Joe and I are fighting. We can’t come to terms. In our staff conference call this morning, we were trying to settle on a name for this tour. I want to call it “It Feels So Good When You Tour.” He’s insisting on “It Feels So Good When I Stop Touring.” I honestly don’t know how this is going to end.
Author Archive
Friday, June 26th, 2009
I’ll be brief. Yes, yes I can.
Below are the rest of the US dates on Joe Pernice’s upcoming tour, along with the previously announced East Coast shows. To this, we will add a Toronto date at some point, and that’s going to be it for now. Tickets for the East Coast are on sale now (and selling well, so don’t delay) and all other shows go on sale Friday.
Wednesday, August 5, 7 and 9:30 p.m. (two shows)
Brattle Theatre, Cambridge, MA
Tickets: www.WorldMusic.org, (617) 876-4275
Friday, August 7, 9 p.m.
Bowery Ballroom, New York, NY
Tickets: www.boweryballroom.com
Saturday August 8, 7:30 p.m.
Tin Angel, Philadelphia, PA
Tickets: www.comcasttix.com, (215) 928-0978
Sunday, August 9, time TBA
Iota Club, Arlington, VA
Info: (703) 522-8340 (they don’t do advance tickets)
Tuesday, August 25, 9 p.m.
Tractor Tavern, Seattle, WA
Tickets: www.tractortavern.com, (206) 789-3599
Wednesday, August 26, 9 p.m.
Doug Fir Lounge, Portland, OR
Tickets: www.dougfirlounge.com
Friday, August 28, 7:30 p.m.
Café du Nord, San Francisco, CA
Tickets: www.cafedunord.com
Saturday, August 29, 8 p.m.
McCabe’s, Los Angeles, CA
Tickets: www.mccabes.com
Friday, September 11, 7 p.m.
Schuba’s, Chicago, IL
Tickets: www.schubas.com
Saturday, September 12, 9 p.m.
400 Bar, Minneapolis, MN
Tickets: www.400bar.com
I know. I can hear your disappointment all the way over here in the People’s Republic. But it could be worse. I actually wanted to limit the tour to states in which it’s legal to put tomatoes in clam chowder, which would have eliminated my beloved Commonwealth at the very least. I think it’s wrong to limit tomatoes in clam chowder. Some people are just born liking tomatoes. To deny those people tomatoes in their clam chowder is wrong. I mean, I’d rather have all my teeth pulled than have tomatoes in clam chowder, but I’ll defend your right to do it every time. Anyway, Joe doesn’t like my geopolitical games. He’d prefer to have people at the shows, and maybe sell some books and records. He doesn’t beat the joke to death in order to preserve the punch line. That’s one way we differ. And he’s the one with the talent. So, these are the states he will visit.
Comedy duo The Walsh Brothers, who I told you about last time, open the East Coast dates. I thought this was a good idea when I thought of it, but since then, they and Joe have gotten kind of friendly, and begun to gang up on me. I find this particularly disturbing, since Joe is Italian, and the Walshes come from my people. If you hear them say anything at all disparaging about me while they’re out there together in the world. Feel free to tweet me, and I’ll take it from there.
Those of you on the West Coast are in for a REAL treat. One of Joe’s (and my) very favorite artists has agreed to make the trek across the pond and then across to fly over states. John Cunningham, NOT NOT NOT the Celtic fiddler, will be doing his first-ever solo appearances in Seattle, Portland, San Francisco and Los Angeles. He’s released four criminally unknown albums, but don’t take my word for it. Search John Cunningham music on myspace and listen for yourself. His records have been pretty hard to find in the US, but he tells me he’ll be carrying some for sale, so bring cash! Cunningham’s presence is such great news that I even thought about flying out for the west coast dates, leaving the Route 128 interior and returning to my vagabond ways, when I roamed the country from one four star hotel to another in the service of indie rock. I’m not doing it, but I thought about it.
