As a longtime fan of the Pernice Brothers and having enjoyed Joe Pernice’s first novella, Meat Is Murder, from the 33 1/3 series, I’m looking forward to reading It Feels So Good When I Stop. However, I haven’t had a chance to read it yet, so I can only assess the album on its own worth. The album sounds as if Pernice had you over to play a random assortment of songs in his living room, and unfortunately the result simply isn’t as good as any of Pernice’s other works to date. But for whatever shortcomings it has, it was very effective at increasing my desire to read the book. So by that metric, it’s a success.
The album consists mostly of acoustic covers, with three snippets from the book and one original instrumental. Not surprisingly, my favorite track is the one song that Joe Pernice wrote. After each cover, I was left wondering why he chose that song. How did it fit the text? Did the lyrics or the era appeal to him? This is especially true for songs I know well, like “I’m Your Puppet,” originally made famous by James & Bobby Purify, but written by all-star songwriters Dan Penn and Spooner Oldham. Pernice’s version drains the soul out of this great song. It is almost painful. I hope the sentiment translates in the book, because I already have a handful of versions of this song and this is the least moving.
He fares better with his covers of “Dream Syndicate” and “Sebadoh” by stripping these songs of their distinct sounds and thus focusing on the lyrics, which are more involved, so it works. However, in the end, the originals are still more interesting because he isn’t adding anything new.
The three excerpts are cute, like movie quotes on a soundtrack. The cover of Plush’s “Found A Little Baby” connects to the preceding quote nicely. In these instances the covers work and given the right context, they make sense. The quotes act like footnotes. I would love footnotes for each song, especially the ones that seem like odd choices, like the cover of “Chim Cheree” from Mary Poppins, which seems out of place.
I look forward to listening to this album again when it serves its true purpose; to indulge the reader who, when reading about a band, wonders what they sound like.
Fellow bloggers Crawdaddy! say, “Hopefully [Pernice's] literary ambitions don’t continue to prevent him from knocking it out of the park instead of floating on his baseline. But the baseline for covers collections is arguably much lower, and Pernice’s efforts here are a success for both him and the dying art of tackling (or identifying) standards.”
Tracklisting:
01. Used To Like That Song (Book Excerpt)
02. I Found A Little Baby
03. I Go To Pieces
04. I’m Your Puppet
05. Right Down There With Pat Boone (Book Excerpt)
06. Soul And Fire
07. Chevy Van
08. Tell Me When It’s Over
09. Chim Cheree
10. Black Smoke (No Pope)
11. That’s How I Got To Memphis
12. Todd Rundgren’s Fault (Book Excerpt)
13. Hello It’s Me
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