Song(s) of the Day # 2,702 Pearie Sol

 

Revenge of the great American Nerd. Part ..... oh, I've lost count. Pearie Sol stands at the end of a long, noble, line of great suburban, eternally adolescent, misfit losers. Robert H. Crumb, Iggy Pop, Jonathan Richman, David Thomas, Jad Fair, Harvey Pekar, Gordon Gano, Daniel Johnston. Eugene in Grease. Pee Wee Herman. That kid in Napoleon Dynamite. 

Real Happiness, the first album to come out under this moniker for five years, conforms utterly to expectations of this particular sub-genre. Starngled, wailed, off tune vocals. Raging organ. Garage Rock sound. Pearie is that kid. The really odd one that you get in every class who you see on the street corner, years later, busking for spare change to the bemusement of passing pedestrians, and say to yourself, 'I always wondered what happened to him....'

In Pearie's case you can't help asking yourself to what degree this is all put on. On his Bandcamp Page, it's written 'I used to be sad most of the time now just some time I play teen liver and gauche and played other DC bands too some time write me we talk soon ok?' Hmm. Maybe not Pearie.

This is a world without punctuation or parental control or bedtime. One long kiddies party with jelly, lemonade and games. For the kid you always suspected really needed medication, or perhaps who has actually been on it for years.

Regardless of how mannered it might come across as, (and on occasion the vocals and playig are just that bit too artfully off key), it certainly works. Pearie has all but mastered his given form and Real Happiness barely misses a beat, or perhaps an off beat. It's half and hour of the best kind of maverick, teenage ennui. I've heard this record many times before, but I like this record and more than happy to give this a thumbs up, even though I think he's putting it on a bit.

Because ultmimately this is a rather charming narrative. The one where the bloke in Eraserhead gets the girl in the final reel. Where the geeks actually do inherit the earth. This is truly the perfect 2021 soundtrack to all that.