by Bill Pearis

Joe Pernice (of Pernice Brothers, Chappaquiddick Skyline and Scud Mountain Boys fame) wrote about The Smiths album Meat is Murder for the 33 1/3 series, one of the few (only?) titles that was a short story, not an essay. That led directly to a book deal for Joe's first proper novel, It Feels So Good When I Stop, due out August 6 on Penguin imprint Riverhead. That book will spawn a soundtrack, a single and a tour, including an August 7th show at Bowery Ballroom with The Walsh Brothers. (Tickets are on-sale.) Here's the back-of-the-book blurb:

In the vein of Nick Hornby's High Fidelity, Pernice's debut is a coming-of-age tale for the modern-day slacker, and an unlikely love story with a masculine perspective--but with a mordant humor and unexpected warmth that will resonate with male and female readers alike. Set to a carefully curated soundtrack of Nick Drake, The Pogues, and Peter Frampton, It Feels So Good When I Stop is the story of a deeply flawed but irrepressibly likeable hero stumbling towards adulthood, learning about heartbreak and redemption, and struggling to love and commit on his own terms.

Joe adds:

It's not a book for kids, which is a general way of saying it's not for anyone offended by raw language and sex. I sent an email to my family telling them that my book should not be read by anyone under twenty-one, anyone over fifty-five and Judy (my sister).

There's also a It Feels So Good When I Stop CD:

Though the book is not explicitly about music, there are quite a few incidental (and not so incidental) musical references throughout. Songs ranging from James and Bobby Purify's "I'm Your Puppet" to The Chills' "Rolling Moon" to "That's How I Got to Memphis" by Tom T. Hall to "Soul and Fire" by Sebadoh. Ashmont Records is planning on releasing in some form--somewhere around the publication of my novel--the "soundtrack" to It Feels So Good When I Stop.

The It Feels So Good When I Stop soundtrack is out August 4 on Pernice's Ashmont label, and features nine covers and one new song, though maybe not in this order:

Continue reading "Joe Pernice - a book, an album & 2009 Tour Dates (Bowery)"