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Carl
- A 'Fifth' Catholic -
Ireland
11546 Posts |
 Posted - 04/28/2006 : 09:27:52
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Guitarist/April 1993.
Black to the future
Frank Black
The demise of the Pixies, one of alternative rock's most consistently exciting and successful bands, leaves their mainman standing stage center, still clutching a guitar... Danny Eccleston visist the Planet Of Sound.
I'm sat fidgeting in the plush, admirably well-stocked bar of a bijou West London hotel, and I have a problem. How do I address Charles Michael Kitteridge Thompson IV? I mean, Iggy is Iggy; no-one, but no-one calls him Mr.Osterberg. Catch Elton John a chummy slam on the back and call him Reg and you'd be lucky to keep your teeth intact. And you're not going to find me queering my pitch with the man they used to call Black Francis, the explosive heart of what used to be the Pixies, with an ill-timed 'Chuck'. Clearly this 'nom de rock' business is sensitive stuff...
Weighing the alternatives, and growing increasingly paranoid, I'm approached by a familiar but disarming figure. We shake hands, "Hi," he smiles, "Call me Charles..."
For the purposes of rock and roll, Charles Thompson is now Frank Balck; it's more 'working man', he says. Last month, his hapless former pseudonym bit the dust along with his band in perhaps the most astonishing split in the 'indie' firmament since the demise of The Smiths. Though bestriding alternative rock like a freaky colossus, the Pixies, it seems, had run their course.
However, like an imploding star (astronomical metaphors, as you'll see come with the territory), the collapse of the Pixies has left us with somethign smaller, denser but even more interesting. It's 'Frank Black', the first solo album from, er, Frank Black.
So had Charles found his head filling with songs that simply did not fit the Pixies?
"No, it wasn't really like that at all," explains Charles in relaxed tones as he sinks into a voluminous armchair. "I could easily have made another Pixies record with these songs. They would have come out differently - probably a lot differently - but I just wasn't interested in making Pixies records... erm, any more. I suppose you could say that Pixies records are my solo records already, in a way, because I insisted on writing all the material and singing all the vocals and, like, being the dictator throughout all the sessions. But I wanted a new stage name, and, you know, just to get out of making Pixies records."
A desire for freedom, pure and simple, seems to lie behind Charles Thompson's latest career move. The freedom to work with whom he likes, and the freedom moreover to make as many records as he likes...
"I'll do anything to have an excuse to be in the studio," he admits. "I really like playing live, but if I wasn't allowed to play live and I could only make studio records, that's just fine by me. That's my reference point as far as rock and roll goes: records rather than gigs. With some kids it's gigs, but for other kids - the type that hangs out on their own in their room with their headphones on- records are their reference points."
While 'Frank Black' won't put the frighteners on fans of his erstwhile combo (The songs, and the presense of fellow Pixies Joey Santiago lend a comforting sense of continuity) it sounds subtly but refrehingly different...
"I have to give a lot of credit to Eric Drew Feldman," expands Charles, "who's like co-producer and the other half of the band or whatever. He plays with Pere Ubu and he used to play in Captain Beefheart's band, and Snakefinger. He's a kind of eccentric musician and a real smart guy and a really good keyboard and bass player. He hadn't picked up the bass in like, ten years before this, but he picked it up and I couldn't get him to put it down! I'd come up with rudimentary songs-the real rough basics-and I would show him the basic melody line, and he'd go away and demo it up on his Macintosh computer. I'd never done a record like that before, but it worked out great."
And despite the unfamiliar textures, the saxes and the keyboards, it's still very much a guitar album. But how much did Charles end up playing himself?
"Pretty much all the rhythm, and little bits of the lead guitar, though I'm a terrible lead guitar player! The bigger solos that you here or the really big riffs are done by other guitarists. Joey Santiago plays on about four tracks and a guy called Maurice Tepper, whom Eric knew through Beefheart and a couple of Tom Waits records, he plays on a couple of songs. Dave Sardy, a guy who plays with this noisy little band from New York called Bark Market, plays on a song."
