One-man rock band Alex Peters is still drawing crowds to Treffpunkt in Damansara Utama where he plays three nights a week.
Musician extraordinaire Alex Peters doesn’t seem to mellow but gets 'rockier' with age.
Alex, who comes from a musically-inclined family with roots in Sentul, Kuala Lumpur, is one of the few musicians around who seems blessed with near perfect pitch.
Armed with an Ibanez that survived mauling pretty well, Alex rips, plucks, strums, slides, caresses, hammers and whips the instrument.
His acute sense of pitch makes it a must to re-tune his guitar after every song.
His brain works on a multitude of musical styles as he adjusts the pitch, volume, drum machine and four-track backing, striving for sounds as close to the original as possible.
But in this diversity, he is missing the edge considering the time he takes between songs; it is the tolerant connoisseur, hardly the non-musical pub goer, who likes him.
"Most of the songs are pitched different and I have to adjust accordingly, but I am working on it," he said on the problem of flow between songs.
Flair
Alex has an uncommon flair for sound and one suspects that if he opted to switch cleavers, he could be a first-rate sound engineer.
But, for now, playing live is what gets his engine revving.
Equipped with pretty slick vocals, his shrieks in Art of Noise's update on the theme from Peter Gunn are spine-chilling and impressive.
Those who remember Alex from his days at the New Moon (now Moonraker) pub in Bangsar and Underground at Medan Damansara, says he still puts tremendous effort into his music and his singing.
He spends weeks working on one song, trying out back-tracks for bass phrasing and other accompaniment.
Moving away from his 'Pink Floyd' days in 1982, he maintains a marked preference for reggae and rock today; admires artistes like Dire Straits, Police and Sting.
He excels in the tonal emulation of their hits like Love In the Seventh Wave; An Englishman in New York; So Far Away From Me - to name a few.
Tall and slender as a beanstalk, Alex is visually exiting as well.
Alex, with his talent and flair, is one of the best performers around.
And he has the distinction of having created a small cult of followers who call themselves "The Gravediggers".
His superior musicianship, technological know-how and good vocals make him a talent worth recording.
