Athens Daily News/Banner Herald - 4/19/99
Bands play to help coffee house
Band for Beans is a set of two shows, set for Monday, April 19, and Tuesday, April 27 at the 40 Watt Club. Monday's show features Set on Edge, Salt and Creek Water Sound, three local bands well-known to Athens area music fans. The April 27 show brings A&M artist Burlap to Cashmere back to Athens after playing here last fall with Jars of Clay. Opening for the Brooklyn-based band is Filet of Soul, an Atlanta/Athens crew getting good reviews for its first release, "Incommunicado.''
Proceeds will go to buy tools of the trade for The
Bean'ry, a non-profit community service project led by Jason Dominy and sponsored by Chi
Alpha Christian Fellowship at the University of Georgia.
With plans to open in the fall, the Bean'ry will be open three nights a week providing coffee, espresso drinks and desserts and acoustic music on a donations-only basis.
The Bands for Beans shows are scheduled to be held once a
semester at the 40 Watt as a way to help finance the coffee house.
"The goal is to provide an alcohol-free
atmosphere,'' Dominy said. He wants to offer students and residents a place to
``relax, study, meet new people and enjoy live music.''
And while the Bean'ry is sponsored by a Christian organization, there's no ``religious agendas'' in creating the coffeehouse, he said. The only visible signs of religion will be in the lives of the people who work there, he said.
In keeping with the goal of providing a community service, the coffeehouse also will work with The Door to provide meals, clothing and other necessities to the homeless.
"Jason is a great guy, and he's putting a lot of effort into doing some great stuff with this coffee house,'' said Shannon Lewis with Set on Edge. ``It'll have a positive influence in a lot of people's lives. If people only knew how much time he's put into this, they'd probably all give him an extra dollar tip when they walk in the door.''
Lyrical depth and stunning musicianship are the hallmarks of Burlap to Cashmere, who have brought audiences to their feet across the country.
Drawing on their Greek and Italian upbringing, original band mates-cousins Steven Delopoulos and John Philippides combine steel and classical guitars, Afro-Cuban rhythms and even Greek bazouki music to create a style of world music that defies categorization. Influenced by such songwriters as Cat Stevens, Harry Chapin and Simon and Garfunkel, the band explores love, war, life, death, struggle and salvation in its debut release, "Anybody Out There?''
The months on the road since the album was released late last year "brought me to a sense of reality'' that's given him a new place to write from, Delopoulos said. After spending so much time touring, nothing seemed quite real, leaving him so disconnected to family and home that all he had left was his faith.
I went through a real denial time, and there were no songs coming out,'' he said. "My relationships with friends and God were stale. No, it's almost like I'm starting over like a baby. The world seems fresh and the songs just come out.''
His hope for those coming to the show is leave feeling a little better about who they are.
"We want them to love themselves - that's it,'' he said. "The whole base of Christianity is to love yourself. The whole point of Jesus dying is for people to realize you're perfect in God's sight. You can finally look at yourself in the mirror and say, `I love me, therefore I can love others.' That's what we try to do at every show.''
Performing comfortably in any venue, the band has grassroots base of fans who respond both to their formidable musicianship and their ability to communicate spiritual subjects without being preachy.
"I think we're not evangelical,'' Delopoulos said.
"We're not perfect people. We mess up. The beauty about this band, is in every
member's heart is a true love for God.''