Hello everyone. Just a reminder that the extra special sale on all of the merchandise in the Pernice Brothers store ends on Monday Dec. 10, 2007 (provided I can tear myself away from all the holiday revelry around here to actually raise the prices on Monday). The original cutoff day was Saturday, but I think I can handle the post office on Dec. 11 without killing anyone. But that’s really going to be it.

After my last email to the esteemed list, there were some very clever replies. (If you have no idea what I’m on about and you’re curious, go to http://www.pernicebrothers.com/) My two favorites were 1) “Love the emails, hate the band. Unsubscribe” and 2) “Love the band, can’t stand the emails. Unsubscribe.” A couple of people, including Joe’s mother, were concerned that he and I had a falling out. Let me be very clear. Joe and I have never been friends. There’s nothing to fall out of. We’re business associates, plain and simple. He produces a commodity, and I get that commodity to the marketplace (that’s you). We don’t exchange Christmas gifts and we are not involved in each other’s personal lives. Any time we share a meal, it’s tax-deductible to the full extent allowed by law.

As I’ve written before, Joe is working on the great Canadian landed immigrant novel. Joe’s people did call last week though to let me know that he was planning to be at Ashmont HQ at the end of the month, conveniently at the same time when I will be holed up at a downtown hotel trying to make sure First Night Boston, one of my dozens of day jobs, gets some media coverage. His people are telling me he’ll be here to audit the Ashmont books (and by books I mean the piles of receipts under Charlie Ashmont’s mattress), but I think he’s secretly planning to do some recording. When I get my December electric bill, I’ll let you know.

And Joe’s not the only one around here writing a book. Bob Pernice and I have been working on a book since 1985. It’s called “The Commodification of Outsiders: An Exploration of the Misogynistic Subtext of Rankin and Bass.” It’s all about how the thing that was wrong with Dolly was actually that there was nothing wrong with her. Which of course, on the Island of Misfit Toys, made her the only authentic misfit, or the ultimate outsider. We have some great marketing ideas for the book as well. In answer to a recent spate of gun violence here in our own neighborhood, we’ll launch an initiative asking people who have guns to load them up with jelly. Anyone with jelly in the chamber gets a free book. We’ll also put some rouge and a funny hat on Charlie Ashmont, the American Money Pit Bull Terrier and put him in a wind-up box. He’ll LOVE that.

Speaking of holiday revelry, my friend Tom and I will of course be hosting our annual Orphans and Jews Christmas Eve in Chinatown holiday spectacular, which is really only spectacular in that we stuff our faces with Chinese food in a restaurant that looks like the set of a Sean Connery James Bond movie. You don’t actually have to be an orphan or a Jew to come, but you do have to dress like one or the other. Feel free to join us. Or not. I’m not sure what Joe is doing. I think I read somewhere that Christmas is on a different day in Canada.

Happy holidays!
JL & CA, Sombertown USA

Hello everyone.  Well not everyone.  Hello potential US mail order customers.  No, actually, hello everyone.  Just because I am extending the offer below to US customers only, doesn’t mean I can’t say hello (bonjour, salaam, guten tag, namaste, wassup, yada yada) to the rest of you.  This is especially true because I have every expectation that you’ll be saying more than just “hello” to me after reading this.  I can always count on my geocentricities (I KNOW that’s not a word, for those of you who like to point to my linguistricites) being pointed out by four clever foreigners (there I go “othering” you again) and one nasty Irishman.*

It’s time for our semi-occasional clean out the spare room Ashmont holiday sale.  I have lowered the prices of Ashmont-released* CD’s to $7 and under, and t-shirts to $14 and under, because I’d rather mail them out of here than move them to the basement.  These prices will be good on orders placed between now and December 8 and shipped to addresses in the US.  All orders will be shipped no later than December 8 (Feast of the Immaculate Conception, so I have the day off my REAL job and can get to the post office), so you’ll have them in time for Christmas if that’s your aim.  Sorry, no autographs (unless you want mine, or you want me to sign Joe’s name) because Joe is in Canada, which means even he can’t take advantage of this special offer.  Visit the “store” here on the website.

(In the interest of global harmony - if you live outside of the US and REALLY want a deal on merchandise - email me and I’ll offer a discount. The simple truth is I don’t know how to change prices in the international store.)

As for Pernice news, I really don’t have much.  Joe’s working on his book, and I haven’t seen him since June, or talked to him since before then.*  There’s still a bunch of recording equipment around here in various stages of disrepair, and I’m kind of assuming since I haven’t heard otherwise, that there’s no finished record to release.  Every once in a while Bob stops by and makes the long climb to the attic to do some “mixing” but I think he really just goes up there to snuggle with Charlie Ashmont, the American money-Pit Bull terrier, because they wander off for hours.  I guess Joe could be talking to other labels, which I would encourage.  If I was signed to Joe’s and my label, I’d certainly be devising an exit strategy. 

If you haven’t read Joe’s Powell’s poignant and offensive blog about meeting William Gibson, it’s at http://www.powells.com/blog/?p=2564.

