Pernice/Partridge

Last summer, in a freak Google accident, I had my mind blown. Ok it really wasn't an accident but more like serendipity. I was looking up information on one of my favorite songwriters Joe Pernice and discovered that his last name was Italian for partridge. Which in addition to being the surname of a close friend is the the last name of Andy Partridge the genius behind the band XTC and a god to me. The coincidence made me giddy.

Both Joe and Andy's song are filled with melancholy beauty and sad joy. Joe is usually more restrained with the wordsmithry. Both are artist that made me ecstatic when I first discovered them. With Andy it was when I bought the XTC album Nonsuch on a lark and before the I was half through the my first listen I was already wondering which of the band's albums I should by next. With Joe I bought the Pernice Brothers' album "The World Wont End" based solely on a rave review in the magazine The Big Takeover and was not disappointed. I remember being excited that someone was till making this kind of shimmering pop music.

Joe's last name is pronounced PER-niece but in Italian it would be pear-KNEE-chay. This discovery also explains the presence of Partridge's on most Pernice Brothers' albums.