Kaki King - The Bowery Ballroom - April 16, 2010

Rumors of this guitar virtuoso's musical death have been greatly exaggerrated. No, she doesn't do that "tapping" thing on her new album and it wasn't prominent in the show, either, because she was too busy rocking the fucking out. Is this what everyone wants to hear and see? A musician stuck in the confines of her audience's desires, which is probably the equivalent of eating camembert cheese with boysenberries. Let her do what she wants.

That said, great show. It was a nice mix of rockers ("Falling Day," "Death Head," and a variety of acoustic instrumentals, those that got her attention in the first place and some new ones. I never tire of "Pink Noise." "Bone Chaos" was pretty searing as usual; it's one of those manic displays of guitar awesomeness that makes you stop whatever you're doing. Which reminds me of something: she doesn't have a bass player. The guy posing as one was toting (I had to google this) and electronic EVI synth; it's basically like an electronic trumpet that you can play pretty much everything on, including bass. The guy was pretty impressive. Her drummer, too, reminded me of Stewart Copeland for his loose and varied style.

For her encore, Kaki brought out the lap-steel and started looping several guitar parts for "Gay Sons" with an added bass and drum backbeat until it became a kind of dance tune. She then jumped into the audience and started dancing. It was pretty awesome. Then she let everyone know her and the band would be drinking beers at the merchandise table. Cue Bowery staff, who, in the spirit of every good aftermath to rock and roll shows, cough cough, told us to make our way to the door and get the fuck out. Gotta love the way things are now. On a side note to that, NYC music venues are sucking ass. Last time I was at the Bowery years ago, it was fucking righteous. It's turned into a clean, sterile vapid place. I believe the word they use in housing development is "gentrification." The same feel can be applied here.

Setlist:

Falling Day
Bone Chaos In The Castle
Life Being What It Is
Pull Me Out Alive
Death Head
Betrayer
Unknown song/solo
Playing With Pink Noise
Sunnyside
All The Landslides Birds Have Seen Since The Beginning Of The World
Doing The Wrong Thing
Everything Has An End, Even Sadness
Spit It Back In My Mouth
Jessica
You Don't Have To Be Afraid

Encore:

Hallucinations From My Poisonous German Streets
Gays Sons Of Lesbian Mothers

Kaki King - 9:30 Club - April 12th, 2008

To those obnoxious people who came fashionably late, decided to stand right in front of me on the side balcony and obviously couldn't give a whit for Kaki King, go fuck yourself; I was inordinately happy to find a better spot right in front of you shortly afterwards so I could see Kaki's wicked fucking fingers go to work. Perhaps you are why DC is the worst fucking city in the world. Otherwise, this is very simple: Kaki was not the main feature; therefore, she was sandwiched between some forgettably loud band and the featured act Nada Surf, who apparently came out with a hit song at some point many years ago. Whatever. She was fucking brilliant. In a kind of interesting way, short of a few people who recognized and cheered her when she came out, she struck most methinks as a roadie tuning the real Kaki's guitar, or some reluctant house announcer.

Then, "Bone Chaos In The Castle." I don't think anyone expected to see, let alone hear, what this modern day guitar god was unleashing upon us. I mean, she didn't ease us into anything; she decided to explode in our faces. Eventually, her bandmates came out and joined in and so the show began. Her description of "2 O'Clock" as 'deceptively mellow' was interesting considering, just like on the album, she played an easy ballad and then her fingers jettisoned back and forth along the fretboard in nuclear combustion. Usually between songs, she said a few words, casually remarking that she hadn't had a break for forty days and that she'd experienced all the highs and lows she'd ever had in her life -- 'like fucking Biblical shit.' It was great. Especially the last song, which Kaki told us was a cover of The Bubonix, a German metal band. A German metal band! Seeing her and her band shred and scream bordered on almost stupefying insanity. All in all, a B+. Everything was great except for the fact that it lasted only an hour.

Unlike previous shows, I was too dumbstruck by what I was seeing and hearing to jot anything down, so my memory is a bit fuzzy on the setlist.

Setlist:
Bone Chaos In the Castle
Life Being What It Is
Pull Me Out Alive
So Much For So Little
Saving Days In A Frozen Head
Yellowcake
Montreal
2 O'Clock
Fashion Tattoo (Bubonix cover)

Kaki King - Dreaming Of Revenge (2008)

Haven't heard of Kaki King yet? Even after she made an awesome guest appearance on the most recent Foo Fighters disaster or may have eluded your attention on my top 50 list of guitarists? Well, she's just made her fourth album, and it's by far her best. Her first two albums, Everybody Loves You and Legs To Make Us Longer were blow-your-fucking-face-off instrumentals featuring her ridiculous finger picking fret-tapping technique. Ok, not all was explosive; there were some very beautiful and more subdued textured pieces as well. With her third album, Until We Felt Red, Kaki had a band with her, and it didn't come off too well. I mean, she's a virtuoso, and yet had lesser musicians to work with, and she sang, quite limitedly. This is not to say her singing was awful, but that it just doesn't play to her strengths. So on her new album, Dreaming Of Revenge, it's refreshing to see she's playing much more cohesively with her band, and she doesn't sing as much. "Bone Chaos In The Castle" begins the album, and it's a doozy. Polyphonic guitar triplicate with loops -- very prog, methinks. It's delicious. "Montreal," another instrumental piece, works from a slow fret-tap to a what I would call an equivalent of a boogie jam. "Open Mouth" is a beautiful instrumental with strings, like many of her others, for that matter; "So Much For So Little" is probably my favorite song. It's guitar fucking tastiness.

As for the vocal tracks -- "Life Being What It Is," "Pull Me Out Alive," "Saving Days In A Frozen Head" and "2 O'Clock" -- like on Until We Felt Red, Kaki seems to be focusing more on keeping within her range and mouthing her lyrics than with expressing emotion, which the lyrics clearly indicate otherwise that they should possess. Fortunately, the music itself overpowers the relative weakness of the vocals -- relative, I say, because she's not awful; she simply amazes musically (and besides, I'm not a fan of forced rhyming schemes). In fact, "2 O'Clock" is an interesting song symbolically, I think, because of its divisible halves. The first part features vocals, but the lyrics seem flat to me; they simply don't resonate, though they are clearly personal -- and yet the second part, which easily can be described as an Irish fucking car bomb, fulfills the emotional lack left by the lyrics. In other words, Kaki's guitar is much more emotive than her voice. Which is, of course, the real question: where does she go next? The musical divide couldn't be more clear: to preserve the insistent bombast of her terrible, beautiful fingers, or continue to become more accessible and break through to a wider public? For now, I'll savor this.

And go see her next Saturday. B+