Many on the Homewood campus know Anne Albinak, director of research administration operations at the Whiting School, who has worked at Hopkins for 25 years. But not everyone knows she is the bass player in a band.
The Racket is the band’s informal name, but “because we’re not the only racket in town,” says Albinak, it has an official name as well: The Band Formerly (and Temporarily) Almost Completely Unknown as The Racket. The group is made up of four musicians: Albinak and husband Doug Lay, Rod Rebuck, and David Selvin.
She has been with the band for 19 years. “I was dating Doug at the time,” explains Albinak, “and they had a bass player who didn’t show up for a few rehearsals. Doug said, ‘I’ll bet you can play bass. You should join the band.’ I didn’t play bass, but I thought, ‘Huh, how hard could it be to learn the basics?’ so I learned to play! I also play keyboards, guitar, drums, perform one trumpet song, and sing on various songs.”
A classically trained clarinetist, Albinak attended the Peabody Conservatory before changing her focus of study to history. “I come from a musical family,” she says. “Both my parents were in the Baltimore Symphony Chorus; my brother was the original drummer for Child’s Play, a local ’80s metal band; and my nephew attends the Berklee College of Music.”
The Racket plays a few gigs per year, most recently at Restaurant 198 in Burtonsville, but mainly entertains family and friends when the players rehearse every Sunday on a stage built into the basement of Selvin’s house with twinkly lights and a movie projection screen running in the background.
“We all have disparate tastes. We mostly play original songs with a few covers such as ‘You’re One’ by Imperial Teen and ‘Vitamin C’ by Can,” Albinak says. “I wrote a song called ‘Precious,’ which is best described as being for four guitars and one angry female. It’s a nice creative outlet—not that my day job isn’t; I consider problem-solving and spreadsheets to be creative—but it’s a good contrast to financial research compliance and grants administration.”