Key West’s Furriest Electronic Musician Drops a Record

A “Summer Splash” at Andy’s Cabana this month is bringing pool-party vibes without a pool: bubble machines, floaties that don’t serve much purpose, prizes and, of course, music.

It’s an opportunity for some fun for the people who dared to stick around Key West all summer and a launch party for local electronic musician Safety Bear’s newest record, We Live From Day to Day, which he promises is “actually good.”

The event is a launch party for the release of local electronic musician Safety Bear's newest record "We Live From Day to Day," which he promises is "actually good."

John Petro, who performs as Jacky Tides, will co-host the Petronia Street affair and perform alongside the Bear.

Jacky broadly describes his sound as alternative and post-punk with a “Keys flair.” The two first met at an open mic, where the head-grabbing bear get-up sported by Safety Bear, combined with the fact that there is a small pool of electronic musicians and producers in Key West, proved intriguing.

Both also shared a love for DIY, post-punk and electronic influences rooted in Washington, D.C., and Brooklyn, where Safety Bear and Jacky respectively lived.

The two even share the same producer and engineer, Ian Shaw of Warm Fuzz Studios. Shaw has worked on multiple Safety Bear projects and is now recording Jacky’s forthcoming album, Under Water Man, planned for early fall.

“Very few people are actually making and producing electronic music,” Jacky said of Key West. “So as soon as you saw this guy walk in,” he said of Safety Bear, “you had to ask yourself, ‘What’s going on here?’”

Jacky, a Florida native, came to Key West after living in New York City, where he pursued music while working with the Attorney General’s office. When the pandemic struck, he began considering a change and moved to the Southernmost City shortly after visiting with his now-wife.

While working remotely as a consultant, he also picked up a stint as a tour guide, a job that exposed him to some of the island’s best bars and restaurants and more of the local events that happen year-round.

One of those eventually led him to Safety Bear.

“I got a chance to get to know Mr. Bear. And he’s just one of the kindest people you’ll meet,” Jacky said. “When he comes into town, about half of the year he’s here, you might run into him at Bobby’s Monkey Bar, which I did a couple times. And my wife is actually a huge fan of his music.”

For Jacky, the late summer event also comes at an interesting moment for Key West music.

Several musicians he considered fixtures of the local jam-band scene departed this season, leaving him wondering what the next one will sound like and whether some of that ground will be ceded to other popular or imported genres.

"We see a lot of country music here in town and that goes with the national trends we see on the billboard chart, country music. And God bless them. That's just not my scene."

Jacky’s own influences lean heavily toward British rock, with David Bowie among his biggest inspirations. But living in Key West has worked other sounds into the mix.

He pointed to walking past El Meson de Pepe and hearing Latin music, or catching Hiram Garzaro and guitarist Rolando Rojas.

“That’s really what’s inspired me since I’ve got down here,” he said, “the Latin rhythms and Cuban music and Caribbean influences.”

Enter the Bear

Safety Bear, meanwhile, spends part of the year in Key West, making dance music that is proudly retro and informed by the gay ’80s and early ’90s.

He took his musical alter ego more public around the pandemic after discovering he had a knack for writing songs.

“I’ve always been like a music freak and traveled around to see shows around the world,” he said, naming the Live 8 and Live Earth concerts in London among his favorite live-music experiences.

One concert predates all of those.

"The first Live Aid," he said of the massive 1985 fund raising concert broadcasted across the globe, "I sat in my living room in suburban Chicago and just cried. And I tape recorded the whole thing."

Was it a very nice living room?

"No, it's the suburbs," Safety Bear responded. "It's like cultural death with a lawn."

So, just how did he travel across the world while starting ventures including Voltaire Books, an independent bookshop in Key West, and eventually seizing a musical moment?

"I live part time in Washington DC, where I also have a government relations business," he said. "So, I've focused on, in my professional life, on advocacy for lots of good causes, but I cut my teeth doing HIV and AIDS advocacy and moved to DC and kept doing that for other groups."

Sure, but when I circled back to Voltaire, the site of present day Books & Books at The Studios of Key West, he admitted it was more a labor of love of both him and his partner.

"So Safety Bear is a man of many midlife crises. The bookstore was one of those."

Is this latest musical dive, another?

"Oh, it's not just me," he said. "I think everything is burning down. Safety Bear is just trying to put a little groove to our cries for help."

We Live From Day to Day will be released on vinyl and celebrated at the Summer Splash. Its artwork was photographed at the home of local drag icon and fashion designer Sushi, where fake fur and an assortment of Safety Bear costumes were assembled

“I’m usually wearing some amount of fur, sometimes a lot of fake fur,” Safety Bear said. “And Sushi makes all the Safety Bear outfits.”.

Sushi met Safety Bear several years ago when he wanted a pair of fur cargo pants and a bear cap.

"I've made him several different outfits and I enjoy his music. I hosted his performances at World Pride in DC last year and it was amazing."

Safety Bear describes We Live From Day to Day, with tracks bearing names like “Giovanni’s Room,” as a record about surviving the current era: danceable and socially aware without becoming a lecture.

And while the bear get-up tends to get people’s attention first, he insists Safety Bear is more than spectacle, a character with “eyes and a heart and a brain” who wants to dance while processing whatever life happens to throw at him.

At Andy’s Cabana, everyone is invited to watch him do it.

Pool optional.