Judy Maki

Oh, Maki, You’re So Fine You Blow My Mind | Kate Maki warmed up her 2008 album On High with some hot Optigan licks.

KATE MAKI
w/ The Great Lake Swimmers. McDougall United Church (10025-101 St). Fri, Mar 27 (8pm). Tickets: $18, available through Ticketmaster (451-8000/ticketmaster.ca).

When your drummer heads down the street for a drink with a friend while you’re stuck in the studio, it’s only fair to have a little fun in his absence. So when Kate Maki’s percussion section headed out of Little Bullhorn, Dave Draves’ studio in Ottawa, and into the night, Draves pulled out a toy: an Optigan. Just so you know, an Optigan is like a synthesizer, except the sound comes from recordings of actual instruments. Sometime around midnight, with this semi-ancient piece of technology at their disposal, Maki and Draves, with help from producer Howe Gelb, set about finishing up “To Please.”

“We thought, ‘Forget Nathan [Lawr]. We don’t need a drummer. Let’s use the Optigan sound,’” Maki explains with a laugh. “So we played and that was my backing band for the song. We were just joking around, we figured Nat will come back and we’ll get the song later, but we were having so much fun with it. And then Howe was thinking, ‘We gotta get some bottles on there and a train whistle.’ We were just goofing off.”

Yet the whistle of glass bottles and the old-timey click-clack of the Optigan still managed to end up on her 2008 release, On High. “It’s caused a lot of stir,” Maki says. “People are always curious, like, ‘What the hell? Did you go back in time or something? To a saloon?’”

It’s good, then, that she prefers a more experimental, off-the-cuff style of recording for her sparse alt-country musings. “There wasn’t really any plan as to what kind of album I wanted to make,” she says. “I basically told Howe, ‘I just want to make something meat and potatoes with really good gravy.’ So that’s what we did.”

According to Maki, it was her mom who first introduced her to “the rootsy stuff.” She grew up singing traditional tunes around a campfire in northern Ontario, and when her mom eventually bought an acoustic guitar to strum a few Hank Williams songs on, Maki stole it for herself. However, she’s quick to add that she loves her rock ’n’ roll. “I like classic rock too, and heavy metal,” she says. “I went through a punk phase in high school. So I played in an all-girl punk band too. The new stuff that I’m writing is a lot less mellow, I think. Maybe my rock ’n’ roll is coming out.”

She’s not willing to give too many details regarding the “new stuff” other than the fact that she has two albums waiting for release. One was recorded on a break from touring in Tucson, Ariz.; the other was put down in her basement back home in Sudbury. Both were completed in only two days. Just don’t expect to hear them too soon. Maki is still in the process of packaging the songs for public distribution and she could use a little help. “Here’s a news flash: [I’m] looking for an agent who likes fine wines and scotch and who will put me on the road 300 days of the year,” she laughs.

To sweeten the deal, if you want the gig, she’s willing to knit you the occasional scarf. Just take my advice and don’t ditch her for a drink in a pub, ’cause you may return to find yourself replaced by a PDA.