On this tour, as I’ve told you before, Joe will be playing solo acoustic and also reading some of the passages from his book. Now, some people, when they hear “solo acoustic,” think “Oh, great, I’ll bring the kids! It won’t hurt their ears.” (When I hear solo acoustic, I actually think, “Oh great! I wonder how many people I’ll have to hurt by beating them about the head with their own birkenstocks.”) Anyway, people are right – this WON’T hurt their kids’ ears. It will, however, damage them beyond repair emotionally, leaving them with thousands of dollars in therapy bills, give them very wrong ideas about how men and women can and should relate to one another, and expand their vocabularies in ways the parents of their classmates won’t appreciate. Even I am offended by the material, and being Irish-American, raised Catholic and a lifelong Bostonian, and can offend and be offended with the best of them. In the hopes of getting the book into some “family” bookstores, I actually tried to redact all of the offensive material from a galley with a magic marker. The ink ran out halfway though, and I was left with nothing but prepositions and the names of towns on Cape Cod. In other words, don’t bring the kids.
If you missed my last missive, there were lots of details about the book (out August 4) and the record (out August 6). I won’t repeat it. You can read it here:
http://pernicebrothers.com/. But you should know that you can pre-order the book at http://pernicebrothers.com/blog/pre-order/, and in the coming weeks I will be writing again to offer you an extra-special fan-only pre-order deal on the CD.
Until then,
Joyce
Dorchester, Mass.
Wednesday, June 24th, 2009
Thursday, June 11th, 2009
My dearest friend:
Have you forgotten us? We’ve not forgotten you. Forget that last post. All lies. Here’s the real story, warts, lowered expectations and all.
IT FEELS SO GOOD WHEN I STOP
Joe’s book, It Feels So Good When I Stop will be released by Riverhead (an honest-to-God publisher) on August 6. It is very good, despite the unfair characterization of my people, and despite the fact that pretty much every other word is a curse. In fact, you should note that the book is not appropriate for children, people over 65 or Joe’s sister Judy. It should not be given as a bar or bat mitzvah or confirmation gift (unless you’re being confirmed by the United States Senate as opposed to the parish priest), or left under anyone’s pillow as if it’s from the Easter bunny. I’m not kidding about this. It is FILTHY, and obviously comes from the mind of a disturbed person.*
You can now pre-order this book, if you desire, by using these links on the web page below.
http://pernicebrothers.com/blog/pre-order/
You can also pre-order not using these links, but if you use the links, we get a few pennies per sale, and we promise to spend them wisely, perhaps, at Joe’s request, renting a Crown Vic* for the tour I’ll tell you about later in this novella. We will NOT be selling the book via mail order. Do you seriously expect me to carry hundreds of hardcover books to the post office to mail them to you? I love you even more than I love my facebook friends,* but seriously. We will be selling them on tour though, because then Jose has to carry them.
IT FEELS SO GOOD WHEN I STOP (NOVEL SOUNDTRACK)
On August 4, Ashmont Records (formerly Ashmont Records and Tapes) will be releasing a CD called It Feels So Good When I Stop (Novel Soundtrack) which contains songs, recorded by Joe, Bob Pernice, Peyton Pinkerton and Mike Belitsky, that are mentioned in the book. This is the track listing, but not necessarily the sequence.
1. Soul and Fire (Sebadoh)
2. Chevy Van (Sammy Johns)
3. Tell Me When It’s Over (The Dream Syndicate)
4. I’m Your Puppet (James and Bobby Purify)
5. Found a Little Baby (Plush)
6. Hello It’s Me (Todd Rundgren)
7. That’s How I Got to Memphis (Tom T. Hall)
8. I Go to Pieces (Del Shannon)
9. Chim Chim Cheree (Bill Walsh, Richard Sherman, Irwin Kostal)
10. Black Smoke (No Pope) (The Young Accuser)
You might already know this, as I was tweeting the tracks before I lost interest. But no one except for “social media entrepreneurs” and “2.0 marketers,” one impatient Pernice Brothers fan and one girl who shows up everywhere I say I’m going, seem to be following me over there. But if you’re not on twitter, I do recommend it, because it’s really very interesting to know what other people are having for lunch.*
SUB POP SINGLE
Anyway, and here’s where this gets a bit complicated. The Young Accuser is doing a Sub Pop single. In Joe’s book, the narrator, who is not Joe, is in a band called The Young Accuser for a short time. After the fictional narrator leaves this fictional band, they fictionally record a fictional song called “Black Smoke (No Pope)” and send it to the non-fictional Sub Pop. This is a non-fiction version of that fictional single. Of interest may be the fact that a cover of an even earlier fictional “Black Smoke (No Pope)” was recorded by the non-fictional Joe Pernice and appears on the non-fictional companion CD referenced above (see track listing).
