Pixies: Classic or Dud

lol eephus

bluefinger by frank black sounded like the fifth pixies record that never was

yeah i’ve thought that too, i assume that’s why he went back to the Black Francis name for it

That Giant Sand song is uncanny. Things like this always make me think of Brian Eno's concept of "scenius"... even if we remember these things as isolated bolts of inspiration, there's always similar sounding stuff from the same era which everyone just forgot about.

When I saw them live a couple of years ago it felt obvious that for all of them being in the Pixies is now just a regular gig that pays the bills, nothing more. It made the whole experience feel oddly perfunctory and disappointing. There's no emotional connection with the audience, no sense that they enjoy still playing these songs or being in a band at all. It sounded like Kim Shattuck in her brief stint in the band tried to bring a bit of a rock n' roll energy back to the line-up, and was told "The Pixies don't do that." Pfft.

I often go back and forth about whether I still *need* to keep listening to the Pixies, or if it's something I just cling onto as a comforting reminder of my youth. When I first heard the BBC Sessions album (the first Pixies record I got hold of) it was so visceral, strange and intense it was almost too much to handle, took a lot of listens to actually get my head around it. I still love that album and the rest of the Come On Pilgrim -> Trompe Le Monde era, but it really does feel to me like they diluted the impact of their original brief span by returning as an endlessly touring greatest hits act. It's weird to think that they are now basically as mainstream as any other band from the eighties/nineties locked into endless nostalgia tours.

The new stuff I've heard is *okay* for the most part, but I'm just not interested in it. It's just lacking whatever chemistry they originally had (and lacking Kim, possibly the two are related). They really should have put new stuff out in 2004, but all we got was "Bam Thwok" as a glimpse of what could've been.

all we got was "Bam Thwok" as a glimpse of what could've been.

Mentioned before on ILX some time over the years, but verbatim exchange I heard in a club at iirc a Spoon show.

Person One: Have you heard the new Pixies song?
Person Two: No, is it any good?
Person One: No. I mean, I haven't heard it yet, either, but I heard it's not good.

I liked it.

I think it was really only two tracks on Bluefinger that sounded like Pixies.

It was a Kim Deal song, and she never got many writing credits in the band, so maybe it's her voice that makes it sound like pixies.

I personally remember being really disappointed when I first heard Bam Thwok, so I've just avoided all the reunion material since then, but I've still cooled on the band based on the mere existence of so much reunion material and the blatant cynicism of the whole endeavor.

When I saw them live a couple of years ago it felt obvious that for all of them being in the Pixies is now just a regular gig that pays the bills, nothing more.

They had already begun going through the motions thirty years ago. When I first saw them perform, in 1989, they were *incredible*, the place was crackling with energy. By the time I saw them next, a couple of years later, the spark was gone. It was really dismaying. I still adore the first few records, though.

Same experience for me except the spark disappeared between 1988-->1989.

The reunions are cash grabs, but I wouldn't call them cynical so much as oddly unimaginative from a once imaginative bandleader and songwriter. If anything, it was the highly un-cynical to retire the pixies name in 1992 as the spark had gone and Frank wanted to focus more on rinky-dink sounds and start a fresh songbook. If the songs on the first few Frank Black records had been released as Pixies albums without Kim (and maybe with a better drummer, and a regular keyboard player) that would have really affected the band's legacy far more, even though the songs, and especially the arrangements, on those first solo lps are sometimes quite good and certainly far more memorable than the reunion tracks.

That Giant Sand song is uncanny. Things like this always make me think of Brian Eno's concept of "scenius"

It really is uncanny! That said, even beyond the proto-Americana on college radio, the default sound of a lot of Boston bands in the mid-80s involved spaghetti western guitar solos and thrashy bits here and there - The Blackjacks, Neighborhoods, Dogmatics were all getting local commercial airplay and videos on our UHF MTV competitor with "cowpunk" songs. Throw in the surrealism of Mission of Burma/Volcano Suns and Throwing Muses, and the Pixies were distilling a lot of things that were very present around them.

They certainly weren't as consistent but I think the highs are just as high on Bossanova, Trompe Le monde, Frank Black, Teenager Of The Year and Cult Of Ray. I really adore them all and even love some of them more than the earliest stuff, might be because they don't get as much love and play from most fans? I know I'm not alone on Bossanova (Santiago's favorite).

Bossanova has always been the one I listen to the most, but they're all still good to me. Now, Frank Black solo, I admit it's been a while since I listened to any of his 30 or whatever records, but I have a hunch the first couple do indeed remain solid and/or underrated/overlooked.

They're gold, I'm not sure there's anything I don't like on the first solo album. Quite fond of Dog In The Sand but everything else after the first 3 are a very mixed bag. Recently read that Cult Of Ray was badly received but I had a ton of fun with it.

Didn't know there was a limited edition bonus disc

Oh, they're all on Oddballs, which I still need

"The Golem" (the 1 disc version) is pretty good later period Black Francis. Produced and with keyboards by Eric Drew Feldman.

Bossanova was such a letdown to me after Doolittle. I think I only listened to it twice and haven’t heard it in 30 years. I didn’t even buy Trompe Le Monde. That cover of “Head On” was such a bizarre thing to do.

I like Bossanova and still listen to it, but otherwise relate to your experience. It was a big enough drop in quality that I just never even bothered after that.

i still totally adore bossanova

particularly the really short songs

Weird, I don't hear a drop in quality at all. I think if anything it's even more aggressive in its non-conformity. Begins with an instrumental (fake) classic surf song, followed by an impenetrable aggro burst, followed by a mix of pop-nuggets, space-weirdness, more aggro experiments and compact epics like "The Happening."

