Bandsplain - Pixies with Gina Arnold

Episode Date: November 4, 2021

Gina Arnold—author, academic, and architect of Yasi’s youth—graces us with her perspective on Pixies, the seminal cult indie rock band from Boston. Follow Gina Arnold on Twitter at @ginanarchy and check out her books Route 666: On the Road to Nirvana, the 33 ⅓ book on Liz Phair’s Exile in Guyville, and Kiss This: Punk in the Present Tense. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hello and welcome. I don't get it. Can you please explain? Hello and welcome to Bandsplain. I am your host, Yossi Salick. This is a show where I invite an expert guest on to explain a cult band or iconic artist to me and to you. Today's episode is about the Pixies. If you've never heard of the Pixies, where is your mind? babe. This is what pixies sound like. And just for those at home already judging, yes, I'm going to say the pixies throughout because

it's awkward to call a band without the the in front of it. I know that there's not a the in their name. I'm aware. So before you send me hate mail, just know that this is just me using shorthand. My guest today, you guys, my guest today is simply the architect of my entire orientation towards music, the woman who changed my whole life at the tender age of 11 years old, literally, Bandsblane would not be possible without Gina Arnold. Journalist, author of the book that I've mentioned maybe 7,000 times on the show, Route 666 on the Road to Nirvana, as well as the 33 and 3rd book on Liz Farr's Exile in Guyville and Kiss This, Punk in the Present Tense. She's also the co-editor of the Oxford Handbook of Punk Rock

and teaches rhetoric and media studies at the University of San Francisco as well as creative nonfiction at the MFA program at San Jose State. This is a busy woman who, I cannot stress enough, changed my entire life. Okay, are you weirded out enough yet?

Gina, do you want to stay on the show? I'm totally weirded out, especially since I had no idea that the pixies don't like the the, I thought it was the pixies. So that just shows my expertise has its limits compared to yours. I only have to get in front of it because a million men will come into my social media mentions and correct me. So it's made me this way.

Love that. I love that when that happens. Don't you just love that? I love that journey for myself. Yes. Okay, I just want to get it before we even start talking about the pixies. This book that Gina wrote, which sadly is out of print, however, you can find copies. they're available through thriftbooks.com.

If you feel okay with Mr. Bezos, they are on Amazon. I picked up this book at 11 years old when Nirvana was my all-time favorite band because I was 11 and that was like the coolest thing that had ever happened to me. And I just thought it was a book about Nirvana. So I was like, yes, sold. Then basically I would just read this book which A first made me want to be a writer because it taught me that you could write about music without being a critic. You could write about music from your own personal experience and talk about what you went through and what you loved. And that

really like stuck with me my whole life. Honestly, this band's plan is basically a version of this book is me feeling empowered to without being like we're saying an expert or like some male music critic. talk about how I experience music. And also, secondarily, basically this book, Gina did this brilliant thing of sort of like setting up, and you correct me if I'm wrong, Gina, explaining how we got to Nervana through the different musical traditions or bands or whatever that sort of influenced or just created scenes that led up to the possibility of Nervana, of breaking through the way they did. Yeah, I mean, that describes a book for sure, but first I want to say

when you said, it led me to the possibility that you could write about music from the inside, subjectively from your own experience. Like, well, can you? But can you? I mean, can you get published doing that? I did, but has anybody read the book? No. I mean, I think the words out of print pretty much says it all. I mean, it was a very strange 18 months that allowed me to do that book. I'm really very lucky because somebody, an editor named James Fitzgerald, who's best known for books that are like about the Hells Angels and sort of weird stuff like that called me and said, oh, I thought it'd be cool if you wrote a book about Nirvana or something. And I was like, or something. And, you know, that whole cart bonch thing, I didn't really understand at the time how unusual and bizarre it was

to be given that opportunity. But it was great. It was great. I was super lucky. Right place, right time. I'm not sure it could happen again. So I'm really glad that, you know, it had an impact on you. Yeah, see, that's great. Huge impact. I would save up my allowance money. And every week I would go to the warehouse music or the Go Boy Records, which was like the kind of cool punk record store in Torrance and buy whatever you mentioned.

Literally whatever. I was like, okay, the Phillies. Okay, great. Buying that. Oh, replacements, done. Buying that. Fugazi, buying it. Butthole surfers, buying it.

The wipers. And, you know, you shaped my whole understanding of music. I was 11 by myself in my bedroom listening to these songs. And, you know, there's a line from the book which I don't think it's the first line, but it's maybe the first line of one of the chapters where you say that you grew up thinking that everything good in music had already happened. It is the first line of the book. The first line of the book.

I grew up thinking everything had already happened. And I remember, I remember they gave me this. contract and, you know, frankly, a crapload of money and we're like, all you have to do is turn in the book in three months or something. And I was like, woo. And I said to my roommate at the time, how do you get started? What should I say? And she literally turned to me and said, I grew up thinking everything had already happened. So props to her, Isabel is her name. She thought of that line. And I wrote that down and then the whole thing just flowed from there. I really was able to get started with that. It's a perfect line because I, again, 11 years old sitting in my room listening

to bands that were like basically no longer existing. Everything did happen already before for me. Okay, sorry, I'll stop being the number one fan club president of Gina Arnold and we'll move on to the pixies. So we were talking a little before we started recording Gina about how you see yourself in relation to the pixies. And like, you know, we usually will ask someone like, why are you the one to come on here and talk about the pixies?

And I think you've already sort of established like your thing isn't like, being, you know, Mrs. Expert on it. But why do you think you're equipped to talk about Pixies? Well, I'm as equipped as anybody else who is a big fan of the Pixies. And it also sort of reminds me that when you introduced this at the beginning, you said, the cult band or a cult band, the Pixies. And I would disagree that the Pixies are a cult band. I think that they exist in this very weird position where they are thought of as a cult band. They really would be described that way by most quote unquote experts. But in fact, millions upon millions of people love the pixies. They are the secret, huge band of all time.

If you look at, like I was looking at a video, I forget which one, you know, in advance of this, and it had two million plays on YouTube. I mean, that's not a cult band. You're so right. Well, I will just for the record say it is cult bands and iconic artists, which gives me sort of cart blanche to do anybody. Okay. So I agree with you. I love that about the Pixies though. They're a stealth band, right?

Yeah. Like in doing all this research and like Pixies were to your point, like, you know, reading your book, there's a lot of bands you put me on to, but Pixies already knew about them because, you know, in 1993, every alt radio station, alt rock radio station, which at the time were still kind of cool and not like totally corporate and, you know, playing the exact same playlist. They play lots of fixie songs on K Rock where I lived, you know. And so I was already pretty enamored by the fixies. And the other architects of my young musical journey were my 10-year-older cousin, Sima, shout out Sima, and her then-boyfriend Matt. And they were so cool. And like,

they gave me Pixies records. They gave me Frank Black records. Like, they really put me on to a lot. I was quite a lucky, a lucky young 11-year-old. I know most people love the Pixies. Almost everybody who's ever heard them loves the Pixies. And yet, you know, they really don't occupy that Rolling Stones or U-2 or I don't know why. I don't know what the sort of thing is. I have some theories and I think we'll get into it later, but I do have some theories about why. Okay, just to kick it off, the pixies were formed in the Boston area. Black Francis, who was born Charles Thompson, for those of you counting at home, he is an Ares.

This is going to come into play when we talk about the band and maybe some of the dynamics. He went to college with Joey Santiago. And a fun fact about that is Jay Mascus also attended the same school at the same time. Wow. That would be a fun buddy comedy for me to watch, them just palling around the three of them in a dorm. First, I want to just start and talk about Charles Thompson a little bit because I think, you know, he was the nucleus and, you know, driving force of the pixies. I really liked this thing I learned that he grew up, you know, basically listening to a bunch of like 60s records and whatever because he's born in 65, but also became very obsessed with this sort of cool, weird Christian rocker named Larry Norman. Larry Norman is fascinating.

It was like a weird time where I did some deeper research into this Christian rock space. It was like a weird time where like these Christian rockers were like kind of punk like in the way that they operated. And like I don't know. This guy was very cool. He like didn't. He had like long hair and a beard and more like a leather vest. And he was like, I don't even think he was very embraced by the Christian community. But he just was usually kind of like a grand parsons vibe of like a cosmic rocker.

But like in the name of Christ and had a deep impact on a young, young Frank Black. Who knew? Who knew? That's interesting. But, you know, there are some intersections with the Christian rock network and indie rock in the sense that they're all the time in like the 80s and 90s. There were all these other worlds that we didn't intersect with that were putting out records on their own and had their own networks of distribution that were outside the major label world.

And I think the Christian rock one was one that did a really good job of that. Totally. I won't dwell too much. I'll try to get through this quick form. formation first so we can get into talking about like the real good stuff. But long story short, Charles and Joey are buds. They kind of are toying around with starting a band. They both drop out of school and move to Boston when they're 20. Charles spends like a year, I think, or a summer. I can't remember in Puerto Rico. He only brings two tapes with him, allegedly. The Talking Heads,

little creatures and a Ramon's album. And he just listened to those two tapes for however long he was there and obviously took in, you know, local Puerto Rican music, which will become relevant later when we start listening to some of the Bixie song. And he got back and he was like, let's start a fucking band. And they put an ad out in the Boston Phoenix. Famously, the ad said we're looking for a harmony and Husker do. Peter Paul and Mary are the vibes. Please no chops. And at this time, King. Kim Deal had moved to Boston with her husband at the time John Murphy, and she answered the ad,

and the rest is a bit of history. That's right. I guess, you know, I don't know what year that happened, but one of the things that I think it's worth doting about the pixies is that those first sort of three just amazing records, the EP and then the next two records came out within like 18 months of each other. It was like 87, 88, 89, bam. And you're like, what? You know, no one does that anymore.

Absolutely. Yeah, we talk about that a lot here. That was like a really common, like even you two, right? Like the first four U2 albums came out four years in a row, which is like unheard of now, you know? Yeah. That was 85 when the band formed. So they had a couple years to hone their chops. Yeah, I think, you know, it's important for me to point out that like Kim Deal didn't like just come here like, oh, finally, a band to accept me.

she and her sister Kelly had been like writing and recording music for a long time before this. And I think we'll get into it. But, you know, I think her aspirations were to start her own band. But, you know, being in Boston away from Kelly and kind of just like, I want to play in a band, I want to play in a band. She answered this ad and she was excited by them and the rest is kind of history. But she never stopped having those aspirations, I think, to have her own band. And she obviously did eventually. Excuse me, I would be remiss to leave out David Lovering, who joined the band last, the drummer.

He was good friends with Kim's then-husband. They had worked at the Radio Shack together. And he loved Rush, and he rounded out the band in a great way. Yep. Also, Kelly was considered to be the drummer, which I think is a funny fact. But she said no, because she didn't want to move to Boston. Her quote on it was, I didn't want to be in Charles's band. I wanted to be in Kim's band.

And that's the reason she didn't join. Then the last thing, the name, it was originally, Joey had come up with it. It was originally Pixies in Panoply. But then they thought that was too Fay. And they shortened it to Pixies. Although Pixies is somewhat Fay. I know. I think famously, Joey said, like, they were worried about that and they looked it up.

And he said something like, they're actually mean motherfuckers. So it worked. Yeah. They're kind of mean. it's kind of hard to like talk about all the formation stuff without hearing any music but suffice it to say that like you know they started playing any show they could they famously they put up posters all around town that are now it's like the image that's associated with the pixies the death to the pixies with Charles kind of naked on his knees with his thumb out in front of him people got really interested in that because they didn't know what the pixies were but the poster was so cool so early marketing geniuses and they started playing all these shows and I really like this like tidbit that at the time Kim was working as like a full-time secretary and so she would show up at the shows in her like secretary outfit like nylons pumps like a knee-length skirt with a blouse tucked in she would play the shows that way

and people thought that was like really cool and punk if she was just like I don't know this is just like I'm wearing what I wore to work the thing about Kim that always struck me I don't know if she's still like this, but she's very, very unselfconscious in a way that most women aren't, like, I mean, particularly around Rock. Like, I mean, I remember one time she told me that she was going gray and she had blacked her hair with shoe black. And she was like, oh, God, it didn't work. My hair is gross. It's all matted. And it was. It looked really terrible. And she's, oh, got to go on stage. And, you know, like most, for most women, I think that's kind of unthinkable. Like, oh, I screwed up my hair and now I'm going to go perform. But she's just utterly like, really doesn't care.

which is unbelievably awesome, right? I mean, I think her personality had a lot to do with the popularity of the pixies. You know, people talk a lot about, like, her stage vibe and just her, like, openness. And, you know, today we would say down to clown. She was definitely down to clown. Yeah.

