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Articles and Interviews

Go to Top Splash #11

Portsmouth band Velcro have just recorded a song inspired by a German printing press. what's more, they're not afraid to use the words 'oscillation' or 'basilica' when they're in the pub. But whatever you do, don't call them pretentious.
Heidelberg Speedmaster sounds like the name of a character from "'Allo 'Allo". it's not. It's a type of printing press. But more importantly it's also the title of the new single from Portsmouth band Velcro.
"It's a full-on, three minute romp of pure rhythm, generated by guitars," says Dean Clarke, the group's bassist, as him and I are sat in a Portsmouth bar, on a dreary, wet Wednesday night. "It's total energy, a real marauding, adrenaline-filled pop song. We practice in a factory near Portsmouth. It's full of clanking, heavy Heidelberg printing machinery. we started the song by playing over the loop of a machine and then added the rhythm of that loop to the song.",BR> Velcro drummer, Jon Callender, chips in, "You can't build a house until you've put the foundations down. It's a foundation song. Besides that it's just a fucking brilliant tune."
So if Heidelberg Speedmaster is merely the foundations, is Velcro's forthcoming debut album Frontiers and New Technologies a complete architectural feat then?
"The album is a basilica of tempo and an oblong church full of rhythm, sound and song, words and sentiment and bullshit," says Dean, with his tongue in his cheek.
"Often our songs are derived from a particular noise that someone has perhaps made by accident," says john.
"It could be a tone or oscillation. It opens up the spectrum of finding new sounds and creating new songs."
What's rather worrying is that he sounds like he's being deadly serious.
Some people might be willing to write Velcro off as pretentious, but Dean doesn't agree.
"We're not pretending to be anything," he says. "I think pretence can be fun. It's good to wind people up with it. People can't see the humour in it."
"Velcro are like a spiral staircase in a castle," says Jon. "You know when you're a kid you go into a castle and find a staircase. You go up and you want to kep going until you see what's at the top. You could walk into a huge banquet hall." On the other hand couldn't it merely be an old, rusty suit of armour?
"That," says Jon, "is for you to decide"...

Go to Top Print Week March 1997

Velcro are a new band from Portsmouth and they've just named their debut single Heidelberg Speedmaster. They are Jon Callender (drums), Dean Clarke (bass), Richard Wiczowski (keyboards) and Neil Carter (guitarist and press operator at Senator Press in Havant). They share a love for the legendary Speedmaster and dream of driving around in one - that's if it doesn't eat them first!

What was your first job in print?
Neil; GTO 52 operator. It's soft purr and subtle cross-rhythms drove me wild.
What is your greatest achievement?
Having the chance to work with each other and securing our record deal.
What would you do if you didn't do what you do?
Dean: artist/architect. Rich: politician. Jon: football commentator. Neil: mobile disco DJ/ astronaut.
So none of you have ambitions to be Speedmaster operators
Neil: Of course! I'm being trained up at the moment.
How would your colleagues describe you?
Dean: ponce. Rich: mediator. Jon: disciplinarian. Neil: freak
What's the secret of your success?
An ever-growing love for the planet, faith in mankind, unfaltering vision, the ability to remain focused on our music in the face of seemingly endless pitfalls, being uncompromisingly stubborn, good looking chaps and having John Schneider as manager.
After all that effort do pop stars earn a lot?
A big fat zero
What is it that you love/hate about the printing industry?
Our love of printing is the Heidelberg Speedmaster. It reminds us of the old Victorian cakewalk that was driven by steam at the fairground. We hate the smell!
Fair enough. How would you describe the Velcro look?
Velcro share a cuteness rivalled only by that of Shirley Temple, coupled with the intensity of a black hole. Great smiles all round with some phenomenal eyebrows.
What football team do you support?
Pompey!
I think I already know the answer, but what would you buy if you won the lottery?
A Heidelberg Speedmaster 72 five colour and convert it into a road-worthy tour vehicle.
What do you hate most?
Neil: Cheese and ignorance
What is your biggest fear?
Being eaten by a Heidelberg Speedmaster
Eh?
When we rehearse next to it, things turn on and off by themselves. It's quite frightening, but it's a positive vibe
When do you lie?
In bed
With which historical figure do you identify?
Rasputin
Who should lead this country?
Velcro
What is your favourite journey?
To any electric power/sub station. We just follow the hum.
What do you eat for breakfast?
Curry
Really?
We have to when we're on the road in our Bedford ambulance.
What do you believe in?
Music and Winnie the Pooh
What makes you laugh?
Western society.
Who would you most like to share a bath with?
Jon: Grace Jones. Neil: Grace Kelly. Dean/Rich: each other.
Who would you swap places with if you could?
Nobody
Who is the next hero of print?
Matt Smith, a trainee at Senator Press - first-rate loon!