The depth and space of the arrangements contrast sharply with the Pixies trademark claustrophobia. There's also a lot of wit in 'Frank Black's grooves...
"Sure!" Charles laughs. "I haven't had this much fun making a record in a long time. It was a total blast! That's what I like about making records: there is some music going on but it's mostly just sitting around making jokes and telling stories, endlessly until four in the morning. It's amazing we ever got anything done..."
It's also a record of big, bold flourishes. In fact it's not hard to see why Thompson's self-penned press release claims that the governing idea behind 'Frank Black' was 'Make It Grand'...
"Oh, that was really just a joke," he protests with a chuckle. "We'd hear something shitty, but grand on the radio, and I'd say, 'Eric, make it sound like that. Make it grand!' So it was a joke really. But this guy Eric, he's into Ennio Morricone and he writes a lot of stuff for plays, and he's into cinematic music, for lack of a better word, and to a lesser extent so am I. It's full of your ego, making a record, and the more pomp you can put into it, generally speaking, the better. If you can pull it off."
Pomp has certainly made something of a pop comeback in recent months, with the rise of Suede and a smattering of bands willing to risk a little vulgarity and flourish and, more to the point, not scared of the '70s.
It's a sensibility that 'Frank Black' in part seems to share, And Fu Manchu in particular reeks of David Bowie.
"Sure, nods Charles. "There was a Pixies song called Is She Weird that had a similar feel to it, and we used to call it Is She Dave after Bowie. For Fu Manchu, I was actually going to ring David Bowie," he drops the name casually and with grace, "because I had a contact number for him. I figured he might do it. I would never have asked him to come and sing on it, but to play sax, I figured he'd go for it! But I didn't in the end. I though, well, he's probably in Bali or something so forget it... But sure, the classic David Bowie stuff is up there in my top five. It's pretty damn good stuff. And it kinda incorporates allusions to science fiction, and I really like allusions to space and other worlds. I think it can only be a good thing when it's incorporated into rock, because it's looking forward ina really big, dramatic and grand kind of way. It's like saying," he adopts the tones of a '50s sci-fi voiceover, "If rock were to continue for another thousand years!" It's turning it into this big mythological thing."
Science fact and fiction has become something of an obsession with Charles. UFOS, aliens, and other planets haunt his recent songs; space, in other words, is Thompson's locale. It's a flippant question, but has he ever wondered if aliens have rock?
"Well, I have thought about what I'd say if I had contact with an alien being and their question to me was, 'Can you give us an example of your world's music?' What would you show 'em? Well," he giggles, "Of course I'd play them one of my records! I'd get that one out of the way first of all. But, do you play them rock music? Or do you draw from recorded music in general? Cos even though I'm involved in pop music I sometimes feel more connected to just recorded music, starting from when they first started to put music on discs. To me that's like a body of music, from then until now. It'd be really hard to decide, but it's a really exciting scenario...
"I'd play them The Ramones, I think, 'cos even though people call them a one song band, them and The Buzzcocks are pretty much among the greatest ever. The epitomise rock and roll. They incorporate a lot of what you get in '50s music and the distortion and adrenaline you get from, say, more modern music. They definitely fused all the elements that count in rock. For me, anyway."
But how would you explain to aliens the centrality of the guitar in what we perceive as modern music?
"Yeah, well, it seems that the development of instruments throughout history has arrived at this century, in the guitar, and it hasn't changed an awful lot. This six-stringed instrument seems to have taken music and given it to people who aren't musicians, so to speak. Folk music, you know, and I don't mean music which is really difficult to play and is called folk music; I mean casual music. If you're gonna learn a couple of chords, you may as well do it on the guitar. Everyone knows someone who has a guitar, and it's easy to do a few chords.
"I mean, there was a classical guitar in my house and I learned a couple of chords, But even before I learned the chords I picked out As Tears Go By. That was my first riff... I never tried to mimic, though, unless you count As Tears Go By. Pretty much as soon as I'd learned some chords I was writing my own songs. Not because I was so smart or anything; it was just easier to do that than learn other people's songs."