They came up around a couple of other bands. They really weren't in a scene in Boston, even though there was a lot going on in Boston at that time. I think the Lemonhead said maybe, already about to have started. The Del Fuegoes were around. Dinosaur Jr. was, you know, kind of kicking around in Amherst. But they didn't really enter a scene until they sort of got in with the throwing muses, which is through the studio that they record up. But Kristen Hirsch said when she would see them play, she thought they were all women. She was like, Kim was obviously a woman,

but they all had this kind of shaved-headed, pretty soft look. And there was lots of lesbian bands at the time. And we always got booked with them. They dressed kind of asexual and Charles sang really high. And they all wore eyeliner. And then she was like, well, it didn't take long to figure out. He started singing about his penis and stuff. And I thought, wow, right on, sister.

And then I realized some of them were men. Well, the name Pixies kind of sounds, I think, also kind of gives that vibe a little bit. Totally. Yeah. I just love that idea that they were like so. inscrutable even from the beginning, which I think a lot of people say that about Pixies like throughout where they were just like, it was so cool and so interesting, but I could not make sense of it. Yeah, I mean, that's definitely, you know, their lyrics being what they were,

completely not on at all, anywhere even remotely near what lyrics at that time in any other band. Not just then, but now, you know, they write songs about things no one else sings about. And that's extremely, I think, kind of really freeing for the listener rather than, you know, honestly, whiny love songs, which is pretty much indie rock, you know, forte. It's very pretty opening up, I think. Yeah. When I think about Boston at that time, I think about the band's Big Dipper, the embarrassment, Volcano Sons. Sure. There's a ton of bands from that time, but, I mean, the pixies just don't fit into that scene.

A lot of the commentary about the Pixies was like they were so normal. Like as people, I think like people expected them because of their presentation on stage and their music was so bizarre, people expected them to be these like, you know, psychotic weirdos. But then they would meet them and they were just like these like polite Midwestern people who were easy to talk to and could like hold a conversation or just like, I always love when you hear about band members that kind of. together that are just like actually weird, you know, like in their core without it being an affectation, which I think is probably true at the very least of Charles, but I think kind of all of them. Oh yeah. No, I think it's true of all of them, except maybe David, but they present normal. I think that's just your meaning they present normal. But I don't know about talking to them being easy. But I do think that for some reason they all did not feel aligned with the other people in

the scenes. They really never seemed to me like people who wanted to sit around and talk about other bands or other music or get into that sort of intricate indie rock kind of, you know, minutiae that was kind of the conversational lingua franca at the time. That sort of wasn't really, at least when I talked to them, but obviously I've had like three conversations with them in my life. So I shouldn't be held to any. No, no, but I think you're right. I think over time, they changed their way. Especially Charles approached people and press and everything.

But I think in this beginning time, it was this like pure open time where they were just like stoked to be playing in a band and like happy to meet anyone. And there was a studio in Boston called Fort Apache. It's very important in our pixie story. I was formed by four guys, Joe Harvard, Sean Slade, Paul Coldery. and gym fitting. And they kind of made this like real down and dirty punk studio. When like studios didn't really look like that, right? It was like, it looked like a practice space. And they started recording like all the cool local bands like the Zulus, Dinosaur Jr.

Probably a lot of the bands you mentioned just before. And they hired this man, Gary Smith, to be the manager of the studio. Now, Gary Smith saw the Pixies when they opened up for his own band Lifeboat and he got super obsessed with them and basically convinced. the other guys to record them for free. And that's how we get the purple tape. According to our other producer, Rob, who helped me research this, it was basically served as a demo for the Pixie. So it was, you know, a 17-song tape.

They recorded it, I think, all in three days, like in March when it was freezing, drinking a ton of jolt cola, which I love that detail because, again, back to 11-year-old Yossi, addicted to jolt cola, would stop at the gorgeous time. of like 7, whatever, 45 a.m. on my way to school at the liquor store and purchase breakfast of champions, a jolt cola, which for those of you that were not around, a jolt cola is basically like, it's like a Coke, but with like 16 times the caffeine or something. Don't quote me on that

number. But that and a peach rings and I would just go off to my day, like on speed, basically, like an 11-year-old drinking liquid speed and going to school. Anyways, all that to say, they made this purple tape. And you mentioned earlier, Gina, that, you know, they put out those first three albums in rapid succession. This purple tape had 17 songs on, like I said, a lot of the early songs of the first two albums already existed when they recorded this. Like broken faces on here, caribou, levitate me, here comes your man. Ed is dead. Subiculture, which I think doesn't even come out till, is it Basanova or even later than that. Yeah, it's one of the later ones.

After you mentioned it, I looked at it and yeah, almost everything on it is stuff that came out later, re-recorded. Was in those first album. This is also, by the way, this purple tape is when Charles starts going by Black Francis. Because, you know, they were like, who do you want? You know, how do you want to be listed? And he was like, my dad said that would be a good stage dream. And so he went as Black Francis. Kim went as Mrs. John Murphy, which I thought was kind of cute, like a little both.

like adorable, but also maybe like a feminist statement. That gesture was quite absorbingly interesting when I read it on the album cover, very much to say about that. So she said, I worked in a doctor's office, mainly typing, I love to type. And that's when I called myself Mrs. John Murphy because one of the women called up and her name was Ethel Goldstein. And I said, oh, hi, Ethel. And she goes, my name is not Ethel.

My name is Mrs. Harold Goldstein. Like if my calling her Ethel was to demean, her. So that's why she wanted to be Mrs. John Murphy and not just Kim, which I think is kind of cool. I think that's, I mean, my mother would totally have felt the same. My mother liked to be addressed as Mrs. Christopher Arnold. She had no desire to be called

by her first name and still doesn't and would have taken it as if you called her Mrs. Jody Arnold, she would have even taken that as a diminishment. So you know, Kim and I are more or less the same age. I totally get that and I thought, I mean, I understood her gesture of

doing that on the album cover immediately for what it was. It spoke to me instantly that she was making a comment about that generation. Sure. That's so cool. And I just thought that was, it was very profound to me. I don't think it was read that way by many people who saw it, but that's how I took it. For those of you listening, I'm very tired and the feminism has left my body.

So if anyone wants to marry me, I'm happy to surrender both my names. I'll take on whatever you want, just if you could come here and take the trash out and stuff. So I don't have to do it anymore. So Gary Smith basically gets in the ear of the throwing muses manager who was named Ken Goes. And throwing muses were already signed to 4AD. Ken Goes gets really into throwing muses after like a little cajoling, I think, on the first listen. I could see how, and Gina, I want to hear your thoughts on this. I can see how some people maybe on the first listen, especially if it's like a tape and not a show, didn't get it right away.

Do you feel like that's like that you could see that happening? You know, I don't know what he heard, but, you know, people who are pitching bands or trying to, you know, sort of A&R bands, they're wearing about 50 hats. So they may love the band, but they may think nobody else will. Sure. Or, you know, who would understand this? It's completely bizarre, you know, and the pixies are bizarre, but they were more bizarre then. You know what I mean? Yeah.

You know, nowadays it's easy. So many bands sound like the pixies now. I mean, Nirvana being probably. the foremost, but you know, there's a number of others. But, you know, if you think about that sound when it came down, it was pretty out there. So the fact that he might not have immediately loved it doesn't surprise me in the least. Yeah. And I think like while throwing muses were also very weird in their own way, they were weird in a different way than the pixies. And so if, you know, Ken's understanding

or like thing about managing a band like the throwing muses, it wasn't like such a one-to-one to be like, okay, pixies, fits perfectly in with this thing I'm already doing. Well, the throwing muses had women in them and were visually easier to accept, whereas the pixies visually were quite bizarre. Quite bizarre. For the time. Totally. You know what I mean? But it all worked out because apparently they got rejected by many labels, you know, SST, Electra.

But Ken goes, got the tape to Ivo, Watts Russell, you know, the god, the 4AD god. And he loved them and he signed them. And now we are finally... at Come on Pilgrim. Thank God. I don't know about you, Gina, but I, maybe because of my latent desire to start a band that, like, I still think I could. I realize I'm almost 40. It's never too late.

I'm obsessed with the origin stories of bands. I just find them so interesting. Yeah, although the origin story that you just told, I mean, really only crossed about two years, you know, 1985 to 1987. I'm sure it felt like forever to them. And I'm sure that they were constantly sending out their demos and playing gigs or whatever. you know, from our old age perch, that's a pretty short period of time. The pixies are a blessed band.

Like, they had it really easy in terms of how everything fell into place for them. I mean, they should have. They're very talented, but it's sort of like a magical Cinderella story of like the way things just like, oh, 480 wants to sign you? Great. You're assigned to 480. A very extremely cool label that is also very Indian believes in their artists and kind lets them do whatever they want.

And you have your like hometown friends throw. muses on there. Tell me about your first experience hearing Come on Pilgrim. Yeah, I can remember hearing Come on Pilgrim really well. In those days, you got your, you got vinyl. You always got vinyl. That was all you got. And so I had my record and, you know, the album cover itself, like many 4 AD records was very interesting. You know, you can look at it and be like, study it and think about it. And for example, you know, Mrs. John Murphy, that like that stood out to me immediately. One thing. But also, when you think about, like looking back at that time, when you think about what the mainstream, at that time, I wrote a lot of mainstream reviews of mainstream artists for the newspaper and I wrote a lot of mainstream profiles. What newspaper were you writing for Gina? Sorry to interrupt you.

I was always just a freelance writer and I wrote for the San Francisco Chronicle, I think, at that time. And yeah, I mean, I had a terrible career. I know this will disappoint you, but I mean, I was just a very struggling, not very well-liked writer for many, many years who, you know, begged. newspapers to run my pieces. That's what I had to do. Actually, that doesn't disappoint me because that's how I was when I was a writer. And now I feel even more spiritually connected to you. Yeah. Well, that's good. I'm glad. It was very frustrating. And in the end, I gave it up. You know, the end. Like, that was not a good thing to have spent my 20s and 30s doing. That's how I feel at this time. But, you know, at the time I was super into it. So I was, you know, if you think about what kinds of bands were big in 1987, I don't, I can't tell you offhand, you know. The Bengals.

The Bengals were one of the better ones. I'm thinking more like a lot of hair bands, a lot of solo artists. You get a lot of records that the cover would be the person, whoever it was, Richard Marks or someone. Sure. Like I said, I'm not even sure I'm getting the right years. But, you know, it was just these big heads of people on the cover of albums. So, you know, to get a 4-D record, like a completely different experience. You're looking at like art, basically, you know?

Yeah. And for those of you who haven't seen the cover of this album, just because to illustrate, the cover is a man in a hair shirt. You know, 480 had a house artist and photographer. Von Oliver was the graphic designer, and then the photographer was Simon Larbalister, and he put his friend in a hair shirt, took a photo, and then, you know, Vaughn Oliver did this sort of like sepia-ish-toned graphic design over it.

It's a very, all of their covers are kind of weird because it was 4-A-D, but yes, to prove Gino's point, like, when you're looking at Huey Lewis, in the news, and then you're seeing a man in a hair shirt. It's a bit of a difference. Yeah, exactly. It's a really jolting experience, right? They're very different.

