Elvis Perkins

I already know that the Elvis Perkins CD Ash Wednesday is going to be my favorite of the year, by a landslide.  To Tara’s point, just like with Amy Winehouse’s Back to Black, Ash Wednesday is a case where some artist backstory helps you appreciate the music.  Unlike Back to Black, the story behind Ash Wednesday is in no part marketing department myth-making -- no packaging, no schtick, no eyeliner.  Instead, AW is an honest recounting of the all-too-true, unbelievably sad circumstances of Perkins’ life.  On September 12, 1992, Elvis’s father, actor Anthony Perkins, died of complications relating to HIV/AIDS.  On September 11, 2001, Elvis’s mother, Berry Berenson, got on a bad airplane.  She crashed into Tower 1. 

Perkins shies away from talking about his life in interviews.  (The Filter magazine profile is the most thorough I’ve read).  But bits and pieces of this history come up throughout Ash Wednesday, all without a hint of self-pity.