English faculty band Daryl and the Beans to perform in free concert
Screenshot from video of Daryl and the Beans performing at the seventh annual Wellspring Literary Series in downtown Mount Pleasant in 2016.
Daryl and the Beans—a band of three Central Michigan University English faculty members—will perform a concert they are jokingly calling their "world tour with only one stop."
The free concert, called English Rocks, will be at 7 p.m. on April 28 at the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Central Michigan. Proceeds from t-shirt and CD sales will go towards the Daryl and the Beans Award, for creative writing.
The three band members are Jeffrey Bean aka "Daryl" and Darrin Doyle and Robert Fanning - "the Beans".
Fanning said his students enjoy seeing them play.
"It's really for the delight of the students," he said. "They get a huge kick out of coming to see their professors play music and they've told us we don't actually suck, so that's good too."
Fanning said the band started in 2012 when Jeffrey heard about a faculty talent show.
"(Jeffrey) said, 'Hey let's just do a cover of a song,' and so we got together in Darrin's basement with our guitars and did a cover of an 80's hit: 'Cum on Feel the Noize'," Fanning said. "We kind of made our own little rendition of that, but as it turned out, the faculty talent show never happened. We were the only entrants. We decided to keep the band together for the fun of it."
Fanning said he cannot quite describe what genre the band plays and called their music "creative renditions of covers". He said one of their most popular songs is a heavy metal cover of CMU's alma mater.
The concert will also serve as a celebration of CMU's English faculty and students, Fanning said, particularly student ambassadors in the department. Fanning said he hopes the event will promote CMU for prospective English students.
Face masks will be required at the event and the sanctuary's capacity allows up to 99 people.
