So it’s been a Pixies sort of week or so. I find I always wind up back at my musical roots at some point and I’m deeply rooted with the Pixies. I recall driving around in my wood paneled Jeep Grand Wagoneer listening to Gouge Away, Head On, Velouria, and Crackity Jones. Back then there was no one cooler than Frank Black, but it’s only now that I recognize that it was Geek Cool. I don’t know how I missed that. They’re blatantly socially awkward and yet somewhere in it all exists the rock god factor, and they truly are rock gods. They’ve influenced two or three generations of music easily, and they even have a track on Rock Band. In a Rolling Stone interview, Kurt Cobain is quoted as saying that Smells Like Teen Spirit was a conscious attempt to co-opt the Pixies style. After stumbling across two films of theirs in the past two weeks, I feel I have a stronger grasp on the band as a whole and can appreciate them even more, although there was a sort of Oz falls from grace aspect to one of the films.
I’ve seen their appearance on Austin City Limits which is supremely phenomenal, but on Saturday I stumbled upon a documentary titled “Live Quiet Loud” on the Sundance Channel, which documented the 2004 reunion tour and then tonight I came across a recording of “The 2006 Newport Folk Music Festival” with an acoustic set by the Pixies. Both were equally impressive, but I’m glad I discovered them in the order that I did because I felt that the timeline kept within the continuity.
Loud Quiet Loud was aproposly named. They are completely bi-polar in their music, and in their band relationships. The documentary portrayed them as fragile musicians that were charged with a responsibility that it seemed they didn’t feel they could bear the weight of. After ten or so years apart they decided to come back together and go on tour. Frank Black is drastically overweight, Kim Deal has just gotten out of rehab, and has been sober for a year, David Lovering is a magician, and Joey Santiago is still a timid back staged lead guitarist behind Frank Black. You sit watching the story unfold and realize you share the same anxieties and that the tragedy is that sometimes your heroes set aside their super powers and join mankind.
I think we have the sweeter end of the deal. I know that I have appreciated their talents, and music and I think they’ve worked really hard and sacrificed a lot to provide us with that.


























