| T O P I C R E V I E W |
| Carl |
Posted - 04/25/2006 : 20:29:29
Okay, seeing as some Frank interviews and stuff in magazines can't be found online, how about a transciption thread?! I know it can be a pain typing stuff up, but I personally don't mind doing it (unless I'm really not in the mood, or whatever). Anyway, here's one for starters:
Alternative Press/Issue 123/October 1998.
NO INTRODUCTION NECESSARY
Frank Black
By Randee Dawn
As the lead singer of The Pixies, Frank Black (then Balck Francis, but always Charles Thompson IV underneath) recoreded some of the grittiest, artiest alternative punk to come out of the late '80s and early '90s. Since the band broke up, all four members have forged new careers but has hewn closest to the old Pixies aggro-art sound. Now calling his band the Catholics and releasing a self-titled album of 2-track demos on spinART, Black has taken up an almost folky aura without discarding the decibels. This conversation was recorded in the Cloud Room Bar at Seattle's Camlin Hotel, as the sun sank in the west and all of Frank's gin martinis were right with the world. As we settled, Frank was doing his darndest to get the waitress to notice us.
Let's start with the basics. Do you have a favorite drink?
Tonight I've having a gin martini. More and more I'm becoming more like my father, so I'm [normally] having blended scotch on the rocks. When I tend to go out and have a few, I'll have some Johnny Walker on the rocks.
What was your last meal?
Earlier today, I got fish and chips and a caesar sald. It was not true to the original recipe, but it was a decent salad, whatever you want to call it.
What would be true to the original recipe?
For the record: Romaine lettuce, and it's got-not necessary, but if you really want to froth up the dressing, egg white; but if you just kep whisking, the olive oil is enough-of course, olive oil. A ot of people think the anchovy is part of the Caesar sald recipe-it's not. I smush up the anchovy and put in the dressing. If you want to make a real dressing, though, you put Worcestershire sauce. Lemon, fresh garlic, pepper, some real croutons-make them in an iron skillet, please. This is not what I had at the hotel today, but it was all right. That's all. Not a big deal. Simple. That's just one of those things that gets debased, like everything else.
Are you surprised by what's accepted as mainstrem these days?
It's almost a little too much for me in mainstream movies and TV now, what's excepted. Maybe I'm getting older now, but at times it gets too raunchy and stuff, and it's sort of like...ohh, I want it to be like it used to be. I want it to be more uptight and have more boundries. It's not done in an attempt to shock anybody [anymore]. I guess it's okay, I don't knwo, but it feels bad sometimes. It's sometimes like, "The world's ending."
Do you read your own reviews?
I read this one review the other day of our single in England called "All My Ghosts", and [the critic] wrote this almost precious paragraph about: "Don't remember him like this. Beg, borrow or steal a copy of [the Pixies'] Doolittle, and remember him like that, but please, don't remember him like this." That's what I get for browsing Frank Black searches on the fucking internet.
Who taught you to play guitar?
A combination of people, I think: My cousin Joe Vacca-he tought me to play an old folk song called "Cocaine". My Aunt Brenda, she also taught me the very important "Here's a D, here's G, here's a C" kind of one-time lesson. I was about 12, something like that. FDirst song I got out on my own, as a melody, was [the Rolling Stones'] "As Tears Go By". After that, I was writing songs. One of my first compostions was very lengthy... I wrote a song about the Beatles. I can't remember what it was called, but it was this big ode, cryptic thing.
Who was your first love?
Pitsy. Pitsy Trachtenberg. When I say we were in love, it was in that really special, young, presexual kind of a thing. And we moved away and she sent me a letter once. She had soemhow applied perfume to the letter. Which was really-you know, for a young guy, who's 11 years old or whatever, it was really-whoo! Had my head spinning. It's like "Wow, what's all this about?"
Did [X-Files/Millennium] creator Chris Carter rip off your name for the lead character of Millennium?
He borrowed it. Chris Carter has been very complimentary to me. They just did it, which is all right, because it's a stage name. I might as well call myself Shrimp Cocktail. If they had called him "Charles Thompson", my given name, that would have been a lot more, "Hey! What's going on?"
On your newest album, is "The Man Who Was Too Loud" refering to anyone specifically?
Jonathan Richman.
