Puerto-Rican born, San Francisco based singer/songwriter Gaby Velazquez's musical journey over the past four years from stifling in a cubicle to the release of his anticipated debut album, is an inspirational indie artist story for the ages. Gaby grew up playing baseball and listening to Salsa music. Baseball was undeniably a big part of his youth, having represented the USA junior teams in countries like Japan and Brazil, as well as winning a gold medal in the 1996 Junior Olympics, before playing college baseball.
Having grown up and attended college in California, Gaby began working in a Los Angeles real estate office upon graduating. In 2005, the multi-faceted artist—who majored in creative writing and music in college–felt stuck in this cubicle life as a mortgage loan officer. The money was good, but Gaby's soul was aching for a more meaningful existence—which came to him after attending an amazing music festival in Northern Oregon that year. Two weeks after returning to work, he jetted off to Central America with his guitar and stayed for 6 months, traveling through Nicaragua, Panama, and Costa Rica, which ignited many new songs that Gaby still performs today.
Upon return from his travels abroad, Gaby was motivated by an exciting California tour in which he opened for the Honkytonk Homeslice with Bill Nershi, guitarist for The String Cheese Incident. This was the motivation to move to the San Francisco Bay, a city rich with a strong indie/jam music scene. Gaby soon launched the band Kanvus, and in just a couple of years played venues like the Fillmore (poster room), Cafe du Nord, the Red Devil Lounge, and the Hotel Utah. By playing shows around the San Francisco Bay, Gaby hooked up with a handful of world class musicians who encouraged his career as an artist and eventually played on Let Me In: Dan Lebowitz (ALO), Inx Herman (Hamsa Lila), Mark Calderon, and Colin Hoops. Let Me In was mixed by Grammy award winning engineer Oz Fritz, whose legendary work includes sessions with Tom Waits, Les Claypool and Trey Anastasio.
Look for the official release of the new album this Fall 2009!
