Garrett Anderson's Bio
September 2009

To begin at the beginning…Freshman year of high school I quit playing trumpet for the school band. My buddy Howie and I got our first guitars and taught ourselves to play. We recruited some friends (Andrew on drums, Theo on bass, and Jay on lead guitar) and formed a band we called Old King Cole (after a card game our friends played). We wrote original music, home recorded two CDs, played around area high-schools, churches, bars, and any club that would allow underage kids, had members come and go, and had a lot of fun. The members of OKC went to different colleges and, despite getting together for a few summer shows the band grew apart. Though I reflect with a tinge of disdain on the clichéd themes of unrequited love, teen angst, and rebellion that inspired many of the songs, a few still resonate with me today (e.g. Bohemian, Town, Sweet groove, Greener) and work their way into my repertoire from time to time. It all started with OKC – I got hooked on the excitement and adventure of being a songwriter and performer.

Throughout college (I earned a B.A. in Sociology from UMD, College Park in December 2006), I practiced and performed as much as possible. Beyond playing strictly acoustic rhythm guitar, I started working on my finger-picking and leads. There were fun side projects here and there with other musicians and I started doing my first home computer recordings. Brandon (from OKC) and I kept in touch and nurtured our musical relationship and friendship - hanging out, working on compositions and improvisation, recording demos, and eventually playing shows together again.

After college, Brandon and I kept crossing paths with our friend Chris, a fellow singer-songwriter, in the Ellicott City music scene. Chris arranged a jam with his old drummer friend Ryan (coincidentally, I was a huge fan of Ryan and Chris’ band “Light Street Groove” out of Catholic University, so it was a dream come true to get to play with these guys). We clicked and got hooked on the full band dynamic. Brandon invited his friend Kenton to join us on keys. We worked on song ideas to put together original music we classified as “rock and groove” and began booking bar gigs as LUCA (from the biological acronym for the Last Universal Common Ancestor).

LUCA was an incredibly productive and fun musical experience. We practiced hard and played a lot of great shows. Highlights included a New Year’s show, a Halloween show, performing at The Recher Theatre in Towson and Fletcher’s in Baltimore, independently releasing our CD “Rockturnal”, performing WMUC College Park’s radio program “Third Rail Radio”, and releasing a compilation of our live recordings called “Live UnCut Audio”.

In the summer of 2007, feeling burnt out and wanting to explore some other musical opportunities, I decided to stop playing with LUCA. It was bittersweet, because I enjoyed the music and camaraderie but personally needed a change. Fortunately, we’ve been able to stay friends and after two years apart, we got together and played a great reunion show at The 8 x 10. We were surprised and delighted that our song “Feed the Meter” was played on 89.7WTMD’s Baltimore Unsigned to promote for that show. While there are no current plans for another show, it is safe to say that we love it too much not to play together again…

I went into 2008 inspired to expand my musical horizons. Accustomed to being the ‘front man’, I jumped at the opportunity to work with fellow singer-songwriter Greg Riordan. A fan of his passionate performance of clever and soulful original songs, I welcomed the challenge of a new role - singing harmony and playing accompaniment guitar. It has given me new perspective as a musician. Both by necessity and design, we’ve performed with many different players under the banner of The Foxhole Prayers. Embracing a loose fluidity to the project allows us to have time for other projects and our personal lives without neglecting our musical trust and kinship. We are compiling live recordings to document and share our collaboration.

In the latter half of 2008, I home-recorded my solo debut CD called “Portraits of the Young man as an Artist”. The time was ripe to indulge myself in songwriting – simple compositions, moving melodies, colorful harmonies, and most importantly, genuine lyrics. I kept true to this approach on the eleven songs that made the record and was very pleased and proud of the result. With the help of a backing band of family and friends, I performed and released “Portraits…” at The 8 x 10 on Saturday January 24, 2009, a night I’ll always remember as a defining achievement of my early music career. I’m eager to create a follow-up solo CD.

My song-writing is influenced by older song-craftsmen like Bob Dylan, The Band, Tom Waits, and Harry Chapin – and modern alternative singer-songwriters like Ryan Adams, Martin Sexton, and Jeff Tweedy (of Wilco). I also enjoy writing and performing progressive rock and jam music, inspired by bands like Pink Floyd, Phish, The Allman Brothers, and Umphreys Mcgee.

I work as a survey researcher in College Park, MD. My other interests include camping and being outdoors, sports, travel, cooking, sustainable energy, globalization, and fantasy / sci-fi. My wife and I are excitedly expecting a baby daughter in December. Thank you for supporting Live Local Music.

- gwa