And also, I mean, at that point, I love 480 records anyway, so I knew that I would love it, you know, or I didn't know I would love it, but I knew I would play it, which is more than I did for basically 90% of what I got in the mail. The song that I always think about is Vamos. Why don't we hear it? Okay, let's listen to it. Okay. This is Vamos, Parentheses Pilgrim.

come on program. You are listening to a music and talk episode where full songs and talk segments live together in gorgeous harmony only on Spotify. Guess what? You can also create your own music and talk show for free with Anchor Spotify's podcasting platform. Get started at anchor.fm slash music and talk. That's anchor.fm slash music and talk. That was Vamos by the Pixies. I mean, from the first drum hits, I'm in. Yeah, you're in in the first 10 seconds. You know, I think there's some kind of rule in songwriting that you have to hook people in 30.

They've got you in three. That's one of their rules. And, you know, I know that one of the things they believe in deeply, the Pixies is short songs. God bless. And as you mentioned in their ad, no chops. You know, like that sort of bowed, almost violin bowed solo there is as close as they're going to come to a guitar solo.

And if you, like me in 1987, we're constantly being sent out to review Eric Clapton shows with the Weedle Wee song or, you know, whatever. Like, you're like, I am so here for this. You mean the guitar center solo? The guy in the guitar center who needs to show you how well he can play the guitar solo? Exactly. So, I mean, I personally think that that song is unbelievably likable.

Even the bad Spanish, you know, like I speak really bad Spanish. Most Americans speak very poor Spanish of that ilk. You know what I mean? And you recognize it. It's almost like a gesture like the Mrs. John Murphy thing of like, oh, yeah, we all learned that bad Spanish in that exact bad way. Just like Bono, Unostres, Trace Cotorca. We did mention the year spent in Puerto Rico. Again, the Spanish comes in a lot. And I think you could make the argument that the bulk of the first two Pixies albums entered the mind of Frank Black, or as you. He was known then Black Francis in this year in Puerto Rico. Speaking of the bad Spanish, I just want for people listening at home, the translation of the first few lines is, I was thinking surviving with my sister in New Jersey. She told me it's a good life there, really rich and really cool.

I'll go, jerk off. Yeah, I mean, again, I think that one of the cool things was at that time, you know, most indie rock bands sang in English. And one thing that sort of to get a little deeper into that concept is for most of the bands that I met, the idea of singing lyrics that most of the audience couldn't understand was anathema. You know what I mean? They needed to get their thoughts out there. You needed to know what they were thinking. You needed, you know, they had a lot to say. And so the idea that there was someone who's like, not only am I, I'm just going to sing it in Spanish and you're not going to know what the hell I'm singing was just great.

You know, I mean, it was just a complete twist. Totally. on what you were being inundated with. And also just for those nerds at home, these songs were not re-recorded. Like this album was eight songs that Ivo picked from that purple tape. We just talked about the 17 songs, Three Days, Jolt Kola. And they were just slightly remixed.

So they didn't go back and record them. And then also, back to my man, Larry Norman, the title of this album is a lyric from a Larry Norman song called Watch What You're Doing. The lyric is, it says, come on Pilgrim, which also shows up as a lyric and levitate me. Come on Pilgrim, you know he loves you. So that's just, again, fun fact. He has a very strange brain, Black Francis.

And I mean, I once said to him, oh, everything's so strange. Like, how did you come up with the sound that was so different from what everybody else was doing? And I remember he looked at me, because that's a dumb question. like I was dumb. You know, how did you do what you did? You know, talk about a question that leads to, you know, someone's mind going blank. But he said, what I can't understand is why everybody else does stuff that sounds exactly like everybody else. In a way, you know, he didn't really answer my question, but I see what he's saying.

Like you either want to write exactly like what everybody else is writing like or you don't. I want to tell you and the listeners, there's a question. there's a quote from Jay Mascus about what he thought when he first heard the Pixies and he says compared to all the people I knew in bands

they didn't seem to know as much about music they seemed like they got dropped from somewhere they came out of a bubble or something I couldn't figure out what kind of music they were into

and I think that's like really reinforces what you just said like both what you said earlier were like they were not the type to just like smoke pot and sit around talk about rush or whatever maybe David

and they didn't pay attention to what other people were doing writing their music. They were just writing their weird songs. Yeah, they weren't really. I always felt that they weren't wrapped up in other people's vision of what music was like. And that, that was especially true of Kim, but also Charles. I mean, I know Charles has said in other interviews that I read on Wikipedia to get ready for this, you know, a band that he was interested in and stuff. He says the cars. He liked the cars a lot and stuff. But I don't even believe it. He's just thinking of stuff to say.

because really they did not sound like other bands. And I also have read reviews that came out at the time that said, they're like the fall. I'm sorry, that band is not like the fall. No. But I think you can hear the inputs that I mentioned earlier. Like one year in Puerto Rico with a Talking Heads album and a Ramon's album.

And a Bhop and a Bones album. and a bunch of Spanish music or Puerto Rican music and then coming home and I think when he got home that he like found Iggy Pop records. I am the passenger. I can hear those elements being thrown into a blender

and it coming out kind of sounding like this like with Frank Black through his lens, you know? Yeah. Because there's a jangliness that reminds me of talking heads, you know, like there's a kind of punkiness

obviously that's like and a simplicity. I think that's another thing about the Pixies. Like, we said it already know guitar souls, but they were very committed to simplicity in their music. It sounded crazy and weird, but it wasn't complicated. Yeah, yeah. It's simple and in the best way possible, you know, in that punk way,

like they're not going to art it up. But at the same time, he really likes language, right? And I think that's one of the things that I was really connected to it. The first was that this is someone who loves language and what it sounds like. You don't even have to know the meaning of what he's saying to understand that he just likes the sound of certain words and language and images for the sake of the image, not for anything else. And if you're, you know, a lot of English majors like me,

you know, can kind of relate to that. Yeah, he wasn't like a big meaning guy. He was a big like, these words sound cool and I like them. Let's use them here. Yeah, absolutely. You have on your list, which I'm very happy to hear, Nimrod's son. Tell me why you chose Nimrod's son. I think, again, it's one of those things. It's the first sort of invocation of his sort of interest in or use of biblical stories. Don't Green Day have an album called Nimrod or something like that? That's correct. I think the word Nimrod, if you think about it, only somebody who was very just enamored of language would talk about Nimrod's son.

And there's obviously a big swear word in it. I went to see them live fairly recently. I would like to say last year, but that's because COVID has basically taken two years out of my life. So what I mean is three years ago, it feels like last year. And they played this, I mean, they played everything they knew. And they played this song. And at the point when he yells, I can swear, right? Oh, you sure as fuck can, babe.

Yeah. So when he says, I am the son of a motherfucker, he stopped. And the whole audience just screamed that line. Like, I mean, just the place, I am this. And I thought it was so funny because it was like, it is a funny line and it's cool. But it comes from their first EP. Yeah. Right.

And this was 35 years or whatever after it came out. And I thought, man, people love the pixies. Like you cannot overestimate how much people love the pixies. Oh, my gosh. Until you see a bunch of 60-year-olds yelling, I am the son. You know? Yes. It was great.

That reunion tour, which we're way ahead of it now, but I went. I never got to see them the first time around. And so for me, it was like 15 Christmases in one. I was like, I thought I was never going to get to see this band. And now I'm like crying through the entire show because I was so happy. Also for those listening at home, Nimrod, this poor man is a biblical figure in the book of Genesis, the son of Cush and the great-grandson of Noah. And he was, by all accounts, a king, you know?

He was a mighty hunter before the Lord. I don't really know how his name started becoming used as like a substitute for moron. Let's hear that first before we leave this record. This is Nimrod's son. Apologies to Mr. Nimrod. That was Nimrod's son. I want to play a clip now of the Larry Norman song, Watch What You're Doing.

Because I don't know about you, but when I was re-listening to Come On Pilgrim through the lens of now knowing about Larry Norman and thinking about, you know, Black Francis growing up sort of like deep diving into this outlaw Christian rocker. I was like, I heard it a little differently because I can like, I don't want to say the R word, Rockabilly.

But there's like a bit of a swing to some of the songs that gives me that vibe. Okay, let's hear this clip of Watch What You're Doing by Larry Norman. I want to hear your thoughts on now, like, thinking back about this album, knowing that he was obsessed with this particular artist. Okay, Gina, do you see kind of? what I'm saying. Well, their voices

sound sort of similar. They have the same timbre. Yeah, and there's a swing to both the songs. Obviously, the Pixie's song is like manic. Yeah. It's a manic sped-up version. If I sped that song up three

times, I feel like we'd get a similar vibe to a Pixie song. I think we would, but it's an interesting move in the brain to say, I think I'll play this three times faster. Totally. Oh, my God, totally. And the funny thing is you mentioned the Ramones And it's like the funny thing about the Ramones

When you listen to them now is they sound kind of slow Like at the time people were like They're so fast But if you listen to the Ramones now It's like 24 24 hours to go Like really? No totally So come on Pilgrim

Again 4 AD just to be clear Is a UK label So this album did not have US distribution It was an import in America. So it didn't chart in the United States. But, you know, charted in the UK and the indie album chart. It did pretty well. I think the network effect of 4AD helped it out. And it immediately got a ton of press attention in the UK. Q magazine sounds, NME, they were very into it. And I think they would have probably reviewed anything that 480 put out. I'm just going to read a few lines from

the NME review by Jack Barron. He said, said, these tales of dark lands and deeds are illuminated by smiling tunes, veined with quicksilver flashes of guitar. It's this slide of hand together with a morbid humor, which surfaces slowly upon repeated plays that makes Pixie so addictive. Good review. You know, it's just so funny. If you read that, would you buy it? We've been called out for not understanding the British sensibility on this show. So maybe if I was British. Well, I'm half British. Okay. So, you know, I think I don't know what I would have done at the time. But when I read that kind of thing now, I think, you know, that whole, like, really does that, it seems like a wine

review, you know, with hints of, I can't even do a fake wine review, but you know what I'm mahogany. Yeah, exactly. I think shout out Rob Fitzpatrick, who helps us with this show, he is British. And he basically told me growing up, he's a couple years older than me. It was like maybe in his earlier mid-40s. He said just like, if you were into music, as a teen, NME was like a Bible. So, basic, it was kind of like me with your book. You know, he would just buy an Emmy every week. And if they said this was good, even if they used the most flowery language to say it, he would go buy the album.

So, you know, I think that having that write up in NME that early on really helped. And again, there was also, you know, the pixies talked about it. They're touring during this time. A bunch of people would come to their shows that were just 480 mega fans. They didn't even know who the pixies were. They were just like, hey, do you know Ivo? what's he like? Yeah, yeah, yeah, there was a whole 4 AD kind of cult thing going on at that time.

But I think the pixies, and, you know, NME, I went through a phase when I was like that with the NME and melody maker. But then, unfortunately, what happened was they were often wrong, in my opinion. I can't remember the names of the billions of bands that would be on the cover that I would then be like, well, that sucked. Sure. You know, and I was sort of coming at it from an American perspective because I would be there in the summer visiting my relatives and I'd, you know, pick up whatever the latest thing was and be like, well, that doesn't work for me, that weird band. And so I just kind of stopped trusting them. And I've always felt like one of my few, like things I had going for me, like writing for that book or when I was a writer was, you just got to be right. You know, it's really, it's a hard thing to say, but it's just like, yeah.

got to be right. Because if you send people off to see something and they're like, that wasn't very good, you know, you lose it all. So you kind of got to be judicious with what you champion. Or I had to be. I feel like I was in a more precarious position. So. Yeah. I luckily don't have to be because somehow people still listen to this show, even though I've gone on record saying that I love the David Matthews band and other, you know, artists that perhaps are a bit polarizing. You know what? I saw that, Yassie, and I thought I would just pretend I didn't. I saw that and I was just going to ignore it. And then you brought it up and now I'm faced to confront it.

I'm very sorry. We don't have to talk about David Matthews anymore. The last thing I want to read is your friend and mine, Courtney Love, on Come on Pilgrim. She says, because she was interviewed for this book, that's an excellent, excellent book, by the way. It's called Fool the World. It's the oral history of the Pixies by Josh Frank and Karen Gans. So she said, fucking, are you kidding? Come on Pilgrim.