Go to Top Splash 2June 1997

Portsmouth band Velcro have been torn off a strip.
The group, who record on the Delerium label, were forced to change their name because it infringed existing worldwide trademark rights held by the US Velcro corporation who produce the adhesive material of the same name.
The band will now be known as Vex
"It appears that the rights to the name are already established as a trademark," said Jon Callender, Vex's drummer.
"While we appreciate the significance of this legally, we are absolutely confounded by the intransigence of this huge corporation.
"There is absolutely no way that the band can be seen as either passing off or attempting to trade on the goodwill of a name we adopted in good faith two years ago. Our business is light years away from their market interests." Bassist Dean Clarke added, "We had to think of a new name in a day.
"We tried out words that were similar, like 'vector', but they all ended up sounding like the names of cars. 'Vex' just kind of stuck. We've learnt to love it."
The legally adjusted Vex will be releasing a new record later this month. The five-track ep, New Technologies, will be available from June 23. There will be a launch party at The Dog, Southsea, on June 26, which will feature a live set from the band.

Go to Top Pugwash - October 1997

You know it's practically illegal to write anything about Portsmouth's very own creators of the pop-post-modern Vex, without mentioning that they were named Velcro until a certain fastenings company got wind of it. So there, I've said it, now let's move on. We've got a lot of catching up to do.

After the demise of the Amazing Windmills, Jon Callender and Dean Clarke roped in Neil Carter and Richard Wiczkowski to work on a new project that would circumnavigate notions of 'musical genre' and, yes, a tour of the nation's public conveniences and curry houses. There are no limits to where they could go.

Jon: "If you want to look at it geographically, our old band was a car stuck on a road, it could take certain turnings, it could do certain things. With Vex, it's like a helicopter, we can o any direction we want, over anywhere, backwards, forwards, up, down, and it makes it exciting, and it shows."

Couldn't it just as easily crash though?

Jon: "But wouldn't it be exciting? If we do crash, we'll make sure it's a very good crash, with no survivors. And we'll tape it."
Richard: "If it doesn't crash, we'll make a noise that sounds like it."

There is certainly a determination at the heart of the band to produce quality material, combining the twistedly creative, the popular and a genuine passion for technological development, to outline their expectation - adding, progressively - minded mechanics, founded on observations of the everyday in the present whilst expectantly anticipatinng future society. Phew, and all this from perhaps no more than a "low-particle bass oscillation".

Jon: "Sometimes we'll go into the studio and just jam, it's fresh, instant. If the vibes isn't quite connecting, we can put it away into our bank of music, and we can draw from that. I'd like to think we're quite prolific songwriters."
Dean: "To be able to put out two quality albums a year is fantastic, I love the idea of that. We could have five albums out by the millennium."

There's no reason why not, as all four are hard-working, proficient musicians, guiding the striving sweep of the muse around every point on the vast musical globe without even wishing to stop for a haircut. Despite leaning towards something very different, ask 'em and they'll tell you...

Dean: "We are essentially a pop band. There's lots of differet tribes, and it's still pop, even if it's twenty minutes of static feedback."

Don't think it won't happen, they'll try everything, and Jon tells us of the drone machine he's just acquired. Indeed, despite being 'pop', there is an element to their music which could be described as relaxing.

