| T O P I C R E V I E W |
| natenate101 |
Posted - 06/04/2019 : 05:40:24
I'm pasting a album biography taken from the band's PR company site. It's a helluva read but I want to give a spoiler alert as it has descriptions of the album tracks. Might be some that don't want any of that seeping into their heads before hearing the album in full. Proceed at your own risk, sort of.....it's a helluva read.
BIOGRAPHY
Beneath The Eyrie
They’re out at the old church, the locals said, hiding in the shadow of the one-armed cross. Holed up in cabins crawling with critters, firing up the organ every morning, wailing songs of curses, death, witchcraft and unsatisfied spirits late into the night, on guitars embedded with their own dead teeth.
Pixies, they call ‘em, out there in the wilds of Woodstock, beneath the eyrie.
“It felt a bit haunted,” says bass Pixie Paz Lenchantin of Pixies’ four weeks at Dreamland Recording Studio, in the frost-bitten run-up to Christmas 2018. “We could’ve been filming a Blair Witch at the same time. The aura was thick. There was definitely a fifth member inside the church.”
The making of the third new album since Pixies reformed in 2004 was cold on the bones, but warm on the marrow. After three decades beset with upheavals, splits, trials, and tribulations, Pixies was finally a band at ease with itself. Their first era - when Charles Thompson IV returned from a student exchange trip to Puerto Rico, dropped out of college, renamed himself Black Francis and, in January 1986, convinced his ex-University of Massachusetts Amherst roommate Joey Santiago to start a band with him - redefined alternative rock and set the dynamic blueprint not just for grunge but underground guitar music for decades to come, but it was as fiery and turbulent off-record as on. Even as Francis turned his Pentecostal upbringing, flair for all things Spanish and interest in the seedier, more violent Biblical tales and mythologies into gruesome yet melodic punk noirs on seminal early albums Surfer Rosa (1988) and Doolittle (1989), and indulged his sci-fi obsessions on the silvered savagery of Bossanova (1990) and Trompe Le Monde (1991), the band fought and fractured. By 1993, the combination of Francis’s rabid roars and saccharine pop babbles, Santiago’s rattlesnake guitar squirms, Dave Lovering’s brutalist drumming, and Kim Deal’s cat-purr basslines had made them influential, era-defining indie rock giants. But they were Pixies no more.
Re-emerging in 2004, Pixies rode back into a town they’d designed on a wave of dark jubilation, headlining festivals such as Reading & Leeds and gathering plaudits like shrunken heads in a bag. Their first new song in thirteen years, “Bam Thwok,” topped download charts in 2004, but there were still rocks in the road ahead. Reluctant to make a new album, Deal left the band in 2013, so Pixies’ sensational sonic sprawl of a comeback album, Indie Cindy (released as three EPs in 2013-14, then compiled into an album) was recorded with Jeremy Dubs of Bunnies on bass, and toured with Muffs singer Kim Shattuck stage left. Lenchantin, boasting A Perfect Circle, Queens of The Stone Age and Zwan on her immaculate indie rock CV, replaced Shattuck for the 2014 tour, becoming a fully paid-up Pixie in 2016, in time to record the abrasive sixth album Head Carrier (2016). That album saw long-term producer Gil Norton replaced by Tom Dalgety (Royal Blood). “That was quite invigorating, trying something new,” says Dave, and its tour saw one last rattle off-road.
“We coasted over it,” Dave says of Joey having to leave the tour to enter rehab in 2016. “It was a wrench thrown in, but as usual we just picked up and carried on, for the better of Joe. Joe’s been a trouper, he’s been nailing it, so it’s been wonderful. I’m glad it all happened actually.” “When you don’t drink there’s a lot of clarity,” says Black Francis, himself trying his hand at sobriety for a while. “So when he stopped drinking… you got more of Joey. As a non-drinking musician, Joey’s a lot more in control of what he’s doing, the execution is so much more crisp and immediate.”
With Joey back in the fray, his Pixie claws cleaned and sharpened, the band regrouped - “stronger than ever, it feels like a real family,” says Paz - and resumed their relentless touring schedule, taking in a co-headline tour with Weezer in summer 2018 (“Everything about it was fantastic,” says Dave, “it was a circus”) and live residencies in New York and London, immersed in the early Pixies artwork of Vaughan Oliver, to celebrate the 30th anniversary and deluxe reissue of Surfer Rosa (Dave: “A joy to play, those songs are like riding a bike”).
Meantime, new sounds started bubbling out of the cauldron again. A handful of songs that hadn’t stewed quite long enough to make it onto Head Carrier were still in the mix. A clutch more came together during three weeks of pre-production rehearsals up near Charles’s place in Massachusetts, spring of ‘18. A few more ideas span themselves out of sound checks, spidery little critters. By the time Pixies wended their way to Woodstock that winter, they had half an album pulling them this way and that, like will-o’-the-wisps coming in from the woods.
