"I Met A Girl (Elise)" by Dave Pepper

You never know what to expect from that restless musician Dave Pepper…. Most of the time he takes you unawares by mastering some new musical enthusiasm unlike his previous work, but then he also is prone to suddenly diving back into his canon to revisit some of the gems in there. Often this means my being delighted to hear again stuff I remember from those days: in this latest case, absolutely not as he's re-releasing a song from his days playing in the USA when I certainly never heard what he was up to.

The song is called "I Met A Girl (Elise)" and was originally on an album called ‘Ya Joost Dohn Noh' which was recorded at Rockville, Maryland's Be Bop Studios. Dave (whose song it is) was working on an acoustic album with bassist Mike Jordan when the producer/studio owner Bob Dewald suggested that session drummer Chris Gibbs join them: thus developing the sound. Dave has been talking to Mike recently and they decided to reshare some of their material for a new generation of listeners.

To be honest, when reviewing Dave's work, it is tempting to first of all go directly to comparisons with his staggeringly diverse catalogue & try & pick out something else he'd done which sounds even vaguely similar. Only I really can't this time. It's clear that his experiences in the States had a profound effect on Dave & the song doesn't remind me much of anything I remember his doing before he went. You can hear some sort of country style going on (and when he came back from the US, his act seemed very country to me) and perhaps more prominently, a touch of that American power-pop approach (Dave was telling me of a definite Weezer influence). It's very catchy, which no doubt accounts for why they feel it's worth a replay, but then however esoteric Dave's work has been (and it's gone in some very unexpected directions), he's always tried to make it accessible & potentially popular.

You can hear it via this link:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PmZI6kuv_mM

As Dave is currently based in Spain, with a new band which features a Spanish drummer, Danish bassist and Swedish guitarist (obviously a very cosmopolitan community he's part of) and since his musical genes seem to drive him perpetually onwards, I doubt if we'll be hearing "I Met A Girl (Elise)" live any time soon, any more than we will any other part of his back catalogue, but it's interesting to be introduced to a bit of it which I hadn't previously been terribly aware of. I wonder if he'll ever release a career spanning compilation? That would be most eclectic….