I heard it and I was in Minneapolis and I was a scenester and it was all Sonic Youth, Eval and and Richard Kern Pictures, pussy galore. And all of a sudden there's a pop record, a pop record that is not only approved but classic and it was a lifesaver. I can do that. Yay. Because otherwise I was surrounded by performance art, frankly. She's literally the funniest. She's often right. Like I said, with the things she said about me the other day in the LA Times, fair, you know, fair but harsh. That's Courtney, totally. She's a listing she called Gina's book a grunge book. No, she said some grunge book.

Some grunge book. Honestly, it's true. It's just some grunge book. And like I said, fair but harsh. And I think that's just kind of her mood. She mentioned one book in that entire interview. And she named you by name. So let's just say clearly this book was not just some grunge book.

It was nice of her. Thank you, Courtney. Thank you, Courtney. on the show, Courtney. I just wanted to bring that up because the pixies launched a thousand ships of bands, you know? And I think much like Courtney, a lot of people heard the pixies and were like, oh, I didn't know you could do that. Yeah, I really think the pixies occupy that place that the Velvet Underground did in the 60s. You know how people always say about the Velvet Underground, oh, only 50 people bought their records, but they all went out and bought formed bands. And that's the classic thing about

the Velvet Underground. And I think the Pixies. absolutely the same. Not so many people were really bought come on Pilgrim, probably very few, because it wasn't really widely available. Yeah, in America, it was an import again. It was hard to get. Yeah. But I would bet that a vast number of them, I don't know if they formed bands, but, you know, really jumped that bandwagon hard. Yeah, when I start my band, it's going to be because of the pixies. I'll be it, you know, 40 years later or 30 years later, but that's okay. There's no time constraint. That's great. That's better than the Velvet Underground. Your daughter will not listen to it, but I'll still do it. Okay, so not even a year later, Surfer Rosa comes out, March of

1988. I just want to say a few biographical details about Surferosa, and then I want to hear about at this point where you were with the Pixies and like your fandom. So Surfer Rosa famously was produced by Steve Albini. The recording budget was still pretty small. I think I heard it was like 10K or something or 15K or something. 4 AD is who suggested Steve Albini. And apparently it came from a warehouse worker at 4AD, who later became the manager of Liz Frazier from Cocto Twins. This guy, Colin Wallace.

He loved Big Black and he loved the sound. So he told Ivo, Steve Albanyi should do the Pixies record. And Ivo said, okay. And he did. He didn't want to be credited as a producer. This is often Steve Albini's thing. He thinks of himself as an engineer. And so I think he has credited just as the engineer.

but he did produce it. We'll get into some goss, some malarkey around Steve Albini in this album after we play a song. But tell me about your experience with Sera Rosa. Well, I was already all in, right, for the Pixies. And, I mean, there's just not a bad track on it, in my opinion, although I agree.

Doolittle pretty much superseded it in that way. Sort of burned itself into my brain on first listen. I just want to say this first five song, Okay, all of them, literally the whole run. But like, bone machine to break my body to something against you to broken face to gigantic is like insane. Like an insane five song pile up of like greatness. You chose, God, I love bone machine. I do too.

You chose River Euphrates. I want to hear it. But first I want you to tell me why you chose this song. I love the song. I love the euphoniousness of saying Rift, Euphrates, right? It's about Iraq. You know, like, that's just, yeah, just love it. I love this song. That's all I can say. That's all we need. That's fandom. Okay, this is River Euphrates off surferosa. That was River Euphrates. It evokes Nirvana, right? Pre-Nirvana. That song, that whole soft loud, soft loud, you know, comes from that song and other songs. Yeah, I mean, we haven't really gotten into it, but like, Cobain said on record like 48 times that smells like teen spirit was like a direct

pixies rip off. Oh yeah, totally. I think I wrote about Nirvana. I thought that they were like the pixies crossed with soul asylum, but actually they were the pixies times sole asylum. But you can really hear that with this song, right? It's like I was joking off like

but then like in small like teens prayer right, it's like, oh, hello. It's like a very similar usage of I don't say tricks is not the right word, but just song parts. I am an expert on music. And then they went to Albini for their next record, right? Nirvana.

Yes, Nirvana. I love the Albini pipeline because my maybe top artist, or at least top five, is PJ Harvey. And PJ Harvey sought out Steve Albini because of the Pixies. So she says, this is a little bit later because she's talking about Doolittle, but she says she immediately went to track down Steve Albin. after she heard Doolittle because, or after she heard Serferosa, sorry, because she loved the sound. And then famously, which I've heard said a couple of times that Kurt loved the Ridd of Me album that Steve Albini produced for PJ Harvey. He loved the way her vocals sounded and all that.

And obviously I already love the pixies. And then we get Steve Albany on the third Nirvana album. I find production interesting in the spiritual. and psychological sense, because I do think you can't avoid that. Like, the producer is often, you know, another band member when it comes to making albums. And in that sense, I find it really interesting. I'm not particularly concerned with, like, how they recorded the drums. But other musicians are. So, you know, I guess that's who that's for.

Yeah. I did find it interesting that for Gigantic, which we need to hear, obviously, after this. And Halbini had the idea to take all the amps into the. bathroom to get the like big spacious sound on gigantic because he didn't want to use studio echo he wanted real echo which that's kind of interesting to me that song does have like a sense of space that I really enjoy about it why don't we hear gigantic and then I want to talk about Kim deal singing this is gigantic that was gigantic what a goddamn gorgeous glorious beautiful song Yeah, you know, I have to say it's not my favorite pixie song, but I think it absolutely shows off Kim's role and talent and importance in the band.

You know, without her, that band would be a four-piece boy band that nobody would care about. And she has a voice that is completely unlike the other female singers of that age or really of today. I mean, she sings like an angel. She's not really singing though I mean she's she's just deep in there right Right she's an amazing Amazing presence And when you see them live

She's an amazing presence And I you know for me I've always said that You know only bands with two genders really Those are the best bands Bands that have both genders For me And at that time There were not that many

And quite a few that did have two genders Whoever the girl was Would be like somebody's girlfriend or wife And often they were the drummer or the bass player. Yeah. Usually they played the drums or the bass. And they often, you know, they did sing back up singers, but they didn't have a presence. You know, they didn't really have a vocal presence or writing presence.

And I know that Kim, obviously, we know she left the band because of her writing presence wasn't big enough. And she maybe had too much presence for the liking of some of the other band members, which we'll get it. Yeah, you know, I mean, I wouldn't even speculate on that. I mean, she did the right thing and we know that. And it's not, for me, it's not a problem because it doesn't feel bad when somebody goes off and establishes their equally great band. You know, you don't feel like they got ripped off or anybody was the worst. The pixies weren't the worst for it. She wasn't the worst for it.

You know, so I think it's all good. But yeah, I mean, she would step forward to the mic and the whole room would just, you know, step forward to the stage whenever she did that. It was like a physical movement. She would step up and the audience would press forward. It was very visible. So, you know, she had this great smile. But, you know, think about what she looks like compared to what most people you will see on stage look like, women on stage. Like Courtney Love would be a good example, but there's lots of other examples.

Like that's what I want to see, the Kim's of the world. Kim was, I think, a really good word maybe for it as just laid back. Like, I think her whole approach, not that she's, She was not trying, but it was just like, like you said, she's not really singing, right, in the belting sense. She just kind of sounds so natural like this isn't a huge effort on her part, but it is so authentic. It just sounds right when she does it. Yeah, she sounds chill. That's the only one.

She's just chill. She shows up looking chill. She just doesn't seem pressed about anything, which I think people really related to. There's a quote from, I cannot remember the band right now. I don't think I wrote it down. But a band who later, I think, wrote a tribute song about Kim Deal. They were saying that, like, the women in the bands of that time, especially in the early 90s, were not like that.

No, or now. I mean, she doesn't attract the male gaze. And that's a very different thing. It's so different that it's unique. And I think that she was a unicorn. And that's why we love her so, right? Because of that. Do you think that was on purpose?

No. She's just like that. She's just like that. Yeah. She's a truly individual person. There were some interesting quotes from her about when she was trying to get into music when she was younger in Ohio. And she said something sort of to the effect of what you were saying where she was like, there was only ever maybe one girl in a band and they just wanted the girl to sing one song. It was like, hit me with your best shot.

And that's it. There was like no bands that had women that led them or, you know, any means. meaningful way that she could see herself of being in a band, I think, before Pixies. And even Pixies, I mean, you know, when she joined the band, she said flat out, I want to be the leader and I don't want to play bass. And she was not the leader and she did play bass. So, you know, I think this, while it worked out great and I think it made some of the best music. And River Euphrates was a great one, I think, to choose too, because you really hear how much work Kim's backing vocals do to, like, add this layer to the song that's so nice.

Well, I think that any band that's really male-fronted gets better when they do that. The example I would use is, what's the best Rolling Stones song? You know, give me shelter. There's no question, right? And as soon as they bump it up to that, they become a different, entirely different.

When you said it's almost like she's a natural or that she's not trying, I mean, that's what the Pixies, you said that earlier. You know, they really, it all just came out of them in that blast of three years that didn't seem effortful at all. There's a funny quote from Black Francis

where the label said, you're going to work with Steve Albany. And they said, awesome, who's Steve Albini? Like, they just, everything was basically like, awesome, whatever you say. Like, they just wanted to make music and they sort of trusted their management and Ivo to lead them.

And I think that they were very lucky, I think, in the sense that they had Ivo, Bo and Ken, who were ultimately only wanting their best interests and creativity to take the lead, whereas they could have been led astray by maybe a different kind of label or an A&R, and maybe they wouldn't have listened so well. But I want to talk quickly two things. One is the Steve Albany thing. He famously did not like this album and publicly talked about how he didn't like this album.

He wrote in a zine called Forced Exposure in 1991, a review of the album, which to me is a very weird thing to review an album that you engineered. I guess that's how things went with then. And he called it a patchwork pinchloaf from a band who at their top dollar best are blandly entertaining college rock. Their willingness to be quote unquote guided by their manager, their record company, and their producers is unparalleled. Never have I seen four cows more anxious to be led around by their. nose ring. That's in keeping with his usual pro style. And, you know, he said that about tons of people, Liz Fair, you know, lots of people. He later apologized. He said some unflattering things about this band in a fan scene and he regrets having done it. And then in 2006, he was

interviewed about it and he said, I think making that Pixie's record was one of the formative experiences of my professional attitude. And I think I indulged a selfish part of my personality during the making of that record. I don't think I regarded the band as significantly as I should have. And I felt at the time I was making a better record for the band. I recognize now that what I was doing was actually warping their record to suit myself. You think? There was some things that he did that I think were really cool and we associate with this album.

He miced the room all the time and he would like sort of like, honestly like early reality show producer style, like start kind of weird conversation. and then take snippets of them, and you hear them, right? In the album, these like offhanded chit chats that are taken out of context because he was kind of like a messy bitch who loved for drama and wanted that on the album. She said, don't touch anybody touches my stuff. And I said, you fucking die like that. I was finishing your part for it.

And those are cool. Like they do kind of, in my mind, like I like those on Surfer Rosa. Do you like those? No, I re-listen to it recently. I had completely X them out of my brain, you know, so I had totally forgotten about it. them. And I was just like, needless. You know, to me, like, what's really strong about bands is their songwriting. Sure. You know, like I said, you know, production is interesting. Like everything you're saying is totally valid and I'm sure he did lots of good things to the record.

But when I listen to a record, I just really am thinking about the band and the lyrics and stuff like that. And I often think that producers really want to be the center of attention and that he exemplifies that. And he certainly got through forced exposure and other places. He got a lot of attention was paid to him as a sort of a diva. Like an uteur. Yeah. Or it's just

you know that he got to be a rock star which clearly you know give the big black and shellac and stuff. You know he was into that too. And that was sort of the role he wanted and it was very much of the time. Totally. So he got that for himself but I think that the Pixies probably that record would have been

just as good with whoever produced it. I have to agree. The songs are great. But, you know, I appreciate some of the little flourishes that C. Valpini brought besides the fact that he was a dick about it. Gigantic was the breakout star of this album. It was the lead single, I think chosen by Ivo. And they put it out as like a little EP. People really loved it. They really love Gigantic. It doesn't happen much after this that Kim has her own song. This album, it was just like, okay, now we're cooking with gas. Like, come on Pilgrim made its mark. But Surfer Rosa, you know, was on the UK indie chart for 60 weeks. You know, it was selling like crazy. All the press in the UK was writing about it, Melody Maker and ME.

