Folk Tunes With Jazzy Russian Spin : Music: With ankle bells for percussion and everyone in the group on balalaika, Limpopo plays it for fun.

Limpopo is a river in Africa; it runs from Transvaal across Mozambique. Just look it up.

But Limpopo is also a band specializing in “crazy Russian folk ‘n’ roll.” Billed as “Igor, Igor, Igor and Igor,” the foursome appears today at Fullerton College and Saturday at the San Juan Capistrano Regional Library.

“ Igor thought of the name,” said Oleg Bernov, who, according to the group’s flyers, handles “off-key vocals, mega-bass balalaika and R.E.M. (Rapid Eyebrow Movements).”

“It’s just to confuse everybody. There’s a Russian children’s story about the Limpopo River in Africa. The second half of the name sounds like the Russian word for a person’s bottom. To us it sounds exotic and goofy.”

So does the band.

“Four Igors is only for fun,” Bernov, 29, said with a laugh. “Sometimes we’re Igor, Igor, Igor and Lopez.”

In fact, there are only two Igors: Igor Yuzov on “vocals, balalaika and melodramatic emotions” and Igor Khramov on “vocals, balalaika, trombone and food.” Yuri Fedorko is featured on “vocals, balalaika, accordion and ankle bells” and in “amazing acrobatics.”

Together, they offer distinctive “rock, funk and jazz” renditions of such Russian favorites as “Korobochka” and “Ochi Chorniye” and international fare including “Twist and Shout” and “La Bamba.” A self-produced recording features the likes of “Rok Eraund Ze Klok” and “Gop-Stop,” described in liner notes as a “robbery love song from Odessa Mama.”

Such tunes are at once tongue-in-cheek and cheeky, and always schmaltzy, boisterous fun. Some are in Russian, some in English--and some in Spanish. “Igor used to have a Cuban girlfriend back in Moscow,” Bernov said. “Besame mucho, you know?”

According to Bernov, there’s no way they’d limit themselves to traditional Russian folk music.

“There’s so much traditional Russian folk music that we could be doing that forever,” Bernov said. “It’s a very deep well, Russian folk music.

“But in Russia it’s silly to play Russian folk music. Not really silly, only I wouldn’t consider doing it, since it’s around us all the time. If I would tell my friends in Russia that’s what I’m playing, they’d say, ‘Man, you have nothing else to do?’ ”

Fedorko and Yuzov met at college in Moscow in the mid-’80s. They started playing Russian regional music, rock and tangos together and formed a band. In 1988, they met Khramov at a Polish music festival; Bernov introduced himself to the other band members at a peace walk in Moscow, where Fedorko also met his American wife-to-be, Debbie Zeitman.

A brief U.S. tour in 1989 persuaded the group, which then included a drummer and a violinist, that this was where they wanted to be.

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Fedorko was the first to emigrate. The others followed over the course of a year and under a variety of circumstances. By 1991, they were together again and winning fans on the Venice Boardwalk and Santa Monica Promenade.

Last year Limpopo won Ed McMahon’s International Star Search. “That’s talent from all over the world,” Bernov said. “A comedian from Sri Lanka, a singer from Mexico, models from China, Norway and Uruguay--most of whom live in Los Angeles.”

The group is featured in a TV commercial for Hershey’s Kit Kat bar: “People come up and say, ‘Oh yeah, we saw you guys on that Pepsi commercial!’ ”

Bookings throughout the United States and Canada this summer, including the Sawdust Festival in Laguna Beach on July 10 and 16, Aug. 20 and 27, preclude too many sidewalk appearances.

Bernov wouldn’t say the band has been discovered, exactly, but neither is that the most important thing on their minds.

“We try to make everything fun,” Bernov said. “Life is fun. I was happy back in Russia. I’m happy here. Little by little, you get bigger and bigger.”

Since arriving in the United States, the group has begun writing its own tunes, which Bernov characterized as “romantic melodramas. Very, very dramatic.” (Like people shooting themselves after breaking up? “Yes.”) And Fedorko provides percussion in lieu of a bona fide drummer.

“We have a snare drum now, like in a marching band,” Bernov explained. “But usually we use ankle bells. For every song. To give it a jingle.”

At the other end of the spectrum is Bernov’s “mega-bass balalaika.”

“It’s almost as tall as me--kind of rare, even in Russia,” he said. “You know the balalaika, the little triangular shape instrument with three strings, sounds like a ukulele? It’s an exploded version of that.”

* Limpopo plays today at noon at the International Faire at Fullerton College, 321 E. Chapman Ave., Fullerton. The fair starts at 11 a.m. Free. (714) 992-7178 or 992-7168. The group also performs Saturday at 7 and 9 p.m. at the San Juan Capistrano Regional Library, 31495 El Camino Real in San Juan Capistrano. Show times, 7 p.m. and 9 p.m. $3. (714) 493-1752.