Karen Pernick

Singer/songwriter Karen Pernick's low-key style has been described as haunted, melancholic, and darkly poetic. Her two albums, Apartment 12 and Two Kinds of Weather, are filled with telling observations on the human condition, delivered simply in a calm, smoky voice that makes her tales of lives slowly falling to pieces even more devastating. She's played festivals from Seattle's Bumbershoot to Austin's SXSW, as well as folk clubs from coast to coast, picking up a bunch of songwriting awards along the way, but she never intended to become a professional musician. The ten years between Apartment 12 and Two Kinds of Weather are indicative of a woman who is firmly in control of her own life and priorities. "I'm not out for a 200 dates a year kind of career," Pernick says. "I'm interested in a musical path that allows me to stay true to myself. Why did I stop playing (for ten years)? One has to know their own emotional and physical constitution; it takes lot out of you to (be on the road.)" Pernick was born in Oak Park, MI, in 1962 and raised in a family struggling to remain middle class. "My parents lived with my grandmother when I was little, in a middle-class neighborhood in the shadow of Detroit. I remember the riots and the curfew. Even though I was young, I watched Detroit decline and become a ghost town. It was an interesting historical time." Pernick's mother sang and played folk guitar, but she found it slightly embarrassing when her mom would break into "Puff the Magic Dragon" or "Blowing in the Wind." "I have an older and younger brother who aren't particularly musical. I envy kids who have older siblings who spark their musical interest by exposing them to amazing records. The eight-track in our car played the 5th Dimension and the Carpenters; I didn't listen...