Infinite Flying Kick at Whammy Bar

Infinite Flying Kick's five members see themselves as Kiwis even though they were all born in Taiwan.

There's nothing better, or more old school, than coming across a cool band after hearing about them from a mate.

That's what inspired me to seek out Infinite Flying Kick, an Auckland band made up five Taiwan-born Kiwis. A friend had been to one of their gigs at the Dogs Bollix last year and raved.

Their next show was in the stylish dinginess of the Galatos basement. It was a private party but the band said, "Don't worry, come along, it'll be fine".

Descending into the din of the party, there IFK were, set up on the floor ripping through a short set of songs that were a mix of space rock, sonic pop, and rock'n'roll animal.

The crowd was standing up close, some with their arms folded, some swaying, and some almost eye-balling the band, as they plied their wares. Frontman and guitarist Willis Hsu had a star quality that matched his half-yelp, half-drone vocals; guitarist Robin Liu peeled off a flurry of solos; Christina Chan did all sorts of bent and twisted keyboard effects; and holding it all together were rhythm section Charles Wang on bass and drummer Jeff Hsu.

So the sound was a little shonky and some of the songs were still not quite there but wild energy and fun counts for a lot. Fast forward a few months and four of the band, Willis, Jeff, Robin and Christina (Charles was visiting Taiwan), are sitting on the comfy couch at Rakinos in High St ahead of their two gigs this week.

They play at Funky Oriental Beats, a show featuring a mix of Kiwi Asian musicians, artists and poets at Whammy Bar on K' Rd this Sunday, and at the Dogs Bollix on Thursday with Seno vs Frank, and last year's Rockquest winners Sons of Solomon.

While they were all born in Taiwan they see themselves as Kiwis but hold on to their Taiwanese heritage.

"To me," says Willis, "Taiwan is like ... I know it's home, but I guess I've sort of detached myself. This is more like home. But I'm still in touch with my Asian culture and as I got older the more I realised my true heritage is in Asia and as a Taiwanese person, and I wouldn't want to lose that in any way."

Jeff reckons he's the most Kiwi, since he arrived here when he was 5 and did all his schooling here.

Whether their Taiwanese culture comes through in their music, Willis doesn't know: "I can't remember enough of Taiwan to say if it comes through musically."

But he does know that while their culture bonds them, it's music that united them as friends.

"We were playing in different bands for ages but it seemed pretty natural that we would get together and play together and form a band.

"Basically, Charles got bored one day and said, 'Let's play music together', and so Charles, Jeff and I got together and jammed and said, 'Wow, this feels really cool'."

Then Robin joined, they knew him from "back in the day", and Christina had just got back into the country and they asked her too.

"We thought we've all been in a four-piece before so why not add a female and keys to the mix and it was actually quite quirky and stuff and there were a lot of surprise elements," says Willis. That was two years ago and the band have played a steady stream of gigs, released the Checkmate EP in 2006, and are now working on recording an album.

"All the songs on the EP were just spontaneous stuff that just came about," say Willis. "But over a period ... we started being more critical of our own songs which has slowed down the writing process.

"Back then we didn't really care what each other played.

"But now we're listening to what each other is playing and we react to that so the energy and spontaneous activity is still there but it's channelled."

Describing what their songs sound like is more difficult and if anything they say they are similar to slightly loopy Japanese pop five piece Tokyo Incidents. "But," says Willis, "when people ask me what sort of music we play I just say, 'Man, come along and see. It's really, really cool. It's like nothing you've heard and there's a chance you might fall in love with it."

PERFORMANCE
Who: Infinite Flying Kick, or IFK for short
Where & when: Funky Oriental Beats, Whammy Bar, K' Rd, Sunday $5; Dogs Bollix, Thursday (Feb 28), $10 with Seno vs Frank and Sons of Solomon
Releases: Checkmate EP (2006)
More info: www.myspace.com/infiniteflyingkick