Dean: "This guy in London thought it could make you quite lethargic, while other people are totally off on it."

I can see the gigs now, one half of the room throing themselves around like nutters, while others sip Horlicks before getting some shut-eye.

Dean: "Perhaps they're dancing while they're asleep"

Well, I'm off for a kip. DN

Press Releases and Biography

Go to Top Frontiers and New Technologies - Press Release

Vex, four-piece Portsmouth pop pioneers speed into the next millennium with their debut album, Frontiers and New Technologies, which forms part of their Technologies and Energies series.

Recorded under the potent presence of Terry Bickers (House of Love, Levitation, Cradle) - who also contributes guitar to several of the tracks - Frontiers and New Technologies is a cross-pollination of Teutonic intensity and lush, environmental soundscapes, from the autobahn adrenaline-rush of Heidelberg Speedmaster to the mesmerising musical mantra of Cheung Ta Ta Cheung.

An organic assimilation of environmental and technological consciousness, Vex is the product of four disparate personalities and devotees of the Future Natural Course: Dean Clarke (bass, vocals); Jon Callender (drum set & percussion); Neil Carter (guitars) and Richard Wickowski (synthesiser & keyboards).

Dean Clarke, the band's main lyricist, introduces the tracks:

  1. Frontiers
    "I'd just returned from a two-month journey around India, full of new thoughts and new ways of looking at stuff. I walked back into the studio with all these ideas brimming over, and it just happened - this groove! It focuses on the idea of how everything's based around frontiers and how you've got to go beyond them and bring them down. The song's basically about breaking down your own barriers and just going for it. It was like a new optimism... we all felt unstoppable."
  2. Flies In Amber (produced by Terry Bickers)
    "The lyrics were a real stream of consciousness thing! For me and Jon it's quite a manic song, with those different tempos... rhythm-wise it's quite mad. It probably came from how we were feeling at the time, trying out lots of new stuff. We really wanted to create something distinct."
  3. Heidelberg Speedmaster
    "We rehearse in a factory, next to a huge printing press called a Heidelberg Speedmaster which produces this amazing rhythmic hum. We started playing over it, and the song just evolved. Lyrically, this is a wake-up call, it's about being alert. We're all about to move into a new millennium, and there's a definite shift of consciousness, a feeling that things can change. But not in a few years time - this is where it's at. Right now! I started experimenting with the vocals and ended up singing this hanging upside down from a door frame."
  4. New Technology
    "We're surrounded by all this new technology, but a lot of it is perverted in a very unjust way against human beings, animals, and nature itself. New technology's a wonderful thing, but not when it's used for fucking things up, stuff like weaponry and animal testing. Everything is important - everything has an energy, whether it's animal, vegetable or mineral. It's all part of the whole."
  5. Jim Watches Over Us
    "There are three Jims who have always been around the band. They're our chief vibers, always there to help us out. It's about being inspired by your mates. We didn't want to sing about it, because the music said it all. In the middle of recording it, we looked up and all three were gazing down on us from the balcony."
  6. Sound Of Life
    "Listen to the sounds of your life. It's all around you, listen to what's going on. We can't escape it. Sometimes we go down to the sub-station before we practise and pick up the hum, get into the vibe! It's a weird paean to the love of sound - the sound of life."
  7. Tzarcophagus
    "This came about from seeing a programme on Chernobyl, and trying to grasp the intensity of power when the reactor blew up. I couldn't believe how these people had fucked everything up so badly. We were trying to get down this really clanking rhythm, but trying to give it space to move. It's got a really hardcore dance rhythm, with a maelstrom of ideas!"
  8. Omnia and Satori
    "Omni's like a big, deep breath; a huge sigh after the intensity of Tzarcophagus. It goes into Satori, which is my love song to nature. It's the glade, it's the sea... whatever your ideal image is."
  9. Cheung Ta Ta Cheung
    "This one came from the factory again, from a rhythm that Neil picked up. It's like a fanfare, perfect to round off the album. We experimented with loads of different percussion on this, like the huge glass Winchester bottle - Jon was using it for the rhythm and I was singing into it! There's also the gueilla fish, which is like a fish-shaped washboard. We're great collectors of weird instruments."

