words rachel mok

Transport is part of the fun for a company of musical jokers

I knew the band a company when they started in 2003 – a schoolmate was a member and I was at one of the band’s earliest performances in an upstairs café. I thought it would help the interview but it didn’t. The memory was too vague, the music in the bar too loud and the band’s publicity had me wondering if they had drifted from their fun-core indie-pop to some evil, dark rock sound. But no, it turns out things were just a little bit mistuned.

The group takes its name from the word ‘accompany’, and they cite bands like Belle & Sebastian and Stereolab as some of their influences. It all started when guitarist San decided to form a group with a line-up different from the typical ‘vocals-guitar-bass-drum’ rock four-piece. Instead, he sought out instruments such as an accordion and a flute. “In the beginning we were rather simple, we played everything unplugged,” says San. “Then we started to add some electronic elements to our music.”

Five years have passed, regular players have gone from the original nine to four and a few songs have been published in local indie compilations. The band have also performed various live shows, including at the Formoz Festival in Taiwan. And a company finally put out their first album, ferry, minibus and the lorry – each of the three transportations representing a phase of the band’s music.
So what exactly do these grass-root transportations refer to? “We choose transportations as the metaphor because they are all easily found in Hong Kong, and they can contain stuff… it is like putting our songs with different styles inside,” says Joey, the group’s vocals and keyboardist. “And they can move around. We hope our music can reach more people too,” adds Ah Shun, who plays flute and guitar as well as programming for the band.

A fairy-tale-like lullaby introduces the first five songs all represented by the word ferry – indicating a holiday mood. To Joey, a ferry takes one away from the hectic city life to, say, Lamma Island where the fun is. Whether in Ah Shun’s breezy, catchy flute playing in Sentimental Summer or the jazzy, smooth My Flying Elephant, it is easy to catch the laid-back mentality of the band.

And slowly grooving into the middle of the album comes the ‘minibus’ part – and talking of minibuses in our city, how can we not think of the life-risking, outrageously speeding, late-night danger of the little vehicles? This section of the album features songs that are more upbeat, more dynamic, including Ah Shun and San’s favourite, Auntie Miller and Sesame Tree. But it is Hello Mr King, a song Joey penned after watching the Mr Hong Kong Contest last year that defines the band’s attitude. In fact, they cannot stop laughing when talking about the song they have been making fun of for a whole year.
“I don’t know… it is just funny when they are walking around the stage with their panties on,” Joey gags, while Ah Shun and bassist John conjecture whether contestants will push the limits this year by wearing t-backs. “I just don’t understand why they have to do it. They are like clowns and it looks like a group of women picking gigolos.” Though John simply concludes the contest is ‘nonsense’, the band chooses to laugh at it rather than fire musical missiles at our rotten media, degrading society and all that goes with it. As John puts it, being angry doesn’t change things, so why bother?

The band has constantly mentioned ‘having fun’ is their motto – that probably explains why one of the most memorable experiences of the quartet is eating chilli hotpot after a performance in Taiwan, right before rushing for a flight back home. “It is wonderful that we get to eat and get to play. Maybe next time we will choose three different kinds of food to name our album,” says Ah Shun.

The album closes with lorry: hardly anyone can see what is inside the container and it presents a surprise. Three tunes more ‘atypical’ of the band’s usual style take audiences to the final destination of this journey. The band is playful and adventurous enough to discuss whether champagne goes with coffee as a drink, so which transportation best represents a company? Ah Shun bursts out with the best answer. “Tour bus! You can drive it around having fun!” Yea, playful and adventurous.