Are you a big Jonathan Richman fan?
Oh, sure. He's like Frank Sinatra: He is who he is. He has his persona, his sound, his repertoire.
In an interview back during the Pixies' Trompe Le Monde days, you told me that when you play live, you stare at the Exit sign, like a chicken caught in the headlights. Still do that?
I frequently will not look at the crowd, becasue they're too intense. I'm not blaming them; they are who theya re, and they all express themselves in their own way, and I appreciate them all as customers, even the ones that are slightly annoying. But sometimes I have to look over their heads and look at that Exit sign-I'm aware of them, but I'm not ignoring them. Sometimes you can. Sometimes people are with you, and they're on the same wavelength as you, and you look into the crowd and you look at them, they look at you, and there's more communication going on.
So when this conversation appears in print, is there anything you want me to avoid?
I don't want to be too VH1 [as in "Storytellers"]-"Oh! That's it. That's the perfect quote to finish..." You know. I don't want any of those. I hope I didn't say anything that was-
Too pat.
Exactly. ALT
Suggested listening
PIXIES
Come On Pilgrim
The freshest twist on pop-rock in years, authored by hyperkinetic perverts torn between sin and... more sin. (1987, 4AD)
Surfer Rosa
One of the greatest rock records of the '80s; with it's killer hooks, twisted lyrics and mind-boggling dynamics, Surfer Rosa should have been as big as Nervermind. (1988, 4AD)
Doolittle
A popwise refinement of the Surefer Rosa blueprint. Produced the hits "Monkey Gone To Heaven" and "Wave If Mutalation". (1989, 4AD)
FRANK BLACK
Frank Black
Produced by Eric Drew Feldman, fomerly of Captain Beefheart's Magic Band, Black's fisrt solo album proved the singer could sucessfullly work the quirk alone.
(1993, 4AD/Elektra)
Frank Black And The Catholics
Black reintroduces the raw with this 2-tracked collection.
(1998, spinART)
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| 17 L A T E S T R E P L I E S (Newest First) |
| s_wrenn |
Posted - 05/27/2006 : 18:43:15
lol, Can't help but be reminded of "You Ain't Me"
http://myspace.com/seanwrenn  |
| Carl |
Posted - 05/27/2006 : 18:38:41
Hi, Oisin! Yeah, it's great when he gets lippy with an annoying journalist!
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| Otherfellers |
Posted - 05/27/2006 : 18:28:27
Is it wrong of me to love interviews where Frank gets upset, or possibly a little drunk. I just enjoy him outfoxing the stupid questions that get thrown his way.
A little bit of fire never hurt anyone. |
| Carl |
Posted - 05/10/2006 : 13:25:21
He mentioned that in another interview, too, and I was wondering about it when I first read the lyrics of Goodbye Lorraine.
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| VoVat |
Posted - 05/05/2006 : 12:16:51
quote:
And we moved away and she sent me a letter once. She had soemhow applied perfume to the letter.
Is this mentioned in the database for "Goodbye Lorraine" yet?
"If you doze much longer, then life turns to dreaming. If you doze much longer, then dreams turn to nightmares." |
| langdonboom |
Posted - 04/29/2006 : 21:28:08
I have that Icon issue and I always wondered if that interviewer was on his first assignment or something -- he just seemed really inexperienced, and now that I re-read this interview 8 years later I realize how much not only Frank Black has changed in his attitudes and so on but also how much I have changed! What he says at the beginning about how your 20s aren't the end of being dumb about certain things, or at least not fully developed (for instance, emotionally) makes me realize just how little the interviewer was realizing the gold wisdom being thrown at his feet! (he did say he was 23, which was exactly how old I was at the time!). Anyway, the perspective of time is amazing on that interview, and I completly agree it was frustrating to read but also that Frank handled him amazingly well, and actually extremely good naturedly given the ham-fisted way the man was trying to pry into his personal life! I'm curious to see if this interviewer has done anything lately and if his ability to get the answers to these questions has evolved from these painful stabs at direct confrontation. |
| Carl |
Posted - 04/27/2006 : 22:49:11
VOX/Issue 30/March 1993.
BLACK FRANCIS
What's Your Problem?
