PIXIES
All music and lyrics by Black Francis
Produced by Gil Norton
Released September 2, 2013
PIXIES:
Black Francis: Vocals, Rhythm Guitars
Joey Santiago: Lead Guitars
David Lovering: Drums
with Simon "Dingo" Archer: Bass Guitar
From the very beginning, my relationship with The Pixies as a fan has been peripheral at best and at its worst, it has been indifferent to the point of near irrelevance. Now don't get me wrong. I am more than aware of the band's musical legacy as well as the large road they paved for the bands of the 1990's alternative music scene. I have the albums "Doolittle" (released April 18, 1989) and the compilation album "Wave Of Mutilation: Best Of Pixies" (released May 3, 2004) in my personal archives and there are several songs of their that I love deeply, from the most well known ("Monkey's Gone To Heaven," "Here Comes Your Man,""Debaser," "Where Is My Mind?") to ones slightly more off of the beaten Pixies path ("Caribou," "Planet Of Sound"), but all told, The Pixies are just one of those bands that never really quite reached me.
During their heyday, I was slightly aware of them but my musical attentions were placed towards artists that were more overtly melodic or they were the 1970's progressive rock bands I still revere. In regards to almost everything that could have been considered "alternative" that I listened to during my high school and college years all hailed from England, as my Anglophile ways led me to band after band that I cherish to this day. My real introduction to The Pixies arrived in 1989 when I saw the band LIVE IN CONCERT when they opened for Love And Rockets on their "So Alive" tour. Believe me, I could not even begin to tell you what songs the band played but what I do remember quite vividly was their sheer ferocity, the jaw dropping power and stunning dynamic shifts they had in their overall sound and of course, band leader Black Francis' incessant screaming. I had to admit, it was really something to behold but what really floored me that night was when the band ended their set. The house lights came on and to my surprise, a large portion of the audience stood up and left the theater!!! That's when it hit me about The Pixies. That this chunk of the audience could not have cared less about the headlining act, no matter who they were. These people wanted The Pixies and no one else and once they saw what they came for, even though they paid for the entire night's concert, they exited and went home more than satisfied anyway. The Pixies held that level of cache and it forced me to take notice to a degree. Even so, and before I even realized it, the band had broken up in 1993, via an infamous fax message Francis sent to his bandmates, and I never really gave them another thought.
I think what led to my indifference which then led to my near rejection of the band arrived after their reformation in 2004. Now, certainly I was not about to begrudge the Pixies for reuniting and embarking upon a tour because why should this band be exempt from what has become a standard? In fact, I was indeed happy to see them back in action and receiving great notices and attention to boot, so much so, that I began to listen to their albums to attempt to discover just what had been eluding me. My distaste emerged when The Pixies continued to tour and tour and tour and tour, playing the same old songs over and over and over again without the prospect of creating any new material. Granted, this feat is also a standard but I think my feelings were cemented when I saw the excellent and surprisingly honest and eye opening 2006 documentary "loudQUIETloud: A Film About the Pixies" from Directors Steven Cantor and Matthew Galkin.
That film depicted the tense and turbulent behind the scenes outlook of the band's reunion tour and what struck me so powerfully is how little these four individuals seemed to even enjoy being where they were, let alone being with each other. They rarely spent time together. They rarely spoke to each other. And despite the glory they were creating on stage and the triumphant rapturous applause they were receiving from fans, I had to wonder that if these people don't want to be there, then why do it at all? Of course, there is the lure of money and frankly, I also had to wonder which band member was financially strapped, thus being a possible catalyst for the tour in the first place. But to continue for years and years? It just all felt like a money grab, a jukebox trip into endless, and increasingly meaningless nostalgia for a band that felt to be created to run violently against that very trajectory. Somehow, for this band who I had never really made a connection with became something that just...offended me because it all felt to be painfully soulless, thus tainting the purity of their past.
At some point, the Pixies found themselves able to record one song ("Bam Thwok") and then one more ("Bagboy") and I just did not care at all. They continued to tour on the same old stuff and stuff their pockets so one song here and another singular song there felt insignificant to their continued relevance as an on-going musical entity. But then, as I was thumbing through a recent issue of Rolling Stone, I read the surprising announcement of Bassist/Singer Kim Deal's departure from the band which was then followed by information about the arrival of Bassist/Singer Kim Shattuck as their new touring/possibly official member and Black Francis' intent on shelving his solo career (where he had re-named himself as Frank Black) to solely focus upon new Pixies music, the first significant signs of which had then recently appeared on the four song EP entitled "EP1," and would therefore continue on a series of digital EPs with vinyl versions available on their official website.
Now that got my attention. So much so that I went straight to I-Tunes and listened to sound samples of "EP1," which then pushed me to make the reasonably small investment of making a purchase.
And now, here are my impressions of the selections from the four song EP...
