Exploring the Energy with Anzo & Friends
Welcome to Exploring the Energy with Anzo & Friends, a series of conversations with host and lifelong music lover, Andy "Anzo" Staib, and his friends and family. Together, they explore the common threads that bond them all together - namely their shared love of music, family, friends, life, loss, and love. The show was born from the notion that music helps keep us all connected throughout our collective long strange trip. We all have a story to tell, and here are a few of those stories. So join us, and let’s see where the energy takes us! #IFE #NFA
Exploring the Energy with Anzo & Friends
Trusting the Universe with Robyn Pray
My relatively new friendship with Robyn Pray is undoubtedly a result of the universe connecting the two of us. Here’s how that happened and why this episode means so much to me.
In the summer of 2023, I received a very kind and somewhat mysterious note from a name that I didn’t recognize, though I did recognize the sender’s address - Keeseville Free Library in Keeseville, New York. Admittedly not being an avid reader or library-goer, I thought to myself “who and why is anyone from any library reaching out to me?”
Turns out, Robyn had been on a quest to find a copy of “Corlear Bay Club - The First 100 Years”, written by Luisa Fernholz. For context, Corlear Bay Club is the small private community located on the New York shores of Lake Champlain that my family has been coming to for 58 consecutive summers. In her Google search for Fernholtz’s book, she stumbled on my memoir, called The Perfect Club. And although she never did find a copy of the original book she was after, Robyn took interest in my memoir, she found my contact info, and politely asked if I’d be open to sharing a copy of my memoir, which of course I did.
I was honored and somewhat disbelieving that anyone other than my immediate family and friends even knew about my little memoir project. It was then in the summer of 2024 that Robyn and I finally met in-person when I discovered that she was in fact, a DEADHEAD too. Robyn was even kind enough to invite me to host a book-talk at the library that summer, and the rest as they say, is history!
Recently I sat down with Robyn at the library to share a few concert war stories and learn more about how and what lead her to become the director of the institution known as the Keeseville Free Library, now celebrating its 99th anniversary. Just a few short days after my interview with Robyn and in honor of the library’s anniversary, the Corlear Bay and Keeseville communities rallied together in our first-ever 5K Color Walk to support the KFL. BIG shoutout to Lilly Staib for being the brainchild behind the idea and to Robyn for pulling it all together. Our little walk raised over $1000!
The theme that Robyn and I kept coming back to was how, despite the often-times sad or even tragic mysteries that surround us all in life, we continue to trust the universe. And Robyn has, what I can only describe as amazing “Universal Energy”.
So join us, and let’s see where the energy takes us!
Library Magic https://music.apple.com/us/album/library-magic/1118453756?i=1118453892
Ramble on Rose https://music.apple.com/us/album/ramble-on-rose-live-at-jfk-stadium-philadelphia-pa/366394085?i=366394312
Gold Dust Woman https://youtu.be/4QiAmkF-QkE?si=LhnAzVQVO1_DMqWi
Feelin' Alright https://music.apple.com/us/album/feelin-alright-feat-dave-mason-anders-osborne-live/1820042229?i=1820042465