DJ KBK plays shows in his hometown of Sierra Vista and around the state. His next enterprise is a series of shows in California, each with its own local flavor.
Kenneth Anderson jumped behind the turntables in the summer of 2010 at a party to welcome incoming freshmen to Northern Arizona University.
And as happens in any good overnight-success story, someone in the audience took one look and a listen, and offered the aspiring DJ a job.
And that job, at a frat party at a Flagstaff club, turned into a regular gig when the club owner decided he liked what he saw and heard.
Before he knew it, Anderson — who goes by the stage name DJ KBK — was juggling his advertising and public relations coursework with a budding DJ career that included weekend treks home to Sierra Vista to work a regular club gig.
“I would DJ Thursday night in Flagstaff, go to class Friday, DJ in Flagstaff Friday night, then catch a shuttle at 5 a.m. Saturday to Phoenix and then Tucson,” Anderson said last week in a phone call to talk about his gig Friday, April 27, at Loudhouse on East Prince Road.
For seven or eight months before he graduated in 2013, Anderson made the cross-state journey. The money he earned about covered his travel expenses, but the experience was invaluable.
After he graduated, Anderson moved back to Sierra Vista and landed a day job at Fort Huachuca. At night, he DJs at clubs around Southern and Southeastern Arizona, including Tucson. In March, he performed at South By Southwest in Austin, Texas, and in mid-April, he played the first weekend of Coachella in California.
Those festival shows were warm-ups for the 28-year-old father of two’s independent “Redandblack2 Tour,” a follow-up to a tour he did three or four years ago that mainly focused on Arizona. This go-around, Anderson is tiptoeing outside the state with shows in California. And at each stop, Anderson will team up with local artists and incorporate their music into his own.
