In honor of his beloved Red Sox who apparently have a chance this year at World Series play... Joe Pernice has penned a new song available for download on his website. An ode to Manny Ramirez, the song "Moonshot Manny (Pega Luna Manny)" came about as...

"At some point in the middle of the season I started singing, "Manny hit me home with a moonshot, baby" to the TV set every time Manny would step up to the plate. Just as my falsetto was shaping up fairly and the tune was actually becoming a song, my wife started singing it too. Then our friends joined in. Pretty soon a gang of us was dancing around the apartment, singing the tune and making a racket of our own."

All proceeds for the song are being donated to First Night Boston, a community-based outreach and arts education program.

THE PERNICE BROTHERS rolled into town on this past Tuesday night with the Long Winters. Here are some of my thoughts on the show, which loosely assembled could be perceived as a review...

THE PERNICE BROTHERS released their third album Yours, Mine and Ours a few weeks ago to tons of critical acclaim. The followup album to 2001's The World Won't End finds the band in rare form and pushing their dark pop tunes to the limit. To quote Keith Phipps in the Onion A.V. Club, "...the music of a grown-up unruly boy who learned that there was more to the record store than U.K.-only B-sides, but who never shook the haunted melancholy of a teenage obsessive. The new Pernice Brothers album Yours, Mine & Ours strikes the same gorgeous, sad tone as its two predecessors, beginning with a track so immediately striking that the rest of the disc could consist of misguided experiments in dub remixes, and it might not matter." Luckily for us, the record does follow suit. You can listen to the new album on the Pernice Brother's Site or catch the band on their upcoming US Tour.

As reported by their official website, Joe Pernice of The Pernice Brothers has signed a contract with an undisclosed publishing company to write a fictional/autobiographical novella regarding The Smiths' Meat Is Murder. The new novella is expected to be published in September 2003. Joe's previous book of poetry 'Two Blind Pigeons' is available via his website or live shows.

In band related tidbits, the new album (as yet untitled) is nearing completion and should be available on Joe's Ashmont Records in 2003.

It was recently brought to our attention that The Pernice Brothers' are finishing up recording their album in a mountain lair in Vermont. Editorial note: Their last album "The World Won't End" has become one of my 10 desert island discs. Such guitar pop brilliance is hard to create and near impossible to duplicate, but I certainly hope they are trying with the new material.

Pitchfork Media has an interview up with Joe Pernice right now.