From the moment 1987's 'Come On Pilgrim' catapulted headlong out of Boston, Mass, it was blindingly obvious that the then Black Francis had found a brand new sound. Most striking was the manner in which he'd injected a radical Spanish flavour into straight-up punk rock. It's still something you rarely hear in pop music...
"Well," argues Charles, clearly loath to make a big deal out of it, "you would if you listened to country music maybe. It has to do with the fact that I was exposed to a lot of Spanish at one point in my life," he adds, referring to his LA childhood and his college training as a linguist. "I'm exposed to it less now, so I do it less. But in alot of Western music, stuff that comes out of Texas or Southern California, you're gonna hear bits of Spanish. You know, there's a lot of Mexicans living there, and it was formerly Mexico actually! So it's everywhere, in the fabric of the whole society - this huge Latino influence, in the food and in the music."
So Charles Thompson - still Black Francis to many - is now Frank Black, and it means a great deal more than just a displaced adjective. It's a new start. But as I said, this nom de rock business is sensitive stuff. Thompson and Bowie's mutual respect (Tin Machine recently covered the Pixies tune Debaser) begs further parallels. There's Ziggy Stardust and Aladdin Sane and the possibility of the rock star alter ego muscling in on every area of an artist's life...
"Yeah, yeah," mumbles Thompson wearily. I suspect that he's heard this one before. "Well I'm probably f***ing with something I shouldn't F*** with, but I'm not really creating an alter ego; I'm just creating a new one and trying to get rid of the old one. I got tired of the old one, and a lot of people in the press never printed it properly in any case. You know, Iggy is obviously a first name and Pop is the second name, but Black Francis... There was 'Charles Francis', 'Black Thompson', you know, it was ridiculous... To some people it's already slightly laughable that you have a stage name. I don't know if it's important to pop music but it's part of the whole thing - the whole entertainment situation - a stage name. Besides, Frank Black looks a lot better on a marquee than Charles Thompson... It just doesn't have the same ring."
And ringing the changes seems to have given Charles Thompson a new lease of life. Black Francis is dead; long live Frank Black.
FRANKING MACHINES: recording
'Frank Black'
Charles Thompson's almost obsessive affection for the recording process has spilled over into a lot of head-scratching regarding his current choice of guitars...
"I tend to use Telecasters mostly," he reveals, "but for recording I just use anything that works. It's such a problem, getting a guitar sound, because of the other frequencies that are being used up by the saxophone or the keyboards or the snare drum or whatever, so there's always a struggle to find what sounds really good in the mix. So you end up using combinations of guitars. I use Mickey Mouse guitars which just have really hot, heavy metal-type pickups in 'em. A lot of times they're really good simply because they don't don't make that much noise when you record them.
"Unfortunatley, old guitars just make so much noise. Engineers hate it and I've been sucked into that whole thing. Old guitars generally sound beter at quiter volumes. Like, I've got a really beautiful '65 Jaguar, which is a really nice guitar but it sounds horrible through my Marshall stack. It only sounds good if you play it through an old Fender Twin or a Vox AC30, but my Japanese hot rod Fenders I can play through as many Marshalls as I can find..."
One of 'Frank Black's top sonic achievements remanins the marvellous clarity of it's acoustic guitars, from the glittering intro of 'Old Black Dawning' to the manic Latino strum frenzy of 'Brackish Boy'...
"I think I'm using Nashville tuning," muses Frank. "I've got this Buck Owens red, white and blue acoustic guitar - it looks really, um, tacky - and if I string it up properly it bends the neck out of shape. So I just put the high strings from 12-strings guitar on it, and even with the bad intonation on that guitar it just recorded great. Doing it with other acoustic guitars, I can see why it's such a popular thing, in Nashville or wherever! It's a totally wonderful sound."
The elpee's acoustic lulls serve to throw that familiar full-on rock power into still sharper relief. And the amp behind the delicious noise is one of Mike Soldano's original heads.
