Anthony da Costa reveals a ‘Secret Handshake’

Like many Columbians, Postcrypt staple Anthony da Costa, CC ’13, is a history major networking for a career outside the classroom. Unlike most of his peers, da Costa has been building his network, mostly made up of musicians and producers, for almost 10 years—touring, recording, and winning awards while balancing an academic schedule.

Although already involved in the music scene outside Columbia, da Costa hasn’t forgotten his roots. Having played his first open mic at Columbia at age 13, he now works as Postcrypt’s booking manager and hosts his own night there every month. Each time, he brings in other acts to perform with him at the venue. Da Costa will help close out the semester at Postcrypt Coffeehouse, in the basement of St. Paul’s Chapel, performing the 10 p.m. slot on Dec. 10.

As a youngster breaking into the older genre of folk, da Costa has grown accustomed to mixing the traditional with the new. Inspired by artists like Bob Dylan, Neil Young, and Woody Guthrie, da Costa strives toward, as the designer of his upcoming album phrased it, “pop music with meaning.” Da Costa, with his friend Jonathan Byrd, composed the songs for the record titled “Secret Handshake,” in an impressively fast week and a half over Skype.

The album deals with coming to terms with an unhealthy relationship. The title, taken from the third track, addresses the complexity of romantic set-ups. “Things can appear to be kind of shitty on the outside, but within, the two of you have some sort of special understanding, some sort of sacred sort of compact, or like a ‘secret handshake,’” da Costa said. “You have this understanding, and it doesn’t seem like anyone could possibly get it, and that’s how I felt in unhealthy relationships. Oh, people don’t really understand, and you sort of get this ‘us against the world’ mentality in that.”

In the music scene and at Columbia, however, da Costa’s mentality is quite different. He had extensive praise for his musical friends’ talent and expressed gratitude for his academic friends’ varied interests. One of these friends, the late musician Jack Hardy, led da Costa, who had been set on music school from a young age, to choose Columbia.

“Jack said to me, I’ll never forget, he said—he used to call me ‘grasshopper’—‘Grasshopper, you spent enough years putting stuff out there. It’s time to put stuff back in,’” da Costa said. With his guitar and in his studies, that is exactly what da Costa has tried to do.