Did you see that also over here? I don't think so. I think the Pixies were very much, you know, they really, along with a number of other bands, the replacement, Sonicay, a few other bands, they really got smacked in the ass kind of with this whole thing of like too hip and strange to ever be played on any kind of radio, but too commercial to be played on college radio. And I think Albini actually had something to do with that. There's a certain type of band that like people are too pop. They're too.

Oh, my gosh. It's just too, whatever, to be on college radio. And really for a band like the Pixies, that, that's a certain. was their only market that was conceivable at that time. There was no radio station in America that would play gigantic, not even K-Rock or something. Like, just too weird. Yeah. And so they just, they didn't get any airplay either place because of that, that attitude about they're a little too shiny or they're too produced or whatever. I don't really know what it was, but something about their sellouts already. It's been five minutes. Yeah. There was a lot of that going on at that time around

a ton of records. They were not the only band to undergo that. Do you remember any of the other ones, just off the top of your head? Well, the replacements were the main one that that happened to. Everybody, and that was another one where every article that you ever read fixated, oh, or the reviews, oh, you know, Tim, oh my God, the production

is awful. If they were just produced well, gosh, they're trying to sell out. They're trying to write hits. They're trying to, there's horns. They've got a horn section. You know, just this complete breastbeating about the production. It's like, you know, really people who like the replacements or who conceivably could like the replacements don't give a

shit who produced it or that there's horns. It's also that like I mean duh like when you first make an album and you're nobody you have five cents and it's going to sound like you have five cents. And then when you have more than five cents, it's going to sound like you have more than five cents because you have better equipment. You have more time. Like I think people equating that with selling out is like such a weird, it's almost like diminishing the artist's vision and saying like, oh, you didn't want to sound like this, but you succumbed to pressure when instead that it's simply what happens. I think most artists would die to record on great equipment in a nice studio from the beginning, but they don't have that opportunity.

And so people associate their sound with something like more grimy or grungy or however you want to say it. And then they get very offended when all of a sudden, you know, they can. can afford to put horns on a song where those horns are great on that fucking song. Yeah, but nobody said that at the time. You know, I mean, the thing is that also a lot of those bands aren't formally trained engineers or they've never been in a studio. They don't know what to do in a studio.

So, of course, the producer does what the producer does. And I mean, and it's all fine. Like I said, the bottom line is, are the songs well written? I mean, that's what you should be looking at. And how are they performed, you know, live? and that seemed to be something that escaped people in the written press. And it was such a weird time thinking back, like the Pixies were a band that almost everything people knew about them was from writing.

They didn't have a video on MTV. They didn't have radio airplay. So it was all about what was written about them. To me, they were a band that got squeezed out a little from their rightful, what I would have considered their rightful place. Yeah, they were a little early in many ways. I want to hear one more song off this album because I'm selfish. And I love Bone Machine.

And I want to hear Bone Machine. I want everyone to hear Bone Machine. So let's hear Bone Machine. And then we're going to talk a little bit about the reviews of this album and also the tour with the throwing muses in Europe, which I think was sort of an important turning point. So here is Bone Machine. That was Bone Machine. Another one in the canon of Pixie's songs that you're like literally, What, babe? I was talking to a preachy-preach about Kissy-Kiss. He bought me a soda. He bought me a soda. He bought me a soda. He bought me a soda. And then he tried to molest me in the parking lot. Okay. Not only bizarre lyrics, but also always a little subversive. Not just a little. A lot. A lot subversive. But I really love that song. I wanted to play that song also to give myself a chance to give a hat tip to Kim's baselines. Because I think, you know, this isn't a band.

And there's multiple ways, obviously, to approach bass lines. And I think some bands are like, baseline mirrors the lead guitar or whatever, you know. But Kim had played guitar for 10 years before she joined Pixies. So she came up with really inventive baselines. I mean, the most obvious one being gigantic, you know, that song is driven by that baseline. But you can really hear it too on Bone Machine. Well, tons of their songs start with the bass. Yes.

mad amounts of them start with the baseline, which is another unusual thing. And if your brain has been inundated with formulaic rock songs, it's just very lovely to hear just another way of going about it. It's great. I personally very much resonate with a baseline in a song. I've always have, it's, you know, Delta 5 blew my mind because of that. It's just like, that's something that keeps you involved in the song and a really hooked. line and sinker away. And I think that had a lot to do with how good these songs were. It's like, you know, like you kind of said earlier, they grab you within three seconds and then that

baseline keeps you in there. You're stuck. Okay. So, like you said, you know, maybe in America, it was a little different. But, you know, overseas where they were always more famous, they're on tour with throwing muses. And throwing muses were, you know, bigger than them at this time. They were already pretty big in Europe, you know, by nature of having been on 480 for longer. And the pixies were opening for them. This was the Sex and Death tour. But, you know, if you're familiar with throwing music, not you, Gina, obviously, I know you are, but the people listening. It's really good, but it's not a gut punch in the way that Pixies music is especially probably live.

And I think, you know, after a while, and the Pixies are just going on every night, blowing people's fucking minds. and halfway through the tour they switched places. And the pixies kind of took over the headlining spot and the muses were happier not to have to go on after them. Yeah, I was on tour. I was on tour, not really, but I was following the pixies writing about them the next summer in Europe.

And it was just mind-blowing, you know, a band that powerful. Nobody could have followed them. And I'm sure a year before, that was true. I like you just casually dropped it. Oh, me, yeah, it's just the next year. I was simply following the pixies on tour. It's crazy that it was the next year. I mean, it all went so fast, right?

You know? So, you're the coolest. Okay, so an important... I brought up this tour. Everybody thinks so. Not my daughter. Your daughter is wrong. And again, if you want me to come have a talk with her, I will.

So this is also an important tour because Kim and Tanya Donnelly from throwing muses really bond. and they talk to each other about their individual aspirations to write music outside of their bands. And I think Kim had already had been doing this. So she kind of showed her some demos, and this becomes the first Breeders record. I want to do a whole separate episode on The Breeders. I will not disrespect the Breeders by, like,

lumping them into a Pixies episode. But I just want to bring up, you know, for the story of the Pixies, that first pick, the Breeders album is recorded in between Surfer Rosa and Doolittle. And Steve Albini and Kim got along really well, despite him maybe having some choice words for the Pixies album. And she did ask him to do Pod,

which is the first Breeders album, which is amazing. It's a great album. They put Happiness as a Warm Gun cover on there because Ivo asked them to. 4A.D. put it out. They sent the demos to Ivo. He was like, hell yeah, flew there. to Scotland to record it. The drummer of Slint plays on this album.

Britt Walford, that was an Albini recommendation. What's kind of interesting for me before we move on to this is like, A, so Kim's already starting to make her own music, like out in the world on 4 AD. It's coming out. I think her and Tanya had sort of a deal that they would alternate Breeders' releases. That was kind of the idea. There's tension has formed in this band. at this point. I would be remiss if I did not bring that up.

There's a story that Kim tells in the oral history of the band about when Gigantic was like on the set list. And she always played, I think, to the right or the left or whatever. You know, the center was Charles. And he stepped away from the middle mic and was like gesturing for her to come in the middle. And she was like, why, I don't, I can sing from here, you know. but he wouldn't go on. And so she tried to come over to the middle, but her chord for her bass wouldn't reach.

And she was like super humiliated and had to like walk back. And there's some speculation. A few people do mention it in the book that Charles didn't love the attention that gigantic got. I think there's a story where he meets, I think it's Iggy Pop. And Iggy Pop is like, oh my God, I love Gigantic. and I think he was a bit bummed. I'm only saying that to plant the seeds of that and then her making her own album,

we started to have a bit of tension in the band between the two of them specifically. Doolittle. We're at Doolittle now. April 1989, a year after Sera Rosa. They're really knocking these out. Doolittle was not produced by C. Valbini. Doolittle was produced by Gil Norton,

who had produced the re-recording of gigantic that they used for. for the single. This album, I think, is notable besides the fact that it's an amazing album, but that it is the first album to have mostly new songs. Because Come On, Pilgrim and Surfer Rosa were culled from those 17 songs that they made in that demo. Not that this is like a game that I need to play with myself, but because I just can't help it, I'm constantly being like, what's my favorite? Is it Doolittle? Is it Surfer Rosa? And I think I land on Doolittle. Just slightly more than Surfer Rosa.

And it might literally rest on the back of my most favorite pixie songs are on here. DeBacer, this monkey's gone to heaven, and I bleed. Because, ugh, those songs, Gina. It's an amazing record. I really don't think there's a bad song on it. And, you know, it's thematically. It kind of holds together.

It's really hard to pinpoint what's so good about the pixies. but, you know, there are many, many lyrics and moments that you will take away from a Pixies record that you will remember, sort of burned into your brain. Yeah. Just little moments, snippets of, you know, amazingness. And I think the lead, I think debaser leads it off, right? And it's...

It is? Let's hear it because I feel like as a first song, much, you know, I think they did always a really good job of having, like, the first song is a fucking let's go, you know? Yeah. But funnily enough, before you hear this, Charles didn't like this song and Gil, the producer, convinced him to keep it on, which to me is like insane to imagine this album not starting with debaser. So this is debaser. That was debaser.

The slicing up eyeballs reference is a reference to the film Uncien Andaloo, which is I think what he's saying, Enchian, Andalusia. in 1920s film that shows a shot of a woman's face with a razor that match cuts to another shot of a sheep's eyeball being sliced open with a razor that makes it look like the woman's eyeball is being sliced open. It's intense. I think a lot of people wrote about this and they were like, this gleeful singing about slicing up eyeballs and like ha ha ha ha is just so, it's just so. it's just so like I don't know what the word even for it is it's like joyful is maybe not the word but it's just riveting to hear that and experience it what do you think Gina well I think I mean at least I and a lot of people

if you took film studies or any film classes in college had probably seen that Bonyl film or at least in parts of it it was talked about a lot you know it's the kind of thing undergraduates in college talked about was Bonyll and um and and And the fact that he used that as sort of the basis for his lyrics, you know, there's a lot in a lot of his records. They really talk about his songs. I mean, you know, there's a lot of vivisection, right?

Bone machine, broken face. You know, he's interested in bodies being vivisected. This is not the only moment of that. And he's interested in debasement. Yeah, totally. It's all over every single record. You know, you already mentioned that, you know, there's a lot of men leading women off. into the woods.

Yeah. And the thing of it is, is I think that that sentence, you know, I want to grow up to be a debaser. It's really saying the quiet part out loud, right? A lot of men do want to grow up and be debasers, or at least that's what they do.

That's what the films are focused on. That's what, you know, how many Femjet movies have you seen in your life where a woman is tortured and then rescued by a man? They all want to grow up and be debasers. And the problem with the song,

not problem. I mean, it's a great song, but the reason it resonates is because that's part of our cinematic and mental life of a lot of people. And I don't think that the song would work if that

wasn't the case. You know, David Bowie covered this song. Tid Machine did. And it was David Bowie's favorite song of the Pixies, which I think probably says probably Charles decided he liked the song after that. But, you know.

I guess I would too. If I was like, this is trash. And then David Bowie was like, I love it. I'd be like, no, you're right. It's a good genius. Yeah, actually, might be okay. This is with Edwin Pouncey. Also, find me a more British name than Edwin Pouncey. Of the new musical express, NME, our gods. April 989.

Personally, I find Black Francis's lyrics together with the various ways he chooses to translate them. A delight. He manages to push a kind of Beefhardian naivety. Okay, a little difficult for me, an idiot, to read these words. into his work that suggests a love affair with the very language he is dabbling in, which is what you said earlier. So who cares if all the worlds don't appear to fit together properly or that the picture they eventually show is slightly blurred and chaotic?

