Kaki King, guitar hero: performance, interview with Xeni (music)

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One of the artists Boing Boing was excited to "discover" at the recent Outside Lands festival had in fact already "discovered" us. Today on Boing Boing tv, we present singer-songwriter Kaki King.

Pesco says the prolific multi-instrumentalist "plays like a mofo," and boy is he right. The BBtv crew and I caught her live performance at the festival, and chased her down for an interview backstage (literally: our legs were sort of hanging off the side of the platform while guys hauled drums and amps off). We learned that (1) she's a fan of the Boing Boing blog! and (2) she hates comment trolls. Boy do we love her.

Kaki has a new record out, "Dreaming of Revenge," and she's touring the world as I type, with show dates in Europe and the US through 2008.

Rolling Stone named her one of the “100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time,” describing her style as "Van Halen Meets Bootsy." You'll witness why in today's BBtv episode.

We talk with her about life on the road, how IM and social networking help keep her from getting homesick while touring, and how she managed to go from busking in NYC subways to jamming with the likes of the Foo Fighters and hypnotizing crowds of tens of thousands with her rich, distinctive sound.

Speaking of Outside Lands -- you can find lots of crowd-submitted video, audio, reviews, and cameraphone snapshots of Kaki's performance at Crowdfire.net (the project is a BBtv sponsor).

Related Boing Boing tv episodes:

* Primus: Xeni interviews Les and Ler (music)
* BB Gadgets' Joel at Outside Lands: Crowdfire deconstructed
* Carney at Outside Lands - a "Boing Boing tv Bus Session." (music)
* Steel Pulse founder David Hinds at Outside Lands (music)
* Boing Boing tv backstage at Outside Lands: (Xeni + Russell Porter)

(Special thanks to Bre and Wayne for the bus; to Virgin America for generously providing air transportation)