OUTER SPACE
If you were born with a name like Charles Kitteridege Thompson IV, a deed-poll name change is always on the cards. In the '80s, Charles laboured under the guise of Black Francis, mild-mannered janitor of minor rock legends the Pixies. Yet all that time he was habouring dreams of being Frank Black, pilot of the future. Could this obsession stem from the time his mum and dad saw a silver spaceship hovering over the house? As our intergalatic hero prepares to blast off into the unknown, at the helm of an eponymous debut solo album (released March 8 on 4AD), VOX discovers why Frank Black has a problem with... outer space
"My mom and dad tell me they saw a spaceship. I've no memories of it, of course, because I was just an infant. It was recounted to me some years later. It was broad daylight and it came hovering over the house. They chased it in a police car. I wish there were more details, but that's it.
I don't know if it's an obsession. I think that you can use the spaceship as some kind of icon or symbol of, like, any general topic that might be to do with the cosmos. The cosmos has been written about so much in the past, but it doesn't seem we approach it very often in pop music. It's like a big pile of stuff that's there for the taking. It's all imagination, you know, because I really don't know what's up there.
What's up in the sky was more a part of human culture before we got electricity. It's less so now because we move from our day into another artificial day-we're under these lights right now. And people don't navigate any more using the stars, but I think that they used to look up into the sky a lot, and now they don't. I'm not saying to be intimate with the sky is important to your life, but maybe it is. This is what the song 'Don't Ya Rile Them' is about. I was just referring to another time, when events in the sky may have been noticed by people other than astronomers. Now it seems like astronomers notice them and we read about them every day. Which is good, 'cos we can read about astronomical events that happened all over the earth, or events that we can't even see with our naked eye. But I'm just saying that the naked eye kind of things are fun.
There's a lot more space stuff on this record than most people will realise, but at least they'll be able to pick up on the easy UFO stuff.
I think I finally figured out my new song, 'Los Angeles', this morning. They got one in South Patagonia, they got another Los Angeles in Mexico, they got so many Los Angeleses. Bangkok has a Los Angeles, I read recently. I imagine there's a lot of places in the world named City Of Angels. I wrote about a futuristic one too: "They got one in 2525, where it's just like a beehive." I mean that kind of Los Angeles you might see in a film like Blade Runner.
"Two Spaces" is about two spaces: the space of outer space and also the ocean, which is often compared to the space of outer space, an impenetrable world for man. So, in the first verse, we find our singer kind of bummed out that he can't experience the space of outer space. He's greedy compared with the singer of the second verse, who's perhaps a more intelligent (but at least less greedy) ocean animal. He's wondering why all this treasure keeps sailing down from above to where he lives. He doesn't necessarily want to walk on land or go to outer space. He's happy being in the ocean.
John Denver is an accomplished pilot, and he offered ten million dollars to the NASA agency, and also ten million dollars to what was then the Soviet space agency, just so that they would take him up into space. He was denied by both, and I kind of feel bad for him because, even though the money may have been better used for charitable purposes, I sort of admire a really wealthy person like that who tries to go out an do something really weird with his money.
I'm trying to think of a song that isn't about space. 'Adda Lee' is a fictitious name but it's a real person. A person I loved very much and who is dead. Normally, I wouldn't write about a topic quite so personal, but it was a short song and it was a nice song and, for whatever reason, Adda Lee crept into it; it became a lyric and felt right at the time. It's a little ditty about a very big thing. That's a good combination. I don't think I could every write an epic called 'Adda Lee'. I could write an epic about... what's his name... Henry Daggart, who spent his whole life writing this 15,000 page manuscript about these fairytale boy/girl creatures. Y'know what I mean? The cosmos is epic, and I can write such epic songs, but little tiny personal epics are few and far between."
Interview by SHAUN PHILLIPS
Portrait by BARRY MARSDEN
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| Carl |
Posted - 04/26/2006 : 22:02:14
quote:
Originally posted by fbc
Go raibh maith agat! (don't ask)
I think Frank is great at handling journalists. I mean, if the interview went on much longer, that guy would probably have asked him about 'pure Frank' a few more times! I remember FB on MTV around the time of COR, saying the album was "pure Frank", as in it was stripped down with no fancy stuff....this guy seems to have an obsession with the idea!! I like reading interviews with Frank, and it's fun to transcribe these on here, but I wish more interviewers actually had a genuine interest in his music!
