vhs or beta

its so weird that vhs or beta played instrumentals for almost ten years before they realized that guitarist craig pfunder had pipes like that. always the frontman by way of attire and stage presence, pfunder makes it offical with the new role of vocalist on their latest record, 'night on fire.' maybe he was just saving his voice for the right time, nevermind the fact that it would have been sometime last year. while these lousiville boys may have waited just a tad too long to unleash their secret weapon, they are much more authentic than those brave but kill-ed schmucks. instead of sounding like some makeup clad deuschebag trying to impress critics with how much he sounds like killing joke, pfunder and vhs or beta actually sound like they made this record with futuristic technnology 20 years ago. to my knowledge, there has honestly never been such a fully realized attack of simon le bon-ness since the Good himself stalked models in the 80s.
while they've added vocals and pop hooks to this record, their sound is still rooted in drummer mark guidry's thumping electro dance beats coupled with dueling joe satriani guitars (you know, the kind of guitar noodles that just sound like they were recorded on funny shaped instruments) and bouncy bass rhythms courtesy of mark palgy. but now with the Georgian (Boy, that is) vocals and pop hooks peppering the tracks like woah, vhs or beta occupy a more important and far more original place in the cool guy music genre. they are no longer a band that tries too hard to sound french and pretentious but comes up short. now they sound mad poppy and even radio-friendly. with tracks like 'the melting moon' and 'you got me,' they draw a line in the indie sand and jump ship. the devastatingly catchy emo-inflected choruses and cheesy lyrics like 'And tonight we’re not alone, we pull the sky down by our side And I’m not leavin’ you anymore Standin’ in the sand, starin’ at the sun, twistin’ into sound And I’m not leavin’ you anymore,' its pretty obvious that they sounded far more cerebral when they used to keep their mouths shut. but its dance music and they're allowed to sound cheesy and feature six minute songs that say no more than 'forver baby, forever all night long.' basic elemental lyrics are almost a necessity in this type of surging, balls to the wall dance music. when you stop wondering what the singer is bithcing about and are permitted to just simply dig his vibe, you free up the mental urgency and let the music just take you to the top. i know i sound a hippie or an e-head or something but if you just 'shout shout shout shout shout to cure the silence' and 'sing la la la la la,' its pretty easy to get that weird, almost euphoric end result that new order or french role models daft punk and air grasp at during their better moments. i know you know what i'm talking about too: when music is just so bittersweet that it makes the hair on the back of your neck stand up with goosebumps and shit. if you've never experienced this than i feel very sorry about that and urge you to smoke more pot and listen to more early morning music in the shower or something. that should produce the desired effect. while i'm not really sure this happened to me yet with this particular albumyet, i'm just saying that this is the type of music that is prone to that type of occurence.
plus it is bouncy radio dance rock without the grit or distortion most bands rely on to get crunk. critics and fans love to over-emphasize the fact that a couple shitty bands on the radio last year sounded a little new wavey. yeah, i guess you could kind of hear the strained attempt to sound like the cure. it was kind of hard though with all the distortion and yelling and such. no matter how hard those bands try to leave fat wreckchords out of their interviews, their music is always going to sound filtered through a childhood spent listening to skate-punk. i mean, there's nothing wrong with that. shit, i was a skate-punk for years, hanging out with all the other hyphenated-punk rockers. its just that vhs or beta were never part of that scene and i know that for a fact. craig, the marks and and guitarist zeke buck were always cooler than that.
i grew up all over the place because of my pop's job and ended up living in louisville in 1998 and 1999. it sucked changing schools in the middle of high school but whatever. i was confident in myself and things worked out fine. but you know how high schools are, especially all boys schools in hick towns like louisville, the music you like is an extension of your lifestyle. while i played football and swam and met a lot of people right away, i was a punk and found my lunch table with the other anti-society types. hyphenated punks, like i said, but we were all pretty smart kids and certainly knew we were above the average redneck. fuck it, i said it. fucking scum of the earth those people. jesus christ. but i'm sure the members of vhs or beta, st. x alumni or otherwise, felt the same way coming of age in lousiville with their tastes intact.
but anyway, we went to shows all the time. mostly of the all ages variety at a pizza place or an arcade or something like that. it was a lot of fun and some of the bands were pretty good. a typical five dollar show would have at least five bands playing anything from punk to ska to hardcore to some combination of the three. the good thing about living in a town as small as lousiville is that you can stay up on practically every gigging band in the city. this was even easier when you were 16 and could only go to limited shows. i mean, if it was a really big show like modest mouse or something we could sneak in. but its not like we had a prayer of getting into a vhs or beta show at some bar downtown. which is where i always remember them playing when i was there. they never shared the stage with the bands i saw and played in during high school, composed of high schoolers.
eventually i began to yearn for a fifth chord and started trying harder to get into the cooler shows. it all kind of happened when the FUCK (first unitarian church of kentucky) church opened its doors to the proto-hipsters of lousiville, what we used to call scenesters. since they were now running the shows and not some grimy promoter, shows went on all day and it was not uncommon for a 10 hour saturday in this basement. with so much time on the bill, my familiar punk bands now played with artsier types and indie bands. we got to hang out with the older scenesters like the assaee lake and the national acrobat and sometimes vhs or beta. i'm not sure if they ever played any shows there, but i definitely remember seeing them around at least once or twice. finally, i managed to sneak into an 18 and up show and saw them. from what i remember, it was a lot more experimental and noisy but the electro undertones were definitely there. they were always coming from that angle. they didn't just switch sides when the national opinion callled for it like some other posers hogging their would-be time on mainstream radio. plus they had the look down even way back then in 98. other scenesters wore tight jeans and leather, but no one had tighter jeans and shinier leather than vhs or beta. holy shit.
while the sucessful incorporation of vocals is certainly the biggest accomplishment of 'night on fire,' the steps forward in pop sensibility are definitely significant as well. 'le funk' had some grooves on it and the shit was pretty catchy but not like this effort. this time, they took all the best parts of beach boys bubblegum pop and new wave's sheer likeability and parked it in front of their churning electro rave rollercoaster. while i hesitated to use such a hardy description, their music has always invoked the feeling of a rollercoaster. with all the ups and downs and gaps and breakdowns/beats, you feel shook sometimes. the music has an interactive feel now more than ever that is rarely accomplished in the realm of cool guy indie music. excuse the excessive metaphor, but its like the romping drums are the constrictive tracks that the snappy bass and tricky guitars guide you over. and nowadays, pfunder acts like that crazy kid announcing the safety precautions, a little too happy with the sound of his voice over the PA. but the ride works. the music is finally all in together now and ready to rock at excessive, goosebumping volumes. holla indeed.