Influential alt-rockers reunite Sunday, November 14, 2004 John Soeder Plain Dealer Pop Music Critic "Hi, John. This is Charles from the Pixies."
Charles?
Oh, right Charles Michael Kittridge Thompson IV, better known as Black Francis back when he led the Pixies the first time around, later rechristened Frank Black when he went solo.
Now what's-his-face is on the road again with his old band and it's the musical comeback of the year.
When these alternative-rock icons launched their reunion tour in April, tickets for opening night in Minneapolis went for upward of $350 a pop on eBay. Many shows sold out in minutes.
"We never would've broken up in the first place if we had slowed down our pace," Thompson says, checking in by phone recently before a gig in Phoenix.
The singer-guitarist and his bandmates - guitarist Joey Santiago, bassist Kim Deal and drummer David Lovering - perform Sunday, Nov. 21, at the University of Akron's James Rhodes Arena.
Bursting out of Boston in the mid-1980s, the Pixies flaunted a highly infectious strain of mutant pop-rock, with detours into surf music and punk. They specialized in passive-aggressive ditties about UFOs, heavenly monkeys and sci-fi soul mates.
It was too good to last. Twelve years ago, the band imploded.
"There was pressure on us to keep going on tour and to keep making records," says Thompson, the group's chief songwriter.
"If you don't have an outlet for all the stress, the whole thing eventually falls apart."
The prospect of the Pixies getting back together seemed even less likely than a Beatles reunion when I interviewed Thompson at a Cleveland coffeehouse in 1993. He was in town to promote his debut solo album, "Frank Black."
Seeking - in his words - "a clean break" from the Pixies, he refused to perform the band's songs back then.
"It would be inappropriate, not to mention a real bore for me," he said at the time.
Even after the Pixies were no more, the quartet's impact reverberated throughout the alt-rock revolution of the 1990s.
The late Kurt Cobain told Rolling Stone magazine he was "basically trying to rip off the Pixies" when he wrote Nirvana's epochal Top 10 grunge anthem "Smells Like Teen Spirit."
Ask Thompson if he heard echoes of the Pixies in Nirvana's mighty roar, and he replies flatly:
"No."
Long pause. Next question.
Did he detect the Pixies' influence elsewhere?
"Not really," says Thompson, 39. "I'm not saying it's not there. But I'm the wrong guy to ask."
Others are only too happy to sing his group's praises.
British classic-rocker David Bowie says the Pixies were "the best band in America" at one time.
"They broke up because of lack of interest," says Bowie, who recorded a Pixies song, "Cactus," for his 2002 "Heathen" album and regularly performed the tune on tour.
"Sometimes I think you don't value what you have," Bowie says. "The Pixies were so big in Europe. You have no idea. We were just aghast they had to break up."
Thompson harbors no gripes about the insufficient limelight.
"We got our due as far as show business is concerned," he says. "Maybe there are those out there - like David Bowie, God bless him - who think, 'Oh, gee, this band deserved more attention.' But I don't feel slighted.
"People always did like the band, even when we first started out playing little clubs. People were like, 'You guys are cool.' Or 'You guys are fun.' Or 'You guys are weird.' "
Cool, fun, weird - all of the above apply to such quintessential Pixies tunes as "Gigantic," "Where Is My Mind?," "Here Comes Your Man," "Monkey Gone to Heaven" and "Velouria."
The group released its first EP, "Come on Pilgrim," in 1987. Four studio albums followed: "Surfer Rosa" (1988), "Doolittle" (1989), "Bossanova" (1990) and "Trompe Le Monde" (1991).
"There was always a bubbly enthusiasm for the band," Thompson says.
Chris Carrabba of the Generation Y emo-rock group Dashboard Confessional fairly bubbles over when he discusses the Pixies.
"I'm thrilled they're back together," Carrabba says. "They were such a huge band for me."
He became a Pixies fan after he heard "Doolittle" blasting from a car stereo in the parking lot of his middle school in Connecticut.
"I was like, 'What is this?' " he says. "I went to the record store, bought the album and became completely hooked."
Heavenly new sound
When the Pixies released "Doolittle" 15 years ago, it transcended the dreck-filled age of Milli Vanilli and New Kids on the Block like an extraterrestrial transmission from some advanced rock 'n' roll civilization.
A palpitating bass jump-started the album's opening track, "Debaser." Drums and guitar roared to life next. Then, halfway between a croon and a caterwaul, Thompson started carrying on about the surreal cinema of Salvador Dali and Luis Bunuel, with a touch of lust:
Got me a movie, I want you to know
Slicing up eyeballs, I want you to know
Girlie so groovy, I want you to know
Don't know about you, but I am un chien Andalusia.
To this day, it's enough to take your breath away.
