Beta Testing @ Green Room Malaysia

Beta Testing @ Green Room Malaysia

19 February, 2009 | 12.29AM

• Written by: deliriumuk
• Filed under: Music News : malaysia, vhs or beta

VHS or Beta, stars of the forthcoming Heineken Green Room, give an exclusive look into some of the new electro-tinged material they will be premiering at their debut KL show alongside Djuma Soundsystem and Box Frenzy on March 28th.

VHS or Beta leapt to the heart of the electro-punk movement in 2004 with the singles ‘You Got Me’ and ‘Night on Fire’. Taking the underground fuzzed up electro-funk sound of acts like Radio 4 and Clinic, the Louisville Kentucky-based three-piece who formed in 1997, add layers of 80s pop sheen to form a floor bending blend of electro pop dance grooves. Think a harder rocking version of The Killers crossed with Duran Duran and you’ll be on the right track.

Event Information
Heineken Green Room:
Date: Saturday March 28th, 2009.
Time: 9.00pm – 2.00am
Venue: ODC (aka Orange Dance Club), 1 Jalan Kia Peng, 50450 KL
Tickets: By invitation only. Invites can be obtained by registering at www.heineken.com.my. Strictly ages 21 years and above only and subject to availability.

Which is the sound they’ll be bringing with them on their Malaysian debut at Heineken Green Room. 2007’s album Bring All the Comets cemented their up and coming reputation with plaudits from publications like Blender and Rolling Stone, while the dance floor tilted mixes of anthemic single ‘Burn It All Down’ by the likes of Surkin, Fred Falke and Midnight Juggernauts reinforced a position in the wider club community forged by earlier mixes of the band’s tracks by Cut Copy and the Juan Maclean. Here vocalist Craig Pfunder gives some inside info on the seamless blend of catchy power pop, impassioned vocals and driving beats they be showing off in Kuala Lumpur on March 28th.

What has the band been doing since the album Bring on the Comets came out?
We did a whole bunch of touring and then finally it got to a point where we thought we should put a stop [to it]. Mark [Palgy, bass] and I have been DJing together for a good many years so we were DJing over the summer, fall and some of the winter and working on some remixes for other bands. We did a remix for a band called My Morning Jacket [www.myspace.com/mymorningjacket] . A band from Brooklyn called Tigercity [www.myspace.com/tigercity] and a band from Mexico called Kinky [www.myspace.com/kinky]: just to get our minds into other music and to keep working. And now that it’s the New Year we’re pretty much working everyday on new stuff for VHS or Beta.

So, when can we expect to hear some of the new material?
[Laughs] That’s a great question… We’re going to take a little bit of time with this record but hopefully in the late spring, early summer we’ll let some of the music leak a little bit. Just to give people some insight on the new direction. I think it’s going to sound different from every other record we’ve done.

Are there any bands or sounds influencing the recording?
It’s weird. When I get into heavy writing mode I stop listening to music. But I’ve listening to a band called Bon Iver, a little bit to Empire of the Sun. There’s tons of older stuff I listen to but right now mostly concentrating on the ideas in my head [noise of strumming guitar in the background].

Bring on the Comets was a harder sound; will you be going that way again or back to the earlier dance and pop influenced stuff?
I think there will be elements of pop but it feels like it’s going to be more electronic. I think the last record was really rock orientated. This time around I’ve been buying more synthesizers. We always like to change it up it feels more exciting to do that kind of stuff so I think on this record we’re really experimenting with different sounds and stuff.

Who are you working with in terms of production? Will the record be self-produced?
I have been keeping in touch with the producer from the last record. There’s going to be a decent amount of our own production on this record but I guarantee there will be some other people lending their ears to the project.

Is the amount of DJing you’ve been doing the reason you’re going for a more electronic sound on the next record?
Well, we started doing way more dancey stuff. We spent so much of our time trying to make our guitars the main focus of the sound but now we’re doing the opposite, stepping back a little from the guitar – not fully – and approaching a more heavy saturated electronic side. But who knows: once the band really get their hands on it and we start rehearsing and performing them as live pieces I think it will change a lot.

With Heineken Green Room we’re trying to find different ways to look at people’s musical preconceptions. Does it bother you that people try and pigeonhole the band’s sound and try and stick you in this category or that category?
Yeah. When we formed there wasn’t really a category yet for us: it was just being conceived. And then the asexual term of dance-rock got invented but I always felt that the press has lazily compartmentalized bands. It’s always been around like that but maybe it’s gotten a little worse but I do agree with that statement. You just have to compete with that and keep making the music you think is true and heartfelt.

Is it easier to find acceptance of that eclectic spirit outside the US?
Europe has a deeper and richer social history with dance music than America does. In America a lot of this music wasn’t part of mainstream culture and it’s only now that it’s become that. [That] big hoopla when electronica was going to break in the United States; well,it never really broke. The Chemical Brothers and The Prodigy being probably the top but there was never really that huge surge. You were never as likely to walk into a record store and see a Fatboy Slim CD as you were Nirvana.

Does that make it harder for a band like VHS or Beta to establish itself in the US?
I can see how it has altered our path. And the perception of us as a band. But not so much that it has frustrated us to where we either gave up completely or ‘adapt and conformed’. I think that anytime you take a band that’s infusing different music [styles] they are going to encounter the same problems: are they rock, are they dance...?

So, what’s a VHS or Beta DJ set like?
Mostly house, which would include some more classic stuff on the disco-Chicago side and the French filtered side, and some of the more contemporary electro – what they call electro now but it’s really not – indie-dance, electro. It depends on the night. We did a four hour set in an art gallery in LA and the first two hours we did rock and old weird disco and for the last two we went into some deeper house and more laidback tracks 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 were going to play.

Can DJing compete with the buzz of playing live?
Nothing replaces playing live. It’s the most immediate sense of self-expression whereas I think DJing can be self-expression although you’re playing other people/s music.

Is now a good time for young hopefuls to follow the music making dreams?
[Laughs] Well, the dreamy, hopeful, eyes staring in the sky part of me says you should always follow your dreams. I think the actual climate for starting a band has never been worse. I don’t know how bad pirating music is in Malaysia but it has affected music in a huge way in America. But here’s the decision: when you wake up that decision is made for you by the types of dreams you have. It’s about your passions and your ambitions. It’s that insatiable desire to continue to create what it is you’re creating.

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