It all adds to the originality and charm of the band who brings such visions to life. Yeah, you know, you said saying the quiet part out loud, that's interesting. You know, while I don't think Frank Black, Black, Frances, Charles, was super interested in communicating directly what he was working out through his songs. I don't think it's impossible to speculate or kind of from the body of work feel out maybe what this person was trying to communicate. No, I don't think so either. I mean, and, you know, there's a lot of that stuff that sort of detritus, the shards of culture that's ugly and weird. And he says he's interested in surrealism.

I mean, I know that's one of the things. And obviously that movie on Shandandulu is, you know, sort of errs surrealist stuff. But definitely someone who can do that, who can take those shards, you know, and make it into a cohesive whole. You know, really, if you listen to Do Little, there are a lot of themes and continuity between the themes. I mean, water is an obvious thing. There's a lot of oceans and seas and waves. And there's a lot of water in it. And there's a lot of ecological destruction.

There's a lot of debasement. You know, and those things kind of go together. I can see that. I think, you know, you mentioned earlier that you love, not earlier a couple of times throughout this show, that you really think bands with a man and a woman in them are, you know, that's the way to be in a band because it's so good. I would almost like make the argument that Black France's,

gives a masculine and feminine energy in his lyrics, in his musicality, in his presentation, in his like, you know, even Kristen Hirsch saying that she, he used to sing really high. This is actually a really good quote that she said that I loved this and I want to talk to you a bit about this because I'm so interested to hear thoughts. So she said, he didn't have that Charles thing yet. He sang really high and screamed like a woman. She's talking about the demo, the early demo. And that just sounded really honest and immediate.

If you haven't built up a shell yet, then what comes out of you is going to be pretty fucking balanced gender-wise. In music, there's definitely a masculine and feminine, and it has nothing to do with who's a man and who's a woman and who's gay and who's straight. And if a songwriter is using their most honest voice, it comes out as a person instead of a man or woman. And that's what this tape sounds like. you know this this is pre we including non-binary and things like that but i really that really resonates

with me because often like i'll hear a band i'm not going to name names and i'll be like i don't like this and i'll know that it's not because it's not good it's because it's a hundred percent masculine and i there's no femininity in it and i can't connect with it because i find it boring because of that what do you think about this idea of like music being like that yeah oh i think i mean i've only just heard that quote, but I think that's amazing. The idea that if you sing as a person and not as a male or a female, that it's always going to resonate better with me, I could probably just line up every single band with that statement. I mean, it's totally true of Charles. Like he, I mean, I'm sure he changed personalities. I obviously didn't know him in any meaningful way, but, but the lyrics to the

songs never, they never objectified despite the fact that they are about, often about, gross things like molestation and weird things like that you know what i mean there's a lot of sex in them but they just aren't about objectification they're just about the weirdness of the world they're not even about love right there's very few like love songs no and if you think about um like what other songs are about every single other song i mean pretty much every other song you know about being in the world do tend to be about love and um or lack of love or sex or hate or yeah you know something like that um and really those songs all have some perspective on it um i think saying that his songs are about being a person in the world um it is absolutely right um and it's

sonic and it's lyrical and it's musical about the pixies and it may explain the extreme like i said that undercurrent of people who really love the pixies um without them ever being sort of elevated to some place of stardom or, you know. I want to zoom out for a second. Actually, let's play a song. And then I'm going to ask this question of you. I'm glad you put it on your list because I think it's my number one favorite pixie song. It kind of changes from time to time.

And again, why do I care to rank my things? I just, I just do. But Monkey Gone to Heaven is just, oh, there's, it's like when that like, man, the devil and the screaming of God is seven is like, to me almost, religious. You know, it really, if there's a fervor in it, oh, it gets me every time. Let's hear a monkey gone to heaven. That was monkey gone to heaven. I think this is a really good example of what you were saying about writing about being a person in the world, experiencing the environment, experiencing religion. This song is kind of an environmental song, right? I mean,

in a surrealist way, obviously. I don't see how you could say it was surreal. I think this is one of his, actually one of his more legible songs about what it's about, I would say it's the most legible. You know, there's a, there's an underwater god who controls the sea and he got killed by 10,000 million pounds of sludge from New York and New Jersey. This is the song about environmental destruction, and it's completely clear. There's a hole in the sky. Totally. And the ground's not cold. The ground's not cold. You know, it's about climate change and man's liability for that. And it's incredible because it's 30 years ago, right? Yeah. You know, it's

much more relevant now. It should be the anthem of all the climate conferences that we're seeing around the world. But, you know, there's just nothing even remotely dated about this song. Yeah. I think the man is five, devil is six, goddess seven is a

Kabbala reference. Actually, you know, Kabbal is the Jewish mysticism based on numerology. And this monkey's gone to heaven, you know, like you could make the case that this monkey is man. I just, I love this song. He said in an interview to Esquire about this song, I'm less concerned with the lyrics making sense, than making the lyrics pop out of the speaker when people are listening in the music. Some of it is obvious enough to understand. But then if man is five,

the devil is six, then God is seven. Guess what? That rhymes with monkey gone to heaven. And it's all a little bit of a mixture of saying things that are real and relevant with a lot of Alice in Wonderland, jibber, Jabber, and Gobble Degook. This is a surreal war. work. I'm a surrealist. Songs can't just be one plus one equals two, you know? One plus one equals brand muffin. Gorgeous. I think that really, yeah, captures his attitude about all of this.

What I wanted to ask you is, you know, we're talking about he's writing about being a person in the world. What was the world in the late 80s? Like, you know, the songs about climate change. What else, like, what was kind of the tenor of the late 80s? Well, I have to say, I don't remember climate change. changed being a subject that anybody talked about at that time. So he was clearly ahead of his time on that. But I know that lots of people were concerned with it at that time. Yeah, my cool cousin,

shout out to her. She was in Greenpeace. I remember when I was like literally around this time, because I was seven or eight years old. And she came to my first grade class and spoke about Greenpeace. And she was like, you know, a cool 22 year old college environmentalist. So it was, it was bubbling. Yeah, it was. There was the Green Party was already in existence. And yeah, Greenpeace. was definitely doing super radical things at that time, but it just wasn't kind of in your face the way it is today. So it's interesting that he talked about that. But when you say, you know, what was the world like? I mean, the main thing like when I look back at my book that you like so much, the thing that I, that's just so memorable about it is just it's, it's really pre everything that we live, that we use today. So it's pre-iphone. It's

pre. I mean, the internet existed, but what didn't really exist was the worldwide web. Sure. And no email, no GPS, no, we did everything on pay phones. We went to the bank, no ATMs. You went to the bank and took out money. Going like, I went on tour with a band across Europe. The band was called the Young Fresh Fellows. Oh, shout out Young Fresh Fellows. Amazing band. And every time we crossed a border, you know, we played like, they played, not me. They played like seven countries or something, but every country had different money. You know, there was no euro.

And every time we crossed the border, we'd be like, shit, what do we need now? What's the exchange rate? How do we get it? We need to get the money. How will we buy gas? Like little tiny things like that. It was extremely different than today. Now you put your ATM in the gas station thing, right?

And there's euros and you don't think about any of that stuff at all. But imagine trying to find a club in, you, you know, Hamburg that you've just driven to from Berlin, but you don't have GPS, you don't have a cell phone. It's very different, you know? Yeah. And politically, I mean, this is Bush, right? Yeah, yeah. The vibe was bad. Reagan was bad. Reagan was bad. I mean, we hated Reagan. Like, I can hardly remember because of the last five years, it really kind of erased what hatred, it made hatred. It brought hatred to a new level. the last five years. But we did hate Reagan.

I mean, hated him. Everything he did was that same kind of soul-killing thing that we experienced recently of like, oh my God, he did what? There was a lot of that. And also very much many, many people in America, most people liked Reagan. So it wasn't quite the same as the last five years where the polarization was pretty like I was able to insulate my life from anybody who had a nice thing to say. about what was going on. But you couldn't do that in the Reagan years, right? Yeah.

There was no insulation like that. So we felt like we were to coin a phrase, our little group had always been, you know, we really were hunkering down there in the underground. Like, we're against all this weird stuff going on out there. And so it felt like that. That makes a lot of sense hearing the music contextualized within that because I also hear, obviously not to the level of Nirvana later brought it to,

but these are pop songs, but there's an undercurrent of anger and you can hear it and you can feel it, you know, and like there's a frustration and it's, you know, I think an animating principle of a lot of this music is sort of like this buried anger, this frustration, or expressing release through these, you know, like you said, quietly. The loud. The loud is like, ugh, like, get it out of me. You know, and then then you think about also, you know, the pixies are in Boston. It's fucking brutally cold half the year. And, you know, that's another thing probably playing in. It makes total sense to me why so many of these songs are about water or beaches. Like, if I spent a year in Puerto Rico where it's like a gorgeous island on the beaches,

I would start to write about that a lot when I'm sitting in my like freezing, you know, Boston studio. And all checks out. And, you know, again, I was, I was a child in the 80s, but like, the aesthetic of the 80s was it was not nice. Yeah, you know, yeah, it's hard to remember, but there was a reason that I think some people took it overboard, but that sense of like, I only want to like stuff that nobody else likes. I only like it if everybody else hates it.

I don't want everybody else to embrace it. You know, I want it to be my own little band that I love. I think that was a part of that. It was kind of poorly expressed and maybe not helpful, but, you know, like because, what the mainstream likes is Ronald Reagan, right? What the mainstream likes is really actually quite evil. And you don't want to participate in that.

And so the sort of extreme reaction of, I must like something unlistenable, you know, I'm going to like the Jesus lizard or whatever, you know, is like, you know, understandable. And then I think it got a little carried away with when there were certain bands, like the pixies being like, well, I just want to be a successful band. Or, you know, I'm doing my own thing. I'm speaking my truth.

I'm singing my songs, but please just play me on the radio. Yeah, I don't think they were interested in being marginally. Right. Yeah, they didn't want to be a band that nobody was going to listen to. Yeah, I can't tell. I mean, it's not that they were snobby at all, because that's definitely, like, but they also from all accounts were not ambitious, you know, like I think they wanted to make really good albums and they loved touring,

but there's a lot of things they could have done that they didn't. that would have made them more famous. Like you said they didn't have MTV videos. That was on purpose. They chose not to. They made that choice. They actually do end up having a video for Doolittle finally. And it does blow them up because they made a video for Here Comes Your Man, I want to say.

And it became BuzzBind. Those of you who did not grow up in the early 90s and late 80s don't know about BuzzBind, but it was very awesome. MTV played like the cool stuff in the buzz bin. The MTV Buzzbin CD volume two, looking further. And, you know, that elevated them to a broader audience. I don't know that they were like trying to be super famous either. Like I think they were trying to be themselves.

