Pixies vs Black vs Deal vs Twirl Bites
Let me start this by saying right now that I love the Pixies. Lots of people do; they are a seminal, game changing little band that flew under the radar for a while there. A proper cult. But I love Frank Black too. Frank Black & The Catholics in Sheffield, 2001 was one of the gigs of my life. But he’d just started being ok with Pixies songs again then so everyone was up for it. I can understand why it was a problem up until that point.
Black (nee Francis, nee Kittridge Thompson III) broke up the Pixies by fax. Harsh. But again, I can understand why things might have got to the point where he felt that was an option. Maybe somebody did something which made him feel backed into a corner. Maybe he was throwing a diva fit. Maybe Kim Deal ate his Twirl Bites.
Trompe Le Monde probably wasn’t the send off he’d hoped (in my opinion it is the weakest of their albums, although it has a couple of their best songs). And there you get the rub. “I’ve split up a great band and think I can go it alone, but – shit – now I need to go it alone and if it’s not as good as it was I’ll look like a massive tool” is probably what Black (nee Francis, nee Kittridge Thompson III) thought the next morning over his Wheetos. That’s a pretty scary thought and I think better of him for not taking the easy route, just rehashing what had gone before. All power to his elbow.
Now, it’s my opinion that Frank Black didn’t really get back into the swing of things until he started to re-embrace his back catalogue and accept what he was, chill out a bit. This was around 2001, Dog in the Sand was out and Joey was back on board to give it some cred. But his first couple of albums were hit and miss – complete polar opposites of songs sit next to each other. Dog in the Sand had a more consistent quality to it though, it’s a good album although it seemed to embrace a change of tone. I even heard Black (nee Francis, nee Kittridge Thompson III) on Radio 2 one Saturday morning offering to play Pixies songs because he was”…ok with that now”.
And it was amazing. It was like all the best bits of the Pixies and his solo stuff splurged together in a bad tempered, bald haze on the stage. Amazing, amazing gig. Everyone in that room was up for it. Even the guy that threw his shirt onto Blacks (nee Francis, nee Kittridge Thompson III) head for the stoppy starty bit at the end of Mr Grieves which caused Black (nee Francis, nee Kittridge Thompson III) to stop singing, turn his back until the song finished then storm offstage. It was a moment.
Then the Pixies reformed somehow, against all odds. To be honest, I felt that cheapened things a bit but I believe they initially agreed so Joey could send his kid to school so fair play. I went to see Black Francis when he re-emerged in 2008, in a three piece – I was looking forward to it, but he kept all the good songs for the pre-gig “precores” and just kept going on about how he’d gone to see Van Morrison who kept talking about his hits but never played any of them…while simultaneously never playing any Frank Black/Pixies hits. It was disappointing and - I can only imagine - intentionally ironic.
And I gave up a bit after that. But I’ve recently iPod’d all my Frank Black stuff and it’s still 50% genius so it’s worth mentioning in a blog.
Frank Blacks output since (and possibly even with) the Pixies has always been delightfully idiosyncratic. You never know quite what you’re going to get. He wrote Debaser for god’s sake. There are quite a few Black (nee Francis, nee Kittridge Thompson III) songs that I would rank in a mythical list of my favourite songs of all time. Why not listen to some Frank Black today?
Tweet me: @harrymedium
Black (nee Francis, nee Kittridge Thompson III) broke up the Pixies by fax. Harsh. But again, I can understand why things might have got to the point where he felt that was an option. Maybe somebody did something which made him feel backed into a corner. Maybe he was throwing a diva fit. Maybe Kim Deal ate his Twirl Bites.
Trompe Le Monde probably wasn’t the send off he’d hoped (in my opinion it is the weakest of their albums, although it has a couple of their best songs). And there you get the rub. “I’ve split up a great band and think I can go it alone, but – shit – now I need to go it alone and if it’s not as good as it was I’ll look like a massive tool” is probably what Black (nee Francis, nee Kittridge Thompson III) thought the next morning over his Wheetos. That’s a pretty scary thought and I think better of him for not taking the easy route, just rehashing what had gone before. All power to his elbow.
Now, it’s my opinion that Frank Black didn’t really get back into the swing of things until he started to re-embrace his back catalogue and accept what he was, chill out a bit. This was around 2001, Dog in the Sand was out and Joey was back on board to give it some cred. But his first couple of albums were hit and miss – complete polar opposites of songs sit next to each other. Dog in the Sand had a more consistent quality to it though, it’s a good album although it seemed to embrace a change of tone. I even heard Black (nee Francis, nee Kittridge Thompson III) on Radio 2 one Saturday morning offering to play Pixies songs because he was”…ok with that now”.
And it was amazing. It was like all the best bits of the Pixies and his solo stuff splurged together in a bad tempered, bald haze on the stage. Amazing, amazing gig. Everyone in that room was up for it. Even the guy that threw his shirt onto Blacks (nee Francis, nee Kittridge Thompson III) head for the stoppy starty bit at the end of Mr Grieves which caused Black (nee Francis, nee Kittridge Thompson III) to stop singing, turn his back until the song finished then storm offstage. It was a moment.
Then the Pixies reformed somehow, against all odds. To be honest, I felt that cheapened things a bit but I believe they initially agreed so Joey could send his kid to school so fair play. I went to see Black Francis when he re-emerged in 2008, in a three piece – I was looking forward to it, but he kept all the good songs for the pre-gig “precores” and just kept going on about how he’d gone to see Van Morrison who kept talking about his hits but never played any of them…while simultaneously never playing any Frank Black/Pixies hits. It was disappointing and - I can only imagine - intentionally ironic.
And I gave up a bit after that. But I’ve recently iPod’d all my Frank Black stuff and it’s still 50% genius so it’s worth mentioning in a blog.
Frank Blacks output since (and possibly even with) the Pixies has always been delightfully idiosyncratic. You never know quite what you’re going to get. He wrote Debaser for god’s sake. There are quite a few Black (nee Francis, nee Kittridge Thompson III) songs that I would rank in a mythical list of my favourite songs of all time. Why not listen to some Frank Black today?
Tweet me: @harrymedium
email: mediumharry@gmail.com
Harry Medium named his son after a song by Frank Black (Billy Radcliffe) and a Smiths song (William, It Was Really Nothing) – a fact that never begins to impress IamWilliam.
For anyone who likes lists, his favourite Frank Black songs are:
Los Angeles
Places Named After Numbers
Old Black Dawning
Calistan
Men In Black
I Don’t Want To Hurt You (Every Single Time)
You Ain’t Me
The Adventure & The Resolution
I Love Your Brain
Billy Radcliffe
I’ve Seen Your Picture
St Francis Dam Disaster
Llano Del Rio
I’ll Be Blue
Chip Away Boy
End of Miles
I Will Run After You
21 Reasons
His Kingly Cave
Whisky In Your Shoes
Everything Is New
Coastline
Go Find Your Saint
Honeycomb
My Life Is In Storage
(Do What You Want) Gyaneshwar
posted by Sir Harry Medium at
11:23 am
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