Thursday March 26, 2009
Fire up the night
B y RIZAL JOHAN
American dance rock outfit VHS or Beta is planning a comeback and Kuala Lumpur gets the first chance to catch them in explosive live action.
It’s midnight in Louisville, Kentucky in the United States, and South Korean-born singer/guitarist Craig Pfunder of alternative dance rock outfit VHS or Beta is sitting in his home busy writing songs when a call interupts him.
It is time for his scheduled phone interview as VHS or Beta will be performing live in Malaysia for the Heineken Green Room showcase at Orange Dance Club in Kuala Lumpur this Saturday. It’s only a guess at this point but Pfunder has put the call through a speaker phone because there are sounds of acoustic guitar pluckings and strummings which suggest that he is holding on to his guitar as he takes the call.
“I was in the middle of writing a song,” said Pfunder who, fortunately, was courteous enough to continue with the interview.
VHS or Beta with frontman Craig Pfunder (right) will play at the Orange Dance Club in Kuala Lumpur this Saturday. As he revealed, VHS or Beta is currently taking some downtime after a tour and some deejay sets promoting its 2007 release, Bring On The Comets, which was released by the hip imprint Astralwerks.
The album Bring On The Comets, arguably, didn’t set the scene on fire and receive the sort of critical response many had hoped for. In the big scheme of things, VHS or Beta is rarely mentioned in the same breath as its more illustrious peers. The band may not have the popularity, profile or success of like minded-bands like Franz Ferdinand, The Rapture or The Killers but nevertheless, Malaysian fans will have the chance to catch VHS or Beta putting on a show of considerable live energy.
The band’s distinct sound, which incorporates trademark dance sensibilities and edgy rock energy since the initial EP release, Le Funk in 2002, has worked towards building a cult following for this quartet.
The early buzz
Back in 2004, VHS or Beta earned prominence with singles like You Got Me and Night On Fire, putting the band on the disco-punk map.
The album Night On Fire proved to be an edgier offering with spiky dance-punk influences preferred over straightforward pop tunes.
The band then took a more pop approach with the release of Bring On The Comets, but the music momentum suffered after the expulsion of guitarist Zeke Buck in 2006. These days, the band’s core members are Pfunder, bassist Mark Palgy, drummer Mark Guidry and keyboardist Chea Beckley, who has become more of a permanent fixture than mere touring bandmate.
Besides playing live as a band, Pfunder and Palgy also took the opportunity to deejay and were offering their services after wrapping up their tour for Bring On The Comets last year. Pfunder, in his early 30s, said they took an open-minded approach to deejaying by not allowing themselves to have a fixed setlist. Instead, they armed themselves with loads of music and let the audience be their guide.
Pfunder, who was born in Seoul, was an adoptee from South Korea. His adoptive family moved a lot across the United States, with short spells in Maryland, Georgia, Oregon and Cincinnati. But he spent his school years in Kentucky, and has moved backed there.
His formative years in the early 1990s were spent checking out gigs by indie rock/post rock acts in his hometown area, especially Slint, Crane and Rodan. Bands like Sonic Youth, Devo and Kraftwerk later inspired him to check out more adventurous music and the rest is history.
For Pfunder, who is an indie rocker at heart, the days of singing REM and Velvet Underground numbers at coffee cafes are long gone. Nowadays, he channels the rock energy to make groove-inspired records meant for open fields and small clubs.
Despite VHS or Beta moving towards a more weird electronica-based sound, according to Pfunder, the euphoric dance element is upheld when the frontman gets behind the decks to deejay.
After the band is finished with the live action on stage, Pfunder plans to unleash a party set when he steps up to deejay this Saturday in Kuala Lumpur.
“(We play) mostly house, heavy dance, electro ... it depends on the night. We did a four-hour set in an art gallery in LA; the first two hours we did rock and disco and later we did deeper house ... a more laidback set, and by the end of the night it was really banging. It just depends on the situation, we’ve never really gone into a night knowing exactly what we’re going to play,” he explained.
Blurring the boundaries
Music gives them the freedom to express themselves and Pfunder and his mates have been making music on their own terms since the beginning and are not about to change lanes at any moment. Pfunder knows all too well that being in a band that does not fit into a particular category poses its own problems but that shouldn’t stop anyone from believing in it.
“Yeah, it has altered our path and the perception of our band ... but not so much that it frustrated us or where we just like, ‘gave up’. Let’s say anytime you take a band with music that is kinda confusing, they’re gonna be faced with the same problem – ‘are they rock?’ or ‘are they dance?’
“When we formed there wasn’t really a category yet for us ... the press has cornered bands like that but you can’t compete with that. You’ve got to make music that’s true to yourself.”
In an interview with a Denver paper in 2007, Pfunder voiced out his concerns about the right to evolve as a band ... and not make the same record twice. The VHS or Beta main man is pressing for change with each new album.
“I understand that when Neil Young puts out Trans, he’d been putting out folk records for f***ing how many years, right? Let the guy put out a record with f***ing weird electronic shit on it. Everyone has their own opinion about it, but who knows? I love it when bands go off and do different things. It’s exciting to me,” he was qouted as saying.
And at the moment, Pfunder is exploring new ways to write music with every album. Originally, he would write the music first and then add the vocal parts. Then he evolved to writing the vocals parts with the music. Sitting at his home now, Pfunder, who admitted that he is a more proficient guitarist, is writing songs on keyboards, piano and synthesisers.
He also wants the rest of the guys in the band to contribute to the songwriting.
“I’ve been encouraging the other guys to submit more ideas, to keep them involved. At the same time, it’s been a different process because I’ve been writing a lot on the keyboard/synthesiser. I’m definitely not as good at piano and keyboard as I am on guitar, so there’s somewhat of a learning curve I’m trying to get over,” he said.
As for what the new music is going to be like, Pfunder said that, at the moment, it’s leaning towards electronica.
“The way it’s looking right now, the (new material) is going to be more electronic. The last album was really pop oriented. I think with this (new) record we’re going to explore with different sounds and stuff.”
On its MySpace page, Kuala Lumpur seems to be the only venue for VHS or Beta right now as the band is concentrating on writing and recording the new material before embarking on a tour.
When asked what the band has prepared for the show this Saturday at the Orange Dance Club he said: “Hopefully, we’ll be able to do what we do everytime and that’s to play and have just as much fun as we can. Our live sets depends on how excited and how enthusiastic the audiences are, and the audience feeding off that and us feeding off the audience.
“The best times we ever have are when the audiences come out and really expect to have a good time and we try to always deliver that. I’m really excited about playing Malaysia because it’s the only venue we accepted at this time.”
> Catch VHS or Beta at the Heineken Green Room, Orange Dance Club, Jalan Kia Peng in Kuala Lumpur, this Saturday. Doors open 9pm. The other acts performing are Sweden’s Djuma Soundsystem and local deejay act Box Frenzy. The show is by invite-only and you can visit www.heineken.com.my to obtain an invite. Strictly for ages 21 years and above.
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