All sonic intentions, as is Pixies’ way, were left unsaid. “There’s no speaking of music,” says Paz; what would come would come. But there was a sense of freedom in Dreamland’s ghost-thick aura, of a consolidation period, completed and horizons thrown wide. Indie Cindy had been an exploratory, transitional foray out of their comfort zone, imagining what music Pixies would have been making during their decade stranded on some faraway planet of sound - by turns frenzied, glacial and sci-fi serene. Head Carrier had taken them, in Joey’s words “back to Pixie-land”, a dense, inward-looking record, by Pixies for Pixies, nodding to Surfer Rosa and Doolittle as Dalgety pushed everything into the red. This time, even as they joked and cooked and meshed creatively like never before in their communal house - “It definitely felt really solid as a band,” Francis recalls, “we arrived as a band, intact” - each Pixie brought their own secretive piece to the puzzle.
“At one point I thought that we were going for some kind of western sound and I kinda ran with that for myself,” Joey reveals. “I was into Ennio Morricone again, a grown-up version of surf music. Anytime I could put a western twang on there, I’d try my darndest to do it.” Paz, encouraged to contribute songs and lyrics during wine-fueled late night writing sessions with Francis emerged with two songs, “The Long Rider” and “Los Surfer Muertes,” dedicated to a surfing friend and “legend in the water” called Desiree who died catching waves while Paz was recording Head Carrier: “It was a fluke,” she says “the fin hit her and she drowned. It’s in a light spirit - she couldn’t think of a better way to go.”
And as for Francis, who spent most mornings teasing melodies out of the church’s organ, he allowed himself one word of dark guidance. “Before we embarked on the record I said to Tom ‘I don’t know, but maybe this record is gonna have a more gothic feel.’ When we arrived at the studio, it’s a kinda spooky, gothic kind of a place, so if something suggested lyrically or musically something gothic, we made it more gothic, because that was the improv word that had been thrown at us. Anything that suggested gothic, we totally embraced it. So the record overall has that kind of a vibe. Every song fits that category. It’s a little bit darker. It’s elemental; it’s moon, sky, water, tree, earth, ice, wind, spirits, animal spirits, death, battling or grappling with something, with forces, some of them seen, some of them unseen.”
How dense the macabre? Francis even brought along a four-stringed guitar he’d had custom made with a large molar he’d recently lost embedded in resin in the headstock, roots and all. “I think it’s cool,” he says, “but most people I show it to find it gross or weird.”
No wonder Pixies emerged from Dreamland with a record - Beneath The Eyrie, named after the bald eagle’s nest – or “eyrie” - that Dave spotted in a tree by some abandoned railroad tracks just behind the studio - that reads like a dusty book of eerie folklore tales, full of black arts, Byronesque imagery, death, and its aftermath. “On Graveyard Hill,” the cranky new wave “Debaser” that was Paz’s third co-write on the record, pictures a witch called Donna casting a fatal curse - or is it a love spell? - on her unsuspecting lover. “This Is My Fate,” (“a Twilight Zone episode,” according to Charles) portraits a drunkard riding the mule trains out of Harmony Borax in Death Valley, high on mandrake root. The dreamy alt-pop limbo of “Daniel Boone,” inspired by Francis almost hitting a reindeer on a foggy drive to the church, imagines a spirit rising from the wreckage that might have been, bound for reincarnation.
Most Coleridgean of all is “Silver Bullet,” a visceral Morricone gunfight theme left over from Head Carrier, in which a “man condemned” wanders the night, hunting out a duel to end his internal torment. “It’s become more doppelganger,” Francis says. “Right after the song was done my daughter was like ‘silver bullet? This is a werewolf song.” After she told me that it did take on that kind of aspect to it. Whether it’s literally a werewolf I don’t know, but it’s definitely one wrestling with oneself.”
Supernatural beings abound. The furious, frustrated punk searching the streets of “St Nazaire” for a “selkie bride.” a Gaelic seal woman who can return to the sea if her seal coat survives her romantic liaisons. And then there’s Black Jack Hooligan, the Scottish sprite telling the tale of how his girlfriend became known as “Catfish Kate.” “This is a story from my childhood that I inherited from my father,” Charles says of the album’s breezy, infectious track. “I told the same story to my kids when they were younger. Kate’s up there in the mountains of South Dakota or wherever in the 1800s, she’s living in the world of Native Americans and fur traders and soldiers and wanderers. She falls into the river one day, she’s taken into the river by a giant catfish, she wrestles with the catfish. There’s a gothic feel to that, this woman battling with a monster-sized catfish, emerging from the water wearing the skin of the catfish as her new robe with the blood dripping – ‘I am alive, I battled all night long with the catfish, and I won, I ripped him open.’ She’s victorious.”
Here, and throughout the record, a painful subtext is at play. Black Francis has recently undergone a divorce, the lyrical impact of which he was unaware of as the songs came together but is blinding in retrospect. Compulsive album opener “In The Arms Of Mrs. Mark Of Cain” speaks of being content in a cursed relationship (note the piano reprise from “Motorway To Roswell” at the end). “Ready For Love” is as blatantly, brutally romantic as Pixies have ever dared to be. The bitter, snarling “Bird Of Prey” might be told from the perspective of what Francis describes as “an unsatisfied spirit riding a Calèshe like the ghost-riders in the sky - ‘I am here to haunt again because I am not satisfied,’” but linger too long on lines like “you’ve stolen my tomorrow/So I come for it today/You stole it when you stole my yesterday” and even Francis admits it’s a divorce song: “I didn’t necessarily know it at the time but I do now. It’s a song of longing I guess… it’s about the loss of love.”
