Dunedin Free Press - The Pixies

"I was trying to write the ultimate pop song. I was basically trying to rip off The Pixies. I have to admit it. When I heard The Pixies for the first time, I connected with that band so heavily I should have been in that band -- or at least in a Pixies cover band. We used their sense of dynamics, being soft and quiet and then loud and hard,"
--- Kurt Cobain, Rolling Stone, Jan 1994

While they were on tour with them in 1992, U2 sent The Pixies a note. It read, "Keep digging for fire. We love you."

"I felt very depressed the day I heard about The Pixies split," David Bowie said after they broke up. "What a waste...I could see them becoming huge."

Husker Du frontman Bob Mould, one of their biggest influences, called himself a huge Pixies fan. Thom Yorke of Radiohead has said that The Pixies changed his life, and protested their slot opening for his band at the Coachella Valley Music and Arts festival saying, "That's just not right! The Pixies opening for us is like The Beatles opening for us. I won't allow it. There's no way we can follow The Pixies!" Rivers Cuomo, lead singer for Weezer, told Addicted To Noise that The Pixies "really blew my mind when I first moved to LA and started to discover cool music." Damon Albarn of Blur has said that when his band started, they wanted to sound like The Pixies.

The Pixies built a new pop formula, marrying melodic folk to surf and punk, extreme dynamics, stop-start timing and the counterpoint of frontman Frank Black's screaming, yowling vocals and bass player Kim Deal's candy harmonies. With Nirvana's "Teen Spirit," this formula really began to pay for a lot of other bands. The Pixies won a fiercely devoted audience with the highest creative standards. Like the Velvet Underground, their following didn't start out to be huge, but they all started bands. Their legacy, legend and influence only grew after their initial break up.

"...Are you going to be a musician or are you going to be a musician?" Frank Black said in a 2004 Live Daily interview, "Just do it. Be a part of this club or not. Some people are members of the club because they just stepped into it and they're beloved by millions of people all over the world, and other people have to hammer out a niche for themselves and win over their fans, literally, one by one, until their career is sustainable. Whatever. They're both in the club."

"Monkey Gone To Heaven," the band's only experiment with a string section, was their biggest commercial hit, but "Debaser," the first song on the same album, Doolittle, is regarded by many as their favorite Pixies song. It was named by Q Magazine as #21 on their list of 100 Greatest Guitar Tracks. The Pixies albums, Surfer Rosa and Doolittle both appear on Rolling Stone's list of the 500 Greatest Albums of All Time.

Their string of legendary recordings began with The Purple Tape, a 17-track demo the band produced at Fort Apache Studios, funded by Francis' father for $1,000, Come On Pilgrim followed. The title is an on-stage catchphrase of 70s Christian Rocker Larry Norman, who Francis saw while he was at a Christian Summer Camp. Francis later performed with Norman solo. Both Melody Maker and Sounds named Surfer Rosa, released in 1988, "Album of The Year." Q Magazine named it one of their 50 Heaviest Albums Of All Time. Kurt Cobain cited it as one of his main musical influences. Produced by Steve Albini, it includes the single "Gigantic," sung by Deal, and "Where Is My Mind?" played at the end of the movie Fight Club. The album Doolittle followed. Released in 1989, it was produced at a budget of $40,000 and featured two of the band's best-known songs "Debaser" and "This Monkey's Gone To Heaven." It was the Pixies best selling record, certified Gold in1995. Rolling Stone ranked it #226 on their list of the 500 Greatest Albums of All Time in 2003. Q Magazine named it one of their 100 Greatest Albums Ever, Bossa Nova, a surf rock inspired album with UFO/Sci Fi lyrics, included "Dig For Fire," which Francis says is a Talking Heads tribute, and "Allison" a tribute to American blues artist Mose Allison, Trompe Le Monde, the Pixies final album released in 1991, includes the leady "Planet of Sound" and a cover of The Jesus and Mary Chain's "Come On." Some consider it heavy metal influenced.

