Dead again

The Pernice Brothers get happy

Cellars by Starlight by Brett Milano

As the frontman of the Scud Mountain Boys, Joe Pernice wrote stark, barely produced country songs steeped in loss, dread, and death. But he's evidently had a change of heart and outgrown that sort of thing. As the frontman of the Pernice Brothers (who play tonight -- Thursday -- at T.T. the Bear's Place on a double bill with the North Carolina rustic pop band Jolene), he now writes pretty, lushly arranged pop songs steeped in loss, dread, and death.

So the songs on the Pernice Brothers' debut, Overcome by Happiness (Sub Pop), aren't any less miserable than the ones he wrote for the Scuds, and most of the characters don't wind up any less dead. But it might take a few listens to figure that out. At first Overcome by Happiness sounds like yet another of the attractive orchestral pop albums recorded in the wake of the reissues of the Beach Boys' Pet Sounds and the Zombies' Odyssey & Oracle. And indeed Pernice is a fan of the former, though he didn't hear the latter until someone at Sub Pop sent him a copy. Certainly he reveals a tuneful streak on Overcome by Happiness that he never really called on in the Scuds, where melodic niceties were frowned upon. And he fights the low-fi trend by giving the songs lush string and horn arrangements. Even allowing for the bleak sentiments of "Crestfallen" and "Dimmest Star," the release feels more like classic pop yearning than the aural therapy of his old band.

"Of course I'm still depressed, you kiddin'?" asks a cheerful-sounding Pernice from his home in Northampton. "I'll play my girlfriend a song I just wrote; she'll ask what it's about and I'll say, `You know, disillusionment, death, fear -- the regular stuff.' This album's pretty down there, but it's wrapped up in a more of an upbeat package, if you can call it that. You might even be able to dance to it, and that's hilarious -- I'd love it if someone was dancing to this and singing the lyrics as they did. [Producer/bassist] Thom [Monahan] was telling me that someone's going to be listening to this while they're driving, then they'll hear some verse on it that will send them off the road. But of course I don't want that to happen -- I don't need the lawsuit."

Pernice had been writing pop songs all along, but he put them aside to make way for his old band's more countryish material. "I'm really pretty lazy, so if the Scud Mountain Boys took a crack at a song and everybody wasn't comfortable with it, we just moved on to something else. But I've always been a big fan of people like Jimmy Webb [author of "Wichita Lineman" and "By the Time I Get to Phoenix"] and always wanted to write those kind of songs. I guess I really like a melody more than anything -- I'm cheap, I'm easy."

Despite the Brothers billing, Pernice admits that the current album is essentially a solo project. But on stage, he says, brother Bob Pernice (one of three guitarists on a lead-guitar-less album) takes a more active role.

The new album's lush production is probably the major surprise, since the first two Scud Mountain Boys albums were recorded in a bandmember's living room. "That first album especially was an accident -- we were thinking of using it as a pre-production thing, but we wound up capturing something. The new record took five weeks instead of one evening, but that's not a lot of time. The string players did all the work in one day. We got them from a symphony orchestra in Hartford. When people hear strings, they automatically think. `Over the top,' but we didn't produce it into the ground by any means."

It's ironic that the Scud Mountain Boys were finally getting an audience when they disbanded late last year. Their first two albums had recently been reissued in a Sub Pop twofer, The Early Year. "To tell the truth, the band went as far as it could go," Pernice says. "I didn't want to make the same record again. I know some people wanted us to stay together, but you've got to be happy. No, let me rephrase that: you don't ever have to be happy."

VAN HALEN

The last few months have seen plenty of debate about whether ex-Extreme singer Gary Cherone is the right frontman for Van Halen, especially after the spotty studio album Van Halen 3 (Warner Bros.). But judging by new line-up's debut at the FleetCenter last Thursday night, we'd say that Cherone is doing fine. It's the rest of the band we're not sure about.

Cherone looked comfortable, sang well, and worked as hard on stage as any frontman in memory. He had to, because the set list threw him in at the deep end. Instead of focusing on the new songs, as they did when Sammy Hagar joined, the band had Cherone handling material from all three eras -- especially the original days with David Lee Roth, whose songs got the most play by far. The set began with "Unchained" and ended with "Ain't Talkin' 'Bout Love," with other Roth numbers scattered throughout. Thus it wasn't clear whether Cherone was there to lead the band in a new direction or just stand in for the two previous guys.

The current album may not be the best in the band's history, but the potential was there -- especially on stage, where "Without You" and "One I Want" harked back to the funk-metal sound that Extreme were into. But the jumbling of eras made for some odd shifts, from Roth's party-hearty sentiments to Sammy Hagar's proudly boneheaded pop metal to the more introspective tone of the new songs. The plodding, Zeppelin-esque "Year to the Day" is the best song on the new album, but last week it was played right after a medley of Roth barnstormers ("Dance the Night Away" and "Feel Your Love Tonight"), where it was bound to kill the mood.