"I've seen them on quite a few big guitar player's stages," Frank explains, "and they are really, really, good. I use that through a couple of Marshall cabinets. But you know, I have a couple of Vox AC30s which I try to get to work for... like, more than an hour! But they're great amps. If you get three or four Vox AC30s and turn every knob that there is on there up, even the ones that aren't being utilised, they all affect the sound. So you turn everything up and they do create that great '60s English rock guitar sound."
SURF'S UP! FRANK SHOOTS THE TUBE
Though he claims to be a fan rather than a genuine aficionado, mention surf guitar to Charles Thompson and his eyes actually light up. An albeit distortion-mangled 'surf sensibility' has informed a number of Pixies tunes and it's obvious this LA guy knows hia stuff. So Charles, what's so great about surf guitar?
"It's so grand! It's the most basic guitar playing, but it's a sound that's in love with it's self, you know? There's the odd vocal track, which is usually really lame, but the rest of it... You know, most of it was recorded in garages and things, but they had this focus which was like the sea and the salt and the sand and the sun. That was their focus, and they captured the grandness of the US West Coast, even though they weren't singing about it. It's obsessed with the guitar, too, much more so than any heavy metal virtuoso could be.
"It's wonderful stuff. It came out, and then it went away and it never happened again. I mean, people have tried to write the odd surf song -like, there are my few feeble attempts - but there isn't a surf music 'scene'. That really was a legitimite scene, I think - the only actual geographical scene I'll ever give any credit. Every other 'scne' is just a tag for some sort of self-promotion, but the surf guys, alright, they can have their scene. But they the f**in' sun and the surfers as their icons! Everyone else has the name of just some damn city and that's it... The 'Seattle Scene'!? It's like, who cares? But the surf thing, there's some real romance there."
Geticulating ever more wildly, Frank hangs ten past some of the greats of instrumental guitar...
"There's Jack Nitzsche, who wrote The Lonely Surfer and Dick Dale - he's definitely one of my favorites. Dale called himself 'The King Of The Surf Guitar' and you can still see him play in and around LA. He was Greek, I think, or at least his parents were from Greece, and he incorporated a lot of the ethnicity of the music from that part of the world into his music. He brought about the whole 'staccato' surf guitar sound, something like what you'd hear from a mandolin or a bouzouki.
"And, though I'm not sure whether you could lump him in as a surf guitar player, Link Wray is the most awesome. No only did he play instrumental music, but he played instrumental rhythm guitar music! Like, he's not even playing any lead! That is the rawest, the most rock and roll thing I can think of. No-one can touch him because he was bold enough to go where no-one had gone befoere and just play, like, rhythm guitar instrumental music. That is way out on a limb...
"There's also a guy called Travis Wammack, who wasn't really involved with the surf scene; he called himself 'King of The Fuzz Guitar', and there's a compilation of his stuff on Bear Family Records out of Germany, called 'The Scratchy Guitar Friom Memphis'. They're pretty much the only people who are putting out that '50s and '60s Country & Western and rockabilly - like, obscure stuff from guys who you know never made a dime!
"Even though The Ventures and The Shadows were devoted to cracking chart success, with most surf music you get a sense that they knew it wasn't going to be heard by, like, anybody! They were these totally shy people that just liked messing around with tape recorders, not evn bold enough to sing any vocals... Totally into their guitar playing."
For greenhorn board-riders still wet behind he ears, check out the surf instalment of 'Legends Of The Guitar', Rhino Records' collaboration with Guitar Player magazine.
BLACK VINYL
Pixies
'Come On Pilgrim' (mini LP) 1987
'Surfer Rosa' (LP) 1988
'Doolittle' (LP) 1989
'Bossanova' (LP) 1990
'Trompe Le Monde (LP) 1991
Frank Black
'Frank Black' (LP) 1993All on 4AD Records...
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Edited by - Carl on 04/28/2006 20:45:56 |
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fbc
-= Modulator =-
United Kingdom
4903 Posts |
Posted - 04/28/2006 : 10:04:51
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| Nice, Carl. Very, very nice. |
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Carl
- A 'Fifth' Catholic -
Ireland
11546 Posts |
Posted - 04/28/2006 : 10:13:54
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 "I got blistas on ma fingas!"