Death hangs heavy over Beneath The Eyrie, not least on the deceptively jaunty campfire closer, “Death Horizon,” Here’s a vast millennium of endings. Short term, it’s the death of a relationship. Medium term, the extinction of humanity by its own carbon smothered hand. And long term, the death of the Earth in a supernova fireball. A near infinity of horizons, each darker than the last. “Here we are standing on the seashore looking at the horizon,” says Francis, “and even though the sun, for all of our lives represents life, we know from our knowledge of the stars that one day that star disappears. That star blows up or implodes or whatever stars do when they finish their cycle. That usually means the end of everything in its orbit. We already know what the end of the story is, so there’s that more cosmic finality. There’s the death of the here and now and the things that are important to us in our current lives, then there’s the death of humanity, and then there’s the ultimate one - at the end of the day it all goes up in a supernova anyway. If you were gonna add a fourth level to it, it’s also the death of the record, isn’t it? It’s like ‘you’ve heard everything, you’ve heard all of the stories, you’ve heard the songs, you’ve experienced everything, the record’s over now’.”
Beneath The Eyrie recaptures the rabid velocity, boundless invention and vivid, enveloping aesthetic of Pixies’ legendary early albums without feeling the need to recreate them. Instead the band toys with new wave, ragtime, Gallic noir, western psych, doom rock, Weezer pop and the vaudevillian cabaret they only hinted at on “Mr. Grieves.” “We can do any kind of song, it doesn’t matter if it’s reggae, ska, jazz, Europop, we can make an attempt at it,” says Dave, and the creativity in full flow now that Pixies are a solid family again is evinced by the fact that eight or nine songs from the album’s demo sessions will be released as a companion album. “There are at least two of them that I really like,” says Dave. “I wish they were on the album. One or two of them might be better than the record so it might take off!”
For the first time, we’ll get a peek behind the curtain of Beneath The Eyrie too. Journalist Tony Fletcher miked up the band and studio for the entire month to document the making of the record for a podcast series called “It’s a Pixies Podcast,” premiering in June. A podcast liable to bury Pixies’ reputation as glowering devils forever. “In our later years, we joke and play around way, way, way more than ever in the past,” Dave says, and Joey agrees. “People are gonna be surprised how not precious we are making a record. There’s a lot of buffoonery and Dalgetafoolery going on. People probably think we’re really serious about making our craft but, to us, it’s one big fun-fest.”
There they were, Pixies, out at the church with the one-armed cross, cackling into the night. Weaving music that grips like a spell, crushes like a curse.
# # #
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| 35 L A T E S T R E P L I E S (Newest First) |
| billgoodman |
Posted - 09/22/2025 : 11:24:08
So, who decided:
A. That they were recorded during the BTE-session
B. Not finished?
I'm very curious
Also, lot's of snippets in the podcast of not released material
Some covers
Some originals
Give us everything, man!
That being said, production value aside, I don't think the BTE deluxe/demo disc sound very Pixies to me. Songwise that is. If that's a word.
Lot's of songs sound more FB-solo to me. Which is fine, don't get me wrong.
Maybe Chapel Hill is a song that could only be found on a Pixies record. And I'm not sure if it's that good anyway.
---------------------------
BF: Mag ik Engels spreken? |
| Troubles A Foot |
Posted - 09/20/2025 : 07:29:25
quote:
Originally posted by Jamie
quote:
Originally posted by Troubles A Foot
Chapel Hill? Well we all know this is nothing that would be allowed on a Dalgety Pixies album. It's too weird and too similar to earlier Pixies. Sure, it seems like an unfinished song, but so do other songs on Surfer Rosa or Trompe Le Monde! Who cares, throw it on an album! It's cool.
Funny you should say that, Chapel Hill and Caught in a Dream were the only songs from the demo that ended up getting recorded in the BTE session.
And they ain't on the album! |
| Jamie |
Posted - 09/20/2025 : 04:13:04
quote:
Originally posted by Troubles A Foot
Chapel Hill? Well we all know this is nothing that would be allowed on a Dalgety Pixies album. It's too weird and too similar to earlier Pixies. Sure, it seems like an unfinished song, but so do other songs on Surfer Rosa or Trompe Le Monde! Who cares, throw it on an album! It's cool.
Funny you should say that, Chapel Hill and Caught in a Dream were the only songs from the demo that ended up getting recorded in the BTE session. |
| Skatealex1 |
Posted - 09/19/2025 : 11:34:19
It's almost a little jarring to me thinking of the quality of this demo and then going to Doggerel which I think has the usual Dalgety trappings that kind take it down a notch. I don't think it's the worst album ever but as Pixies it's just very mediocre to my taste personally.
I almost wonder if they where encouraged to follow these demo lines of thinking maybe we'd be getting more interesting Pixies albums? (For those of use that aren't so into the more recent ones).. IE- more raw off the cuff Pixies than what they've been doing lately.
