IT FEELS SO GOOD WHEN I STOP

The book, ‘It Feels So Good When I Stop’, will be published August 6 by Riverhead Books, a division of Penguin

According to Pernice, “Though the book is not explicitly about music, there are quite a few cover and fictional songs mentioned, so I thought it would be a cool idea for me to record some of those songs and release them, as a soundtrack album to the novel.”

Rather than do a reading-only tour for the book and a music-only tour for the album, Pernice decided to mash the two together, and combine reading sections of the book with performing songs from the book/album. Said Pernice, “To combine all those things into a single show could be kind of interesting and entertaining for the fans. Unless I completely suck, in which case it’s going to be EXTREMELY interesting for all parties.” Pernice will perform solo.

One of the fictional songs in the book is “Black Smoke (No Pope)” which will be released on a three-song Sub Pop single on August 4, by The Young Accuser, a band from the novel. In the book, the narrator, who is not Joe, is in The Young Accuser for a short time. After the fictional narrator leaves this fictional band, they fictionally record the fictional song « Black Smoke (No Pope) » and send it to the non-fictional Sub Pop. This is the non-fiction version of that fictional single. Of interest may be the fact that a cover of an even earlier, more fictional « Black Smoke (No Pope) » was recorded by the non-fictional Joe Pernice and appears on the non-fictional It Feels So Good When I Stop (Soundtrack).

In the vein of Nick Hornby’s High Fidelity, Pernice’s debut is a coming-of-age tale for the modern-day slacker, and an unlikely love story with a masculine perspective—but with a mordant humor and unexpected warmth that will resonate with male and female readers alike. Set to a carefully curated soundtrack of Nick Drake, The Pogues, and Peter Frampton, It Feels So Good When I Stop is the story of a deeply flawed but irrepressibly likeable hero stumbling towards adulthood, learning about heartbreak and redemption, and struggling to love and commit on his own terms.

A must for any Pernice Brothers and Scud Mountain Boys fan. 

Penice is a ravenous fan of popular music, and you can hear every one of his heroes in his songs. He reels off names enthusiastically: early R.E.M., Big Country, the Cure, New Order, Elvis Costello, Burt Bacharach, Dinosaur Jr. The Beatles, of course, whose heady hooks are the blueprint for Pernice’s.