Takin’ It to the Streets : The Russian folk band Limpopo is attracting a growing crowd of fans on the sidewalks and in the studios of Southern California

They have become favorites along the Venice boardwalk and Santa Monica Promenade, these four scruffy clowns crooning their melodramatic Russian folk songs. Oleg Bernov thumps a balalaika that is impossibly large while Igor Yuzov strums another the size of a ukulele. Igor Khramov blows trombone and the short man, Yuri Fedorko, plays accordion and hops in wide circles, his hips swaying as if disconnected from the rest of his body. An open guitar case lies on the pavement, accepting any donations that passersby toss their way.

Street performing is a far cry from the 1,000-seat auditoriums that this band, Limpopo, used to headline in Moscow. But, upon arriving in a new land last year, they gravitated to the street because it gave them an immediate opportunity to perform.

“We started playing on Venice Beach, wondering what the reaction from people would be,” Fedorko said. “We didn’t think we’d be successful.”

But their up-tempo beat and hectic arrangements quickly proved popular. Equally infectious were the band’s goofing and mugging. Yuzov took to wearing ankle bells and dancing jangling rhythms. Fedorko began scrunching his forehead and wiggling his ears for the crowd.

“Playing on the street is a real workout. You have to make people like you, make them stop and listen,” Bernov said. “With Limpopo, it’s not just music. It’s a big performance.”

Their act caught the eye of a record producer who included them on the recent “Spirit of Venice” album, a well-reviewed collection of Westside street players. That producer, Harlan Steinberger, was so impressed with Limpopo that he has brought the band back to the studio to record an album of its own.

“Now days, a lot of the acts that come out have a lot of lipstick on. There’s Madonna the real person and the Madonna that everyone sees, with lipstick all over her body,” Steinberger said. “With Limpopo, what you hear is what you get. There’s no persona. It’s such the real deal.”

Perhaps Limpopo seems genuine because its founding members never intended to be musicians. Fedorko and Yuzov met in 1986 as roommates at Moscow Teachers University.

“We partied together and played guitars,” Yuzov recalled. “We played everything--hard rock, ‘50s American rock ‘n’ roll and Latin American.”

Music soon replaced textbooks in their daily routine, and the two gathered a band that played Russian regional music, Latin tunes and tangos. They named themselves after the Limpopo River in South Africa. “It came from a kids’ story and it sounded exotic,” Yuzov said. On a tour through Poland, he and Fedorko met Khramov, who had grown tired of the big jazz band he had been with for three years. He promptly switched to Limpopo.

The band grew successful enough by 1989 to wrangle a brief tour of colleges and festivals in the United States.

“We thought that Russian immigrants from 10 or 15 years ago had brought this music here already, and that people would already be sick of it,” Yuzov said. “But no one had heard it here.”

So the band realized it could be successful in America. But before they could switch continents, crucial and disparate elements had to fall into place. That happened back in Moscow, at a Soviet-American peace walk where Limpopo performed. Bernov was there. He was an actor with a Moscow theater company, an actor who had been thinking about becoming a musician.

“I really enjoyed their playing,” he recalled, and he introduced himself to the band.

Another equally important introduction took place that day. Fedorko met an American woman, Debbie Zeitman, and they fell in love. Not long afterward, he emigrated to Los Angeles, where the two married. Yuzov arrived six months later. Khramov emigrated to the East Coast. Bernov landed in Redding, Calif., on a Soviet-American drama exchange.

“We were lucky,” Fedorko said. “During the Gorbachev time it was easy to come here.”

Reunited, he and Yuzov began playing on the Venice boardwalk, gathering enough in tips to survive. Bernov made his way down from Redding, stopping to play on the streets in San Francisco to earn travel money. The three saved enough money to send Khramov a bus ticket, and the American version of Limpopo was born.

The foursome began playing every day, switching from regional music to more traditional Russian folk music. They smoothed the act as they went.

“When we practiced in the dorms, when Yuri and I were in college, our neighbors suffered a lot,” Yuzov said. “We didn’t want our neighbors in Venice to suffer too. So we practiced new songs when there were no people on the street. Sometimes we sounded pretty bad.”

And sometimes they sounded good. Craig Smith, who teaches at CalArts, heard them and asked them to visit the Valencia campus so he could record some of their songs.

“They whistle and yell a lot. It’s like a big party when they play,” Smith said. “I thought it would be fun to record them.”

What resulted was a cassette tape of 20 tunes, all recorded in one session, that the band began to sell at the street performances. They also began to play parties and other private functions.

By the time Steinberger wandered along, the material was sufficiently organized to interest him, but not too polished. A professional drummer, Steinberger was attracted to the band’s raw sound. He draws heady parallels to rock bands such as Nirvana and Pearl Jam.

“Their naivete is the best thing about them,” he said.

Capturing that quality on a recording can be tricky. In addition, Steinberger wanted original material for the album. The band members told him that they had never written songs before. So he brought them to his house for a series of writing sessions.

“They turned out to be closet songwriters,” he said.

The resulting music retains much of Limpopo’s folk flavor, but with modern English lyrics, mostly provided by Steinberger. The ensuing recording sessions have been a learning experience for everyone.

On a recent Monday, the band crowded into a tiny studio in the basement of a Topanga Canyon home. Fedorko picked at takeout chicken in the back of the room while Yuzov slept on the floor. “He can sleep anywhere,” Khramov said. Bernov, meanwhile, stood before the microphone, playing a guitar section over and over.

He and Steinberger were arguing about the piece’s rhythm, and occasionally the musician would turn to his compatriots and the band would speak in Russian.

“They always do this,” Steinberger said, wincing.

The sessions will continue for several weeks, after which Steinberger will shop the album around. Khramov expects great things. Yuzov says success doesn’t mean as much to him.

“I like to play and be tired after a performance,” he said. “If the band doesn’t go any farther, I’m quite satisfied with how it’s going now. People see us on the street, they know us and say ‘Hello.’ This is all I had hoped for.”