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| danjersey |
Posted - 04/26/2006 : 19:07:30
that was a frustrating read.
you have to just curse that sort of questioning.
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| Apesy |
Posted - 04/26/2006 : 16:18:49
Damn, that guy really riled him up! I love interviews like that.
And:
quote:
Sometimes I do get personal, but I'm sure as hell not going to put the next page of my fucking diary in a song, ya know?
--------------------------------------------------
Talking about my family? You think I really want to tell people that stuff?
Hah, love how these feelings eventually totally morphed into Show Me Your Tears and Honeycomb. It's hard to imagine this Frank of 8 years ago writing a song like "Violet". Not saying that's a bad thing at all; Frank's more personal matters are resulting in some of the finest music of his career. Change is good.
-=Apesy |
| fbc |
Posted - 04/26/2006 : 15:50:05
Hmm. Now what am I going to do for the next few minutes? I wonder.
<flicks lighter/takes a drag>
I take that first "thanks" back, Carl. Go raibh maith agat! (don't ask) |
| Carl |
Posted - 04/26/2006 : 14:30:57
Icon Thoughtstyle Magazine/October 1998.
Pure Frank
By Keith Hurwitz
BALDING FAT GUY? STRUGGLING CULT GUY? SPACEBOY? EX-PIXIE? FOR CRYIN' OUT LOUD, WHO IS FRANK BLACK AND WHY WON'T HE TELL KEITH?
ICON: Why do you think there's been so much turmoil in your carrer? Like with Pixie and the record labels you've been on.
FB: I wouldn't descibe it as turmoil. That's a strong word. I think all musicians have highs and lows in there career, whether they're Neil Diamond or whoever, ya know? Sometimes your hot and sometimes your not.
ICON: So what parts of your life would you say have been wonderful, and what parts have sucked?
FB: Well, in general, I seem to prefer my thirties over my twenties, but I've only had a few years of where I like where I'm at mentally; I feel more stable.
ICON: So would you say you were less happy when you were with the Pixies?
FB: How old are you?
ICON: I'm 23.
FB: So, like, did high school suck? Or did junior high suck, or anything like that? For you, personally?
ICON: Well, yeah.
FB: See? How so?
ICON: How did high school suck? Well, you have to develop as a person, socially, and learn who you are. So, is that what you would say?
FB: Well, I don't know if it's any different when your in your twenties, but there's still a lot in you that's not so smart. You don't tend to necessarily get the most out of what's going on.
ICON: What is it you like about playing rock music?
FB: Well, that's a mystery, isn't it? Who knows the answer to that question? That crazy backbeat-I don't know. It's good. The same people that people like ice cream.
ICON: At one point, you said the album The Cult Of Ray was "pure Frank". What is pure Frank?
FB: I don't know. It might have been a comment about producers and production.
ICON: What is pure Frank?
FB: Well, The Cult Of Ray is pure Frank. The new record is pure Frank. Working with less outside influence. Straight up.
ICON: Have there been points where you've gotten away from that?
FB: Obviously.
ICON: Did that bother you?
FB: There's more than one way to skin a cat. There's no rules, you know? Whatever I'm doing now, if it's different from what I did before, it isn't because I have a big problem with what I've done before and I'm reacting against it, and I'm trying to cover up my mistakes or something.
ICON: Is this new record pure Frank?
FB: Well, I think that the influence of the other musicians is a part of it, too.
ICON: Do you knwo what your trying to get to, in terms of pure Frank? An A&R man from American said "Frank doesn't know what he wants." Would you say you do?
FB: I suppose. The artist or the product can really be wearing it's intentions on its sleeve and be super maketable-an easy sell. They don't wnat it to be complicate din a psychological way. They want it to be really simple ina psychological way. They want it to be popular. They want it to be a copycat, not to be weird, relaxed, or uptight.
ICON: Prince [sic] is on the cover of this issue. Can you relate to him?
FB: Sure. He's in rock music; I'm in rock music. We're both, I imagine, somewhat idependantly minded. But I think lots of people who do this for a living have egos and stuff. You got to. That's entertainment. You got to have some kind of ego to walk out on stage and tell everyone to shut up and listen to you.
ICON: Sometimes I wonder if you don;t want to be vunerable. You seem a little scared.
FB: How so?
