Escape from St. Louis

>> The Potomac Accord hope to change hearts and ears in the American Midwest

by BOSS SAMBOSA

"The city of St. Louis is a decaying graveyard," says Potomac Accord singer/pianist Andrew Benn, "complete with abandoned railway stations and vacated buildings waiting to collapse." Benn and his band have a peculiar love-hate relationship with their town. They speak and write with an urgent, even desperate hopefulness, a tone that should ring familiar to Montrealers after all these years of godspeed!-ism. But don't call them on it--they've become adept at dodging the superficial comparison. "People are starting to point fingers already, and its something I am not ready to tolerate. I can see the comparison in the fact that we appreciate dynamics in the same way. There is far more in our friendship and daily lives that affects us, rather than one band from Montreal."

Relying on minimalism and the epic-song-building formula, the Potomac Accord pulls together piano, bass, drums and vocals to make melodic, evocative pieces. "Writing songs is a very orderly process for us. Often I'll write up a piano line at my parents house, playing for my grandmother or something, then bring that idea to the band, and we'll play it for a while and get our ideas out, then we'll write up really precise spec sheets outlining the while song."

This strange, puritanical efficiency permeates all things the Potomac Accord do. In just over half a year of existence, they've played with bands like Don Caballero and Euphone, released a CD and are currently on their first tour. Where do they get the energy?

"We are driven by a shared desire to stretch beyond the Midwestern U.S., where our sound is not as readily accepted as it is in other parts of the world."

Driven indeed, but anchored as well. "If it wasn't for the band, I would have left for Chicago already, I love this band that much."

There is of course an element of social responsibility in the Potomac Accord's desire to stay in St. Louis's fast-decaying music scene. If you can temper the corporate fires in the middle of America, there's no telling what you can do in the rest of the country. And the condition of music is certainly something that troubles them. "At home," says Benn, "venues are closing down more quickly than new bands can form, and those who are younger are heavily influenced by corporate radio and the MTV empire. Rock bands these days portray being loud and obnoxious and rude and degrading to women as a definite, easy, and powerful way to make money and achieve stardom. Plus, it infiltrates their minds like a drill, and therefore spawns the growth of many bands sounding like that. This is St. Louis's music scene, but I see this as a problem with music scenes all over the country, for every lousy band in St. Louis, there are 20 more in NYC."

So far, their experiences on tour have only strengthened their discord. "Maybe its just the clubs we've been playing, but it doesn't seem like people are really listening, there's a lot of talking going on. We've been playing with the wrong kind of bands, I guess. Last night we played with a band who had a song called 'Cum Pants,' and we don't really dig that stuff."

With Baynard Lake at Casa del Popolo on Thursday, March 15, 9pm, $5