Several (three) of you have written to ask why I didn’t mention the Carnegie Hall show in my last mini-missive.  Actually two of you that I can confirm.  I think the third was a record company “viral marketing” plant trying to get me to visit a band’s website (something I haven’t done since 1986) by cleverly (but not cleverly enough) knowing a little something about Ashmont.  For the record, we are barely a record company, in a world where the record company is about as relevant as the VCR, and can do less for you than we do for ourselves, which is not much. I didn’t fall for it.  Anyway, for the record, according to Joe, the Carnegie event was “the experience of a lifetime.”  Joe was especially smitten with Phoebe Snow.  I didn’t go.  I know - once in a lifetime, blah blah blah.  But there was a new episode of the short-lived television musical “Viva Laughlin”* on that night. 

Someone also asked why we Ashmonters don’t use our bully pulpit to take aim at “pinksox.” Pinksox, for those of you who aren’t obsessed with the boston.com rantings of a few loud, obnoxious townie Red Sox fans with internet connections at their workstations, are fans who have come to the Red Sox lately.  Here’s the thing.  I take issue with almost anyone over three who wears pink, but even that is a function of my own color insecurity, as it does nothing but bring out the blotchy red in my fishbelly-white Irish complexion.  I just don’t think that kind of vitriol belongs on our website.  Other kinds of vitriol have a place certainly, but not that.  Speaking of which - who decided that kelly green was a color that the Irish should wear?  Seriously.  All it does is bring out the jaundice in our skin. It was probably the mischievous St. Patrick, who, as everyone knows, was actually Italian. Joe is of Italian descent, and doesn’t have these problems.  Look, we’re a mixed company, and we make it work, because we don’t bring our ethnic differences to work.  But back to the pinksox - I think we should welcome them.  My own sister, who is a grown woman but still goes to the hockey games primarily to see the fights, has, on occasion, accused me of being a pinksox because I had to turn away for a while in 1986.  But if it wasn’t for pinksox, we probably wouldn’t be able to buy sushi at Fenway, if we could afford to get in, or had any access to tickets at all, so God bless them for that. 

That’s really it on the Pernice front.  Stop now if you’re not interested in even more useless information than above.  We’re having kind of a “The Wire” week around here.  As you know, we’re gigantic fans of the best TV show ever made.  I went to see a play - “Streamers” - in Boston this week, and was surprised and delighted to find out that Preston “Bodie” Broadus (JD Williams) was the star of the show.  He was very good.  Friend of Ashmont (FOA) Neal Huff, who has a recurring role on “The Wire”, somehow acquired (an auction I think, or maybe a housebreak) the nail gun used by Chris and Snoop throughout season 4, and gave it to Joe.  So don’t make him angry.

A warning to those of you who write to me with your clever questions - I’m thinking about starting a new web feature called “Ask the cranky aging indie-rock hipster who now hates music.”  If you send me a dumb question, it will probably end up in print someday.

Thanks for spending part of your day with me.

JL

-Dorchester, MA
Sarcasm diffusing asterisk key-
* Sub Pop CD’s still regular price
* I can say this, being a nasty Irish-American myself. 
* I have actually spoken to him, through my attorney* (*not really, but I don’t like talking to him because that Skype video thing he insists on using is VERY disturbing)
* Actually it was a new episode of “Life.” I love Damien Lewis’ damaged zen cop.
* Barry Bonds

The Pernice Brothers will play Carnegie Hall (yes, the one in New York) on Oct. 10, 2007 as part of an all-star tribute to the music of Elton John and Bernie Taupin.  The show, which also features Joss Stone, Aimee Mann, Shawn Colvin, Phoebe Snow, Roger McGuinn, Lloyd Cole, Raul Malo, Brendan Benson and others, is a benefit for Music for Youth, which supports music education for underserved youth.  Twenty artists in all will perform one song each.  The show is produced by Michael Dorf.  Ticket information at www.carnegiehall.org.

I called Joe early last Sunday morning and asked, “What are you doing?  Are you sitting down?”  He replied, “I’m scrubbing the toilet.  Seriously.  Hold on. Just let me put the brush down.”  I said, “Don’t bother, that’s perfect,” and told him the news.

Joe, Bob Pernice, Peyton Pinkerton, James Walbourne, Patrick Berkery, Jose Ayerve and Mike Deming will perform as well, and they plan to do “Daniel.”

Here’s the press release:

For Immediate ReleaseContact: Joyce Linehan joyce@ashmontrecords.com

JOE PERNICE SIGNS DEAL WITH RIVERHEAD BOOKS, A DIVISION OF PENGUIN BOOKS USA, TO WRITE FICTION

Joe Pernice has signed a book deal with Megan Lynch of Riverhead Books, a division of Penguin Books USA, for world rights.  Joe will write a novel for them, which is about one-third done, but if you ask him when he’ll finish his face turns all red, and he yells, “When I finish!”  If we were betting people though, we’d bet that that the next U.S. President will be celebrating his or her first 100 days in office around the time it “streets,” as they say in the music business.  If you ask Joe what the book is about, he sticks his fingers in his ears and sings “la la la la la, etc.”  Primarily known as a recording artist, Joe wrote the novella Meat is Murder for Continuum Books’ 33 1/3 series in 2003.  That book remains one of the bestselling pieces in that series, and Joe is working with Neal Huff, an actor who appears regularly on HBO’s The Wire, on the Meat is Murder screenplay.  Again, he is not forthcoming on when that project might see the light of day.  He also previously published a volume of poetry called Two Blind Pigeons, on his own Ashmont Books imprint.  That remains the bestselling (only) piece on Ashmont Books. 

Joe, James and Menck are in Boston doing some recording, and they’re working REALLY hard, as evidenced by this photo.