Syundria

DVAS
Origin	Edmonton, Alberta, Canada
Genres	Club Pop Visual
Years active	2003–present
Labels	Pop Echo Records
Members	Darren Veres Jered Stuffco Jordan Stuffco Dan Carlyle
Website	myspace.com/dietzche

With a basis in Disco and Hi-NRG sound, DVAS, was co-founded by Canadian samplers and keyboardists, Darren Veres (Dietzche V.) and Jered Stuffco (Abominable Snowman) in 2003 in Edmonton, Alberta. Eventually their group grew to add two more members: drummer Jordan Stuffco (Shocker) and bass guitarist Dan Carlyle (Vis-a-Vis). Although DVAS stands for Dietzche V. And the Abominable Snowman they do not consider the latter to be the bands official name.

History

Origins

Having known each other for over 24 years, Jered Stuffco and Darren Veres first met when they played on the same hockey team as kids. But it was not until they reunited at the University of Alberta that their mutual interest in music allowed them to team up once again. It was at this point during the month of February 2003, that the duo of Dietzche V. And The Abominable Snowman came together through a mutual love of leftfield techno, late-late nights and electronicequipment. Early on the music they experimented with was predominately just techno related with the two of them honing their sampler and keyboard skills:

“It was mostly done on stolen gear,” Stuffco explains.
“That’s what we had back in those days.”

Gear in tow they started out as a duo playing underground shows, but ultimately they did not get the response they wanted from their audience. To say the least the two of them agreed, It wasn’t kicking ass. So they added a drummer (Jordan) and a bass player (Dan). For the group it was apparent that they had made the right decision incorporating other instruments into the act. As soon as Jordan and Dan joined the team, the crowd response totally changed. The band’s first show together occurred on Edmonton’s Jasper Avenue at Studio E, a downtown loft space sometimes used by CJSR. At that time, Smilin’ Jay, the popular CJSR DJ with a reputation for partying, was hosting his live show Smilin’ Jay’s Happy Hour from Studio E. Studio E is like the band’s spiritual home. Their first show there was “a mad, private, underground party for us and our friends, and it was a blowout... It was our first show ever and a hot, sticky, sweaty day in August when DVAS really found itself."

Since that first show they’ve played out to audiences in clubs, bars, and illegal squatting spaces, laid out smooth tech/house radio mixes and pumped fists with their ace live show—which blurs the lines between dance event, live show and hedonistic revelry.

Band Name

In a 2004 Edmonton Journal interview Darren Veres and Jered Stuffco can be found explaining the basis of DVAS:

“It’s a bit of a nod towards German Experimentalism. I wanted to “Germanisize” my name to have a go at the pretentiousness that exists in certain areas of German music. It’s also a play on the big-name techno producers Digweed and Sasha. It’s like a plane lands in Miami and the Snowmen is partying and this German guy comes to party for the winter music conference. They meet up and it’s like, (German accent) “oh you like to dance?” And I’m like “ugh, hey man!” It’s a combination of the austere German aesthetic and the brash American. But we’re not extremists. We’re hedonists”

“Good Times”

The most important thing about DVAS is that to them the music itself takes a backseat to the party. The band would prefer to not play on a stage, or even be looked at, while their show is going on. They just want to facilitate you having a good time.

• We’re not here to be the band, we’re here to party... We’re hosting this party, we’re not about being stars. We’re not here to sell stickers and t-shirts; we’re here to make sure everyone gets *ucked, literally and figuratively.

• I wouldn’t do it unless it was fun! Jered and I talked a lot about starting an electronic project, and we’d go with samplers and play pretty much straight-up techno shows, but then we realized it was lame—We’re not DJs. Then our friend Dan weaseled his way into the band and that was weird, two guys on samplers and a bass player, so we sought out the drumming talents of Jordan, Jered’s brother. Now we’re all about the straight-up party atmosphere, having fun and encouraging other people to party.

Playing Live

When it comes to putting together a good party, DVAS relies not only on the use of their computers but also the samplers, guitars, and other gear that they haul to shows to charge the audience. “Other bands are too smart to do live dance music,” laughs Darren. “The gear—the computers and samplers and everything—it’s hard to move around... What we’re think about doing is putting everything on a laptop, pushing play, and getting wasted." All joking aside there is reasoning behind why they do things the hard way. Dan argues that: "You see these DJs and these guys get laid more than we do, get paid more than we do, and they don’t even spin records anymore, they just play mp3s... but I think it’s way funner to do it live because it can blow up and blow off the rails very easily.”

Retirement(s)

“DVAS have retired more times than any other musical act in recent memory—except maybe for Cher... Bryan Birtles from Edmonton's Vue Weekly argues. In truth as an on-again, off-again project, with band mates working and studying out of the city of Edmonton and the province they all work at keeping in touch writing songs and recording new material.

Albums

Business + Pleasure (2003)

• Debut EP
• 17 minutes
• Unique take on techno, house and electro
• 5 Tracks on one mini CD

Bromance/The Chant (2005)

• Two song, seven-inch vinyl
• First debut for Pop Echo Records
• Bromance burbles with Harold Faltermeyer synths and vocoderized lyrics about getting the party started while the song, The Chant, uses a rhythm similar to the intro of Foreigner’s 1981 hit, Urgent.

Macho (2003-2007)

• 45 Minutes in Length
• Macho documents the group from its very beginnings to its present with a number of its singles and some new and some not widely available tracks.
• They were going to call it a greatest hits record—which it is—but if they called it a greatest hits record people would think they were assholes.”
• Michael Douglas was the muse for Black Rain, one of 10 tracks on their latest collection, Macho 2003-2007. (Douglas also starred in a 1991 crime film of the same name.) “The movie’s great and Michael Douglas is an icon,” smiles Darren Veres, a.k.a Dietzche V. It’s obviously a huge joke,” adds Jered Stuffco, the Abominable one.”
• As the title of the foursome’s album hints, becoming a Macho man wasn’t easy. Recorded and mixed over a span of four years—in Edmonton and via computer—the disc required patience, humor and, above all, high-speed internet connections and trust. Some songs required two weeks of edits and dozens of e-mails between band mates.

Discography

• Business + Pleasure (2003, CAN)

• Bromance (2005, Pop Echo Records: CAN)

• DVAS MACHO: 2003 -2007 (2007, Pop Echo Records: CAN)