Vaz Rolls Into Moscow, Albeit One Man Short

This weekend, Vaz is coming to Moscow, but it doesn’t have anything to do with Boris Alyoshin and his Russian auto company’s overdue debt. Instead, it has everything to do with droning, pounding rock music from Brooklyn, New York. The band, which consists of Paul Erickson and Jeff Mooridian, Jr., are bringing their twisted amalgam of heavy riffs and spooky, haunting melodies to Aktovy Zal on Saturday night, but with one drawback: There’s a missing guitar player.

“He [Tyler Nolan] didn't have a passport or a license, and he has to move out of his place at the end of the month. Too much to deal with, too little time,” said Erickson in an e-mail interview earlier this week. “We've been shaping up the set pretty good, still playing some new songs, plus some ‘blasts’ from the past. … Next time, everybody comes.”

Erickson and Mooridian spent much of the 90s together in the terrifyingly heavy Midwest trio Hammerhead, who released three full-length albums before disbanding. In 1997, the pair formed as Vaz in Minneapolis, distilling their sound into a leaner, sharper beast. After a few years in Los Angeles, the band moved to New York in 2002, where they have been ever since. Erickson, known for using bass strings as the lower-register strings on his guitar to provide a thicker sound, delivers macabre lyrics that match his dissonant chords alongside Mooridian’s bed of supple drumming. Seeing as how the two have been making music together for almost 20 years, one wonders if their relationship is akin to a musical marriage.

“I've never been married, so I really wouldn't know what it's like,” said Erickson. “Jeff's been married, and I don't think it's anything like Vaz.”

The band is currently on Narnack Records, a Los Angeles-based label with an eclectic roster that includes British post-punk legends The Fall, Jamaican dub wizard Lee “Scratch” Perry and Japanese rock band Guitar Wolf. “Pink Confetti,” Vaz’s upcoming release, is due in August after being held up for an extended period of time as a result of label restructuring. Nolan was brought in last fall after several years of lineup additions, during which Vaz was at different times a duo, a trio and a quartet. Finding Nolan ended up, as it probably should in most rock bands, being a combination of serendipity and inebriation.

"We needed a guitar player, and I ran into a guy named Ben Greenberg from this band Zs ... by chance at the notorious Mars Bar. We talked about him joining Vaz, but the next day neither of us remembered it," said Erickson. "It turned out he was much too busy to take on another band, and he recommended Tyler, a guy he worked with. I had never met him before, he just showed up at my door, we played together and have been playing with him been since."

In the age of MP3 downloads and torrenting, a rock band on an independent label mainly earns money from touring, but the current economic situation is taking its toll, Erickson explained. Apparently, though, a trip to Moscow pays dividends that aren’t necessarily connected with money.

“We have not been touring the U.S. that much due to the fact that we don't have a new record out, and economically it's pretty rough. We play around New York and surrounding areas quite a bit,” said Erickson. “We thought it was time to go someplace new, and the opportunity [to come to Moscow] presented itself. … We're very disappointed our other guitar player can't come, as we have lots of new material we won't be able to play, but we're also very excited to be playing, period.”

Vaz plays Saturday, April 2 with Perth and Motorama. Aktovy Zal, 18/1 Perevedenovsky Pereulok. Metro Baumanskaya. 265-3935. www.aktzal.ru.