Pernice: We selling any tickets to these shows? Me: Don’t know, haven’t seen counts in a few days. Pernice: Nice answer, Westmoreland.
The relationship between the great singer and songwriter Joe Pernice and his business partner Joyce Linehan is witty, spiteful, playful and mean, and the reason I know this is that they wrote it all down. To be accurate, Linehan wrote it all down: She’s a prolific tweeter, and the selected highlights of her correspondence with Pernice, boiled down to 140-character bursts, have been collected in a book, Pernice To Me, which is timed to coincide with today’s release of The Pernice Brothers’ “Goodbye, Killer.” Pernice To Me is slim but hilarious, and you don’t have to squint very hard to see in it a story of two people who continue to love music, if not always each other, as they make their way through the smoking landscape of the post-major-label era. (Full disclosure: I make a brief but humiliating appearance in Pernice To Me. You’ll know it when you see it.)
Pernice to me: Hello, Joyce. How ARE you? Me: Really? Conventional pleasantries? That’s what we’re doing today? Call me when you’re serious.