Pitchfork

All that stuff they told Joe Pernice about the importance of having a proper education to fall back on should this music thing not work out is turning out about half-right.

The country-tinged pop classicist and UMass creative writing MFA hasn't given up on music, but he does have a few unsung projects in the works. He's a third of the way through a novel-- about what, we're not sure-- expected for an early-2009 release on Penguin imprint Riverhead Books.

Not only that, but he's currently getting a screenplay together-- along with actor Neal Huff-- based on his entry in the 33 1/3 "books about albums" series. Pernice picked the Smiths' sophomore LP Meat Is Murder for his 2003 treatise, and though some part of us hopes the film consists of Joe sitting in a room listening to "Rusholme Ruffians", we're guessing it'll have more to do with the strong semi-autobiographical thread running through his 33 1/3 volume's narrative.

The Pernice Brothers' website suggests he's also doing some recording in his native Massachusetts, presumably for the follow up to 2006's Pernice Brothers disc Live a Little.