The Pixies formed in Boston. Black Francis (Charles Thompson IV), rhythm guitarist, Joey Santiago, lead guitarist, Kim Deal, bass player and David Lovering, drummer, are the original and only members of the band.

Santiago and Francis met in college and began playing together in 1984, working in a warehouse and writing songs. Francis wrote lyrics on the subway and composed songs on the acoustic guitar. They officially formed a band in 1986. They recruited Kim Deal to be their bass player two weeks later through a classified ad for a female bass player who liked Folk, Peter, Paul and Mary and Husker Du. She was the only person who answered the ad, but showed up without a bass, telling Black and Santiago that her sister, Kelly, had a bass she could give her in Dayton, but that she had no money to get it. Francis gave her $50, she got the bass, and they started rehearsing in her apartment. They tried to get Kelly to play drums with them, but she refused the offer. Deal's husband suggested they hire drummer David Lovering, who she met at her wedding reception. Santiago chose the band name from the dictionary because he liked its definition -- mischievous little elves. They also considered the name, Things on Fire. With a drummer, they began rehearsing in a garage and were soon ready for their first show at Boston's Rathskeller, which they have all recalled as "possibly the worst gig in the history of rock."

After playing a show with Throwing Muses, The Pixies met producer Gary Smith of Fort Apache Studios. He told them he could "not sleep until you guys are world famous." This lead to their "Purple Tape" demo, released only to interested parties. After hearing the demo. Ivo Watts-Russell of 4AD records called The Pixies too normal, "too rock and roll" and almost passed on them, but later changed his mind and signed them. The band later called 4AD "the coolest record company to pay on time."

After they signed to 4AD, The Pixies' schedule became almost immediately hectic. They toured and recorded almost constantly, releasing three albums back to back. After the success of Surfer Rosa, they supported throwing Muses on their European "Sex and Death" tour and found they were even more warmly appreciated by European audiences than American, as they continued to be throughout their career.
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After Doolittle, acrimony began to grow between Deal and Francis and the band's nonstop schedule was wearing them down. Deal had made notable songwriting contributions to their first three albums. Bossanova contained none of her original songs. It has been said that Francis purposefully limited her contribution to gain greater personal control of the band. As a result, at the height of the Pixies popularity, she announced the band's break up onstage during the tour to promote the album.. Francis threw a guitar at Deal during a concert in Stuttgart [46]. She was also almost fired from the band. In a Nov. 1997 interview with Mojo, Joey Santiago gave his explanation of the climate in the band at the time:

"Kim...wanted to include her own songs, explore her own world. The way I think Charles [Black Francis] saw it, the band made pizzas, not cookies. Before we made Bossanova, we were even going to fire her after a gig in Frankfurt where we found her hanging out in her hotel room with no intention of playing. But our lawyer convinced us to try and work it out, to give her a warning or something. You know, I blocked that incident out of my head, that was too heavy for me. Kim couldn’t believe I'd be party to it, but I told her, she didn't seem happy, so why hang around? In the end, Kim realized it was Charles' bag, the he was the singer, but they kinda stopped talking after that."

Santiago demolished his instruments and walked offstage at the Pixies Boston homecoming show on the 1989 tour to support Bossanova. The band announced a hiatus after the tour's final New York date,

During the hiatus, Kim Deal started her band, The Breeders, with her twin sister Kelly, Josephine Wiggs of Perfect Disaster and Tanya Donnelly of Throwing Muses. Donelly later left to play in her own band, Belly. The Breeders released their debut album, Pod, later that same year. The band was named after a group the Deal sisters had started as teenagers.

The rest of The Pixies spent the hiatus traveling. Santiago visited the Grand Canyon, Lovering flew to Jamaica. Francis toured the country by auto, playing solo shows along the way, purportedly to raise money for furniture in his new L.A. apartment. [48]

The Pixies released another album, Trompe Le Monde. They played a sold-out winter tour to support it, finishing with an appearance on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson. Then, they opened for U2 on their 1992 Zoo TV Tour. At the end of the tour, conflicts in the band caused them to take a sabbatical. In 1993, Francis announced the break up of the band in a BBC Radio interview. The three others member of the band had not been notified. After the interview, Francis sent a fax to Deal and Lovering to inform them and phoned Santiago. He has since said that he wished he had discussed his decision with the rest of the band.