THE TRACKS:
1. "ANDRO QUEEN"
As a booming mid tempo bass drum 4/4 beat announces itself, "EP1" opens in a most auspicious fashion: a ballad. Now this is not to say that the Pixies have mellowed with the arrival of middle age, as this song about a bittersweet affair between the narrator and a female android who has lost her ring and eventually leaves him for the rings of Saturn is quite an oddball track. It is also surprisingly tender and dream like as Francis croons the song rather than wails and he is augmented by Lovering's martial drumming and Santiago's drenched in reverb spacey surf guitar strums. It is a song that feels like it could have arrived from the same lonely interstellar universe as David Bowie's "Space Oddity."
2. "ANOTHER TOE IN THE OCEAN"
Another mid tempo selection albeit decidedly louder. Again, Francis sings the track rather than screams and the song's gorgeous melodicism carries the power chords quite strongly as lyrics, that may suggest alcohol fueled surrealism, envelop dramatically. It's a track that you will find singing along with yet there is danger all around. It's a song that sounds like The Beach Boys forever engulfed by dark, stormy skies.
3. "INDIE CINDY"
This is the stand out track of the set by far as Francis's demented carnival barker vocals shouting out bizarre word associations propel this highly charged song that possesses the band's trademark shifts in sonic dynamics. Looking closer at the lyrics, I am wondering if this track is openly confronting the (what I feel to be) stagnated status of the band for the past nine years.
"Put this down for the record/It's more or less un-checkered/Wasted days and wasted nights/Made me a fucking beggar/No soul, my milk is curdled/I'm the burgermeister of purgatory...Blowtorch a hole in the armor/And I don't need the tip."
And after all of that vitriolic fury (and more), the song downshifts into dreamland again with this surprisingly fragile plea, "Indie Cindy/Be in love with me/I beg for you to carry me."
Are the Pixies asking us to not give up on them forever? Are they realizing the soullessness of the endless nostalgia ticket? Who knows, but that is how I am reading it and yes...this song blasts a hole through your speakers.
4. "WHAT GOES BOOM"
The band takes it up to "11" on the EP's final track, a song that almost feels like a re-introduction to the Pixies and their rock and roll intents and purposes. The character of "Fatty" must be a stand-in for Francis (who has grown more corpulent since the band's heyday) and perhaps the character of "Grace in her lace and her stocking/Carrying her bass, she likes to get rocking" may refer to the departed Kim Deal but all in all the song roars is all of the right places making the EP climax heroically.
Dear readers and listeners, for all of my indifference and inability to fully connect with the Pixies and my near rejection of them entirely, "EP1" hit all of the right spots in all of the right places for me. I just LOVED it!!! As I may have expressed to you before in previous postings, I do nearly all of my music listening while driving in my car across the city and I have to tell you that I have driven many miles with "EP1" on repeat. For whatever reasons, the Pixies and I have finally met in the right place and time and the connection has been fully made, giving me tremendous hopes for whatever future they wish to try and claim for themselves and my anticipation for the release of "EP2," rumored for sometime this month, has grown exponentially!
For brand new listeners, "EP1" can easily be utilized as a tidy primer to the band. For longtime fans, I urge you to put away any pre-conceived notions of what you may feel or think the Pixies shuodl and should not be in 2013. Reading reviews of "EP1," I was simultaneously un-surprised and stunned by the passionately mixed to negative reaction from critics and longtime fans, a reaction that has only grown louder with Kim Deal's absence.
To all of those people who feel that the new material pales in comparison to their past body of work, then fine. Just listen to these albums then if the Pixies are just not making music for you anymore. No harm, no foul. But to agonize over how it is not "the same" anymore or that they are now officially not a "real band" just because a core, original member is no longer part of the proceedings, it just pointless. First of all, OF COURSE it's not "the same"!!! It could NEVER be "the same" because these people are just not the same people they were 25 years ago and to expect them to be exactly the same as human beings, songwriters and musicians is unthinkable. Beyond that, I would ask those people to ask themselves exactly what do they wish for the Pixies to be? Do they really want them to be forever trapped inside of a bubble of nostalgia and hating each other in the process just for you? Or do you want them to keep pushing forwards if they are to exist at all?
As far as I am concerned, being trapped in the nostalgia bubble is completely counterpoint to the band who blazed new musical trails in the first place. For me, I wish for the Pixies to keep pushing forwards. If they are to survive, then they must evolve, grow and change and if Deal leaving the band helps the band to evolve, then so be it. No disrespect to her at all. In fact, why remain in an unhappy and unproductive situation if you don't have to. I am hoping this major change helps all four of them move forwards in their lives as happier, healthier people who are them able to produce new material that can showcase exactly why we loved them but in an entirely new fashion than before.
That's what the Pixies have always seemed to represent. That desire to break the mold over and again and if the mold they have to break this time is their own legacy, then have the musical bricks at the ready to do it.
"EP1" is indeed that first brick!
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