Also one more thing I think stands out on the demo album- I think this might be some of Joey Santiagos best work in Pixies 2.0. His lines just kind of blend in and do interesting things on many of these songs. It's nothing ever that's too in your face or stops a song for some big solo thing but I think that makes it work really solid on them. |
| Troubles A Foot |
Posted - 09/19/2025 : 08:57:08
I was looking at the lyrics for those demos on Genius. Something I've actually never done. I like the lyrics throughout BTE but I think these demos have more intriguing, ambiguous and interesting lyrics that remind me of classic Frank...Let's look at them!
Good Words of Cyrus: I have no idea what this song is about, but what I love about this is the unusual structure, something Dalgety seems allergic to (there must be a bridge! Then a big guitar coming in for the final choruses! Etc etc!) It's basically two verses, three choruses, but one of the choruses ("there is a flood that's coming") is kind of unexpected in the middle with no verse before it, and a rocking part, and it ends, and they don't try to push it to anything beyond that, and to me, that keeps that original spark of the song. Now I really like the bridge to Daniel Boone, but I still recall the podcast of Dalgety insisting it needs a bridge. You know David Lowery (Cracker, Camper Van Beethoven) doesn't even write bridges!
I heard the words of Cyrus
Stopped at the light one day
He blessed me for the offering
Then he looked at me and said:
"There is a flood that's coming
So make your plans for running
Far away"
There is a flood that's coming
So make your plans for running
I paid him almost nothing
And nothing I have laid
I cursed the pearls of Cyrus
I threw them all away
Though high above it's sunny
There ain't no use in running
Not today
Please Don't Go has more down to earth lyrics, but similarly has two verses, choruses and it ends. We don't have Dalgety trying to push it into some huge rock ballad. It feels more honest and sad that way. I actually skipped this song for a year or two because I associated it with the death of a loved one and it hurt too much.
Chapel Hill? Well we all know this is nothing that would be allowed on a Dalgety Pixies album. It's too weird and too similar to earlier Pixies. Sure, it seems like an unfinished song, but so do other songs on Surfer Rosa or Trompe Le Monde! Who cares, throw it on an album! It's cool.
Caught in a Dream has always been very odd to me. It's so repetitive, and it actually captures the feeling of being "caught" in something because the song never really escapes to any other lyrics or bridges or anything like that. Again, unusual and nothing like the other songs around it, which is what Pixies albums used to be like! No song was like the others, especially structurally. Dream just reuses the same lyrics over and over. Maybe it's unfinished? But maybe it should stay that way, because I think it's more intriguing than a typical song.
Mal De Mer is another song that has a unique structure, like the instrumental breaks between the verses (all these songs have great chances for Joey to take center stage, plus great Paz vocalizing throughout too) and I'm not even sure there's an identifiable chorus except the way they repeat "all my teenage sirens" towards the end. I love these lyrics (assuming they are accurate):
Never moved by my appeal
All my teenage sirens
I always die behind the wheel
On the coastal highway
I was feeling mal de mer
From all that teenage violence
Voices in the smoggy air
All my teenage sirens
Now I'm cut up in the plume
Will stop seeing you sideways
Now I'm ribbons in the spoon
And the world is silence
I was feeling mal de mer
All my teenage sirens
All my teenage sirens
(Teenage sirens)
Hey Debussy notably has a lot of footnotes added by users to explain what Frank is singing about:
https://genius.com/19106382?
It's also another unusual one but reminds me of classic Pixies (or Frank.) It's musically weird, his vocals are a crazy performance, it's full of references you have to google, and the chorus at the end (which to me is insanely catchy) repeats over and over and over. I can imagine Dalgety going "too many times! If this is going to be a single you have to only do the chorus two or three times! And where's the huge guitars to come in and make it triumphant sounding?!?"
Hey there Marie
Just what do you see
That jerk ennui
Hello Italy
Hey there Gaby
My baby baby baby
You can't even sing
Like that sweetie Thérse
Hey Debussy
You're talking to me
Hey Debussy
Are you walking with me?
Hey Rosalie
My lil’ lil’ lady Lilly
If you ever leave me
I'll suicide me
(chorus a million times)
I think my favorite song may be Under the Marigold. Musically it captures that "fuck it" feeling. It sounds laid back and casual but also kind of miserable. I love Frank's talking verses which if I need to remind you is like the kind of thing the Pixies would do! And it makes the chorus more musically satisfying for that contrast. The lyrics are more Catholics though, I think, except for "maybe in this next life I'll come back as a disease" which has a touch of Pixies.
You know, I actually hardly ever drink this stuff
But funny or not now, I can't seem to get enough
I got nothing against life, just sometimes it kills
Will you warm me a little?
'Cause I'm getting the chills
You know, I always knew that you would surely understand
After all, I'm just a guy who's living in his van
Maybe in the next life I'll come back as a disease
Will you warm me a little?
'Cause I'm starting to freeze
So babe, would you come down to the night of the bereft?
First you gotta go right, then you gotta go left
Parked in the moonlight, yeah, 'neath the marigold
Will you warm me a little?
It's just getting so cold
I also have no idea what How I Learned to Earn Rewards is about. It's got a great riff throughout and I love how catchy the chorus is. I also love the "pre-chorus" part and the way Paz sounds on things like "we're never satisfied." A lot of the lyrics on the demo album have a sexual energy to them that reminds me of classic Pixies, though of course from the perspective of an older guy, though apparently not much wiser it seems.
