Anchor Babies’ Last Show (and why you gotta keep strutting that mess)

Hey y’all! Hope you’re doing well in your respective frame of reference (as always). I’m trying to keep up with the posts (going for a bi-weekly rate) so bear with me.

But yeah, I wanted to talk a little more about  the Dynamite Duo that was The Anchor Babies and how forming this with my friend/musical brother-in-arms Danny  helped me get out of my stage fright.

We played our last show about a month ago at the awesome DIY venue known as Backspace and man was it dope! The crowd was into us, the lineup had a great variety to it (from raw, angular style punk to a confessional-style solo act presented in a songwriter circle fashion), and everybody was simply happy and enjoying one another’s company.

One particular understanding I had after doing the show was how different it was from playing our first show together back in January. Back then, I was skittish, always kept my head down and didn’t show enough of that vivacious energy that I was feeling when playing. I had trouble interacting with the crowd and catching cues up on stage.

Our last show was a whole ‘nother fix. We were in the damn zone! Danny had the stage presence on lock, all while in a Pikachu shirt nicely complimenting his Ash Ketchum hat.

He knew exactly how to engage the crowd and banter playfully with everybody. Also forgot to mention, he had moved to playing electric guitar for this show with this awesome tiny Gibson tube amp! The results were this awesome, vintage sounding crunchiness to the songs that worked really well for our more raw, fast-paced songs.

And man was I grooving! Like, not gonna lie, I was kind of a straight fool that night, which admittedly got the better of me in terms of trying to play a nearly perfect set (I threw out few hiccups on some of the fills). But the presence and just sheer enjoyment we had up there was totally worth the mistakes. I threw out hard hits when they were needed. I stylized myself however I felt and played with all my heart, corny as that was. Ha ha.

Upon reflection, the reasons for such a quick change in how I dealt with playing  a show was, simply, that I did more shows. Danny, who is a real go-getter when it comes to doing music, wanted to book as many shows as we could. Even before he knew he’d be moving to Cali. It’s such a simple lesson, really. Doing more of what you love gets you better at what you love!

So all-in-all, it was a fantastic time and a great send-off for my buddy and what we made together. I’m gonna miss him.

But yeah, stay tuned the blog and see what’s going on. I have a few surprises coming up in a couple weeks that I wanna share with y’all!