Bakin' Bits' National Breast Cancer Awareness Benefit Concert Returns for Second Year

Denver producer Andrew Baker, who performs under the moniker Bakin' Bits, is ready for round two of the National Breast Cancer Awareness Month Benefit Concert, which he launched last year and which will have its second iteration on Saturday, October 7, at Table Public House. The accomplishment is bittersweet for Baker, who lost his mother, Gail, to breast cancer.

“She was diagnosed in May of 2014,” Baker says. "She had a five-and-a-half-year battle, but she passed in February of 2020.”

As he was “fooling around” with music in high school and college, Baker recalls that his mother was always a stalwart supporter of his artistry. However, he only began to perform consistently in April last year. “That's always been my biggest regret,” he says, “that she never had the chance, and she never will be able to, see me play live in terms of where I am now.”

To honor her memory, Baker organized last year’s benefit concert at the Mercury Cafe, and was pleasantly surprised at its success, despite struggles with marketing and promotion. "We still had a fairly decent turnout for the first year,” Baker says. The event raised more than $550 in ticket sales, and donations increased the net gain to over $1,000. “That was honestly a stretch goal for me," he admits, "so to be able to reach that in the first year was awesome."

This year, Baker wants to push it even further. He thinks that at Table Public House, where he has frequently performed in the past year, and with the support of fellow musicians and business partners, his goal of reaching 200 ticket sales is well within reach.

All proceeds from the event, including tickets and donations, will go to the National Breast Cancer Foundation. Tickets to the event are priced on Eventbrite at $8 for children and $12 for adults, and donations are always accepted over Venmo @nbcambenefitdenver. “Every single cent of the ticket prices that we earn is going to the donation, and in terms of the Eventbrite fees, we're going to go ahead and cover that on our side,” says Baker.

Bakin' Bits will have a set at the concert, including performances from Parabolic Murmur, the Other Eric and Tyler Brooks.

“Tyler has that Caamp voice, that golden voice of an angel,” Baker says. “The Other Eric has a John Legend kind of feel to him — very soulful…and Parabolic Murmur uses guitar with a lot of different kind of echoey sounds and that very dreamy type of sound.”

The concert is personal for most of the other musicians, as well. Brooks lost his mother to pancreatic cancer in 2018, and Kollin Koren, who performs as Parabolic Murmur, has a brother who was diagnosed with leukemia at age 25.

"Seeing the struggle and the suffering that you go through with chemo and the various treatments for cancer in a lot of ways has increased the sense of sympathy and, hopefully, empathy for people who are suffering from breast cancer in particular, which is a very, very potent and challenging type of cancer to deal with,” says Koren.

“It does mean a lot to me to be able to help out, because I fully understand where [Baker is] coming from and why he wants to put this on,” adds Brooks, who also played at last year’s show.

Baker is supported by his father, as well, from whom he inherits his musicianship. “He actually taught me my first three chords on guitar — the classic G, C, D — when I was eight years old,” he says. Nowadays, he takes inspiration from soft-folk artists such as Big Thief, Hovvdy and Christian Lee Hudson. Having released several singles over the summer, Baker plans to release his first full-length album, Valley of the Doe Queen, this November. A mix of his earlier EDM influences and more recent indie-folk tendencies will define the album, he says.

“I tend to gravitate more toward a singer-songwriter — that's my bread and butter — but there's still a part of me that likes an electronic bit,” he explains.

As his own following grows, Baker hopes to expand the reach of the NBCAM Benefit Concert in future years. Five, ten years down the road, he plans to continue honoring his mother and others who have battled with breast cancer each October, supporting different charities working to help those individuals and find a cure.

“There’s a lot of regret that crops up,” Baker says. “A lot of sadness in thinking about how much I miss her, but I’m also really proud of this event and excited, because it’s in her honor. It’s my way of saying, ‘Thanks for everything you’ve done,’ and using my music to say thank you. Because without her, I don’t think I would have been in this spot today.”

NBCAM Benefit Concert, 1 to 7 p.m. Saturday, October 7, Table Public House, 2190 South Platte River Drive. Tickets are $8-$12; donations are accepted on Venmo @nbcambenefitdenver.