I got a message from Julie
I got my head in the clouds
I asked her if she would screw me
She said "you better start to looking for ground"
Dedication
To medication
We regret to inform
We're never satisfied
How I learned to earn rewards
How I learned to please the lords
I never dream when I slumber
I never shoot when I aim
And since you're knowing my name now baby
Would you please look at the number
I Just Can't Break It To You...I do think Dalgety was perceptive in that these 9 songs really work together and the BTE songs really work with each other. I totally get that. Break It is another thrashy miserable catchy rocking relationship song. And I love it. The 9 song demo album is a real "mood" for me and I think the tone of it speaking to me much more than BTE is why I prefer it.
But also look at the unusual structure: verse 2 cuts off early ("roar of fighter jets") so that Joey can do some cool shit. Then it's on to verse 3! I don't know that I have ever seen a song do that before? That is what Pixies is to me. Unpredictable. Speaking of which what is going on in verse 3? These are classic Frank lyrics. "I tightened up my neck tie 'lest the brownies make me bleed / I thought of my inheritance I did receive today / A few drops for my troubles and a thing for Morgan le Fay." I LOVE these songs.
I went to your house, I knocked very hard
She won't wake up, I slept in the yard
A German and a Russian and a Frenchman do their best
The Frenchman had a breakdown so they gave it all a rest
You took a boat to Indochine and you partied in Saigon
But they followed him and they begged to him that they should carry on
I just can't take it
I just can't fake it
I just can't break it to you
I just can't take it
I just can't break it to you
I slept at the bar, I'm not feeling fresh
I hear the roar of fighter jets
I went to your house, they bulldozed it down
I danced at a barn, but you weren't around
Lying on my back, little ground has come to feed
I tightened up my neck tie 'lest the brownies make me bleed
I thought of my inheritance I did receive today
A few drops for my troubles and a thing for Morgan le Fay
I just can't take it
I just can't fake it
I just can't break it to you
I just can't take it
I just can't break it to you
|
| The Maharal |
Posted - 09/18/2025 : 23:00:55
I think it's just an angry divorce album. He packed into those songs the more personal bits of what was then happening in his life than what made into the actual BTE album. I love the demos but for BF's own sake I hope he doesn't have to make another breakup album. |
| Troubles A Foot |
Posted - 09/18/2025 : 16:29:25
I do think those demos have a youthful quality to them, but I can't place why that is. I completely agree that he sounds more like classic Black Francis or youthful Frank Black on them. Those songs also have an attitude to them (for example the way Frank says "dedication..to medication...") that I think is lacking in the more polished BTE songs. |
| Bedbug |
Posted - 09/18/2025 : 10:03:50
quote:
Originally posted by Troubles A Foot
quote:
Originally posted by Bedbug
Kind of wish Frank could try it in a higher octave
Yes, I've always thought the song is in way too low a key and could have been really great live just up a few steps.
Is that part of why the demos are so good?
On Cyrus he sounds like an older Black Francis instead of on most 2.0 songs where he sounds like an older Frank Black if that makes sense |
| Skatealex1 |
Posted - 09/18/2025 : 09:04:58
quote:
Originally posted by Troubles A Foot
"recorded, mixed and mastered by Justin Pizzoferrato"
I thought producers did the mixing...? In my mind that's what produced MEANS. The person who mixed your album. From the recording stage to right before mastering.
I really want to know more about these sessions. Is Tom listed as a producer just because he's overseeing the entire project in general?
I think producing can go both ways. For example- Rick Rubin from my understanding doesn't even do mixing or mastering but produces a lot of big records. In that context I guess overseeing and helping keep things together for sessions and working with the band could be a producers role too.
That's interesting about Justin Pizzoferrato. Almost seems like he may have helped mix and master the best sounding modern Pixies album and it goes totally under the radar too.
The funny thing about it also is it sounds like it resulted from getting everything to sound good and without much studio trickery- IE- I don't recall much or any over dubs on this demo. Just a nice rawer kind of sound of the band playing. |
| Troubles A Foot |
Posted - 09/18/2025 : 08:17:20
"recorded, mixed and mastered by Justin Pizzoferrato"
I thought producers did the mixing...? In my mind that's what produced MEANS. The person who mixed your album. From the recording stage to right before mastering.
I really want to know more about these sessions. Is Tom listed as a producer just because he's overseeing the entire project in general? |
| billgoodman |
Posted - 09/18/2025 : 01:32:31
quote:
Originally posted by Troubles A Foot
Don't want to monopolize the conversation, just a few points:
"I really like to point out, and will continue doing it, that Tom also produced the demos."
This definitely has been said a few times but do we know what that even means? My assumption (and JUST an assumption) is Tom engineered the recording of those but didn't "produce" in the way we hear on the Pixies Podcast where he's basically acting like a 5th member of the band?
Good question, and it's a bit nitpicking from my part, but since we are all speculating here, I would also like to point out that Justin Pizzoferrato engineered the session.
It's not on Discogs for some reason, so I just looked at my deluxe edition and it says: recorded, mixed and mastered by Justin Pizzoferrato.
He also worked on Indie Cindy, and a record by Violet which also features BF.
