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Stuart
- The Clopser -
China
2291 Posts |
 Posted - 08/22/2006 : 00:24:29
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I read this today and thought of you guys... don't know if its been posted before but enjoy....
Cheers
Stuart
'I used to have a band, and now I don't'
When the Pixies reformed, they invited a film crew to join them for the ride. Frank Black talks to Xan Brooks about the train-wreck of a tour that followed
Tuesday August 22, 2006
The Guardian
The artist formerly known as Black Francis answers the phone and explains that he can't talk right now; he is in crisis. He's in Pennsylvania but can't say where, exactly, because he has switched hotels twice in the past few hours. He has four children and they are very hungry. He has lost his phone charger and reckons there is maybe 40 seconds of life left in the mobile. "You could say that I'm facing a lot of challenges in my life right now," he bellows. Currently tripping eastward on a solo tour of the US, Charles Thompson (aka Frank Black, aka Black Francis) sounds nearly as fraught as on his last outing with the Pixies.
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I have been chasing Thompson for several days now, wanting to gauge his reaction to loudQUIETloud, a rambunctious little documentary about the Pixies's 2004 reunion tour, which debuts today at the Edinburgh film festival. Directed by Steven Cantor and Matthew Galkin, the film is a bit like a Pixies song itself: simmering tensions erupt into primal storms, high tragedy goes cheek-by-jowl with low comedy, and the drummer goes mad and won't finish his solo. "We knew the band had an acrimonious break-up so we knew it wouldn't be plain sailing," Cantor tells me. "That said, there were still some surprises along the way."
The Pixies were the great should-have-beens of American music, an impish, ill-starred quartet who indirectly kick-started the grunge movement and then imploded too soon to reap the rewards. They recorded songs that flared red hot and ice cold in the space of a heartbeat, that played the Old Testament as sexed-up soap opera ("You crazy babe, Bathsheba"), and led Kurt Cobain to write Smells Like Teen Spirit in a vain attempt to, in his words, "basically try to rip off the Pixies".
Once upon a time this band meant something. But by the time of their reunion they had been defunct for 12 years and the royalties had dried to a trickle. Thompson (rechristened Frank Black) was struggling to sustain a solo career. Guitarist Joey Santiago was "eking out" a living writing TV soundtracks, and drummer Dave Lovering had lost his home and needed the cash to support his new job as a conjurer. As for Kim Deal, the Pixies' iconic bassist, she was fresh out of rehab and living at home with her folks. The tour was wonderful news for Kim, her mother explains in the film. "She needs something to do besides writing poetry and, er, sleeping all day."
If the aim was to boost the band's bank balance, the Pixies comeback was a huge success (tickets sold out within minutes). But, behind the scenes, matters were more torrid. Initially conceived as a celebration, loudQUIETloud quickly veered into train-wreck territory. Lovering was the first to crash. Devastated by his father's death, he hit the bottle, guzzled valium and suffered a public breakdown on stage in Chicago. His behaviour appeared to impact on Deal. Having initially stipulated that the tour should be alcohol free, the film shows Deal surreptitiously nursing a bottle of beer during a stopover in Reykjavik. "Hey, it's only 5% proof," she insists. "Pretty much all beer is 5% proof," retorts her sister, Kelley.
There was plenty more in this vein, Cantor says, but the band ordered him to take it out. "Kim, in particular, felt there were too many scenes that showed her trying to stay sober," he explains. "She felt that there was more to her than just being, like, rehab woman. So yes, we had to tone it down." At times the band's intervention was more forceful. In one scene, during a protracted drugs debate between Deal and Lovering, Thompson seizes the camera and pushes it to the floor.
Was the band happy with the final version? "Oh yes," the director assures me. "They think it's really truthful. They recognise themselves in the movie." He sounds slightly doubtful.
Rumour has it that the Pixies remain unimpressed with loudQUIETloud, and this is perhaps why Thompson proves so elusive. Before I tracked him down, the film's distributors suggested that I try a new tactic: approach his management company, tell them I want to discuss Frank Black's solo tour, and don't mention the film at all. I should pretend, in fact, to be unaware that there even is a film.
The day after our aborted conversation in Pennsylvania, I call Thompson in a hotel in Washington DC. It's eight in the morning and I get him out of bed. "Hold the line for a moment," he croaks. "I must pass my urine or I won't be able to think." He is gone so long I start to wonder if he's slipped away again.