"The Pixies shifted the gears in terms of how people view dynamics," says Billy Corgan, ex-frontman for '90s alt-rock superstars Smashing Pumpkins.
"They were critical to the way people looked at how you could rock," Corgan says. "They did it in such a cool way. Everybody else in any kind of alternative band was like, 'Oh, yeahhh.'
"The combination of quiet/loud was what everybody ran with - me, Kurt [Cobain], Courtney [Love], all of us."
Much has been made of the Pixies' mood-swinging dynamics. Too much, to hear Thompson tell it.
"Yeah, I guess we got a quiet/loud dynamic," he says. "I mean, doesn't everybody?
"We were skeletal. We were sparse and minimalist, like other bands have been. Maybe in our own kind of dum-dum way, it came off like there's barely anything going on and now - BFFFWWW! - there's a roar of guitar.
"Now we're like the Cars, and NOW WE WILL BE LIKE THE RAMONES! There was that kind of a thing."
From the get-go, the Pixies were prepared to go to extremes. When Thompson and Santiago put the group together, they took out a classified ad seeking musicians who were into the folk trio Peter, Paul and Mary and the post-punk band Husker Du.
The legend of the fax
Thompson notified his bandmates via fax of his decision to dissolve the Pixies - or so popular lore has it.
"I guess it's a great rock 'n' roll story," Thompson says. "It seems really dull to me.
"If you interview the other Pixies, they'll tell you, 'What the [expletive] is Charles talking about? We didn't all have fax machines.'
"It's oversimplifying it to say they were informed by fax. I informed our manager by fax. And he copied them on that fax, via the U.S. Post.
"Then, like a lot of people in their 20s, they didn't check their mail. So they didn't hear about it from me directly. They heard about it through the grapevine, on the radio or whatever."
At the time, there were reports of bad blood between Thompson and Deal, a Dayton native.
"Ummm . . . I wouldn't characterize it as bad blood between her and me," Thompson says. "I would just characterize it as me being in a bad mood.
"There might've been some crankiness between us. But people were talking about it before it existed.
"People were looking for it, because there was no story on the band. Who are these frumpy people in the wrinkled T-shirts? What's the angle? What's the deal between the guy and the girl? Hey, how come she doesn't get to sing more songs? Yeah, that's what it is!
"You do enough interviews, and you sit there and go, 'Yeah, I'm a dictator.' Then it becomes the quote on the cover of some German magazine: 'ICH WAR DIKTATOR!' Suddenly, it's a tag I can't shake."
After the Pixies went their separate ways, Deal carried on with the Breeders, Lovering became a professional magician, and Santiago did a stint with the Martinis.
For his part, Thompson cranked out no fewer than 10 solo albums. His latest release, "Frank Black Francis," is a two-CD set of vintage Pixies material, in demo form and reworked with Two Pale Boys.
Reunion began with a quip
Thompson joked about getting back together with the Pixies during a radio interview last year.
"I was kidding around with a couple of DJs," he says. "I was just being really sarcastic, saying, 'Oh, yeah, we get together all the time.' "
The next thing he knew, newspapers and other media outlets were buzzing about a Pixies reunion.
"Then the band starts hearing about it," Thompson says. "Hey, what's this? Charles is getting the band back together?
"Sorry, guys. I was just kidding. But the cat's out of the bag. Do you wanna?
"In hindsight, certain circumstances made it possible - people getting older, people taking a chill pill, someone getting a divorce, someone else having babies, someone else giving up drinking. All kinds of things."
In March, the Pixies recorded a new song, "Bam Thwok," written by Deal. It's available exclusively online via iTunes.
There is talk of returning to the studio, although Thompson is evasive when asked if the band plans to work on a new album.
"Oh, I don't know," he says. "I suppose, yeah, y'know."
In the meantime, DiscLive is recording concerts on the reunion tour and selling souvenir CDs immediately after the shows.
Between gigs, the Pixies "do boring stuff," Thompson says.
"We'll be staying at some hotel in the middle of nowhere," he says. "Kim will happen to notice there's a Cracker Barrel across the highway. I'll get a message on my cell phone: 'Me and Joey are going over to Cracker Barrel. You wanna go?' "
Thompson laughs.
"I guess because we've kind of buried the hatchet . . . it's nice having it feel like it did in the beginning," he says. "Everyone is in a good mood. And oh, that was a good show. And gosh, everybody likes us.
"Those kinds of feelings have been really gratifying."
Around here, intolerance will not be tolerated
1 L A T E S T R E P L I E S (Newest First)
prozacrat
Posted - 11/15/2004 : 12:31:44 Nice article. Frank seems to let out fun little bits of trivia in every interview. It's great to start getting the big picture.
