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. (More from Wikipedia)
I saw the above album by Angie Pepper, It’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’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’s; “Remember (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.com, Angie 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 1979; Angie 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 Angie Pepper Band also released just one single in Australia, “Frozen World” b/w “Why Tell Me”.
(December 2013)