Yeah, I don't think they were, but I don't know. You know, I can't speak for them. But I do think I do know, I read some more, maybe I spoke to them about this, but here comes your man was a song that they thought was, or at least Charles didn't like because it was too, poppy. He thought, oh, it's too obvious. That's that obvious songwriting that I don't like. And of course, I was like, I love it. I think it's great. And apparently everybody else did too. And, you know, to me, here comes your man is a great song. It's, you know, to me it evoked the idea of waiting for the man,

which is this sort of dark, gritty, bohemian, you know, I'm a junkie and isn't that cool kind of thing? And the pixies are completely the opposite of that, right? Non-junkies. We have here a set of people who are not junkies and you don't ever think they are. They don't look like it. They don't they don't romanticize that rock starry, you know, groupies and whatever that you see is. Robust Midwestern people. Right. Completely not that thing and almost alone, you know, in that at that time, particularly. And so to me, I just thought here comes your man is funny because I saw that as kind of a weird comment, like a weird kind of backass word comment on the idea of waiting for your man. It's like, here he comes. Here comes. You know what I mean? Although I think that's not

exactly what it was about. I read somewhere that it was about hobos. Okay. I mean, hobos are kind of an old-fashioned thing. Like train jumpers? Yeah. No, your box car's waiting. Yeah. That's what it was about, I think. Apparently Ivo had them record and produce a very pop, sleek version of Here Comes Your Man, but it never saw the light of day because Charles wouldn't allow it. let's listen to Here Comes Your Man, because I don't think, I think people do need to hear it since we're talking about it so much. Okay, that was Here Comes Your Man, a gorgeous, just a gorgeous song. I think Gina is something we didn't talk too much about yet on this album is that the beginning of the lessening of Kim's role in writing and appearing on songs. Like there's no, lead vocal from her on this album. I know that there was a, there was like a bit of a falling out on tour

between the two of them where Kim showed up late, I believe. And Charles got mad and maybe threw a guitar at her or the guitar hit her. The vibe is not great and you can kind of see it in terms of how heavily or lack thereof

Kim is featured on this. album. Yeah, I read somewhere there was a Kim-shaped hole starts to emerge in their music. I personally didn't notice it until later. I feel like she's like the Cheshire cat, right? Like her smile, she has this big beaming smile and that she personally faded out and the smile stayed for several years. Do you know what I mean? Totally, like the specter of Kim. Yeah, or at least from the the viewer's perspective or the listener's perspective. Yeah, because on Doolittle, even though she doesn't have a lead vocal song, she's still doing a lot of backups and harmonies and stuff.

So she's present. It's just maybe like in a way that we're not aware of. She's not getting as much input. Well, also she's a bass player, right? So the bass is very present. And I think that all of that is like her work as an instrumentalist is extremely crucial to the Pixies. And so to think of her as an onstage presence.

presence is a little bit simplifying kind of what her role really was in the band. Totally. In 1990, Charles, David, and Joey do move to Los Angeles without Kim. Allegedly, and this is just taking from the oral history that I mentioned before that I was reading that interviewed a bunch of people, namely Ivo. Charles at this point already wanted to kick Kim out of the band. But Kim was like calling Ivo and someone also 480 and she was like, I don't know what to do. They all moved to L.A. without me. Like, what do I do? And they suggested that she fly out to L.A. And I think because she did, there's speculation that he wasn't willing or able to just fire her to her face. And it kind of like made the

situation smoothed over that she came there. So she stays in the band. They all live. lived in the formerly known as the Oakwoods apartment building, famous apartment buildings here in Los Angeles on Barham Boulevard, up the road from Warner Brothers Studios where many child actors have lived. The throwing muses were also living there at the time. That sounds so fun, right? Just like you're in like summer camp apartment building and like swimming with your pals making music.

So they make Bossa Nova. It's produced by Gil Norton again. and I read that as opposed to the previous two albums, or three if you want to count, come on, Pilgrim, which we should, as opposed to those albums, this album was written largely in the studio instead of them bringing demos and kind of fleshing out songs. Do you feel like you can hear that in this album, that it was written on the fly?

You know, I was listening to it, re-listing to it. I hadn't listened to it in a long time, and I thought, wow, so many of their greatest songs are on this record, which it's just still astonishing to me that they put out sort of five records in a row essentially in three years, which no one does that. No one in the history of the world has done that in which all of the records are so good, you know, and have so many great songs on them. Maybe you two.

Maybe in three years, five records. No, maybe not in three years. Yeah, I mean, it's a pretty swift thing. And so, of course, it makes sense if you think, well, a lot of the songs were written before they started recording. But I think it's really, Bosanova is really that interesting moment for them because, like you said, you know, Kim's on the way out. There's a lot of tension.

They're writing in the studio. All those things that are so different from the other previous stuff, it's great. I mean, many of the songs that I think about when I think about the Pixies are on that album, but it does feel more song oriented. Like, here's a song, here's a song, here's a song, here's a song, as opposed to kind of a seamless whole to me. It doesn't feel quite as organic, but I love the songs on it.

Totally. You know, it's funny that you say that. You're so right. I think, like, in my experience and going back and spending time with all these albums was that, like, they're like magic eye paintings in a way where, like, in my memory, I had been like, oh, I don't like Basanova as much as the other ones.

Just because I think maybe because they put out so much much music in such a short amount of time that it's not so much like each album is thematically wildly different from the other ones. I mean, there are obviously differences and like this album in particular seems to have a lot about space. It's hard for me to remember what was on what because they're all so good and they all fit as a whole. And you're right. It's like Bossa Nova has so many good songs. I mean, the lead single, Valoria, is amazing. It didn't land. Didn't do well. I don't know why, but I think it's a great something. Well, it might not have done well, but I had a student in one of my classes last semester named Valoria. So it landed somewhere. Oh my God. Yeah, that was

kind of amazing. Yeah, you know, I agree with that a lot. I think that I have, you know what, honestly, Bosanova had had kind of been somehow squeezed out of my mind. Sure. Before you called me about this and I started looking into it. If you had asked me, I would have went, I would have went straight from Doolittle to Tromplomont. I just, it just wasn't there in my head. Of course, when I looked at it, I was like, oh, yes, of course. But somehow rather it had been squeezed out. And I guess I would have attached all of those songs to different records. A lot of people play the game of reorganizing songs into different albums. I don't play that game because it doesn't seem fun to me, but people like it. But doesn't, I mean, maybe I shouldn't say this, but doesn't Spotify sort of do that for you?

If you let it, I don't. But, you know. Sure. Algorithmic. Yeah. So I guess that's a thing. But for me, yeah. And I wouldn't say there's a lot of bands that I can't assign the right song to the right record, just because I have that kind of brain.

But it was just kind of surprising. I was just like, oh, Allison, right. I would have thought that was on the next record. I was surprised. Totally. Yeah, like lots of good songs. I forgot about Is She Weird? I really like Is She Weird?

Which I was like, this could have fit easily on the last record. Or the one before, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I think so. And you chose Dig for Fire to play, which we're going to hear now. But Ivo chose Valoria as the lead single. But I think Dig for Fire might have been a better one. Oh, I agree.

But of course. Yeah. Why don't we hear it? This is Dig for Fire. That was Dig for Fire. I should mention, even though we just, like, went off about how it's crazy, they put out this much music in such a short time. They took a small hiatus before Possa Nova. So they stopped touring and they weren't really talking to each other.

It was like after that little incident that I mentioned of Kim being late and Charles throwing the guitar at her in Europe. So I think during that time, and we said it before, it's like when the breeders stuff happened. But back to Dig for Fire. This song, once again, gorgeously doesn't mean anything. I think they asked Charles what it meant, and he was like, it literally doesn't mean anything. It's a bad talking heads rip off, which is not a bad talking heads rip off. It is a good talking heads rip off, in my opinion. I like it better than the talking heads, but that's just me.

Me too, because it sounds really 1990 to me, and that's what I like things to sound like. Whereas the talking head sound very 1970s. Right, yeah. I mean, he says it's about nothing. I think it's one of the many songs that his interest in anthropology, which was his major before he dropped out comes out.

There's something about that in there. There's a little Rip Van Winkle mention. There is this old man who spent so much of his life sleeping that he's able to keep awake for the rest of his years. It's just, you know, it's used to yet another example of his sort of love of language and his way with words that it doesn't, really matter that it doesn't mean anything. The tune is great. It's singable. Yeah, it feels to me like

it means something to me. So I guess that's all that really matters. Like when I'm sitting there singing, no, my child, this is not my desire. I'm feeling stuff. Yeah. Yeah, I agree. There's like a lot of phraseology that you could pull out. I mean, I was thinking about that. Sort of jumping ahead to like a song like UMass, you know, where obviously about nothing, but you can certainly, you know, yelp that chorus and apply it to your heart. life pretty effectively. I can't wait until we get to UMass. I love UMass. I mean, maybe Dig for Fire is a little bit this, but apparently Ivo had asked Charles on this album, can you write some anthemic songs? And Charles was like, okay, got a kick out of trying to do it.

And I could see how this like is a little more anthemic than like past songs. Do you feel that way? I mean, I think this song is much catchier than the next record. Totally. These are all singable. The songs are very legible in the sense that you can hear the words, unlike some bands of that time, you know, where you really couldn't understand the words. Valoria is very catchy, too, and very, like, sing-songy. Yeah, and the spelled out chorus, you know, that kind of spelling stuff out, I can't, I'm not reaching in my brain right now for the many songs that have done that, but many songs have done that and everybody likes it. Sure, you know, famously Gwen Stefani, B-A-N-A-N-A-S, just kidding, that's the only one that came to my mind because my brain is broken.

The one that came to my mind was actually, hey, Mickey, you're so fun. Doesn't she, she sings in that. The OG. Yeah. Even less Kim on this album. Once again, no lead vocal, once again, no writing credit. This album is very Charles writing, like we said, these anthemic songs and like kind of indulging his interests like you were saying even more like, phrasing and language and space.

I think Valoria is a reference to Valore the fabric, but he made it a woman who's also maybe an alien unclear. So I just want to read really quick a interview with Martin Aston that Charles had done talking about their popularity in America because Asin had asked, how appreciative is America right now? And Charles said,

we really aren't too hip over here. They think we're some stupid underground college band. We aren't hip at all. I guess we have fans, but we definitely don't have the respect. We get all the nerds and stuff. Not the harder. We get the regular Joe type people who just like tunes that don't sit around and wonder if we're playing loud or weird enough. People who don't even fucking know who Sonic Youth is, you know.

Hey, I heard the Pixies on College Radio today. You guys are great. They just don't care. I wanted to ask you, since you were there, what did you feel about that stage? Like, did you feel that that was accurate? Yeah, although I don't quite know what he means by that. I don't know who it was he wished to have as his audience from that. Is he saying he only wanted people who liked Sonic Youth to like the...

That's what I thought? Because that doesn't really jive with the... I mean, I can't remember. I think that I went on tour with them. I told you this before, right? I think it was right after this record. So 1990, does that make sense? It was the summer of 1990.

Yeah, that would be the tour of this record probably. Yeah, it was in September. September 1st was the first day that I joined them. So 1990, so you have to remember, Nirvana has not come out yet. I mean, never mind, hasn't come out yet. So I'm there in Europe and I had been just, there'd been this huge balls up on getting me there for some reason. And I had to drive a million miles. And I, in the course of all of like flying overnight and getting a rental car and driving a million miles, getting in the traffic jam and all this stuff, I lost everything I own.

meaning my passport and a bunch of, and my money and my airline ticket, all this stuff. I ended up seeing them a whole ton of times because I couldn't leave until I got a replacement passport. So I was just like glued to them for like the next week. And all this stuff like I was aware that Kim and Charles didn't like each other very much, but the only way that that manifested in my presence, but I'm pretty sure I would say in everybody's presence, was that they sat really far apart from each other on the bus.

and just didn't talk. I mean, they just didn't interact. There was never anything negative or like bad or, do you know what I mean? It wasn't like a, I mean. They weren't like fighting or like. Yeah, and having been in the presence of bands that hated each other a lot, pretty much all bands, that describes all bands. You know, that's just not special to the pixies.

And so when you say like, oh, why didn't they break up sooner or what was going on, why didn't you fire her? Well, first of all, they had a successful band. And second of all, it's like roommates in college in the dorms or something. Like there is no way people on the road are going to like each other. It's just not a thing. They just get into these things and everything's terrible. It's terrible because being on the road is super hard.

Yeah, anyone who's ever been on tour, which I have and you have, it's like five weeks of tour and you're in the same space as the same three people for five weeks. Rage, kill, stabs. Exactly. It's just terrible. And even when it's like cushy, like you have a big bus and with the toilet in it and all that kind of stuff, it's just super, super hard. I don't think people really recognize how difficult it is to do the same thing every day, every, you know, all of that stuff. So to me it was just like, oh, well, you know, they're clearly not friends.

