Zak Wood / Colorado Daily

Daughter Vision members, Brian Powell, left, and Jonathan McDowell, right, play “A’Poils” Wednesday, May 14, 2008 upstairs at Café Babu. Café Babu will be hosting a rent party on Friday, May 16th with musical acts Hipporchestra and the Microphone Militants, Daughter Vision and Something Under Ground.

For most people, the words “Hell Yeah” and “Babu” are not typically associated with church. But when Reverend Jane Stansfield began convening her non-denominational Hell Yeah Church of Love and Miracles at the Hill’s Café Babu in the fall of last year, the unlikely pairing may have started a fateful chain of events that might prove to be the saving grace of the out-of-the-ordinary coffee shop.

“It has been a struggle, I mean we’ve been climbing up,” said Jonathan McDowell, General Manager of Café Babu, a coffee shop tucked away on the corner of University and Broadway. “We feel that this place is about to blow up, but it’s at a very shaky state right now so we’re trying to give it that extra push it needs to become a full-time venue, restaurant and café.”

That “push” started in April when the café notified Stansfield, who conducts her live-music-centered church there on the second Sunday of every month at 11 a.m., that the business had fallen on hard times financially and asked if there was anything she could do to help. Thankfully, fresh from attending the Conference on World Affairs held on the CU Boulder campus just weeks before, Stansfield had an idea.

“One of the sessions was on New Orleans Blues,” Stansfield told the Colorado Daily, “and the speaker said that, growing up in New Orleans, when somebody was down and out and they needed help, the neighborhood would throw together the music and food to have a party to help out their neighbor. And that’s when a light bulb went off, and I said, ‘How would you like it if we put on a rent party and raised money for café Babu? Why don’t you bring in all of your musicians and ask them to come in per gratis to support you.’”

According to Stansfield, the idea for throwing rent parties immediately appealed to her as soon as the blues player had mentioned it.

“All of the sudden I thought, ‘Here I have a church, and boy, would I love to have that as a mission of our church: to have rent parties, whether we take it around the United States or do it right here in Boulder. Wherever times are difficult, maybe we can at least help to give some hope and show that they aren’t shouldering this alone.”

It’s a natural fit for Stansfield, whose church boasts the motto “Anything is Possible.”

Fortunately, between the efforts of Stansfield, McDowell, and others, the upcoming event – scheduled to take place this Friday from 8 p.m. to Saturday at 4 a.m. has already managed to book a full lineup of bands willing to play to keep Café Babu on its feet.

“Everyone seems very adamant about keeping the place open and continuing to make music there,” said Brian Powell, of Daughter Vision, a rock band that will be playing the rent party benefit. “It’s a great space, a really nice atmosphere, and it does a lot with being involved in the community. The Fox gets its stock of shows every year, and the Boulder Theater does its own thing, but there’s not that many small places where bands can actually get started in Boulder – and Café Babu is very supportive of that.”

Other bands featured at the event include Something Underground, Hipporchestra and the Microphone Militants, Trevor, Safety Tom, Consept, and Pariah. Cover for the benefit will be five dollars from 8 p.m. to 1 a.m., and $10 for the after-hours show.

In anticipation of the event, McDowell noted that the project spearheaded by Stansfield’s efforts to sponsor and promote it, especially as she makes efforts to contact other Hill business owners for personal invitations, extends beyond the benefit of one company and spills over into the community.

“The thing that I think Jane is trying to do,” he said, “is build a cohesiveness up here on the Hill so we have a connection to our fellow business owners, our local community, and enough people who value Café Babu enough to keep supporting it.”