Trompe Le Monde is magical and really the only one I still listen to. It's one of my favourite albums of all time.

Pixies' original run is unimpeachable imo — throw in the first few Breeders / Amps records and those first two Frank Black albums and that's enough incredible music for me to forgive them for anything.

I think a lot of my problem with "Bossanova" is the mix, which eviscerates the rhythm section. It all sounds a bit wimpy. When "Trompe Le Monde" arrived with its more muscular sound, it was like a rebirth.

I'm also a huge Trompe le Monde fan. I haven't listened to Bossanova since the 1990s, when I felt it didn't hold up to the others. Maybe time to try it out again.

I can imagine a "Bossanova" with a more visceral recording and perhaps a reordered track list being one of my favorites. There's plenty of good material to work with.

'velouria' alone is enough to justify bossanova... timeless lyrics. trompe le monde has better guitar parts than any of the other albums!

They really should have put new stuff out in 2004, but all we got was "Bam Thwok" as a glimpse of what could've been.

also "Ain't That Pretty At All," which rules. I think it's cool that they did one "new" song (sort of a Breeders cover) written by Kim and one cover featuring Kim's voice, and then stopped before they could fuck up.

I don't mind the mix of "Bossanova." Reminds me of similarly thin/trebly mixes on a lot of other contemporaneous records, especially showgaze/UK stuff, like the first Suede album. "Trompe" does have awesome guitar parts.

I really love the sound of Bossanova, "All Over The World" is mesmerizing. Even the lesser songs sound amazing and huge

I liked some songs on The Golem, cant recall how many times I listened but I could go back. Kind of an oddity.

Teenager Of The Year has some of the best early tracks sequencing, just incredibly fun

Anybody want to translate this 2002 Christgau review for me (in the middle of a positive review):

Put off by Black Francis's feyness, I sensed what is now clear, that he's a pomo sociophobe of a familiar and tedious sort. Where in retrospect his philosophical limitations seem harmless annoyances, they portended many regrettable developments in irony, junk culture, sexual eccentricity, and other folkways that deserved better.

Hard to imagine him keeping up that level of greatness over the years. Really wasn't much interested in stuff like Devil's Workshop, Show Me Your Tears, Honeycomb, Fast Man Raider Man but then I'm not sure I'd dig the sort of music he was going for back then

I don't mind the mix of "Bossanova." Reminds me of similarly thin/trebly mixes on a lot of other contemporaneous records, especially showgaze/UK stuff, like the first Suede album

I read somewhere that Norton and Haigler were going for more of a UK sound. It was 1990 and the '80s big gated drum sound was past its sell-by date. The tinny UK sound seemed as good an alternative as any. The Butch Vig thick compressed sound that would define 90s rock was still a year away.

They still seem like a band very much removed from that Sonic Youth/Dinosaur/Husker sphere

Which is ironic, since Husker Du was one of the biggest influences. What was the Black Francis quote? Something like "I only owned five records, and Husker Du were three of them"?

Found it!

http://aleceiffel.free.fr/bf_bm.html

FRANCIS: I grew up in L.A. when bands like Black Flag were around, but I never listened to them. I was buying used records for 50 cents, and didn't socialize, really; I was lost in headphone-land. I did get to see a Hüsker Dü show when Joey and I dropped out of school and said, « Let's start one of these groups. » And I saw an excellent show by the Hüskers at the Paradise in Boston, where you did « Ticket To Ride » for an encore. Fantastic show, so I knew that Hüsker Dü was a tape I needed to get. I had those albums, a couple of Iggy albums, one Captain Beefheart and a tiny studio apartment. That handful of stuff got me through that particular season. I used to play « Green Eyes » (from Hüsker Dü's Flip Your Wig) over and over. A classic chord progression. Same thing with Iggy's « The Passenger » - one of those repeat songs. At the start of the Pixies I only had four or five albums and the Hüskers were two or three of them.

Funny that those formative listens should, well, form the basis of the Pixies sound. ("Wave of Mutilation" is sort of a sideways rewrite of "Green Eyes"). It's kind of like Alan from Low saying he heard Joy Division and the VU for the first time the same night at college. You hear that, and you hear Low, and you think, well, yeah.

And the help wanted ad description of them as Husker Du/Peter Paul and Mary

Was it 4AD that hooked them up with Albini? Because that was a pretty inspiring pairing, especially at that point. Albini had barely worked on anything but Big Black by then, right?

Tweez was recorded before Surfer. And the first Urge Overkill EP.

(What else? No idea beyond Big Black)

(What else? No idea beyond Big Black)

Yeah, so not much. And it's hard to believe any/many people hearing Tweez and the first UO thought, man, we need to get that guy in the studio with this other band ASAP! It might have been more an inkling that Albini's innate love for the ugly (sound, themes) was a match for the Pixies.

The album was recorded by Steve Albini (who was hired by Watts-Russell on the advice of a 4AD colleague),[18]

Yeah, but why him? I mean, good call!

Found this:

IVO WATTS-RUSSELL, cofounder, 4AD Records: The suggestion of Albini to work with the Pixies was from someone who worked for me at 4AD. Just a guy at the warehouse, Colin Wallace, who now doesn't work in the warehouse - he now manager Liz Fraser of Cocteau Twins and works for Rough Trade. So that came from him at 4AD and Gil (Norton) came from me. Colin said, "You should get Steve Albini to do it. The Big Black records sound great." And that was that, really.

From The Making of Surfer Rosa

The MFSL issue of Bossanova strips all the sheen away. Not to my liking at all