When is a supergroup not a supergroup? Probably when no-one in it has had massive success at any point in their career, but for any fans of either Teenage Fanclub or the Pernice Brothers, this week's London show by The New Mendicants will sound pretty super.
The New Mendicants is comprised of two members of the Pernice Brothers - Joe Pernice and drummer Mike Berlitsky - plus Teenage Fanclub head honcho Norman Blake. The Pernice pair met Blake 14 years ago when supporting Teenage Fanclub at a gig at the Astoria, though their relationship only took off in 2012 with Blake sending Pernice a message saying simply “Back in Canada at the end of next week. Want to be friends?”.
The two duly played about a bit together and were offered the chance to collaborate on a possible soundtrack to a film of Nick Hornby's suicide-themed novel A Long Way Down (Hornby had, coincidentally, been at that Astoria show in 2000). Having recruited Berlitsky, the New Mendicants as they had become found all their songs about plummeting to earth at velocity rejected by the film's producers but have now taken the best of those, added a bunch of new tracks and struck out into the wild. The album is out this week, titled Into The Lime.
And now they're coming to London. The New Mendicants are playing Dingwalls in Camden this Thursday and you can buy tickets from the usual outlets or via the Dingwalls website. For a preview of what you can expect, here's a video of Norman and Joe performing Follow You Down from the new album.
The album is distributed in the UK by One Little Indian.
Image of Norman Blake from Wikimedia Commons.
