{"id":1083,"date":"2009-09-21T18:51:00","date_gmt":"2009-09-22T01:51:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/culturecrash\/2009\/09\/joe-pernice-songwriter-vs-novelist.html"},"modified":"2009-09-21T18:51:00","modified_gmt":"2009-09-22T01:51:00","slug":"joe-pernice-songwriter-vs-novelist","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/culturecrash\/2009\/09\/joe-pernice-songwriter-vs-novelist.html","title":{"rendered":"Joe Pernice, Songwriter vs. Novelist"},"content":{"rendered":"

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ANYONE who follows indie rock closely knows that songwriter joe pernice isnt kidding when he says, “coming up with melodies is a pretty easy thing for me to do. it doesnt take a lot to get me to do it.” <\/p>\n

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songs like “penthouse in the woods,” from ’90s alt-country band the scud mountain boys, and “crestfallen,” by chamber pop band the pernice brothers, have a melodic perfection that sounds effortless.<\/p>\n
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writing a novel ended up more daunting, even tho pernice had produced a smiths-inspired novella for 33 1\/3 called “meat is murder,” which wrapped ’80s nuclear dread, catholic school, and adolescent angst into the same brief package.<\/div>\n
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his new novel, “it feels so good when i stop,” is a black humor tale of gen x disorientation. set mostly in cape cod off season, it’s one of the best glimpses at young men and their relationship to music since nick hornby’s “high fidelity.” <\/div>\n
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HERE<\/a> is my LATimes story on pernice, for which i spent some time with the musician (in a bad airport hotel) and spoke to “little children” \/ “election” author tom perrotta.<\/div>\n
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pernice has also released a cd he calls a soundtrack: even though almost none of the songs are by him, it’s my favorite work of his in years. he makes a case for songs which have lodged themselves in the collective unconscious without really becoming classics: sammy johns’ “chevy van,” tom t. hall’s “that’s how i got to memphis,” del shannon’s “i go to pieces.”<\/div>\n
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Photo credits: joepernice.com<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

ANYONE who follows indie rock closely knows that songwriter joe pernice isnt kidding when he says, “coming up with melodies is a pretty easy thing for me to do. it doesnt take a lot to get me to do it.” songs like “penthouse in the woods,” from ’90s alt-country band the scud mountain boys, and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[165,35,40,267,182,464],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-1083","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-80s","7":"category-books","8":"category-indie","9":"category-joe-pernice","10":"category-smiths","11":"category-tom-perrotta","12":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/culturecrash\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1083","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/culturecrash\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/culturecrash\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/culturecrash\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/culturecrash\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1083"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/culturecrash\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1083\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/culturecrash\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1083"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/culturecrash\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1083"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/culturecrash\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1083"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}