MH2 hits

1. Saturday Night (Rosco!)
2. 24k (Jordan Blue)
3. MHC Theme (Saul Goode)
4. It Ain't Me (Charles Buchanan)
5. Smackin' the Dog (Charles Buchanan)
6. Oompalie (Charles Buchanan)
7. (Had to) See About You (Aaron Langton)
8. Pepperment Panty (Pepperment)
9. Descretion (Chuck Fishman)
10. Phantom Power (Dwayne Wilson)
11. The Million Martyrs (Charles Buchanan)
12. Interlude (Chuck Fishman)
13. Foody Thoughts (Dwayne Wilson)
14. Missiles (Jordan Blue)
15. Pretty (Aaron Langton)
16. Personal Joint (Chuck Fishman)
17. Trix of the Trade (MH2 Crew)
18. Hand over Hand (Jordan Blue)
19. Radicaine (Pepperment)
20. Rosarita (Dwayne Wilson)
See all 22 tracks on this disc

Editorial Reviews

About the Artist
Founded in 1996, Mile High Squared Studios is a non-commercial studio where musicians are free to express thier creativity and musical ideas in a pressure free environment that is supportive of and condusive to expanding the boundries of the musical mainstream. BAND_MEMBERS: Aaron Langton Dwayne Wilson Neal Landauer Chuck Fishman Charles Buchanan

Product Description
A Brief History of the Artists Formerly Known As Pepperment:

In early 1995, I wandered into a northeast Denver cafe in search of a cup of chamomile tea and some live music. Onstage that night was a great shambling behemoth of a collective. At any given moment, there were between eight and twelve people playing all manner of instruments, singing, or just enjoying themselves. The music? It was indubitably the funk. Not the interplanetary funk of Clinton's projects (though it shared something with the spirit of those endeavors), nor the hip-hop heavy funk of fin-de-siecle America (though there were elements of that as well). This was a primal funk indeed, bubbling up from some rude collective swamp of the mind. Needless to say, I wanted to hear more from this misfit band, who I learned were called Pepperment.

The band was comprised of a core of instrumentalists; Charlie Buchanan, Neal Landauer, Dwayne Wilson, Pat Stolle, Bob Grenz, Katherine (lord, I've forgotten her last name again), and late addition Aaron Langton. Add to that a collection of horn players, percussionists, and vocalists too numerous to mention here that metamorphosed from gig to gig.

Any organization that size is bound to be somewhat schizophrenic in the absence of a dictatorial bandleader, and Pepperment was no exception. Later gigs zigzagged from funk to more straightforward rock tunes to countrified freakouts like "Radicaine," which is represented here. Also from this period is the funk workout "Foody Thoughts" and "Pepperment Panty," which captures some of the contradictions and tensions that were by that time starting to make themselves evident among the members: "We'll warm it up towards the best that we can/We're trying to be a regular band..." These two songs were among the first recorded in the band's newly-founded studio, MH2. Unfortunately, they were also among the last recorded by Pepperment. Unscrupulous criminals virtually cleaned out the studio in a break-in early in 1996. Equipmentless, the nascent tensions among the bandmembers boiled over, and they quickly went their separate ways.

That's not the end of the story, however. Buchanan, Landauer, and Wilson kept the studio and began reinvesting in gear. Soon, they were recording again not as a band, but as a studio, working on individual projects. This allowed everyone to pursue different sounds on a song-by-song basis, without the pressure of outside expectations of what a band should be. "Rosarita," "Sandwich (ourmotto)," "Trix of the Trade," and "Smackin' The Dog" all hail from this period.

As the scene at MH2 began to blossom, a new collective began to take shape. Chuck 'da Fonk' Fishman ("Personal Joint", "Discretion") brought his own brand of funk in from Philly. In the summer of 1997, Landauer brought Langton back into the fold, along with singer Erin Flynn of the late lamented Denver band Thumpasaurus Wrecks for a one-off project which eventually became "Pretty," and "(Had to) See About You." Flynn has since taken off for points unknown to further his diabolical plan for world domination, but Langton remained on-board. The remaining songs on the album were recorded during 1998, and demonstrate some of the directions the MH2ers are headed in these days. "24K" and "It Ain't Me" feature tasty guitar work by Maurice Avatar, a longtime fixture on the Denver music scene; and "Missles" is guaranteed to get your booty moving. So what do we have here? The producers of this compilation asked that I attempt to tie everything together for you, our gracious listener. I'll begin by telling you what it is not. It's not an album by a band. It's not an album by mastermind producers, hiding behind a mixing console. It''s not a funk album, it's not a rock album, it's not a funk-rock album, and it's most likely not going to be the 'next big thing' album. It's neither east nor west coast. What we have here is Denver music, bound together by a common belief that the music here is every bit as good as (or better than) the stuff force-fed us daily by the Industry and that those who bemoan the lack of a "music scene" should get off their arses and make one. That said, I invite you to open your ears, get that chamomile steeping, and dig, baby, dig... -Dr. Linus Van Tassel

MH2 hits,Various Artists