Hit the Brattle last night to hear Joe Pernice read from his new novel "It Feels So Good When I Stop" and play solo versions of the cover songs from the soundtrack album, along with a few Pernice Brothers numbers. Yup, that's right, the novel has a soundtrack album, and there's also a single out by the fictional band in the novel ... rather than try to explain all that, I'll just send you to this NYTimes blog post Pernice wrote earlier this week.
At the Brattle, he came out looking rumpled and even a little nervous. He's shaved his beard, and with his high forehead and big, black-framed glasses, he looked a bit Elvis Costello. The book is about a '90s rocker/slacker getting dumped and finding himself, set largely in Western Mass. and on the Cape. Pernice read two hilarious excerpts, one a debate between roommates about (among other things) the advisability of growing a Hitler moustache despite the disapproval of a narrow-minded society. The other was a finely observed tale of the social maneuverings in an evening among musicians at an indie rock club, featuring an appearance by real-life rocker Lou Barlow of Sebadoh.
The readings alternated with two mini-sets of a total 10 songs, a performance he was to repeat in a late show and in several other cities. Opening with the Dream Syndicate's "Tell Me When It's Over" followed by "Chim Chim Cheree" from "Mary Poppins" was a pretty good clue to the eclectic nature of the list, which also included "I'm Your Puppet" and numbers by Del Shannon and Plush, all of which are in the book and on the soundtrack. Pernice was in fine voice, singing with his eyes mostly shut, his emotive voice and commitment to the lyrics in direct contrast to the book's rapid-fire snark. But then maybe that's the point, that stuff gets said in songs that hardly ever gets said in life.
I was kind of disappointed he didn't get to "Chevy Van," which would be good in the man-and-a-guitar format, but glad that he skipped "Hello It's Me," which seems to want to be nicely produced in deference to the Todd Rundgren original (and which I'm not actually sure wants to be covered at all). He did pull out a few Pernice Brothers numbers, including "Amazing Glow" and the sweetly romantic (yes) "Piss Hole in the Snow."
Boston natives turned L.A. comics the Walsh Brothers opened with a half hour of scattershot material that others seemed to like more than I did. It happens.
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