ICON: A lot of your songs are so impersonal. A lot of them are about objects.
FB: Well, ya gotta sing about something. Sometimes I do get personal, but I'm sure as hell not going to put the next page of my fucking diary in a song, ya know? I'm jut not that kind of guy. And I think there's examples of great rock music, such as The Beatles, that do have songs about objects or things, that aren't that personal. I think there's too much music that's pretending to be personal, to much diary rock; it doesn't ring true.
ICON: You said this new album is more personal. Why?
FB: I'm more comfortable with the concept, perhaps. Less comfortable with science-fiction themes, because I;ve done a lot of that, and although I enjoyed it, sometimes you get mixed results or sometimes you develop a reputation. Suddenly, every damn article I read is like "Here comes spaceboy."
ICON: Is it more you now? Is it pure Frank?
FB: Well, I mean, what the hell's pure Frank? Ya know what I mean?
ICON: What about in your own life? DO you feel like you've found pure Frank? Are you still trying to get to know yourself?
FB: Well, aren't we all?
ICON: Well, would you say you are at this point?
FB: Who am I? How the fuck would I know? I can't sum up every aspect of what I am.
ICON: Do you think that's why you've stayed away from singing about who you are?
FB: You don't think I sing about who I am?
ICON: Sometimes you do.
FB: I've always done personal songs. You can't say I'm not personal on this album, and I am personal on this album, 'cause it isn't like that.
ICON: So on this new album I was thinking about the song "I Need Peace" where you sing "I get so down". What is that all about?
FB: Well, you just said it right there.
ICON: Does it relate to what we're talking about? What gets you down?
FB: Well, what gets you down? For cryin' out loud. Doesn't everybody get down? The fuckin' blues, man. It's the fuckin' blues. "I need peace, I get so down." It's the oldest fucking story.
ICON: What disturbs your peace? When you wrote that song, what were you thinking about? Is it really hard to say?
FB: Well, yeah. 'Cause on song is told on very general, universal terms that I think everybody understands, so plug it your own. It's not really about me and what's bummin' me out. It's what bums everybody out.
ICON: So that's why you keep your songs kinda general?
FB: No, 'cause I don't keep my songs general. See, right now, your simplifing what I'm doing. That song might be general. A song like "I Gotta Move" is more specific. "The Man Who Was Too Loud", that's not a song about me.
ICON: Do you feel free to be who you are? Say, through the media?
FB: I have no freedom over that. I have some control, some input. I mean, I can sit here and talk to you, you'll record our conversation, and you'll extract whatever it is you want to extract. Now, you may extract exactly what I say, get the quote right-or you may fuck it up, like a lot of guys, and not even come close to what I said. The choice is yours. I have no control over that. So can I be who I am through guys like you? No fucking way.
ICON: Do you think the audience perceives you in the right way?
FB: Now your talking about a different situation. Reading a music magazine with an interview with Frank Black is different than listening to a Frank Black record, and going to see me perform is than those two situations.
ICON: Do you dislike giving interviews?
FB: Frequently while doing interviews, I have a difficult time getting out what it is I'm tring to say. I want to give you what your looking for; I'm just having a hard time focusing on what you want. I feel like you want some incredibly heavy psychological statement and self-perception, like a window into my fucking soul or something.
ICON: Well, I feel you have trouble letting people understand you. What's the best way of letting people understand you?
FB: You don't have to udnerstand me. You pay the money, and either you enjoy it or you don't. If you don't enjoy it and you didn't get your money's worth, then in a sense you got ripped off. We want it to be a satisfying thing. Okay, here's my art, everybody; everyone pays the money. And you wnat everyone to go "Yes! Wooo! we like that."
ICON: So the image that you do have, does that affect you at all?
FB: Sure. I don't like being referred to as some fat, balding guy. For a lot of writers, it seems to be a starting point, for an article about some struggling cult guy like myself. Well, okay, he's not famous, maybe you ahven't heard of him, let's start in on something kinda negative. I don't want to be portrayed in a negative light, to the point that I want to say, fuck these people. You get tired of being misquoted, of people painting you in a negative light just because you've beem on the cover of Spin magazine. Pople just put you down because they can. I didn't go around and declare that I was influential-other people did. I just put out records, like other people put out records. So as far as dethroning me, no one needs to do that. I'm not sitting on any kind of throne. I'm just a guy who makes records.
