[I don’t know if this is turning into some sort of series or what, but I seem to keep dropping these little barely annotated video/music clips sometime between Tuesday and Thursday…]
No idea if these guys are going anywhere, but I have to admit that I like their sound. Says one reviewer:
These young men write and play like old souls. There are roots in traditional country, the Grateful Dead, and the great folk rock and alt-country bands of the past like the Flying Burrito Brothers, the Band, and Buffalo Springfield… they are so young that there is just no telling what will develop down the line. There are already great writers here. They are already accomplished musicians, and they are surrounded and nurtured by some of the finest musicians and artists in Canada. Of all the young groups I’ve seen in the past year, this is the one with the best chance of remaining true to their vision.
(Quotation found at the Harlan Pepper Web site.)
Young? Oh yes. As in “just out of high school” young. Maybe at some point they’ll tire of hearing that, maybe even before they grow out of the label. (And the one on the banjo (Dan Edmonds)? I haven’t seen this in any of the reviews I’ve read so far, but my gosh he reminds me of another skinny curly-haired nasal-voiced sorta-folkie singer-songwriter…) In the meantime, they do write and play some enjoyable music. Don’t expect to find a lot of it so far — their first CD, the aptly named Young and Old, just came out — but all the tracks I’ve listened to share the same sort of easy-going confidence.
Note: Would have posted lyrics if I’d been able to find them yet. Will keep my eyes open.
Update, 2010-01-27: I should have but did not offer a hat tip for the Harlan Pepper heads-up to the Beat Surrender blog, which specializes in promoting Americana/roots music of interest to its proprietor, Simon.
Nance says
There’s a tiny bit of reggae sensibility in there, too.
I loved looking around the apartment, wondering who it belongs to and who the artist is whose work is hung there. And I love it whenever I discover young people–young men, especially, and why is that?–who could become decent stewards of the world.
These could be the boys who guzzled gallons of sweet tea and homemade soup in my garage between long bouts of jamming. Their products became more and more musical from their sophomore to their senior years of high school. They started out as loud and pissed off sufferers of testosterone poisoning, and somehow eventually became soulful troubadours with the capacity to touch their hosts. And then they went on to touch others.
Can’t wait to see how the lyric-writers handle the chorus.
Thanks!
cynth says
They remind me so much of my son’s band endeavors in the basement (and even traveling around), not that the sound was the same–but their earnest, sincere “paying attention” to the sound video just brought me back to those days. And I liked their easy, rocking rhythm. It did remind me of Buffalo Springfield, too. Thanks.
Ashleigh Burroughs says
I’m channeling Jerry and Phil and Bobby…. the Byrds and Buffalo Springfield…. I’m searching for more on line. Thanks for cheering me up this gloomy afternoon, JES.
a/b
John says
Nance: I wondered whose place it was, too! Even constructed a little mini-narrative which focused on the guitarist — the only one who didn’t sing. I imagined it was his place. I imagined he didn’t need to sing because he wrote the song (I have no idea if he did). I imagined him as the quiet center of the group.
The chorus: it’s a bunch of ooooo’s, I know that much. And not quite, um, syllabified — each ooooo is separated from those to either side by a change in pitch, but no real breaks. But I haven’t been able to count the ooooo’s yet; they keep slithering out from under my attention.
John says
cynth: I thought of that son while watching this.
There’s another video at the Harlan Pepper site, in which the band is walking the streets of a suburban neighborhood as they sing and play. (Well, the drummer can’t exactly carry his instruments with him. But he slaps his leg for rhythm, and also walks the dog which is with them.) I wondered if they had to block off the streets to do that. And then I also wondered if — for the duration of that video — Harlan Pepper might be spiritual heirs of the kids in this video, excerpted from the Talking Heads film True Stories:
John says
a/b: Some music puts me in a pensive frame of mind. This didn’t, though. :)