Tom Dalgety is noted for being the producer. That could mean anything,
since we don't have a podcast episode on how they worked during the demos.
But isn't it good to know that Dalgety can also get them to play like they did on the demo's? It happend before, so it can happen again?
---------------------------
BF: Mag ik Engels spreken? |
| Troubles A Foot |
Posted - 09/17/2025 : 19:43:03
quote:
Originally posted by Bedbug
Kind of wish Frank could try it in a higher octave
Yes, I've always thought the song is in way too low a key and could have been really great live just up a few steps. |
| Bedbug |
Posted - 09/17/2025 : 15:53:28
To me this is almost like an alternate take of In the Arms of Mrs Mark of Cain
Song always seems kind of schizophrenic to me
Kind of wish Frank could try it in a higher octave
But that’s all nitpicking I have always really digged this song
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=zIeZnfzsCrg |
| Skatealex1 |
Posted - 09/17/2025 : 13:05:01
quote:
Originally posted by Troubles A Foot
This definitely has been said a few times but do we know what that even means? My assumption (and JUST an assumption) is Tom engineered the recording of those but didn't "produce" in the way we hear on the Pixies Podcast where he's basically acting like a 5th member of the band?
I can understand liking BTE more than the demos. Like I said, it's a very handsome album. And it's genuinely difficult for me to pinpoint if it's the SONGWRITING or just the SOUND of the demos that is so appealing to me, and even emotional for me. If the BTE songs were presented in the way the demos were presented, would I be going crazy for those?
But I could totally see somebody thinking If Frank had put out that 9 song album as an actual album, Catholics or Pixies or whatever, I'd not question it at all (maybe add one or two more songs for normal album length.)
I suspect this album is a bit of both. A bit more raw/unhinged Frank Black songwriting and not over cooking and producing things...
I think that was one of the fun things about FB's solo/Catholics stuff in his prolific days. Even with the not top tier stuff it still had a sense of fun to it and maybe more of a raw feel at times.
I also agree it would be a solid album if it was released that way- interesting to think with another producer this could've been the main release maybe with Graveyard Hill on there as a single and Daniel Boone or something else added on. If I was ranking things I could see it even ranking somewhat top tier for late era FB releases before Pixies besides maybe Bluefinger. |
| Troubles A Foot |
Posted - 09/17/2025 : 11:04:08
Don't want to monopolize the conversation, just a few points:
"I really like to point out, and will continue doing it, that Tom also produced the demos."
This definitely has been said a few times but do we know what that even means? My assumption (and JUST an assumption) is Tom engineered the recording of those but didn't "produce" in the way we hear on the Pixies Podcast where he's basically acting like a 5th member of the band?
I can understand liking BTE more than the demos. Like I said, it's a very handsome album. And it's genuinely difficult for me to pinpoint if it's the SONGWRITING or just the SOUND of the demos that is so appealing to me, and even emotional for me. If the BTE songs were presented in the way the demos were presented, would I be going crazy for those? I have no idea. But my instinct is that I really think the demos songs are more interesting, more rocking, catchier, the lyrics intrigue me more, and the band seems more in top form and more inspired on them than on the BTE tracks.
But I could totally see somebody thinking the reverse of that, sure.
As someone who has recorded demos and band practices and albums, it's a hugely common thing that the demos and practices have more youthful and creative spirit than the finished album versions. But the finished album versions have more arrangement and polish.
Maybe there was a subconscious sense in the band that the demos wouldn't end up anywhere so they are playing more like nobody is listening. But it's continually astounding to me that these incredible songs only exist as what they are. Never played live or anything. If Frank had put out that 9 song album as an actual album, Catholics or Pixies or whatever, I'd not question it at all (maybe add one or two more songs for normal album length.) |
| Brank_Flack |
Posted - 09/17/2025 : 06:55:48
Am I the only person on this forum who likes BTE better than the demos? I wouldn't consider swapping out Catfish Kate or This is My Fate for anything on the demoes album, and How I Learned to Earn Rewards is a solid Catholics classic rock party song, but has no business finishing the gothier BTE.
I do like Cyrus, but don't think it would work on the album, and would consider swapping in Mal De Mer, Chapel Hill, or a second draft of Caught in a Dream (maybe for Ready for Love, Long Rider, or St. Nazaire), but happy for them to stand as B-Sides. As is stands, like billgoodman, I'm happy to have both BTE and the demos album. |
| billgoodman |
Posted - 09/17/2025 : 03:30:03
All valid points in this discussion
I really like to point out, and will continue doing it, that Tom also produced the demos.
Dalgety is capable of doing the more indie stuff, and I would trade Good Works of Cyrus for almost every song on BTE
Easily my favorite of the bunch
I'm glad we got both, I wish Pixies would do more records anyway and the demo disc is proof that they could knock out a great set of tunes and just be done with them. They can do it with or without Tom D., he seems a big factor in getting them to record anyway
BTE is a bit overproduced, but that's what I like about it.
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BF: Mag ik Engels spreken? |
| Troubles A Foot |
Posted - 09/16/2025 : 21:47:11
You know, I think Gigantic is such a hit because it's so shockingly upbeat on an album that is full of nightmare music. Dissonant sounds and anguished screaming and whaling screeching guitars that sound like tortured ghosts. Frank sounding like a genuinely fucked up dude.
