Street Level Doppler: un-dwelling acoustic music

Street Level Doppler may just have the coolest name of any band from the Champaign-Urbana area.

The band's debut EP, Taking Some Time, will be coming out during the Boneyard Arts Festival this weekend, and they will be holding a record release show at The Iron Post on Saturday to commemorate the release.

I really found myself enjoying this record more than I thought I would. Reading any description of them doesn't really explain it well (except for mine, of course). While their acoustic-based music doesn't seem to have a whole lot to say, it's still enjoyable. Street Level Doppler have been doing acoustic covers for a long time, yet this is their first time releasing original material.

Their sound kind of reminds me of the Weed Street Band, a now-defunct Chicago group that employed some of the same aspects. And if it was going to be compared to anybody more well-known, I would say James Taylor, but even that doesn't give a good idea. It's just...strummy.

It's breezy yet not sappy, and the melodies are strong and rooted in the best pop out there. And the lyrics are just kind of there; nothing to write home about, but they add texture.

And maybe the thing about it that attracts me to it the most would be that it's upbeat. I hear way too many bands and singers who think that acoustic music is an excuse to slow it down and whine about problems.

Not these guys. They seem to be taking it in stride, and Taking Some Time benefits from that.

Street Level Doppler will be playing their CD release show Saturday at The Iron Post, 120 S. Race St., Urbana, Cover is $5 and the first 50 people in the door will get a free copy of the CD.

Benevento turns up the "oomph" at Logan Square Auditorium

Note: Photos by Aaron Facemire.

Marco Benevento's show at Logan Square Auditorium on Thursday was a great one, but I'm not sure how to describe it.


Listening to his latest album Me, Not Me didn't really prepare me for what I saw. Yes the songs were the same ones, and Benevento is just as out-there live as he is on record, but there was a lot more power to it.

They had a lot more "oomph," and most of the credit goes to drummer Simon Lott, who was the equivalent of a hard-rock jazz percussionist. I don't know how else to describe it, except that he kept time with such force that is unusual for jazz (and with his funny faces, he was probably the most entertaining player to watch).

Bassist Reed Mathis gets credit too, for holding down a low-end that often gets lost in the style they were playing.

The show featured a heavy sampling of songs (mostly covers) from the new record, as they began with My Morning Jacket's "Golden." Started with a sampler of a rhythm, the band kicked in full force, bringing out different emotions in each section of the song.

As the night went on, the band got looser but just as weird. Their jazz gave way to rock, pop and many unclassifiable tunes (at one point there were girls dancing onstage), and they covered songs by Neil Young ("Don't Let It Bring You Down") and Deerhoof ("Twin Killers").

And Benevento's own material was just as strong. He has a real ear for melody, so even his improvisation wasn't based on showing off. Instead, he tried to find the best piano line to mesh with the other instruments.

And then there were the effects. Benevento himself stuck pretty much to his upright piano, but he found plenty of uses for it with his array of effects pedals. Sometimes it sounded like the wind, other times it sounded like a guitar. But he was able to make use of an acoustic instrument and turn it into something it is not.

Benevento and the band closed with a cover of The Beatles' "I Saw Her Standing There," which had everyone bashing their instruments. It managed to be more joyful than the original, which was pretty much the theme of the show (it got the 30 or so people in the audience dancing too).

As pointed out by cohort Aaron Facemire, this was real music, and it sounded good to hear that for a change.

Opening band The Liquid Beat Allstars went on for about an hour, and that was about 40 minutes too long.

It was like Phish gone jazz. They jammed for too long on a sound that got very repetitious (smooth jazz with funk bass lines and synthesized strings), often having four or five points in each song could have logically ended.


Prince does that in his sleep, and I'd rather hear him than them.

Worth going to: Mt. St. Helens Vietnam Band at Courtyard Cafe

Note: Photo courtesy of Dead Oceans.

The Courtyard Cafe had quite a week last week, what with shows by The Mountain Goats and Hold Steady. This week though, comes The Mt. St. Helens Vietnam Band.

The group, which has either the best or the stupidest name of 2009 (even while writing this I still can't make up my mind), recently put out their debut self-titled album. The album is a blast of indie-rock energy in the best way (and there are plenty of wrong ways to do it), fast drums, intertwined guitars and poppy melodies. Now, this may all sound very standard, and it's true they don't stray much from the formula, but the songs are good enough to stand up on their own.

While the group is still very new (their drummer is 14 years old!), they are on their way to creating a sound of their own. Sure, they may veer a little bit too close to the likes of The New Pornographers or Ra Ra Riot, and not every song is a winner, but it's their first time out.

Songs like the waltz-punk "Masquerade" show signs of a bright future, and their guitar lines, especially on the song "Little Red Shoes," are subtly great. Instead of bashing them over your head, they noodle around and provide a strong counter melody to the main vocals.

It's good to see a band without a unique quirk to set them apart. These guys are playing music for the sake of playing music. They don't have a singer with a weird voice (Clap Your Hands Say Yeah) or a high school orchestra feel (Arcade Fire at their most primitive). Nah, Mt. St. Helens Vietnam Band are just songwriters.

Now if only they had a name that matched the sound...

Mt. St. Helens Vietnam Band, with Bess Rogers, will be performing at the Courtyard Cafe in the Illini Union, Urbana, Thursday, April 9 at 8 p.m. Tickets are $5, or $3 with a University of Illinois ID.

