Mr. Pernice, Please Step to the Microphone...

The list of under appreciated song writers is long and vast. But some stick out more than others in my head. Joe Pernice has been putting out consistently excellent music for over a decade now under the guise of various bands, most recently and most successfully as The Pernice Brothers. But Joe's output stretches back to the majestic Scud Mountain Boys, who released Massachusetts in 1996, an album that still stands as one of the best of the 90's. With a name like Scud Mountain Boys and a sound vaguely reminiscent of early country rock, Pernice and company were quickly lumped into the alt-country movement. I can't say for sure but I think they chafed at the label. The Scud Mountain Boys released some early material after Massachusetts called The Early Years which contained Pine Box and Dance The Night Away but never put another record out. While the Scud Mountain Boys ceased to exist, Joe Pernice kept releasing fine records under a number of different names: Chappaquidick Skyline (I'm sure I misspelled that), Big Tobacco and, finally, The Pernice Brothers. I highly recommend that you buy Big Tobacco. It's a little uneven but the first 4 songs on the album are worth the price of admission X 10.

Pernice never really returned to the mellow slide of "alt-country" but instead experimented with the baroque pop of Chappaquiddick Skyline before settling into a straight pop groove with the Pernice Brothers. All the three albums by the Pernice Brothers are excellent and each is an arguement against the dreck that gets played on the radio and passed off as "quality" music by MTV, VH1 and just about every other member of the recording industry with a financial investment in producing "hits" at any cost. In a perfect world the name Joe Pernice would be falling out of everyone's mouth every time he released new material. But then I'm prone to both hyperbole and fantasy. Today I give you the Video to "Baby in Two" off the album "Yours, Mine & Ours". Buy this album it's too good not to.

Baby in Two Video in quicktime