Go to Top Heidelberg Speedmaster - Press Release

The vinyl debut (produced by Terry Bickers ex-House of Love/Levitation) from this UK four piece who plug in pops eternal chord and merge it with deep experimentation and abstract power. References to The Verve, Spacemen 3 and early Pink Floyd can only wilt in comparison as the brilliance of the musical scaffolding and the detail of its construction defies any attempt at description.
This is the first communication from a band who create dramatic ultra pop and free form symphonies for the next generation. They have something to say...

Go to Top New Technologies - Press Release

Formally known as Velcro (before the manufacturer of the well known fastener pooped the party by threatening legal action) the four members of UK band Vex manage to make another entrance witha stunning Terry Bickers produced debut that challenges and blends the frontiers of pop and experimental guitar rock. Comparisons with The Verve and early Pink Floyd are flawed attempts to encapsulate the beauty of the sound structures that form the experimentation and transformation of Lo-Fi bliss into Sci-Fi, Hi-Fi ultra pop for the 21st Century.
The New Technologies EP is a deep space probe paving the way for the album "Frontiers and New Technologies" which will be released later in the year on Ohm Recordings...

Live Reviews

Go to Top Bullingdon Arms, Oxford

Further evidence tonight that Portsmouth's music scene is very much alive and well. Vex were known as Velcro until very recently when a not very veiled threat arrived from the American company that makes the sticky stuff and a swift change of name was forced upon them. The stage set-up looks promising - a large drum kit painted in loud colours and two keyboards set at right angles, '70s style. The music comes as a shock to anyone familiar with the Portsmouth sound of cheery, beery pub-rock. The opening slow, drawn-out number reminds me of Tortoise, the next has a touch of the Stereolabs. The drumming is particularly good, including some very odd looking and sounding cymbals, helping to build up their rich, layered tapestry of sound.
Unfortunately, they seem to have decided to play all their best songs early on, as I start to think about Hawkwind, Hera & Now and even pink Floyd as the set progresses. This is evident in the current single, Heidelberg Speedmaster, produced by Terry (Levitation) Bickers. Despite this curious clash of '90s cool meets '70s pomp they held my attention to the very end, which was more than I can say about some of the bands I've seen recently. If they can stamp their own identity a bit firmer and ditch some of the (I would guess older) songs they'll be doing themselves a favour. Art Lagun

Go to Top Dog Cafe , Southsea

Until recently Portsmouth four-piece Vex were known as Velcro, but were forced to change their name for legal reasons.
Although the re-christening was initially a setback for the group, they've now pit it out of their minds and are considerably more focused and direct than ever before, as was evident at last month's extremely well-attended hometown gig at The Dog Cafe Bar.
Although their self-important, space-age introductory gambit veered much towards weird rock at times, Vex soon found their feet and crashed into a brand new tranced-out mantra that is easily the best thing they've ever done to date. It even had a recognisable chorus, which is something that has often eluded the band in the past.
Their current single New Technologies also has a neat hook to it. The live rendition of it was a notable highlight, with vocalist/bassist Dean Clarke spewing out 20th Century phrases and buzz-words over a wind tunnel of huge guitar sounds, big keyboard chords and scary electronic psychobabble. The song takes elements of Kraftwerk and Pink Floyd, but pushes them through an industrial-strength food blender.
Dean Clarke and drummer Jon Callender put so much effort into their live performances that it's hard not to be impressed by Vex, even if sometimes their lead vocals do go askew
They are a band who seem to be taking themselves a little bit too seriously, but you can't knock them for the conviction and rigorous self-belief that they have in their group.
I just can't help feeling that sometimes Vex's weird sonic science would be more suited to playing deep inside the bowels of a nuclear power station, rather than in a pub in Portsmouth. Sean Hannam

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