Avant-jazz and the cover: the music of Marco Benevento

Note: Photo courtesy of Calabro Music Media.

Marco Benevento has a unique way of making a cover.

It doesn't entail merely regurgitating a melody with another singer or instrument (even though they remain intact). No, a cover to this eclectic-jazz artist means deconstructing a song, finding colorful additions or flourishes, and making a whole new song out of it.

"When you play a tune and do your own thing to it, it's important to retain the musical color of it," Benevento said. "You need to capture the essence of it and put your essence in it at the same time."

Benevento put this to good use with his latest album Me, Not Me. A jazz record in only the simplest terms, Benevento puts his "essence" into songs by Led Zeppelin, Leonard Cohen and a few originals. The versatile pianist (he also plays solo shows, is in the Benevento-Russo Duo, and often collaborates with other artists) is able to make the songs his own, by running his piano through various effects and pedals.

The album was a project he had wanted to do since he moved to New York in 2000.

"It's been done in rock music and every other kind of music," Benevento said. "I have been playing these songs for a long time, and I finally felt comfortable enough to do such a thing."

Benevento said the songs picked for this record are ones he has been playing for a long time ("certain songs lend themselves to improvisation and reorganization, but it takes time to try them live"), and ones he feels a personal connection with.

One of the most popular tracks he has reinterpreted though, is the song "Golden" by My Morning Jacket. While the melody remains intact, the focus instead shifts onto the percussion and rhythm, re-imagining it as more groove-oriented than the original's moody acoustic vibe.

Benevento said that was one of the songs he really wanted to stick out on the album, adding tempo and mood changes throughout the song that weren't imagined the first time around.

It's a great cover, but best of all, it's a weird one.

And if Benevento's music errs on the side of weird on record, it's a whole different beast in concert. With this tour, which brings him to Logan Square Auditorium on Thursday, he is playing as a trio, including bass, drums and whatever piano there is for him to tinker with.

"I just put some pedals in a backpack and a microphone that I leave in the piano," Benevento said. "I then run it through a guitar amp to recreate the song."

This can provide mixed results though, as not every piano has the same sound (he describes it as "Frankensteining" the piano).

Still, with the gamble that is every new piano, there is a guarantee that every show will be unique.

"It's exciting to find the piano as a whole other instrument," he said. "It's almost like a guitar concept of a piano. You get feedback, and there are fluctuations, because it's a live acoustic instrument."

Marco Benevento, with Liquid Beat Allstars, will be at Logan Square Auditorium, 2539 N. Kedzie Blvd, Chicago, Thursday, April 9 at 8:30 p.m. Tickets are $12.

Just a guitar and a voice: the naked songs of The Mountain Goats

Note: Photos by Aaron Facemire.

That damn coffee machine was a nuisance.

I don't know what I was expecting, as Thursday's night's Mountain Goats and John Vanderslice concert was held in the Courtyard Cafe (ahem, a coffee shop), but every time it started working, the music was drowned out.

It didn't help that the show was all acoustic music. The struggle lasted any time a customer ordered a drink, they were glared at by either the performer or the audience (Vanderslice even stopped a song at one point to wait for the noise to end).

Distractions aside, the music in Urbana Thursday night was a mixed back. Vanderslice can write good enough melodies, but struggles with choruses. And The Mountain Goats (just John Darnielle this time) were great, but didn't play for long enough (apparently to a throat problem).

Vanderslice opened, and I'll be damned if I ever understood what he was singing about. His between-song banter was funny and engaging, but his lyrics were abstract to the point of being incomprehensible.

And yes, his melodies were good. They went somewhere, and they were colorful enough to keep me interested. But they never paid off, and the songs went nowhere (even the last song, which had audience members onstage clapping along, wasn't discernible from anything else he played).

When Darnielle took the stage, he went right into a cover of Tom Petty's "Free Fallin'." Sounding like it was a joke, it quickly turned into an plea for help and attention, much like the music he writes himself.

He then went straight into "Going to Bolivia," and from there it took off. For the 50-minute set, it was one song after another.

Darnielle's bare-bones approach served him well, and it highlighted the strange but straightforward lyrics he had. He is not the most technically proficient player, but his almost punky approach made up for it. He was passionate, and this helped him rise up beyond just being a man and his guitar.

And while Vanderslice struggled to make a song go somewhere, Darnielle's songs were short and to the point. Rivalled only by Robert Pollard (of Guided by Voices) in terms of output, he is able to churn out a large quantity of music, meaning they aren't all long. Unlike Pollard, however, he has an emotional attachment to these songs, revealing things he would never be comfortable just saying (he also has the uncanny ability to make cover personal, which he did again with Jay and the Americans' "This Magic Moment).

The audience was with him the entire time, almost eerily-so. When Darnielle played "Shadow Song," it was so quiet that it was distracting to hear my pen writing. When he played "No Children," the audience sang every word. It was a dedication I hadn't seen to a band in a long time, and it was great to see.

Darnielle's set ended too soon, and he could have played for much longer and still not lost any steam. In the end, they (and I) didn't care about the damn coffee machine, just the music. And we wanted more.

Notes: Photos by Aaron Facemire.

In addition, My updates done during the show on Twitter can be found here.