Angie Pepper

ANGIE PEPPER
 
 
The Angie Pepper Band  was a band formed in Sydney, Australia, which centralised around the artist Angie Pepper.  Angie Pepper first came to notice as vocalist for the post punk independent Sydney band the Passengers, who produced one single (“Face With No Name”) on the Phantom label.  In 2003 Angie Pepper released Res Ipsa Loquitor on Career Records, her first album of newly recorded material in years, which signals a powerful renaissance for this great singer.  She has been described by Aretha Franklin’s producer Arif Mardin as having a “most special voice”.   (More from Wikipedia)
 
 

 

 

I saw the above album by Angie PepperIt’s Just that I Miss You (2001) that was advertised in the Bomp! mailorder service as recommended for Blondie and Patti Smith fans, so I immediately ordered it.  The CD actually covers music from the Passengers and the Angie Pepper Band.  Allmusic calls her music psychedelic blues-rock and compares her to Janis Joplin.  But she has a style all her own; Angie Pepper can bring such raw emotion to her singing that I get choked up when I hear her music, even after all these years.  She is one of my very, very favorite rock artists:  I know that I have easily played this CD 50 times and maybe 100 times; there were years when I was playing it several times a week. 

 

Angie Pepper grew up as the youngest of three children in a middle class family in Newcastle, Australia.  She was always interested in art and music and became part of the Sydney rock music scene.  Angie became friends with the bandmembers in Radio Birdman, a legendary Sydney punk rock band that formed in 1974 and broke up in 1978.  One of the bandmembers, guitarist Deniz Tek is actually from Detroit and brought the hard-edged Detroit sound of MC5 and Iggy and the Stooges with him Down Under

 

Alex Wheaton, writing for dB Magazine said of this band:  “Radio Birdman did it first, did it harder, and broke up sooner, than any other Australian band.  They were too much too soon, and their legacy has been felt, through a slew of eighties pretenders right down to this day.” 

 

Angie Pepper’s first significant band, the Passengers came together in 1979 out of the break-up of Radio Birdman, consisting mainly of musicians that she met through that connection.  Their sound was heavily aligned with the girl group sound of the 1960’sRemember (Walking in the Sand) by the Shangri-Las and Baby, I Love You by the Ronettes are songs that the Passengers frequently covered in their concerts.  But mostly they played their own songs. 

 

In an online interview on divinerites.comAngie Pepper recalls her time in the Passengers:  “It was wonderful.  There wasn’t one gig I didn’t enjoy – I don’t think I’ve ever felt so good as when I played gigs with the Passengers.  As far as the performances go, I was very much aware of the audience but I wasn’t afraid of the audience.  When I was singing those songs with the Passengers, I meant every line I sang. and the band played with a lasting conviction that made it possible for me to really sing from my heart.  I felt that I was revealing a very personal side of me that would be impossible for me to reveal in any other circumstances.  Even though there were hundreds of people watching me, it felt okay to be that raw.” 

 

As popular as they were in concert, the Passengers released only one single, “Face with No Name” b/w “Girlfriend’s Boyfriend” (the very first release on Phantom Records); and it is amazing that any more of their music is available.  After their last gig, the bandmembers recorded demos of 8 of their songs in October 1979Angie Pepper left the master in the hands of a friend, but only a cassette tape survived. 

 

After the Passengers broke up, Angie Pepper and Deniz Tek quietly married and collaborated on a new band called the Angie Pepper Band.  The other bandmembers were Clyde Bramley – later a member of the Sydney rock band Hoodoo Gurus – and former Saints drummer Ivor Hay.  The Angie Pepper Band also released just one single in Australia, “Frozen World” b/w “Why Tell Me

 

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In 2003Angie Pepper released her first full-fledged album, Res Ipsa Loquitor (the name is taken from a Latin legal term meaning “the thing speaks for itself”).  The album has a variety of moods and influences – even a short rap section – with most songs being co-written by Angie Pepper and Deniz Tek.  Four of the tracks were recorded with a Montana psychedelic outfit called Donovan’s Brain (named after a 1942 science fiction novel, Donovan’s Brain that was made into a horror film on three occasions).  The songs include a cover of the notorious “Hindu Gods (of Love)”, a linchpin Australian punk rock song; Hindu Gods (of Love) was originally released by Lipstick Killers on Greg Shaw’s Voxx Records in 1980

 

(December 2013)

 

Last edited: March 22, 2021