If anyone has any articles that can't be found transcribed online, please feel free to post 'em up!!
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danjersey
> Teenager of the Year <
USA
2792 Posts |
Posted - 04/28/2006 : 20:37:17
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| carl this is the best. |
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Ziggy
* Dog in the Sand *
United Kingdom
2463 Posts |
Posted - 05/02/2006 : 02:17:57
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| Carl, thanks. Very interesting read. |
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Carl
- A 'Fifth' Catholic -
Ireland
11546 Posts |
Posted - 06/18/2006 : 07:40:21
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It looks like a standard Tele. With a sparkly pickguard!
--------
"Leguman...Leguman!" |
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mr.biscuitdoughhead
* Dog in the Sand *
USA
1729 Posts |
Posted - 06/18/2006 : 08:38:55
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quote:
originally posted by Carl
 "I got blistas on ma fingas!"
"I got blisters on my fingers
I got blisters on my brain
My blood is boling
And I'm going insane" -Fever Frey(Nebula)
__________________________________________________________________________________________
I've got a hunger, twisting my stomach into knots... |
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JaleqC
- FB Fan -
United Kingdom
3 Posts |
Posted - 07/20/2006 : 04:01:15
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Hi Guys - first post...
That is MY guitar! So nice to see it in print again (as it were) I am the photographer for that piece.
Myself and the journalist Danny Eccleston(later editor of Q) knew that all his gear was either at home on in a venue, so he needed a guitar for some shots... so I took mine down. He was very much a musical hero to me then (still is) so it was really nice that he liked the feel of it - and played it for a while. It was in a hotel next to the Albert Hall in London. The photos were done pretty quick so I didn't get chance to do anything really good with him, though there are loads that weren't chosen.
It is a Fender Japanese Deluxe from 1991 I think, with a £30 mother of pearl face - rather than the boring white one. I still play it now.
It was really nice to come across those old images again. |
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Mac E. Doobage
= Cult of Ray =
503 Posts |
Posted - 07/20/2006 : 04:07:17
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Can we see some of the outtakes?
quote:
Originally posted by JaleqC
Hi Guys - first post...
That is MY guitar! So nice to see it in print again (as it were) I am the photographer for that piece.
Myself and the journalist Danny Eccleston(later editor of Q) knew that all his gear was either at home on in a venue, so he needed a guitar for some shots... so I took mine down. He was very much a musical hero to me then (still is) so it was really nice that he liked the feel of it - and played it for a while. It was in a hotel next to the Albert Hall in London. The photos were done pretty quick so I didn't get chance to do anything really good with him, though there are loads that weren't chosen.
It is a Fender Japanese Deluxe from 1991 I think, with a £30 mother of pearl face - rather than the boring white one. I still play it now.
It was really nice to come across those old images again.
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JaleqC
- FB Fan -
United Kingdom
3 Posts |
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fbc
-= Modulator =-
United Kingdom
4903 Posts |
Posted - 07/20/2006 : 04:55:28
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| Wow, J, how cool. Some of my favourite shots are yours, well I never. It's a pleasure to post under you =) |
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Carl
- A 'Fifth' Catholic -
Ireland
11546 Posts |
Posted - 07/20/2006 : 06:28:49
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Wow, that's very interesting JaleqC, thanks for posting-and hi, by the way!
Join the Cult Of Pob! And don't forget to listen to the Pobcast! |
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JaleqC
- FB Fan -
United Kingdom
3 Posts |
Posted - 07/20/2006 : 06:51:30
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quote:
Originally posted by Carl
Wow, that's very interesting JaleqC, thanks for posting-and hi, by the way!
Join the Cult Of Pob! And don't forget to listen to the Pobcast!
Nice to be here... and good to see Pob making a comeback (was he ever away?)
J |
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Carl
- A 'Fifth' Catholic -
Ireland
11546 Posts |
Posted - 07/20/2006 : 07:42:49
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Peh-oh-Beh...Pob!
Join the Cult Of Pob! And don't forget to listen to the Pobcast! |
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The Frank guitar mag interviews, etc. thread!
