterday, but I’ve been going through a busy patch of late—all good things though.

A short post today with some fantastic guitar music by a contemporary player whose compositions & playing are both fascinating—Kaki King. You can learn more about Kaki King on her website or from the ever-present Wikipedia, & if you're not already familiar with her, I certainly hope this sparks your interest in her music.

“Carmine Street,” which makes extensive use of the “tapping” technique (as do a number of other King compositions), comes from her 2003 debut album on the Velour label, Everybody Loves You. In a review of the album on Allmusic, Thom Jurek writes:

Simply put, Kaki King possesses the most original voice on the acoustic guitar in a generation….Everybody Loves You is the most auspicious, tender, and tough instrumental debut by any guitarist in a decade at least. It is singular in approach and peerless in execution; and in its poetic, raggedly graceful manner, it is simply a treasure of individuality and idiosyncratic virtuosity, visceral truth, and verve.

Since this debut, King has released eight more acclaimed albums, including the 2012 Glow, also on Velour. She just completed a tour (& I missed her Portland show, for which I feel endless chagrin), but if she comes by your town, don’t make the same mistake as me—do go hear her show! I won’t make the same mistake twice.

In the meantime, enjoy this lovely recording.




Image links to its source on Wiki Commons:
Kaki King at the Knitting factory, 2004: by Empress Ericka. 

This file is made available under the Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal Public Domain Dedication.  The person who associated a work with this deed has dedicated the work to the public domain by waiving all of his or her rights to the work worldwide under copyright law, including all related and neighboring rights, to the extent allowed by law. You can copy, modify, distribute and perform the work, even for commercial purposes, all without asking permission.

The Tuesday News

Interstate Firehouse Cultural Center, N. Interstate Ave., Portland, Oregon

Good morning, folks. Due to the storm back east, I’ve decided to postpone today’s regular poetic post, which would have been one of Barbie Angell’s poems. Last I heard, the part of North Caroline where she lives was getting swamped by the big storm, & I expect there will be a lot of power outages along the US eastern seaboard.  As a result, the Tuesday poetry posting schedule will be pushed back by a week across the board. However, I would encourage, recommend & cajole you to stop by the website for Barbie’s delightful book of children’s poems, Roasting Questions: give the book a look, & if you like what you see, as I believe you will, please consider purchasing it & possibly sponsoring it to help with the printing costs. Barbie explained the publication process in my recent interview with her, which you can read here.

In addition, as I mentioned in yesterday’s Any Woman’s Blues post, I’m very gratified that Robert Frost’s Banjo has been selected as a site to feature a free download by blues artist Danielia Cotton, who was featured in the Any Woman’s Blues series in September. You can find that free download in the right sidebar, right below the link to Barbie Angell’s book. I’ll also be reviewing Danielia Cotton’s latest release, Gun in Your Hand. Check back on Thursday for that!

In other blog-related news: as of right now (Monday evening), I’m not sure about the status of Rose City Wednesday this week. A lot will depend on the weather tomorrow. I realize this series has been sadly neglected for a little while, but I assure you it still interests me & it will be returning!

Finally, I leave you with some fantastic guitar playing by a guitarist whose playing I admire a great deal, Kaki King.  In the video, Kaki King is playing a harp guitar, an instrument I have also long admired, ever since I saw one in a Lark in the Morning mail order catalog several years ago & also heard one played on NPR. It was Christmas season, & I was coming home from a gig in which I’d played a much more mundane instrument (the electric bass—mundane, but I do miss it), & an artist whose name I’ve since forgotten played the most remarkable version of “Welcome, Christmas” from How the Grinch Stole Christmas (the original cartoon version, of course!)  Sadly, such things are far beyond my budget, & perhaps it’s just as well. I do love the sound, & Kaki King is extremely good with the harp guitar, & indeed, with the guitar in most of its other forms as well.

Hope you enjoy your Tuesday, & stay safe out there!