Photo by Andrea Canter

"King is the most striking young musician to emerge in decades.”—LA Weekly
Young guitar sensation Kaki King is currently touring the Midwest. The Atlanta native started playing guitar at age four, although she became more interested in drums a few years later. She reasserted her interest in guitar around age 11, experimenting with instruments that her father collected and working her way through a book of Beatles tunes. As a teenager, she was intrigued by the styles of the great guitarists like Leo Kottke and Alex DeGrassi, as well as a younger generation including Nick Drake, Eliot Smith and Mark Kozelek.

Still identifying herself primarily as a drummer, King moved to New York to attend NYU, and played in various bands in Greenwich Village. Following graduation and the 9/11 attacks, King started playing guitar in New York subways. "The subways gave me stamina," she says. "It's a workout in every way -- mentally, physically. To play for two hours in an ugly environment is very challenging. But soon people were coming up to me and saying, 'Do you have a record?' And I realized that if I could sell a CD for 10 bucks every time someone asks me for one, I could actually do all right for myself."

Waitressing at the Mercury Lounge, she had many opportunities to observe new bands. "Watching all these bands gave me a greater understanding of what it takes to command a stage and captivate an audience. Since the Mercury is a popular venue for showcases, it also gave me my first glimpse into the machinations of the music industry." She continued playing –at the Mercury, in the subways, in clubs, or concert halls. "I started writing things with a lot of dissonance or with dangerous chords that don't really resolve," she says. "I'd be floating around, not in any key, which is what composers like Stravinsky, Debussy and Prokofiev did. Some of my inspiration comes from twentieth-century classical music, which I'd never even heard before I'd gotten to New York… "However, you’re just as likely to catch me listening to Bjork’s Vespertine or PJ Harvey’s Rid of Me as you are The Rite of Spring.”

In April 2002, King released her first recording at the Mercury Lounge. Soon she had an offer from the Knitting Factory to perform at their Tap Bar on a weekly basis. Jeff Krasno, head of Velour Records, caught one of her sets there, leading to her 2003 release, Everybody Loves You, on Velour.  King describes this release as “a compilation of different musical thoughts I had while trying to mess up everyone’s idea of how the guitar is played.” At about the same time, King became a part-time band member of the New York production of the off-Broadway smash, Blue Man Group. Her career now in high gear, King has opened for Marianne Faithful, David Byrne,  Keb Mo, Soulive, and Charlie Hunter; performed on Late Night with Conan O'Brien, and has toured internationally, particularly with the 2004 release of Legs to Make Us Longer.

Shane Handler (Glide Magazine) describes King’s unique approach to the acoustic guitar: “Developing a ‘can you top this’ book of unorthodox guitar techniques and altered tunings, she is quickly redefining the way we listen to and generally perceive acoustic guitar… Similar to playing the piano, Kaki places her left hand over the neck, so her middle three fingers can top out lines on the strings, freeing her right hand to continuously finger pick or move onto the neck and tap out its own lines.”

NPR’s Liane Hanson further notes, “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.’”

This young (25) rising star will make her Dakota debut March 1-2, playing opening sets for Matt Wilson’s Arts and Crafts, as part of her Midwest tour.

In addition to her Dakota gigs in Minneapolis (www.dakotacooks.com), Kaki King will be at the Ark in Ann Arbor, MI on February 26; at the Toast and Jam Club in Ft. Wayne, IN on February 27; at the Maintenance Shop in Ames, IA on March 3; at the University of Wisconsin in Madison, March 4; and at Schuba’s in Chicago, March 5.  For more information about Kaki King, visit www.kakiking.com