But now most of the albums sound like Gigantic. I was thinking how Graveyard Hill basically has the same upbeat feel that Gigantic does, with that spunky bass line and triumphant chorus. Their albums have plenty of bright, catchy choruses, like Catfish Kate (which my wife LOVES), but for a "gothic" album there's not really any sense of horror the way it is all over Surfer Rosa. Hell, there's no sense of horror on an album literally titled The Night the Zombies Came.
But I do think those demos have an "edge" to them even if a lot of them are upbeat as well. They also have a weariness to them that I find interesting. So if Frank's writing more upbeat songs at least let them keep that edge, I guess. Vocals that sound more live. Less overdubs. Drums that sound more raw and not so polished.
My version of BTE would be every demo song (so 9 tracks) and whatever stacks up against them for the remaining couple. The thing is I wouldn't want Dalgety to overproduce them. I like them how they are.
I basically consider those nine songs an actual album. Demos or no. I've heard albums much more lo-fi and unpolished than those. |
| Skatealex1 |
Posted - 09/16/2025 : 18:33:59
I agree with a lot of these criticisms. Actually the way I'll listen to it now when I do, is how it is on streaming with the demos following the album.
The demos are more solid to me. Take out some of the tracks that slow things down with a few of the demos in middle and I think this song could bump it up a notch.
Imagine ending the album with How I learned to Earn Rewards and/or swapping Ready for Love with something like Mal De Mer or one of the others.
Maybe Chapel Hill and Good Works of Cyrus in place of in place of Catfish Kate and/or This Is My Fate. I think those songs aren't bad but these demo songs sound more kind of 'indie rock' to me anyway. I could imagine them flowing better next to other more classic Pixies songs. |
| Troubles A Foot |
Posted - 09/16/2025 : 11:55:05
I listened to BTE again today in the car because of this thread. My opinions on it haven't changed, but they're also a bit mixed anyway.
It's a good listen. The album sounds good, the songwriting is solid, the arrangements all "work" for the songs, and the album is thematically cohesive with recurring elements and a real attention paid to the sequencing and songs that feel like intro songs, middle songs, and ending songs, as well as audibly cohesive with certain gothic elements, Paz's surf moments, a lot of extra percussion, etc. BTE has a "sound" and that's a good thing.
But that's also part of the problems with it...It's a totally competent achievement. I mean my own albums have that same kind of attention to sequencing etc because it's just sensible and artistically satisfying to structure albums that way. But it's missing the more unpredictable elements that Pixies albums often contained.
Putting something like Stormy Weather towards the end. Or the furious breathless pace of the Trompe Le Monde album. The genre bending of Doolittle. The dialogue throughout Surfer Rosa (or even just...every bizarre decision about the production of Surfer Rosa.)
I'm inclined to blame Dalgety for this sort of "organization" of Frank's music. I think with some of the demo songs in there the album would feel less predictable and less sensible (stop making sense!) It's as if Dalgety was editing a movie and wanted to make it a tight crowd pleaser and cut out some of the best and most interesting scenes. I guess in a sense that's what he is hired to do. But I kind of want the inmates running the asylum on a Pixies (or Frank) release.
Graveyard Hill is a really strong single, Mark of Cain is a strong opener, etc, etc, but I don't think any of these songs will turn anybody's heads and make them go "what is THAT?!?" |
| The Maharal |
Posted - 09/15/2025 : 11:47:23
I have BTE as a 3.5 or 4 out of 5 star album. Decent start, horrendous middle and a fantastic finish. Great last five songs but it's the middle that sullies it for me. Though similar to vilainde I haven't listened to it in full in about four years.
I play the demo tracks all the time though. BF in full flight. Full of anger and angst after his breakup. And it's less Pixies-ified. |
| vilainde |
Posted - 09/15/2025 : 10:33:23
I hadn't listened to it in... well, probably 4 or 5 years so I gave it a spin. It doesn't do much to me. The only stuff I really love from their later career are the BTE demos and the latest album (Zombies) which still gets regular play. BTE is run of the mill really, even the songs I liked best when it was released.
Denis
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| Brank_Flack |
Posted - 09/15/2025 : 09:24:55
Agreed with billgoodman on BTE. One of my favourite post-imperial albums along with DITS and Bluefinger.
Re: Graveyard Hill - I think they it has enough discomfort in the verses (I like the decision to have Charles deliberately sing "in the witching hour" slightly off key to create a dissonance between him and Paz or his backing vocals), but agree that the chorus is in need of an additional dose. |
| billgoodman |
Posted - 09/15/2025 : 00:37:35
Totally agree. It misses something. I was not impressed by it when it was released.
But in the context of the album (and the podcast) it really works.
And after more than 5 years it's a part of my fandom now.
"In the witching hour!"
To me, BTE is a modern classic
Also the only record 2.0 that knocked my off my feet
I love the others, enjoy them a lot, but there's always something wrong with them in my ears
BTE is not flawless, and no Surfer Rosa or Trompe Le Monde, but it just resonates with me
They are older, we are older, and Pixies are here to stay
Podcast was a big part of it for me
It's so fascinating.
