Pixies
Death to the Pixies
1997, 4AD/Elektra
Just ahead of the start of my favorite era of Frank Black’s music (the hard-touring, prolific years of Frank Black and the Catholics) came this Pixies retrospective.
It’s worth talking about because it accompanied a change in the narrative. Time brings new thoughts and new angles on old events and the story of the Pixies was a little different after this.
That band had been done for five years at this point and 4AD deemed it a good time to give them a nice headstone in the form of a double CD that offered something for the newbies (a “best of” collection on disc 1) and something for the old fans (a vintage live set on disc 2).
To promote it, Frank Black hit the press circuit and, for the first time in years, talked about his old band as something beyond a bad memory. After all, a collection like this calls for writers to go on about a group’s legacy and their history and how their music holds up.
That meant that the Pixies’ break-up drama was no longer the main topic.
When Death to the Pixies came out in autumn of 1997, it was the music that mattered and Black gave some great interviews that revealed what he was thinking back then and that shed light on some of the songs. It was an opportunity to speak up for himself after a few years in which a lot of music media stopped just short of denying him credit for the band.
In the mid-90s, the Pixies were Kim Deal’s old band, which was actually lead by this tyrant Black Francis who held her back and whose fragile ego eventually lead to a bitter break-up. They hate each other now and his solo albums suck. Also, he’s fat. Screw him.
That was a common view back then and Black’s interviews in ’97 showed us a man eager to reclaim what was his. For a kid like me, who discovered the Pixies after they broke up and didn’t care at all about the fucking soap opera, I got kick out of it.
Before this, Black seemed to regard the Pixies as a burden. He didn’t perform their (his) songs live. He made interviewers uncomfortable when they brought them up. He seemed to take no pride in this band that people loved and that new listeners were continuing to discover.
After this, he lightened up. On his next tour, two Pixies throwbacks made the nightly set, “Wave of Multilation” (performed in its slow “UK Surf” style) and “The Holiday Song”. From there, he would resurrect more of the old songs on stage, some performed with a country twist or in a smokey cabaret mood. It was all raw material for Black’s versatile band, The Catholics, to play with.
In 2004, the Pixies eventually cleared the air and got back together to make a bunch of money on a hugely popular tour and Black took on the old material like it was no big deal. As a performer who’d never taken a break from the stage, he was ready for it.
People like me can go on and on about the beautiful craftsmanship that Black would develop over time on later records (and I intend to continue doing that), but the Pixies are his epitaph. They’re when he rang the bells.
No song that Bob Dylan writes will ever make people forget “Like a Rolling Stone”. No song that Paul McCartney writes will ever make people forget “Yesterday”. And no song the Frank Black ever writes will make people forget “Where Is My Mind?”.
It’s how the rock ‘n’ roll life goes sometimes and 1997 was the start of Frank Black figuring out that it isn’t so bad.
As for Death to the Pixies itself, the first disc is as good a Pixies mixtape as anyone’s ever made, I suppose, I’ve got no complaints. It’s a non-chronological romp through the discography that curiously starts with “Cecilia Ann”, the instrumental cover that kicked off Bossanova. It frames the Pixies for new ears as a demented surf band and I don’t see anything wrong with that.
“Planet of Sound” from Trompe le Monde follows and it makes the argument for the Pixies as the influence behind the screaming guy rock that littered the 90s landscape. Why weren’t the Pixies as big as Nirvana? Part of it might be because Mr. Cobain screamed about alienation while Mr. Francis screamed about aliens. Regardless of who you think was better, if you’re looking for a new generation’s spokesman, the choice was clear.
The next four songs sink into Doolittle and show off its melody (“Here Comes Your Man”) and its noise (“Tame”).
After “Dig for Fire” (which, seriously, should have been huge in 1990), we get three songs from Come on PIlgrim, one more pop monster from Trompe le Monde (“U-Mass”) and then on track 12 this album finally throws it to Surfer Rosa for three tracks (though “Gigantic” appears here in its slightly–and I do mean slightly–more shiny single version).
After that “Velouria” sings us into the night, “Gouge Away” rocks us awake, and “Monkey Gone to Heaven” sends us off to, well, heaven.
It sounds good to me, though I’m still glad that my own first taste was Doolittle, plucked out of a used CD bin on a whim.
As for the second disc, it’s one fiery concert. It was the first thing I listened to back in 1997 when I bought this and had heard all of the Pixies records, but had yet to hear them live.
The date was September 25, 1990 and the place was Utrecht, The Netherlands. The band were getting more popular each year in Europe and played to a rabid crowd. They pause only for cheers and applause as they blast through the songs. Their approach was no-nonsense. They hit the songs in note-for-note fashion (with the controlled chaos of “Vamos” saved for the big climax). They remind me of The Ramones when it comes to how airtight their live show was right down to how Francis doesn’t say a word to the audience.
Aloof mystery, when backed up by confident ass-kicking, is its own sort of showmanship.
This must have done well for 4AD because it was the start of a small wave of Pixies archival releases, all of it worthwhile. None of them offer any stunning revelations, but they are fun and manage to be more than mere exploitation jobs.
The least essential of the batch is easily Best of Pixies: Wave of Mutilation, a 2004 compilation intended to replace Death to the Pixies in the bins in time for the reunion tour. It offers mostly the same songs, but in a more chronological sequence (aside from a few liberties taken with that).
On the plus side, Wave of Mutilation acknowledges some choice B-sides, such as the great “Into the White”, which was a live staple in the band’s original run, and their cuddly cover of Neil Young’s “Winterlong”.
On the minus side, it comes with no sweet bonuses like this set’s live disc.
So, if you’re living in an alternate dimension without Spotify or Youtube (or you just wish that you were) and you want the best CD compilation to help you figure out if the Pixies are right for you, I recommend that you head straight to Tower Records and ask for Death to the Pixies.