#jale

[hibiscusbabyboy]

I put my 1990s playlist on random and these are the 10 songs that played 💿💿💿

[thegentlemancollects]

[kep1er-kep1ianworld]

Kep1er

[comicalsansfont]

JALE — NOT HAPPY

[jukeboxofjellycat]

[ungeschliffen]

[jale-kingkon]

Bir gün elbet

güzel günlerde bizimle olacak

[sinceileftyoublog]

Pernice Brothers Interview: Writing to Live

Joe Pernice; Photo by Colleen Nicholson

BY JORDAN MAINZER

The album cover for Who Will You Believe (New West), the first album in 5 years from Pernice Brothers, features a close-up photo of a man who doesn't "care about being seen." That man, of course, is Joe Pernice, who formed Pernice Brothers over 25 years ago after the breakup of his beloved alt country institution Scud Mountain Boys. But while Pernice may be indifferent-to-averse to the idea of celebrity or even public persona, he's not trying to remain hidden, per se. The photo that graces the cover doesn't attempt to be flattering, nor a clean-cut design: It asymmetrically cuts off the brim and top of his hat, his right glasses lens frame, the bottom of his chin, and the back of his head. (Of course, the band name and album title is superimposed on his face.) It makes you pay more attention to Pernice than you otherwise would. What is he looking at? Why? In a way, it really fits Who Will You Believe, a record that exists on a separate plane from today's singer-songwriter albums that tend to be straight diary entries combined with biography or filled with Easter eggs and callbacks. Instead, Pernice, an accomplished writer in many different mediums, shows that he can write about almost anything. The possibilities are infinite.

When I spoke to Pernice over the phone earlier this month, he let me know that he was in the middle of a particularly fruitful period. "I've been writing more songs than I ever have in my life," he said. "I go through these periods where I have a manic blast." Indeed, whether or not Who Will You Believe was born from one of these spurts, the album gives you a sense for how he works. Neko Case duet "I Don't Need That Anymore" started with an off-hand remark his mom made about having a good figure when she "needed it;" Pernice took the line and turned it into a devastating country track about a dying love, replete with twangy, chiming guitars, string swells and steady mallet percussion. He processes the deaths of three important people--his cousin, Rhino executive Gary Stewart, and David Berman--in stunning strummer "The Purple Rain", referencing the last one not with cutesy lyrical winks and nods but ones that even casual Silver Jews/Purple Mountains listeners will pick up, respectfully showing his intentions to pay tribute. Of course, Pernice still finds room for ambiguity, clever wordplay, and fun atop it all, a true songwriter's songwriter. His penchant for cultural allusions remains strong, even in conversation. Referring to a recent day where he wrote 5 songs in a day, 3 of them keepers, Pernice said, " I felt like Sylvia Plath at the end of her life when he was in a manic state of making shit," before clarifying, deadpan, "That was before she put her head in the oven."

Sure, there are some tracks on Who Will You Believe that are purely sad or strange. Pernice croons on the slow "What We Had", atop acoustic guitars, tremolo electric plucking, and tambourine, "It's a comedy of errors, but it's sad / I think of what we had / It's hard to watch good love go bad." Instrumental waltz "A Song for Sir Robert Helpmann", meanwhile, juxtaposes strings, keys, drum rolls, and wordless vocalization, creepy and lurking. Its mood is inspired by Pernice's fear of Helpmann's role as The Child Catcher in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. "That movie scared the shit out of me when I was a kid," he said. "[Helpmann's] absolutely terrifying." Though these tunes occupy a singular mood, though, for the most part, Who Will You Believe is a fun album, Pernice's brightest and loosest sounding in years. "I always play with people who are good people. I've never made a record with an asshole," Pernice said. "When you get really good players who aren't just phoning it in, it's really cool." Past collaborators pervade the album, such as Joe's brother Bob and wife Laura Stein (formerly of Halifax indie pop band Jale). Toronto-based choral group Choir! Choir! Choir! help Pernice give his eulogies on "The Purple Rain", ending the album on an uplifting note. And his pop sensibilities, Beatles, Bowie, and Bacharach influences shine on "Not This Pig" and "A Man of Means", songs with baroque breakdowns and bouncy drum fills.

Ultimately, Pernice is one of those songwriters who views music as a satisfying puzzle. Though he writes all of his songs on acoustic guitar, theoretically making them easy to play solo live, the tunes undoubtedly shapeshift as he records them. He describes a song like "Hey, Guitar" as "a balls-out, heavy tune"--it's got massive electric licks layered atop jangly strumming and shiny keys, and ripping distorted squalling between verses, fading in and out at the end like an AM radio hit. "I don't think [it] will translate [live]," he said. "[But] you don't know whether [it's gonna be a train wreck] until you do it. Every song was a new song the first time." You can bet he's looking forward to figuring it out, one of the most thrilling parts of music to him. After all, it's only now he's just beginning to dive into an almost 20-year-old song, "Say Goodnight to the Lady" from 2005's Discover A Lovelier You. "I've been working on it lately, and it's started to feel like my song."

Pernice; Photo by Colleen Nicholson

I knew that Pernice had written at least "The Purple Rain" as part of a mourning process, but reading about the context behind Who Will You Believe, I tried to see if I could construct something more broad. Before writing the record, his son retired from playing high-level youth baseball, which Pernice coached, and Pernice went from being on a baseball diamond most of the week for over half of the year, to not being on one at all. As such, I asked him whether songwriting is a way for him to generally process any sort of life change. As it turns out, it's much more. "I write songs so I can manage to function," he said. "It's just a necessary thing for my well-being. It could be anything. The act of doing it is the thing that makes me feel good and not crazy. A lot of times, the subject might not even be all that important in that regard." And so I thought back about the album cover, wondering what Pernice was gazing at during the photoshoot, realizing that, too, doesn't matter. What he feels about songwriting is the way I feel about listening. Both of us--all of us--are just trying to take in the world as best as we can.

[insanveaci]

Çare aramadım zannetme Çıkmaz yolları zorladım Gittim olmadı, kaldım olmadı "Bitti" diyorsam laf değil

[hussalonia]

Beautiful beach near Jale, Albania

[davsen]

Beautiful beach near Jale, Albania

[thegentlemancollects]

[lesbianlovewonderland]

Beautiful beach near Jale, Albania

[comicalsansfont]

Jale for Impact Magazine, November 1994

[jukeboxofjellycat]

Good morning, happy Sunday! ¡Buenos días, feliz domingo! ❄️😄