VIA PRESS RELEASE | Joe Pernice of the Pernice Brothers & Scud Mountain Boys will release Chappaquiddick Skyline on vinyl for the first time on January 24, 2025 via New West Records. The original mixes were remastered by Bob Weston and will be released nearly 25 years to the day of its original issue by Sub Pop on January 18, 2000. Chappaquiddick Skyline will be available on limited edition clear vinyl as well as standard black vinyl. It can be pre-ordered now via New West Records.
Produced and engineered by Thom Monahan (Devendra Banhart, Fruit Bats) and recorded at home on 8-Track, Chappaquiddick Skyline was Joe Pernice’s follow up to the Pernice Brothers’ 1998 debut Overcome by Happiness. On the album, he is joined by Monahan (Pernice Brothers, Monsterland, Lilys), Peyton Pinkerton (Pernice Brothers, New Radiant Storm King), his wife Laura Stein (Jale, Pernice Brothers), Mike Belitsky (The Sadies, Neko Case), as well as countless friends who stopped by to assist.
Met with critical acclaim at the time of its release, No Depression said “Pernice has topped himself with a marvelous diamond in whose facets shine many such defining moments, in all their stark terror and nervous beauty” while AllMusic said “…marrying rapturous melodies with a poetic grace virtually unmatched among his contemporaries, Pernice’s confessionals cut almost unbearably deep, giving voice to the yearning and isolation most of us struggle to suppress.”
From his liner notes for the 25th Anniversary edition, Pernice said “For my money Chappaquiddick Skyline is a ‘heavier’ record than my album that came immediately before it. And I’m glad the record—in the form of vinyl—will get another brief flash of life. Lyrical heaviness & moodiness aside, it strikes me now (as it surely did when we made it) that the record on the whole has a vibe…a sound…a kind of sonic unity. I’ve always felt that capturing the vibe is the hardest part of making records. We got the vibe down with Chappaquiddick. If I knew exactly how, I’d tell you. And I’d repeat the process ad infinitum.”
Joe Pernice has been releasing albums for thirty years. Earlier this year, he released the Pernice Brothers’ anticipated Who Will You Believe to widespread critical acclaim. MOJO awarded the album 4/5 stars, saying it “might be their best yet” while NPR said “Devastating, but delivered on a cloud of two-dollar chords and pop arrangements worthy of Bacharach… Pernice has hit his stride again.”
But his catalog extends well beyond the Pernice Brothers moniker. In addition to recording a handful of solo albums (including a Barry Manilow tribute), he reconvened his first band, the Scud Mountain Boys, in the early 2010s for a new album and tour, and in 2014 he released Into the Lime with the New Mendicants, a supergroup featuring Teenage Fanclub’s Norman Blake.
He also writes for television, most notably as a staff writer for the Canadian crime drama The Detail. Joe has published a book of poetry and several works of fiction, including a novella about The Smiths for the 33 1/3 book series. In 2009, he released his first novel It Feels So Good When I Stop.