Of course, this isn’t really the confusing part. You’re undoubtedly confused about us working with Sub Pop. I’m sure you’ve heard that back in the 20th century, before you were born, Joe had a multi-dollar deal with Sub Pop Records, and I was an employee there. In fact, I clawed my way all the way up to the position of VP of A & Argument, and signed about a dozen bands now remembered by about a dozen people, mostly from the Maritime Provinces (bands and people). One of those bands, from the Maritime province of Massachusetts, was of course the Scud Mountain Boys. This is where our crazy roller-coaster of a business affair began. We let you all believe, because it made for a juicy story and because we’ll do ANYTHING to sell a record, that our relationship with Sub Pop was one of those classic big-bad-corporate-label vs. scrappy-underdog-artist and long-suffering manager they-done-us-wrong things. We let you believe it – nay, we perpetuated it – because we know how you like to support the “indie” artists. The truth* is that we felt that Sub Pop wasn’t big enough for US, so at our request, they graciously SOLD Joe’s and my contract to a 20-year-old venture capitalist (remember them?) who has since lost all of his money and is now backpacking around the world, holding poetry slams in third world countries. NOW we’re indie. So please support us. But don’t hate the music business. It only did our
bidding.
TOUR
As for this tour, please don’t hate me. Hate geography, time, financial concerns, etc., but not me. Actually, I don’t care if you hate me. But the tour will visit only 11 cities in North America, and we are announcing just four actual dates today. I know that many of you will be unhappy about this, and you can unsubscribe if you want to, but I hope you won’t because I would miss you.* (Note my spam filter is set to automatically delete any email that contains the words “I can’t believe you won’t play (any city other than the 11). You suck.”)* If you’re going to email me something to that effect, avoid those specific words.
Rather than do a reading-only tour for the book and a music-only tour for the album, Joe decided to mash the two together, and combine reading sections of the book with performing songs from the book/album. He will perform solo. He will sign books. Tickets for the four shows listed go on sale Friday, June 12, except the Iota, which apparently doesn’t do advance tickets.
August 5, Brattle Theatre, Cambridge, MA (2 shows)
Tickets: www.WorldMusic.org
August 7, Bowery Ballroom, New York, NY
Tickets: www.boweryballroom.com
August 8, Tin Angel, Philadelphia, PA
Tickets: www.comcasttix.com
August 9, Iota, Arlington, VA
This show contains adult material and is not suitable for children, no matter how mature you may think they are. As stated earlier, it is also not suitable for people over 65, or for Joe’s sister Judy. Opening the east coast shows will be The Walsh Brothers, a Boston-bred, Los Angeles-based comedy duo. Here is where, according to them, I am supposed to write a bunch of stuff that a lady would never write about gentlemen. Joe says, “I’m not too worried about offending the easily offended. I figure the Walsh Brothers will clear them out LONG before I hit the stage.”
In the coming weeks, we will also announce shows in Toronto, Chicago, Minneapolis, Seattle, Portland, San Francisco and Los Angeles. And that is going to be it for now.
MURPHY BED (or whatever it ends up being called)
When he last wrote, Joe told you that his next album, Murphy Bed would also come out this year. Big fat lie. Or overreach. Either way, it will be 2010. All I can tell you is that Joe, James Walbourne, Ric Menck and Bob Pernice have been working on this one since around the time that the second consecutive Massachusetts Speaker of the House was indicted. But between Joe’s schedule as a hot new Americanadian author, James’s schedule as a hot young Pretender, Bob’s schedule as a corporate scientist, Menck’s schedule as Menck and my schedule as an impediment, it’s been slow going.
As has this missive. And with that I leave you
Your faithful servant, and her faithful servant
Joyce, and Charlie Ashmont
Ashmont Records
Dorchester, MA
*not actually the truth
Monday, June 8th, 2009
Everybody’s an expert on SOMETHING.
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/headline/features/6364409.html
Thursday, April 9th, 2009
