Pepper In With the Old

Pepper is a vaguely punk rock beach party band that on other albums (Give’n It, Kona Town) managed for at least moments to recall the Bad Brains’s pulse and spontaneity. But In With the Old is plagued by so mellow a groove it makes you wonder which Pepper once dreamed of being the Police when he grew up.  Since Punk Rock Cowboy’s lyrics  mention attending a Pistols show, maybe some toddler-aged Pepper was carted along to a Police concert.

If you like the Police (and, by extension, Bob Marley - for pop reggae I’m more of a Heptones, Skatalites, or just plain Ska gal) you may think this is  grand.   I find it boring and slightly irritating.  Which isn’t to say the band doesn’t do what it does (provide marijuana, beer and Margarita beats with occasional surf-punk or hard rock leanings) well.  I should also reveal that when I saw Police’s first tour I was among a handful of people in Washington, D.C.’s Atlantis Club (later the 9:30) who attempted to boo the Police offstage so we could get our rock fix via that night's headliners, a band of raggedy-ass, b’s-out rockers who were pals and contemporaries of the Ramones, Wayne County and the New York Dolls but who have since fizzled into unfortunate obscurity (the Fast, also known as Miki Zone’s Zoo). The Fast were incredibly fun, the Police felt like poseurs.  When the Fast came on we sweated out all the beer we’d drunk while the Police droned on, then went home happy, laughing about those boring blond guys who were getting a shot because the drummer’s brother-owned IRS Records.

Now it’s easy to say, “What did we know?”  Well, we knew real rock ‘n’ roll. What we didn’t suspect was how quickly the true new wave was being coopted, repackaged, and sold to the masses.

Although I no longer ingest illegal substances I doubt anything could make me sit through a Pepper show.  But it’s a big world, so this matters not at all to the legions of partiers who apparently enjoy them in Hawaii or Costa Mesa , etc.

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Release Date: March 30, 2004
Tracks: 12 - Time: 41:53
Produced by: Ron Saint Germain
Format: CD
Website:

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Pepper:

Zach Barnhorst - Guitars
Bret Bollinger - Bass / Vocals
Ronnie King - Keyboards
Kaleo Wassman - Guitar / Vocals
Yesod Williams - Drums / Percussion.