Angie Pepa - Defiance and Dedication
Written by Ms. Confuse on Sunday, March 02, 2008Baltimore - It was the tailend of fall 2005 and the first day of Swebohemian Festival, the biggest people's arts and crafts convergence in the city. Angie Pepa was performer #4 Arlington Stage, fronting two Budweiser booths and besides a row of four portapotty units.
Her time was set 2:15pm, amidst a tough early afternoon crowd of mostly snooty self-minding Appalachian bikers surveying post-puberty girls breaking in newly-dyed velvet hairdos and fela market urchins exploring collectible junks for eBay purposes.
Not a friendly gig, indeed. Yet amidst a mix of confident swagger and contemplative longing. Angie Pepa rehashed a Lisa Loeb song from being a tired morning-after apology to sweetly languorous tribute to a young woman's life on the fingers of defiance and dedication, vengeance and vulnerbility.
Angie Pepa is a 19-year-old Filipino American singer/songwriter based in Gaithersburg, Maryland. She has been performing at various open mic venues and Pinoy rock concerts in Maryland, Virginia and Washington DC in the last four years.
In November 2004 - just year or so of visibility - she was given the rare opportunity to open for Side A, a premier Filipino rock and soul band, at the Lisner Auditorium at the George Washington University in DC.
"My music is very personal, like words from a diary," she writes in her Myspace blog. In cuts "Confused" and Lovesong" - from his debut CD. "All of the Above" - we hear an eager kid reinventing unconventional pop that works despite, or because of, her overstuffed brain. And although she tries to channel Avril Lavigne's angstaddled verbosity in most of her songs, she harks back to pained detachment and self-examining defiance that is closer to Jill Sobule or Chan Marshall.
Other choise cuts in the album include, "Lost" and "No Matter What" -- both defining parameters between sodden and serious. Brassy, intensely personal sorrow that is true blues, not nouveau soul or pop whine.
Not suprisingly, Pepa envisions herself crossing the cultural divide to mainstream audiences -- proof of the aforementioned courageous foray at Sowebohemian Fest.
Her father Eric and northeast-based organizer and Infamas founder Jimmy Almario work together in pushing her star beyong the Filipino musicians in the U.S.
"Angie excels in her own right, she;s not just a great cover act," says Almario. Pepa, he adds, mirrors the kind of multi-talented Filipino artist tat Infamas wants to support.
Watch out for the impending transformation of Angie Pepa from an exuberant adolescent mulling over a new pair of fancy red shoes to defiant, fire-breathing muse crooning about broken valentines and feisty amazons.
Official Websites:
http://angiepepa.com
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