My dearest friend: Hi there. Me again. So The New Mendicants CD EPs are in production, finally. As always, things took longer than expected, what with my advanced age and arthritis, Joe’s insolence and Norman’s Scot-Canadianness (sp?), but the parts have been shipped and the elves are hard at work (at a fair wage and [...]
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Goodbye, Killer by Pernice Brothers is Joe Pernice’s first band album since 2006’s Live a Little. In several weeks-long bursts of work over the course of a couple of years, in between writing a novel, recording a soundtrack for said novel, touring on both, and doing real-life things, Joe, his brother Bob, and long-time collaborators James Walbourne (Pretenders, Son Volt, Peter Bruntnell) and Ric Menck (Matthew Sweet, Velvet Crush) holed up in an attic in Boston and recorded these 10 Pernice originals.
Goodbye, Killer should appease Pernice fans from all walks of life. It includes the full on rock ‘n rollers “Jacqueline Susann” and “Bechamel,” signature pop songs “The Great Depression” and “F***ing and Flowers,” the Scuds-esque “Newport News” and “The End of Faith,” and two AM radio would-be classics “The Loving Kind” and “Goodbye, Killer.” Pernice refers to the undeniably show tune-y number “We Love the Stage,” as his “homage to vaudeville, indie rock and learning to love betting against yourself.” (Whatever. Pernice’s manager just hopes it’s the first song in the musical he and Walbourne are going to write, because she’d love to lose a lot of money producing musicals too.)
Goodbye, Killer is a versatile album that’s trademark Pernice.