What follows is a list of instruments used by Fayetteville band Don’t Stop Please in creating their “pop” music: trombone, organ, harmonica, mandolin, synth, accordion, trumpet, tuba, double bass, cello, ukulele, banjo, melodica, saxophone and clarinet. There’s more. The old standbys of drums, guitar, piano, electric and upright bass, percussion and keyboards. That’s it. Perhaps. Unless there’s an instrument or two more hidden in the textures upon textures of Don’t Stop Please’s long, strange trip of experimental jazz, folk and rock ’n’ roll on their full-length debut album.
The album from Don’t Stop Please, first begun a year ago and finished this summer, covers a kaleidoscopic range of musical territory, much like last summer’s six track EP, Crowded Car. But there’s a maturation to the 10 tracks of Don’t Stop Please. The new record is the sound of the outfit — there’s six members in the band, all trading instruments, so the descriptor fits — becoming more and more comfortable with not being normal and challenging listeners. And challenging should not be confused with unlistenable; Don’t Stop Please is a musical adventure that never ceases in pleasing.
The 10-track album’s studied acoustic beginnings are just the tip of the hour-long record’s musical offerings and surprises. With Don’t Stop Please, there’s the tinkling piano, gypsy Americana of “Backyard Dogs” and the flamenco guitar and church-y organ of “Luca.” And the funky blues shuffle of “Long List of Numbers.” And that’s just three of the first four tunes. Elsewhere, Don’t Stop Please explore bluegrass with “Henry & the Great Salt Lake” and distorted jazz rock balladry with “Antithesis.”
There’s no one genre path the six members of Don’t Stop Please — Nick Caffrey, William Krzeszinski, Joel Ludford, Will King, Robert Gaiser and Anna Horton — follow. The idea is more: Let’s see what we can create with us six multi-instrumentalists. Avoiding the genre label or labels is intentional, Gaiser says.
“We’ve all grown up with the Internet, and the whole idea of a band having one ‘sound’ or approach seems incredibly backwards at this point in time,” he says. “Making weird connections or jumps between different sorts of music puts a smile on your face. We’ve just naturally been drawn to variety.”
Ask Gaiser how he describes the music of Don’t Stop Please and he gets even more creative, making up genres such as “spice-rock, guilt-jazz [and] foot folk.”
Don’t Stop Please got its start in Conway around 2008, with Caffrey, Krzeszinski and Ludford in a band titled Cephus. The name changed, and then the other three members got involved.
“We’d all been hanging out a lot together, playing music at parties and stuff,” Gaiser says. “[It] was a pretty smooth transition into playing shows and then lots of shows.”
The sextet stuck around Conway, venturing into Little Rock often for shows, until earlier this year when the band departed central Arkansas for Fayetteville, searching for better music opportunities. The band started working on Don’t Stop Please before leaving Conway, recording all the instruments on the album in Conway and then finishing the vocals of the album in Fayetteville.
And for all the melodic complexity of the new record, the band’s songwriting process is pretty straightforward. Kind of.
“Usually one person will undergo a significant experience in their life, and they’ll write some emotional bullsh*t about that,” Gaiser says. “Then, once they’re confident the rest of the band won’t make fun of them for it, we’ll all jam on whatever instruments to it. The more you jam on it, the more you start to realize what instruments the song wants and where. Then you beat that arrangement to death and hopefully record it before you get bored of it.”
The end is the musical boldness that is Don’t Stop Please.
Who can play what
The six members of Fayetteville’s Don’t Stop Please are all multi-instrumentalists. Here’s who can play what in the band:
Nick Caffrey: vocals, drums, guitar, piano, trombone, electric bass and upright bass
William Krzeszinski: banjo, vocals, drums, guitar, piano, organ, harmonica, mandolin, synth, accordion and electric bass
Joel Ludford: banjo, vocals, drums, trumpet, guitar, piano, tuba, mandolin, double bass and electric bass
Will King: vocals, bass, drums, guitar, piano, harmonica, cello and ukulele
Robert Gaiser: banjo, bass, drums, guitar, piano, percussion, organ, synth and melodica
Anna Horton: vocals, drums, percussion, saxophone, clarinet, ukulele and keyboards
SEE THE SHOW
Don’t Stop Please holds a record release party for its self-titled album at Stickyz on Friday. Also on the bill is local singer-songwriter Adam Faucett and Little Rock pop ’n’ roll outfit Open Fields. Cover is $7 for the 18-and-up show. The music starts at 9 p.m.