June 10, 2004
It’s NXNE 2003 and we’re in the middle of Spadina, staring up at the El Mo, smokin’ butts and chuggin’ beers. It’s around midnight, and we’re having the ultimate rock star moment, lounging in a giant hot tub perched on top of a flatbed truck. There’s East Coaster Matt Mays, in hysterics after soaking the cheque he won as this year’s rising star. The White Cowbell boys are splashing folks who walk by. In the middle of the boys’ club fracas, grinning in the gross murky water, is a ballsy Ottawa teacher who’s just made her solo singer/songwriter debut in front of a packed Oasis. "I totally thought I’d arrived," laughs Kate Maki a year later over tofu at the Green Room. "Goodbye, teaching!" Until last year’s fest, the Sudbury-bred country-rock tunesmith had never performed her own material live. Sure, she’d cut her teeth performing at open stages in Halifax, and she’d dabbled at writing during a brief stint with Ottawa’s John Henrys. Maki was instructing troubled kids in an Ottawa alternative school, keeping her working-musician dreams under wraps, when she got the call. "I didn’t really know about NXNE," she admits. "I was excited and scared shitless, because I’d just been playing the tunes in my bedroom for myself."
It’s hard to believe the disarmingly honest singer was that freaked. Her songs are carefully wrought gems that sound raw and weathered in the best alt-country way. Her debut Confusion Unlimited disc, which won raves on both sides of the Atlantic (Brit rag Uncut recently touted the album), is simply great, highlighted by no-nonsense writing, pedal steel arrangements and Maki’s elegantly weary vocals. Onstage, though, Maki kills those wispy troubadour stereotypes altogether. She’s goofy and dynamic, spinning anecdotes that make you love her. Like the one about her mom’s Stompin’ Tom obsession (the Sudbury stomper’s famed board holds up their Christmas tree) or the self-deprecating stories about quitting smoking. She adopted the "fuck it" philosophy that characterizes her onstage bravado after one of her best friends died in an accident two years ago. Her first love, he’d taught her how to play guitar and pushed her to perform. "You put a lot of stuff in perspective when you lose someone like that," she explains. "I had nothing to lose because I had just lost one of my greatest loves. If people hate the music and throw stuff at me, who cares?"
In the past year, she’s followed the motto to a T, quitting her job to put out a record and tour the country. Her stubborn independence (she’s wary of signing with a label or a manager, although there’s been interest) means Maki refuses to take the easy route (she teamed up with former Guthrie Ruth Minnikin for their "Doing It Together, Alone" Tour), but it’s paid off. They pulled off the implausible feat of crossing Canada in the middle of January – and making a profit.
It’s easy to assume the girl who grew up blasting Led Zeppelin II while reading Nancy Drew books and took French guitar lessons for extra credit was born to be a musician, but Maki’s not sure how long it’ll last. She entertains fantasies of becoming an actor or starting her own alternative school, where she can challenge the twisted practice of drugging kids with behavioural problems. "Music is therapeutic, whether you’re listening to it or playing your own songs. Singing in the shower is therapeutic! Why wouldn’t it be for kids?"
Sarah Liss