Wearing a blazer jacket that he wisely discarded after the first few numbers, Cherone came across as the first humble guy who's ever fronted the band. In one of the few times he spoke between songs, he noted that "we're going to keep talk to a minimum tonight and just play music" (remember Hagar's five-minute stoner monologues?). In fact, the only real rock-star moment belonged to bassist Michael Anthony, who took over the vocal on another Roth-era tune, "Somebody Call Me a Doctor": after the song, a Playboy-model type in a nurse's outfit came on stage to give Anthony a shot of Jack Daniel's while the video cam provided a close-up of her butt. Meanwhile Cherone was hanging out at the other end of the stage, as if to say, "I swear this shtick wasn't my idea."

One missed opportunity was on the first encore, where Cherone and Eddie Van Halen came out without the rhythm section. After the first real repartee of the night -- Cherone asked "How do you like my new band?" and Van Halen jokingly countered with "How about our new back-up singer?" -- they settled into an acoustic number that turned out to be "Josephina," one of the lesser tracks from the new album. Why not just do Extreme's "More Than Words," which would have been a brotherly gesture and a better song besides? (Sammy Hagar used to do his own solo hit, "I Can't Drive 55," toward the end of VH shows.)

After this apparent slight, Cherone had to finish the night with another pair of Roth songs -- the two biggies, "Panama" and "Jump," which he worked hard on even though they're not suited to his range (at times he had to resort to audience sing-alongs). Putting Cherone to better use might make the difference between a successful new line-up and an Extreme reunion.

BOYS LIFE TRIBUTE

How often do you see a tribute band in honor of a Boston act that broke up 15 years ago, never made an album, and never had national success? Sounds odd, but Two Doors Down, the city's first, best, and only Boys Life tribute band (named for a Boys Life song) will be playing at Mama Kin tonight (Thursday). And they'll be joined for the finale by three-quarters of the real Boys Life, whose only previous reunion was a sold-out show at Mama Kin last year. Wrapping up the proceedings will be Unnatural Axe, who split their share of bills with Boys Life back in the day.

Two Doors Down singer/bassist Tom Higgins is a little young to be nostalgic for '80s music, but he and his bandmates used to hang out in Boys Life's rehearsal space when they were pre-teens. "We all grew up in the same neighborhood from those guys in Malden -- that's the music we grew up with. I thought their songs were intelligent and well-crafted, though of course I didn't realize that at the time. I managed to see three Boys Life shows. The first time was with the Real Kids at the Channel when I was 12, and it was a 21-plus show. But their manager handed me a drum stool and said, 'Follow me and don't talk to anybody.' "

Higgins grew up to play in Boys Life leader John Surrette's latter-day band, the DeNiros, before forming the tribute band strictly for fun. "Last year we opened for [Jam tribute band] All Mod Cons, which I thought was cool because Boys Life always used to open for the Jam."

Boys Life released just a half-dozen songs on singles and compilations, but Higgins has enough bootleg tapes to learn a full set. Surrette will be along for the finale, along with Boys Life drummer Robert Wiener and bassist Joe McCormack. The one missing member will be saxophonist Neil Sugarman, who's now living in New York.

How do the real bandmembers feel about the tribute group?

"They were all blown away when we told them we were doing it," Higgins says, "But the first question they asked was, 'Why?' "

COMING UP

Mark Sandman and other local notables guest at Mike Rivard's "Club d'Elf" at the Lizard Lounge tonight (Thursday), Purrr, the Ape Hangers, and Verago-go do an Animals Rescue League benefit at the Linwood, the Deliriants have a CD-release party at Bill's Bar, and Black Lab and Splashdown are at the Middle East . . . Tomorrow (Friday), it's a night of punk and country with the Shods, Outlets, and Slobberbone at T.T.'s, the Allstonians at the Middle East, and Huck celebrating a CD-release at Mama Kin with Boy Wonder opening . . . On Saturday, Fuzzy and Cherry 2000 are at the Middle East, the Brian Jonestown Massacre, Lockgroove, and Red Telephone are at T.T.'s, Acetone are at the Lizard Lounge, Jerry Portnoy blows his harp at the House of Blues, and Johnny D's has a double bill of bluesman Big Jay McNeely and London blues belter Dana Gillespie, who was a Bowie protégé back in the '70s . . . Sunday brings Cornershop to the Middle East downstairs, and your last chance to catch the residency of New Orleans hellraisers Royal Fingerbowl upstairs . . . And on Wednesday a stripped-down version of Wonderstuff play the Middle East.