On stage, Thompson is an electrifying presence: big, bald and bawling; a furious baby grown to the size of a barn. But he emerges from the documentary as an oddly distant figure. For some reason, the film features numerous shots of him lolling, semi-naked in bed, lovingly patting his belly, or stroking at his scalp. He looks like a cross between Leigh Bowery and Marlon Brando in Apocalypse Now.
There is the sound of Thompson flushing the toilet, and he returns to the phone. I ask him what he thinks of the documentary and he hums and haws.
"Look," he says, "I've got nothing against the film or the film-makers, but they manipulated the whole thing. They wanted a story, and that story became this tension within the band, how awful we got along, and Dave's downward spiral. Whereas Dave was actually the one who was holding us together. His breakdown only came at the end of the tour when he was upset about his dad's death. Then he became this kind of Jekyll and Hyde figure, dulling the pain with red wine and pills."
Deal's portrayal proved the other sticking point. "Kim wasn't happy with the film at all," he admits. "It made her look like she was hardly there, clutching her beer and chain-smoking cigarettes. It made it look as if we had just scooped her out of the gutter." So they asked for some scenes to be removed? "Well, yeah. We told them we didn't care for the original cut. We ended up putting a lot of stuff back in."
The problem, Thompson suspects, is that the film-makers never really understood their subject matter. "They were naive, like a lot of people who don't understand how rock bands are when they go on tour. They'd roll into the hotel every morning and say, 'So what are you guys going to do today? Ooh, are you going to go buy some ice cream?' I guess they expected us to be like the Monkees, always up to mischief. But we're boring, you know. And touring is boring. You just sit around not talking to each other."
This, at least, is something that the film was able to pinpoint. "The movie as it stands is basically truthful, even though it's exaggerated," Thompson says. "But it does suggest something that is correct: the awful lack of communication within the band. That silly dysfunctional quality. Sometimes we don't speak enough."
Thompson famously broke up the Pixies by fax back in 1992. At the time he thought this was the classy way to call it quits. He says now that he regrets the decision, and that the band still hate him for it. Recently he has been angling for a longer-term collaboration: he wants to corral the Pixies into a studio and test-run some new material. "But there is some reluctance, let's put it that way. They don't trust me." He sighs. "They used to trust me."
Despite the early hour, we have now been on the phone for more than 40 minutes. Thompson keeps harking back to the past; unpicking old grievances and festering rivalries; discussing who's still mad at who, and why; spotlighting all the waste and loss that lurks in the wings of loudQUIETloud.
"I used to have a band," he laments. "And now I don't. That's why I'm off doing my little solo tour. That's why I'm sitting in a hotel room telling you all about it".
This is a high class bureau de change, not some Punch & Judy show on the seafront at Margate! |
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Ziggy
* Dog in the Sand *
United Kingdom
2461 Posts |
Posted - 08/22/2006 : 05:05:59
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| It'd be interesting to see how the actual interview was, seeing as largely it's made up on the author's interpretation of what FB 'said'. Particularly the second but last paragraph. |
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Sprite
* Dog in the Sand *
1325 Posts |
Posted - 08/22/2006 : 05:34:43
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| Guardian arts writers always have one eye on how their interviews/reviews 'look'. I think its a function of the web making reviewers more and more redundant. If the Pixies didnt like the film how come Joey and Dave went to Q&A session about it. |
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Stuart
- The Clopser -
China
2291 Posts |
Posted - 08/22/2006 : 07:30:59
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I agree, you've always gotta take this shit with a pinch of salt.
This is a high class bureau de change, not some Punch & Judy show on the seafront at Margate! |
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Carl
- A 'Fifth' Catholic -
Ireland
11546 Posts |
Posted - 08/22/2006 : 07:39:07
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Thanks Stu, that was very interesting.
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Stuart
- The Clopser -
China
2291 Posts |
Posted - 08/22/2006 : 07:43:45
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Thanks Carl, it was a good read during my break in between classes... I still think Pixies will record, its just a matter of time.
This is a high class bureau de change, not some Punch & Judy show on the seafront at Margate! |
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Carl
- A 'Fifth' Catholic -
Ireland
11546 Posts |
Posted - 08/22/2006 : 13:12:24
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I just got back form the shops with the paper. I know, I'm a saddo collector! *shame smilie*
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rodney
- FB Fan -
USA
127 Posts |
Posted - 08/27/2006 : 10:16:02
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| Am I the only one tired of hearing journalists take swipes like "a furious baby grown to the size of a barn"? |
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Guardian Article
