FROM THE MARCH 12, 1997 ISSUE
© 1997, The Daily Beacon. All rights reserved.
They have an amazing accordion player. People go mad over their bootlegs. They sing about the
Quaker Oats man.
Soup serves up some tasty rock 'n' roll tonight at Dante's.
The Atlanta-based band has been gaining momentum since the release of their first full-length
CD, Laughing at the Fables, in April. Combining
electric and acoustic sounds with unique storytelling lyrics, the quintet has gained a
faithful following across the Southeast and Fables has
sold over 1800 copies.
"We were totally blown away by (the crowd) at our CD release party," said Erik Rowen,
guitarist and vocalist for the band. "I mean, at that point, we hadn't really created that big
of a following outside of our friends."
Soup is: Rowen on rhythm guitar and vocals; Bram Bessoff on drums and percussion; Mark Jones
on bass, toe cymbals and vocals; Mike Macon on accordion, harp, and vocals; and Kevin Crow on
lead guitar and vocals.
The band is currently playing about 19 dates a month, and are booked through the middle of
May.
The members of Soup hail from all over the country. Rowen and Bessoff went to college together
in New York and moved to Atlanta to continue their music careers. They soon found Crow by
posting an ad at the Art Institute of Atlanta, Jones hails from Texas and Macon was a high
school friend of Rowen's.
"It just turns out it was kind of luck that we moved to a city like this to start a band."
The band's newsletter, Bouilla Base, has a mailing list of over 2400 fans and a website
(currently under construction) at http://www. soupkitchen.com.
Rowen said the band has written about an album's worth of new songs, but is still busy
promoting the first CD. To keep up with the new material, Soup encourages fans to send them a
blank tape to receive bootlegs of any performances.
Rowen said the band's name came from a children's TV show, called Vegetable Soup. When he and
Bram were thinking of names it kind of resurfaced and became shortened.
"It kind of makes sense too, just because everybody thinks we're called Soup because we have
all these different ingredients from different parts of the country," Rowen said.
Soup's songwriting is done mainly by Rowen, but he said the rest of band is beginning to add
their ideas. On Fables, his lyrics touch on everything from the simple to the insane (check
out the wacky Clue references on "Professor Plum's Last Dance."
"A lot of people say that the CD doesn't match up to the live performance and that's a good
thing, I guess," he said. "We tried to create a live album -- we're definitely a live band,
and that's another reason why we try to push our bootlegs."
For now, Soup plans to continue traveling, and isn't too concerned about major label
distribution.
"As far as (getting signed is) concerned, we're kind of playing it by ear right now," Rowen
said. "As cheesy as it sounds, we're trying to stay more focused on our music and kind of let
that happen on its own."
Tonight's show starts at 11 p.m. Admission is $4 at the door.