Harlan Pepper - Young and Old

These up and coming, deadly talented, barely post-pubescent, BC Dinner Jacket and Bunny Hug clad Canucks are Harlan Pepper - a band named after Christopher Guest’s backwoods North Carolina bloodhound raising character in his 2000 movie “Best In Show.” The band (Jimmy Hayes (guitar, pedal steel, harmonica), Dan Edmonds (banjo, keys, vocals), Thompson Wilson (bass, vocals), Marlon Nicolle (drums, vocals)) was formed by kids at Westdale High School in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. They’re still hitting the homo milk and are not yet old enough to buy a two-six.

Harlan Pepper has been called “[j]ust another Hamilton-based hillbilly boy band” by contributors to the Canadian Music Wiki, however, it is more than that. The  new CD, “Young and Old” is stripped down, old-time, acoustic-based American folk music with a youthful twist.  There is a hint of Bob Dylan and the Band (in fact, Edmonds looks like a young Dylan), a smattering of Gram Parsons, a pinch of Hank Williams, and a helping of Buck Owens mixed with a taste of acoustic Neil Young and Jack Johnson.  It is a band that would be right at home at venture capitalist Warren Hellman’s wonderful yearly musical gift to San Francisco, the “Hardly, Strictly Bluegrass” festival.

The nine track CD is a mixed bag.  Some of the music soars with wonderful bare melodies and folk instrumentation.  Others show that the band is just learning how to write for the masses, perform and make the sum total of the band more than its constituent parts.. The nine tracks cover topics ranging from home to travel to love to drugs to overwork.  In other words, it is a rather good reflection of the experience of a young working band trying to break into the popular music business.  In a recent interview that you can hear on the Harlan Pepper website, the band members even say they are still learning to play their instruments.   

You can stream the entire CD directly from Harlan Pepper’s website.  If they are this good right out of high school can you imagine what they will be like in the future?  I suspect they will make quite a few loonies if they stick with it. This dog, unlike Christopher Guest’s bloodhound, can hunt.

- Old School

Buy here: Harlan Pepper