---------------------------
BF: Mag ik Engels spreken? |
| Troubles A Foot |
Posted - 09/13/2025 : 20:23:39
Fascinating to read the comments. Maybe they're right. And maybe they're right that Pixies should play Graveyard Hill live again. I kind of wish they treated their big singles as big singles and kept them in the setlist rather than them vanishing forever, if only for the illusion that the 2.0 albums are significant among their discography.
I like Graveyard Hill but I still think if it had more edge to the music it would be more a classic and fit in among new Pixies songs. Like a lot of 2.0, it's very upbeat and positive sounding. It's like a pop dance song almost. It just needs a dose of discomfort in it. |
| Skatealex1 |
Posted - 09/13/2025 : 11:15:21
6 years for BTE now.
https://www.instagram.com/p/DOiS6NTiHBM/?igsh=eHEzNnBqc3ZxMXU5
Going by the comments on Pixies post about it, a lot of people seem to agree with the view of it being Pixies best modern album. |
| tamefan |
Posted - 10/06/2024 : 11:22:25
"On Graveyard Hill" should have been called "Donna." |
| Troubles A Foot |
Posted - 04/25/2022 : 08:45:00
Holy moses, see the movie. I can't even comprehend how those songs even work divorced from the movie. They are all about what is happening in the film. |
| Sprite |
Posted - 04/25/2022 : 02:06:05
Never seen the movie but its definitely my favourite Talking Heads album. Played it an awful lot of times back in day. Would love to see FB&C cover Puzzlin' Evidence. |
| Troubles A Foot |
Posted - 04/24/2022 : 19:35:22
quote:
Originally posted by Ziggy
Sat down with the band for an interview the other week (coming soon!). Couldn't help echoing these thoughts, and I think they were a little taken aback, particularly regarding the demo disk!
This is crazy, because after posting that I had a kind of day dream about if I met Frank, I'd want to tell him this and ask about those songs, and wondering if he'd find that weird. It's like when I met David Byrne randomly all I could say was "True Stories is my favorite movie!!" (this was pre-Criterion release and it getting a new following) and he seemed surprised. |
| Brank_Flack |
Posted - 04/24/2022 : 06:54:21
Cool - I look forward to reading it! |
| Ziggy |
Posted - 04/23/2022 : 07:49:59
quote:
Originally posted by Troubles A Foot
I listened to Beneath The Eyrie and the demo album (which I call Beneath Beneath The Eyrie) three times this week.
I still have this strange experience with it. BTE is this incredibly accomplished work, with some great songs, it sounds really good, the album is thematically consistent with a great flow and some huge hits on it and a great ending. I love listening to it and have found it kind of addictive this week. I'm like good job, Frank.
Then that demo album comes on and it literally makes me cry. I just love it so much. I think it's the perfect combo of Frank solo/Pixies as a kind of new third thing. The lyrics are so interesting to me, Frank's vocal is so full of feeling and fuck-it punk energy, Paz sounds great all around, Joey is rocking the hell out of the joint, and Lowery too (sorry I don't know what to say about drums.) Frank's rhythm guitar leads the way and sounds excellent. However they set up or mic'd the guitars on this "demo", they did a great job. I still consider these 9 songs one of my all-time favorite albums and a top Frank album, whatever the context. I haven't been this into his material and moved by it (on all levels) since Bluefinger.
It's really weird. I guess it's a huge accomplishment that they can make an album this good but then simultaneously put out an album that (to me) is even better. Probably not easy to do for most bands.
Sat down with the band for an interview the other week (coming soon!). Couldn't help echoing these thoughts, and I think they were a little taken aback, particularly regarding the demo disk! |
| Troubles A Foot |
Posted - 04/22/2022 : 09:06:21
I listened to Beneath The Eyrie and the demo album (which I call Beneath Beneath The Eyrie) three times this week.
I still have this strange experience with it. BTE is this incredibly accomplished work, with some great songs, it sounds really good, the album is thematically consistent with a great flow and some huge hits on it and a great ending. I love listening to it and have found it kind of addictive this week. I'm like good job, Frank.
Then that demo album comes on and it literally makes me cry. I just love it so much. I think it's the perfect combo of Frank solo/Pixies as a kind of new third thing. The lyrics are so interesting to me, Frank's vocal is so full of feeling and fuck-it punk energy, Paz sounds great all around, Joey is rocking the hell out of the joint, and Lowery too (sorry I don't know what to say about drums.) Frank's rhythm guitar leads the way and sounds excellent. However they set up or mic'd the guitars on this "demo", they did a great job. I still consider these 9 songs one of my all-time favorite albums and a top Frank album, whatever the context. I haven't been this into his material and moved by it (on all levels) since Bluefinger.
It's really weird. I guess it's a huge accomplishment that they can make an album this good but then simultaneously put out an album that (to me) is even better. Probably not easy to do for most bands. |
| Bedbug |
Posted - 11/07/2020 : 14:58:30
quote:
Originally posted by Sprite
Still blown away at just how good Bird of Prey is. A top ten Pixies tune.
The opinions on this forum remain ever so diverse. Love it. |
| Sprite |
Posted - 11/07/2020 : 05:05:06
Still blown away at just how good Bird of Prey is. A top ten Pixies tune. |
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