Pixies: Classic or Dud

Kim Gordon joins and they reinvent themselves as mumbletrap.

As long as it isn't Kim Mitchell.

Thought the thread revive was for the BBC Sessions album which came out today and rocks super hard. Version of “In Heaven” is brutal and beautiful.

It's just the vinyl reissue of the same one from 1998, right?

As long as it isn't Kim Mitchell.

― MarkoP, Friday, March 8, 2024 3:40 PM (twenty minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

might as well go for a broken face

Oh, wow, never mind. I see that it is, but with more material. Going to have to check it out then, I was under the impression it was just a straight vinyl reissue.

sounds like it's time for a zwan reunion. paz & billy can patch over their personal issues with whatever weird conspiracy stuff they may be into

I was thinking that, lol

wait can someone gimme the cliffs on the timeline of the kims, and departures of each?

Zwan gets back together, then Frank Black hires D'arcy and Billy's head explodes

xposts: no, it's all tracks they recorded for 6 complete sessions at the BBC 1988-1991.. 3LP/2CD/digital. The previous release was just a selection.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3rdLiTQRP0o

I think about this interview a lot, about him painting to clear his mind after a concert, the bit where the interviewer brings up Lynda Barry (which led me down a rabbit hole) and also about him saying he doesn't care if he seems a shadow of his former self, that keeping away from a day job is his top priority. I guess like a lot of older rock musicians he doesn't have the luxury of spending several years writing and recording.

Always considered the idea that he shouldn't keep Pixies going without Kim Deal laughable

Trompe Le Monde is the best album album Charles / Black etc ever made, Kim wasn't really involved. She did other great stuff.

I read that oral history about the Pixies, which was illuminating. Yeah, Charles was pretty high strung, but Kim seemed like a tremendous pain in the ass. Iirc she was barely involved in either of the last two records. There's something to be said for bands that burn bright but fast. CCR, Smiths, Pixies, VU, even the Beatles, just this compressed productivity with a huge impact.

I kinda always thought the reason she did not have any tunes on the later records was more they were not really welcome.

Never really got it myself as I thought the real pixie dust was when both of them sang on a tune. Oh well…

I was quite shocked when I found out how she doesn't actually have have any of her own songs on Doolittle, not even as much singing as I recalled, but what is there is memorable

i would like to register my discontent with this line of Kim dismissal itt

i have nothing to add except that it’s gross and i hate it that is all

Kim of course has nothing to prove to anyone, but even "Gigantic," that was a co-write based on I think Charles's repetitive bass riff and maybe he had the chorus too, at least the repeating title. She really didn't have much creative input in the Pixies, which no doubt led to some friction, but if the book is much indication I think it was more her unpredictable behavior and unreliability that ticked him off. Like, skipping sound checks, being late to places, vanishing on tour, that sort of thing.

That said, I can't imagine the band without her, she rules and is of course a key component of what makes that band so great.

Who is dismissing her? Most people thinks she has the most vital longevity of all the band members but she was kind of sidelined from Doolittle onwards.

I finally listened to Frank Black's Oddballs, it's fun and worthwhile but not really up there with the best of his early albums.

I was quite shocked when I found out how she doesn't actually have have any of her own songs on Doolittle, not even as much singing as I recalled, but what is there is memorable

Some listings say that's a co-written song. Is there any handy listing of all the Pixies songwriting credits? Did Joey write "Levitate Me"?

"silver" and "gigantic" are credited to deal/black (though deal is responsible for most of "silver" at the very least), "levitate me" is black/lovering/jean walsh (black's then-girlfriend i think), lenchantin co-wrote a few tracks on head carrier and beneath the eyrie and santiago co-wrote a few on doggerel

"Into The White" is all hers?

black is the sole writer on that despite deal singing lead

"bam thwok" is the only pixies track that's credited only to deal afaik

I love "Bam Thwok", strange that she'd get a sole credit so late on. Seems like only months later that she left

Worth mentioning the recent unearthing of "Go Man Go" that was stapled onto the Last Splash reissue which gives a co-credit to Black Francis:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zcYCyzvNY1M

(sounds like a stepsibling of "Where Is My Mind?"/"Caribou"/"Velouria")

and here is the "Silver" demo:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GH_g46UfHVQ

"bam thwok" was the first and only reunion song the original lineup made back in 2004, and i guess deal/black relations were pretty decent at the time since he let her write it

they also did Ain’t That Pretty At All for a Zevon trib


Kim had Bam Thwok sitting around intended as a Breeders song and Charles suggested recording one of hers as an olive branch for excluding her writing the previous time around

Thwok shows that a whole album of Deal songs backed by the Pixies blokes could have been great, but Bam / Ain’t is a great imaginary A-side / B-side commemoration of their whole reunion. She was right to quit rather than risk blowing their legacy; whatever the name has done since, it’s fine to think of as a different band.