Deal continued to work with The Breeders after the break up. Their song "Cannonball," from their Platinum-selling 1993 album, Last Splash, became a huge hit. The Breeders released another album, TK, in 2002. Kim Deal also worked with The Amps, who released an album, Pacer, in 1995.

Santiago wrote theme music for Fox television and formed The Martinis with his wife Linda Mallari, releasing an album, Smitten in 2004. Lovering continued to drum, playing on one of Tanya Donelly's solo albums. He also went on to become a magician and make occasional appearances as "The Scientific Phenomenalist,"performing experiments on stage and occasionally opening for both Frank Black and The Breeders.[58]

Francis, who officially renamed himself Frank Black after The Pixies break up, released three solo albums and formed Frank Black and The Catholics with former miracle Legion rhythm section Scott Boutier and David McCaffrey. They broke up in 2005 before Black released his fourth solo album, Honeycomb. He later released another double album from the same sessions, Fastman Raiderman, in 2006. He then changed his name back to Black Francis, releasing Bluefinger and Svn Fngrs. He performed an original score for the silent horror movie The Golem at the San Francisco Film Festival at the Castro Theatre in May 2008.

Most recently, Francis has been working on his new project with his wife, Violet Clark -- Grand Duchy, They released their debut album Petit Fours on April 14th. Black has said that the project started out as a studio experiment in which they recorded, "Fort Wayne," which was leaked on the internet to positive response..."We decided to continue the experiment," He said in a press release about the album, "We decided that, while we were not expert players on all rock ensemble instruments, we would play everything ourselves as we had done on the Fort Wayne session." Grand Duchy also perform a cover of The Cure's "Strange Day" on the new CD "Just Like Heaven - A Tribute To The Cure," released on Jan. 27. Black and Clark also served as Guest Editors of Magnet Magazine's website during the week ending April 19.

As time went on from the break up, Francis seemed to be playing more and more Pixies songs in his solo sets and with Frank Black and The Catholics, and occasionally included Santiago and Lovering in his projects. At the end of 2003, Black officially announced a Pixies reunion in Spring 2004. Their first show together in 11 years, at the Fine Line Music Cafe in Minneapolis, was followed by a tour of the US and Canada and then an appearance at The Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival, and a tour of Brazil, Europe, Japan and the US.

The Pixies released a new single written and sung by Deal in June 2004, "Bam Thwok." Released through I-tunes, it reached #1 on the British Download Chart. The band made an appearance at the Lollapalooza and Sasquatch Music Festivals in 2005, along with European festivals like Reading and Leeds, and the Fringe Music Festival in Edinburgh. They played together at various dates throughout 2006 and 2007.

In 2008, they began to work on a new album, although this new recording has had some setbacks. 'It's just a waiting game right now," Francis told NME.com in August 2008. "Whatever we do in the future is gonna have to be fresh. I have to see if the band, as a whole, wants to go into the recording studio for a new record...For us, there's gotta be an angle. It can't just be playing our old songs over and over."

On March 13th this year, John Giddings , promoter of The Isle of Wight Festival announced that the Pixies would be appearing at the 2009 Festival in a Sunday slot, right before headliner, Neil Young. "People didn't believe me when I told them," Giddings said at the time, "They though it was too good to be true."

On March 9, the band announced on their official website, pixiesmusic.com, that the Isle of Wight date would be part of a larger tour, telling fans to check back for dates, They have since announced another date at the 2009 Where The Action Is Festival in Stockholm, Sweden, but since have not announced any additional shows on the site, except for the announcement of an unbelievable 23 consecutive shows at New York City's Mercury Club, posted on April 1st as an April Fool's joke. Deal's statement, "Eff that, we're The Pixies," quoted in the announcement, was a clue to the joke.