ICON: I feel that it's kinda hard to get to know Frank Black. You seem especially protective.
FB: Protective of what? I'm creating entertainment. I want people to get their money's worth. I just do what I do to be entertaining. Some of my records are more popular than others, but I mean, there's no rules.
ICON: So with the whole package, the interviews and everything: Do you ever get personal?
FB: I don't know. In what way? Talking about my family, or what kind of sexual fantasies I have? You think I really want to tell people that stuff? You wouldn't want to; why the fuck would I? I just wnat to talk about music. Unfortunately, the selling of magazines is such that...there's decisions by the editors of what sells. Exploting the personality sells. I'm not a fucking Internet site, ya know what I mean? Click on the map here to find your way around me, to know who I am. Fuck you-that's for my fucking girlfriend. I'm not going to tell everyone everything about me. Fuck them. Go do something else. The line stops here. Go do something else.
ICON: It seems like interviewers don't want to go there. In doing some research, I didn't find out much personal stuff at all.
FB: Well, to a ceratin extent, I steer it that way. What kind of personal stuff you want to know? Where I was born? What was my childhood like? I'm not saying that's a bad goal. I mean, if I were a journalist and I were doing an interview, it would be nice to find out all that information. But that's my problem as a journalist; that's for me to find out. What unlocks a person? What makes them open up? Sometimes a couple of drinks will open somone up. But that's not my job, to say there's some guy on the other end of the phone line that wants to know a bunch of stuff about my life, so I'd better tell him everything I can think of, and some incredibly personal shit. Fuck that. That's not the goal, to have no secrets, no personal life, no mystery.
ICON: Would you anser any of those questions? Like where you were born?
FB: In Boston. That's not where I was raised. My family moved a lot.
ICON: Your childhood-what was that like?
FB: We've been talking for about an hour. It's a little late to start talking about my childhood.
ICON: All right. What about you're girlfriend? You've had the same girlfriend for a while?
FB: Yeah.
ICON: Are you gonna marry her?
FB: That's not something I'm going to talk about.
ICON: Does it annoy you that the media is always comparing you to the Pixies?
FB: It would be gratifying to finally escape everyone saying, okay, here he is...ex-Pixies...It would be nice to be known for other records as well.
ICON: Will this be the one that outdoes the Pixies?
FB: No. I'm sure this will probably be one of my worst records.
ICON: Why do you think that?
FB: 'Cause of where I am in my career, and what kind of record it is. I'm not a real commercial seller. I'm not hot. I mean, I'm doing okay, three or four interviews today, got threee more interviews tomorrow. I'm not complaining. Maybe it'll do great, but I don't think so. That doesn't mean it's bad.
ICON: Can I ask you what your favorite Pixies song is?
FB: I've always liked "Wave Of Mutalation".
ICON: What would success be for you, the ideal situaton?
FB: Well, I'm in it, right? I get paid for my hobby, for doing what I like to do. That's it. Beyond that, your just talking about how many zeroes you got attached to the end of your paycheck. I'm not going to complain-I already hit the lottery.
ICON: So you're doing well financially?
FB: I do just fine. I got a house, a couple of cars. I ate at my favorite restaurant again last night. Drank as much as I wanted, left a whopping tip, had a great time. Right? How many people get to do that? Not everybody.
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| Ziggy |
Posted - 04/26/2006 : 13:49:45
Thanks Carl, that's a most entertaining read :) |
| fbc |
Posted - 04/26/2006 : 12:46:34
My hero!
(thanks Carl, this was new to me. great pic) |
| danjersey |
Posted - 04/25/2006 : 21:21:38
with ceasar salad i would drink rootbeer then water. |
| Carl |
Posted - 04/25/2006 : 21:17:01
Yeah, I recognise this too-courtesy of Soren, I have an interview taken from a journalist's recording where he's trying to alert the waitress, talks about caeser salad and who taught him guitar, and Jonathan Richman...there is other stuff, but I suppose it would be too much of a coincidence to be a different interview, so it must be it!!
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| danjersey |
Posted - 04/25/2006 : 21:10:44
i think its i gotta move that has this. i have listened to it a few times but this transcript provides in detail eating well. |
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