The Cavalier Daily
Thursday, March 10, 1996
By Karen Loew
Repass Amasses Following
What makes the music of singer/songwriter Wendy Repass unique
is also what gives it extraordinary power: the intensity of
her delivery and the resulting intimacy she creates with her
listeners.
With the release of "Chapter 1: The Coming of Age"
Repass has made her genre-stumping music available to those
not lucky enough to experience her performances live. In an
interview, the recent University graduate discussed her music
and her road to completing an album.
The combination of Repass' forceful voice with the determination
required to single-handedly produce a recording creates an impression
of undaunting self-assurance, but Repass' artistic confidence
is a fairly new development.
When she picked up the guitar in the winter of 1991, it was
out of necessity. "The release of using your voice and
letting something come out through your mouth- it was incredible!"
Repass said.
By the following summer, Repass was singing on Charlottesville's
Downtown Mall with her hat out for spare change, "When
I first started singing, performing in front of people, I was
incredibly nervous about" showing emotion, she said.
She was very self-conscious about what people would think of
the soul she was baring before them. But the positive
response of passers-by, and eventually of club-goers, encouraged
her to keep at it.
"I had to make it happen. It wasn't like suddenly loads
of people thought I was cool and would throw loads of money
at me," Repass said.
making her album "happen" included enlisting the
talents of some of Charlottesville's premier musicians and expanding
her acoustic act into an eclectic band, including banjo player
Fred Boyce, mandolin player Thomas Bailey, violinist Virginia
Martin and the Afrikan Drum Festival's Darrel Rose.
the 13 songs on "the Coming of Age" run the emotional
gamut from love to loathing from hope to rage, in a variety
of styles, including solo ballad and driving ensemble rock n'
roll. While the lyrics on the liner notes look deceptively tame,
written in paragraphs with periods at the end of each phrase,
Repass glides the sentences together. On the mike, she growls
or beguiles the words into visceral impressions otherwise inexpressible.
One of the most frequent impressions on the album is anger,
in every shade and flavor: hate, jaded bitterness, numbed melancholy.
The album's references are very specific, Repass said. Many
of her songs are delivered to "you"s based on real
people and real experiences.
In a thematic sense, most of the songs i write have to do with
some struggle I'm having, either an interior struggle I'm having
with myself or a struggle with someone else," she said.
the anger of a song like "Tiger Wakes," made particularly
potent by Jason Kapp's bass playing, is very authentic. "So,
you think you're Goliath? I'm the rock, take you down,"
Repass sings. "I can really understand intense anger. I've
been incredibly angry," she said. "The grunge thing
that's happening- that touches on expressing anger. Suddenly
there's allowance for expressing anger; that's not like you
have to grit your teeth or turn your cheek. You can play your
electric guitar really loud and not necessarily hurt anybody
but still get it out."
in a few songs, Repass' anger crosses into the realm of more
overtly political. "Glass Ceilings," beginning with
a gentle mandolin and her soft voice, becomes a chorus of frustration
that includes local singers Blue O'Connell and Ben Arthur. Repass'
lyrics conjure a vision of the legions of working women doing
their best to confrom and get ahead, only to hit the invisible
barrier," As she climbs up she's stopped, although nothing
is said....But we all are martyrs, all in one. And another has
fallen by the wayside as we all march on."
"We Share the Same Place" is also political in a
more topical way than some of the other songs, but it happily
shares none of the generalized, over-used rantings one might
hear in the lyrics of another passionate folk-rocker with a
message.
Repass' message is a heartfelt lament," I watch my TV,
there's pain all around. We're killing each other in LA and
in my hometown. But nobody listens as angry bullets rain down...i
got a gun in your face, you got a gun in my face. When are you
going to deal with me? We share the same place."
The release of "The Coming of Age" indelibly marks
the end of the era when Repass had to play Jimmy Buffett covers
at local bars and the beginning of what should be a long era
of productive, original work.
Repass said making the kind of music she wants to make "is
kind of like having good sex... When you have an experiences
with intimacy with people, it's one of the best experiences
you can have. In order to have a good physical time, you have
to have a good emotional time.
"For most of my life, emotional things have not been OK,
but I think they're incredibly important," she said"
I love the fact that I'm a woman. It's like there's so much
room for women to say things."
The songs on "The Coming of Age" make it clear the
title is deserved. "I felt like I had these songs that
represented this period in my life. I felt i had been with them
long enough that it was time to frame them, almost; so that's
what I really wanted to do."
Is she in a new place now? "Yes and no," Repass said.
If listeners keep their ears out for Repass's gigs around the
area and their eyes open for a possible major-label recording
contract, they can follow her to each new place.
