Singer, songwriter will give free concert at local coffee
shop
Pronouncing Annette Bzdawka’s full name trips the tongue, so when one of her co-workers started calling her “Annie B.,” it stuck. And now, that’s how the singer, songwriter and guitar player prefers to be known.
Annie B. will play a free concert tomorrow night at Sue’s Coffee Roasting Company in Gilroy. Her music ranges from grunge-like to lighter, more airy tunes.
“Some of it can be dark, some of it can be poppy,” she said. “Some of it is really moody, and some of it is really upbeat with a little punk influence. I use my guitar as a percussive instrument, too, so for the most part, it’s good, slammin’ acoustic.”
Born in Milwaukee, Annie B. started playing music when she was about 10. She went to college in Reno, Nev., but after realizing the academic world just wasn’t for her, moved to Los Angeles in 1999 to pursue her musical career in earnest.
“I was seriously a bookworm (in school),” she said. “I had a 3.8 GPA. But when I was in the academic environment, I felt stifled and really unhappy. Since I decided to just pursue music as a career, it’s like a whole new world for me.”
Taking risks for what you love – as long as you’re willing to work hard at it – is part of Annie B.’s message to her audience and to other artists. She works at a Los Angeles restaurant to pay the bills, but she has a number of music-based projects in the works.
Along with branching out to play more shows in other parts of the state, Annie B. is working on recording her first full-length album, which she hopes to have released by the end of this year. She’s also the host of a TV show called “Live on Sunset,” which profiles various bands playing in southern California. Hopefully, she said, the show will be available via satellite in the next several months. It will be broadcast mostly overseas, but also in the United States, she said.
In July, she’ll head to London for two weeks: one to sightsee, and the other to play shows in Covent Garden and various clubs.
The artist recently has also been focusing more on her solo career after playing with bands for the past several years.
“(Playing solo) is a new thing for me,” she said. “When you play with a band, you can always hide behind this big wall of sound. This is different, but it’s good for me, and I’m enjoying it.”
