Marco Benevento
Motion Potion
This event is 21 and over.
$20.00 – General Admission
*plus applicable service fees
The general on sale begins Friday, August 2nd at 10am.
Tickets available at The Independent box office (628 Divisadero, SF) with no service charge.
All doors & show times subject to change.
It’s impossible not to hear freedom and excitement coursing through the veins of Marco Benevento’s new studio album, ‘Let It Slide.’ Produced by Leon Michels (The Arcs, Lee Fields), the record introduces a gritty, soulful edge to Benevento’s brand of high-octane keyboard wizardry—an uptempo, uplifting sound he playfully describes as “hot dance piano rock.” For all Benevento’s virtuosity on the keys though, the songs here are driven primarily by intoxicating grooves, with spare drums and minimalist bass lines underpinning infectious, intentionally lo-fi vocal hooks. The resulting vibe is a timeless one, filtering elements of vintage R&B and soul through modern indie rock and pop sensibilities and peppering it with the kind of adventurous improvisation that Benevento’s come to be celebrated for worldwide.
Acceptance is a recurring theme on the record, and Benevento’s songs often find themselves recognizing that contentment can come only once you’ve freed yourself from the chains of desire and regret. Upon close listen, one can find Benevento’s own personal philosophies subconsciously bubbling up throughout the songs. “You’ll feel better, I’ll just say / When you finally let it go,” he sings on the funky “Say It’s All The Same,” which features vocal contributions from bandmate Karina Rykman. The hazy “Solid Gold” celebrates the simple joy of being in the moment with someone you love, while the Lennon-esque “Lorraine” (co-written with Simone Felice) grapples with loss and change, and the anthemic “Send It On A Rocket” contemplates loneliness and connection.
Dubbed “one of the most talented keys players of our time” by CBS Radio, Benevento’s released six critically acclaimed solo albums over the last decade, performed everywhere from Carnegie Hall and Newport Jazz to Lollapalooza and Bonnaroo, and worked in the studio and on the road with the likes of Richard Swift (The Shins, The Arcs), Jon Brion (Spoon, Aimee Mann), A.C. Newman (The New Pornographers), and Simone Felice (The Felice Brothers, The Lumineers) among others. “It’s safe to say that no one sees the keyboard quite like Marco Benevento’s genre-blind mashup of indie rock, jazz and skewed improvisation,” the LA Times raved, while NPR said he combines “the thrust of rock, the questing of jazz and the experimental ecstasy of jam,” and Rolling Stone praised “the textures and colors available in his keyboards and arsenal of manipulated pedals and effects,” along with his “deceptively rich, catchy melodies and straight-ahead grooves.”
MoPo is a master craftsman and his building material is the world’s most precious commodity: time. Consider yourself fortunate if you catch a Motion Potion DJ set since an enormous amount of scheming has to occur to manifest them. He approaches performances like a sound scientist, researching specifically who will be listening, and how exactly to reach into their souls. Every set is different, each unfolds in a myriad of different ways, and his intensive approach to preparation makes him versatile, deep, and so much damn fun. These are “DJ sets” in the classic sense, unfolding like poems with every song a word and every drop a bit of punctuation. He’s been called the “DJ for people who hate DJ’s”, ‘The Godfather of Silent Disco’ and the creator of ‘Electric Nostalgia’ but we prefer that you just call him, and ask him to create something wonderful.
Since falling into his craft at a Greek nightclub in 1997, his adventurousness, (and the zero fucks he gives for prevailing paradigms) have led him into unheard-of DJ territory. Like a 54-song southern rock set for Govt Mule’s “Deepest End’. Or the three custom metal remix sets he created to follow Metallica at their XXX Anniversary. Or the countless festival lineups he has geeked into including every Electric Forest, every Bottlerock and a ten-year residency at Bonnaroo. In his many years at Outside Lands he has done sets built around the music of Radiohead, Metallica, Santana, 1969 in Remix, Michael & Janet, Soul in Remix, the list goes on and on. This is a polymath DJ who defies anyone to classify his style or reign in his taste.
With that said, this isn’t some old man railing at ‘the kids these days’. Rather, he serves as a living bridge between a hundred years of pop music we love, and four decades of modern dance music that pushes a dancefloor. He’s crafted more than 150 remixes, edits, and mixtapes, and records virtually every show he plays. Most of these only see the light of day in his live performances, but occasionally, he’ll find a cause worthy of sharing them. In 2016, he released Subterranean Homemade Alchemy, an extended album of Radiohead remixes aimed at drawing eyeballs to the social issues championed by the band. Or when a hardcore fan, or friend is in need of some musical inspiration, he’ll hunker down and find them something perfect from the archives, or make them something fresh. Reach out with an impossible challenge, that friend could be you.