That's not, you know, not a revelation to me. Right. It doesn't seem like their personas to outwardly scream at each other or like throwing a guitar at someone because you're mad to. me indicates that like maybe you're not so keen on use your words or like it takes a lot to even have an altercation or a confrontation and then it comes out in this like very bizarre like knee jerk like throw the guitar you know that that totally explains it to me I just yeah they just were not people who are going to outwardly manifest and huge screaming fits especially about complicated things like songwriting credits and who's carrying this band and stuff but you know

I've seen, I mean, most famously, I would say Nirvana, but I've seen bands in the depths of despair whose lives are just really terrible, who are super messed up, and they step on stage and it's magical. And there's almost like a correlation between that, like how terrible things are makes the on-stage 45 minutes better. And I think at the time that I saw the Pixies

was very much like that. Full disclosure, dear listeners, I went on tour as a tour manager. Let me tell you what the worst position on tour is in the world. You have the same thing where you want to kill everyone, but then also you don't get to play a show or anything to have like an artistic release and have the payoff where it's like, okay, this is all worth it. Here at Bansplane, that's just me and producer Dylan,

where like, yes, have we spent too much time together and do we want to murder each other? Yes. But then we get this glorious hours of just like making the magic happen on the mic, and it's all worth it. Right. And also, well, tour managers, terrible because everything that goes wrong is your fault, but nothing that goes right is your is yours. Amen, Gina. That's why I only did it the one time. One five week tour. No thanks. Quit Yassi forever. I can't imagine how anybody does that. Charles says something about this later, which I'll read it.

I'll read it in full when we get there, but something to the effect of like all bands break up or they don't, which is show me the lie. It's basically, it's just about when, right? Or they don't and, you know, whatever happens. back to the thing about what fan base he wanted or didn't want. I mean, I'm inclined to believe he's trolling the writer. And it seems like all of the interviews I've read involve him trolling the writer. Because I think that was just his personality. Like, same as the lyrics. Yeah, no, I agree with that.

Actually, like I said, I spent very little time with them, maybe, you know, a few days in the history of the world. I did not get to know him. I asked him some questions and spent a long time bitching about my passport to which everybody's like, uh-huh, uh-huh, we've heard this. But, um, you know, my sense of him was that he was, at least to me, very polite, not particularly interested in my not very interesting questions. Um, because, you know, being a rock critic at that time and even now, like, what do you have, how do you think this stuff up, Charles? What does dig for fire mean? You know, A, he's been asked it eight million times. B, he didn't really have a, I don't think he had a really sentient answer.

Right. And finally, he, you know, besides having been over-interviewed, because in Europe, they were much bigger, right? So, you know, there's a lot of interviews going on and stuff. In addition to that, you know, I felt like he was in his head about music, that he had his own singular vision of what his band sounded like, but that in terms of listening to other bands or being connected to the indie rock world or sitting around, you know, telling you at length about all the great new releases on SST and how other bands have sold out and how, you know, being sort of very, very locked into that. He did not come off like that at all. And neither did Kim, who I talked to quite a bit more on that tour. And I do remember one thing, which was I pulled out the tape of the

new replacements record. And I was like, I'm really excited to listen to this. She said, oh, I'm glad you liked them. And I said, you say like that like you don't. And she was like, I don't. But I think it's fine that you do. That's amazing. And I remember going, that's so polite. But that actually the way that she said it, which was kind of like this super like kind of cheery like, go ahead and like stuff I don't like was completely out of keeping with how people at those times felt about music. Like everything was like, you know, Sonic Youth or Die or Replacements or Kill Your So sure. So the fact that she's just like like, like what you like, I don't care, was completely unique. Yeah, that's like almost subversive. It was practically subversive.

And the thing is I pretty much think that he was like that too. But he sort of manifested it a little differently than her, not kind of quite as cheerleadery. But he didn't give a shit. I think about what he was being asked. And he just kind of had to pull weird answers out of himself. Yeah. I like, I kind of really appreciate that about the Pixies because I do think it informed the songs in the sense where like obviously they have inputs. Like there is a nature element of everyone.

It's not like they've emerged with. having heard a song in their entire lives and then wrote music. But it wasn't overthought, right? And that's what makes it. It truly does feel like it's just sort of like a few things were tossed in a blender and came out without like, I don't know, like, too much overthinking or too much making it like a big deal or an homage, which like I think a lot of bands can do that and you just hear it so much that it's like makes the songs not as good.

Well, I think a lot of bands really want you to understand their feelings. You know, like they would really like to tell you something about how they're feeling. And if you don't, you know, get that feeling from them, they're sad, at least when you're conversing about their songs. But I think the pick season, actually Nirvana also, because I don't think Kurt Cobain really cared if you, what you thought about his feelings and his lyrics were a little bit more surreal also. Sure. know, they're not writing love songs.

They don't care whether you think they're sad or happy. The Pixies don't write happy or sad music. Do you know what I mean? No, totally. They write emotive music. Maybe. I think so. I think it's expressive.

It's just not. It's like how in a movie, you know how in a movie when they play the music for you to be like, this is a sad part? Oh, yeah. This is a romantic part. It's not that, right? But it is clearly an expression of, like we talked about a little bit earlier, right? There's feeling of frustration.

There's anger being expressed. There's expressions, but they're not so direct. They don't hit you over the head with it and make it so, like, hold your hand through it. Which I think that allows, for me anyways, to, like, imprint more of my own feelings into it. Yeah, I agree with that. I think, like, you know, a song like Havillina, I guess, what's that about? And how does he feel? How does he feel about havelinas?

Does it matter? Does it matter how we feel about havelinas? You know, I mean, it doesn't, but I find that very freeing, you know, to not be made to feel sad or happy or love worn or whatever. Right. Not to go back to a monkey gone to heaven, but it is my favorite song.

And also we talked a bit about how that was like maybe one of the most direct songs. I never, as a teenager, thought for one second that was about the environment or climate crisis. But I did feel, that it was about urgency. Even now, when I sit around and sing it, I feel this sense of urgency as it builds into like, you know,

and God is seven. Like it's such, it's a build and it's an urgency. And like that to me is like an emotion, right? But it's just not so specific. Yeah. I mean, I guess if I was going to retitle that song, I would call it something's wrong. We got to do something.

Something's very wrong. Totally. You brought this up a little earlier when you were just talking about how they were like over-interviewed in Europe and they were much more popular in Europe. And then back to while Charles was trolling the guy about what kind of fans they wanted to have in America, he wasn't wrong about them being less popular in America and maybe less respected, which you can kind of tell from the reviews of Bossa Nova, whereas like Melody Maker gave it a positive review. In general, this album wasn't as well reviewed as the other ones. And I think they just had such a bill. buildup that people, you know, it's the classic thing where they're like, oh, this is more commercial or like, this is a sellout record. Although I don't think that term was really bandied around. It was more just like they wanted it to be, you know, do little again. And it wasn't. In some ways it was, but in some ways it wasn't. And the reviews kind of reflect that. But there's a lot more reviews in European magazines. And the one that stuck out for me is Q mentioned that there's a lot of sort of like surf

influence here, which we didn't mention yet, but I think it's very clear. Like you said, Havillina, it's very clear in there. Valoria, like there is sort of like a venturesy gone psycho vibe here. Well, the first track, Cecilia Ann is definitely a surf song, for sure. You know, it sounds so mean to say this. I hope the guy isn't listening, but I have to say that just the question, what do you think of your fans or how are your fans compared to, I mean, how would anybody answer that? That is just a really awful thing to ask.

Do you know what I mean? And it really takes me back to that time, too, because a lot of the questions that were being asked and sort of these ideas of selling out or not selling out or who's listening to you? Where are they hearing you? Are they listening to you on college radio? Where else would they hear you? That's the only place they could have heard the pixies. It was pre-Nirvana, right? So there was this huge gap, this giant gap between listening to indie rock and listening to commercial rock. And it was weird how people like me, I guess, expected the bands to fill that gap instead of realizing that the gap wasn't of the band's creation.

You know, it was the creation of radio. And people like me saw ourselves as like championing these bands and saying, we need better stuff on the radio. Please play this on the radio. This would be good on the radio. I think people would like it if you played this on the radio, right? And we said that for like 10 years. And finally Nirvana was the one band that broke through.

And then everybody in radio was like, hey, people really like. this. Let's have a lot more bands like this. I guess people don't really think about how like in the late 80s like what's now called alternative radio like for example K Rock wasn't playing this kind of stuff. They were playing like

I don't know, Depeche Mode. There was some bigger, cool stuff being played obviously but it wasn't American indie rock. Yeah, almost all of it was English. So they played a lot of things like like it I don't think today people would say oh tears for fears or human league.

doesn't sound indie. I mean, to me, it was never indie, but that was what I think K. Rock played a lot of that kind of stuff. Totally. Yeah, that's what I remember. I mean, I was quite young, but I do remember listening to it, and that's like, for whatever reason, that's what sticks in my mind. It's like a lot of Depeche mode. Yeah. And the pixies don't sound like that. I mean, really, they don't. Neither does Sonic Youth, neither do the replacements, not even REM. You know, they just really don't have that English kind of sheen to them. You know, everybody just wanted to be heard. only wanted to be heard. And, you know, as late as like 1996 or 97, when Green Day came out, you know, they were on

lookout records. And then they were like, well, we're signing to Warner Brothers because we just want to be bigger. And everybody was like, oh, my God, just kill them. Totally. I mean, I would think you make art and hope that people can hear it. Yeah, I would hope so. But one thing about the Pixies was more than many other bands, they were kind of uncompromising. if you think, you know,

if Dig for Fire or Valoria is like the most commercial that you can get, it wasn't very commercial for the times, you know? No, that's absolutely true. We'll get there because we're getting close to the end of the original run of Pixie's albums. We are almost there. It's the next one. But let's talk about that album. And then I want to bring up the question of like,

what would have happened if they kept going, given the landscape made, like, or whatever, you know the jungle cut down by Nirvana. You know, like, I'm curious what you think about that. But anyways, past Bosanova, and again, it does okay. Rolling Stone gave it three stars, which as far as I can tell by Rolling Stone standards, that means like they wish your album was never born because everything is four stars. So like it's like if it's three stars, like they really hate it.

I really don't remember. But for me as a freelancer at that time, it would have been a very hard album for me to pitch anywhere just because it was so close in time to the album before it. You really need at least a two-year gap before your editors say, we just rant something on them. So for me, I probably didn't write about it. It was probably way too close in time. Which is so crazy because at that time,

there were so many music publications and they were like weekly. Yeah, yeah, that's true. But there was an awful lot of records too. Totally, totally. Okay, so in 1990, just to like drive the point home of America versus Europe, the Pixies play Redding Festival, huge festival. And 45,000 people watch them. And there's a great quote from Mark Geiger.

I started La Palozo, was their booking agent, I think. In 1990, I was at Reading Festival in the Pixies headline. I was on stage with them, and I watched 45,000 people jump up and down and scream the lyrics to debaser, which I thought was interesting coming from America because Americans didn't even like that song. It was one of those noise songs. And here was 45,000 English kids screaming the lyrics in Eunice and dancing up and down. I had a tear in my eye at that festival. Yeah, that was just before I joined them.

That was about three weeks before I joined. Geiger was with them when I saw them. And when I saw them, they were opening for all these festivals that Bowie was the headliner. Wow. Oh, yeah, and Bowie was really into them. He was super into them. I found it just about the most compelling music. He stood on stage and sang DeBacer.

One of the strongest songs that I heard at the time was debaser. I can't imagine a world. I mean, again, this is probably just because, like, I'm younger and, like, I came into consciousness with Nirvana. But, like, the debaser, which to me is like a pop song, like a catchy pop song, was considered a noise song. Yeah, it was. Really to wrap my mind around. I love debaser. Just again, if I haven't said it 28 times on this recording, I love debaser.

So Tromplemand comes out. again, just one smooth year later, 1991, they're truly just in the studio all the time. I forgot how much I love Tramplomond also. I did not. I think I had written Tromplamond off in my head with my like bad memory as like almost like a first Frank Black solo album in some ways. Even though I love Frank Black Sol, I don't know why in my mind I'd just forgotten about it. And then revisiting, I was like, this has some of the best Pixie songs on. It every one of these albums has some of the best pixie songs on it. Yeah, I mean, for me, that album was when in me, they started to move away from what I considered the pixies sound.

And, yeah, it turned into Frank Black, the Frank Black sound. But it's, you know, re-listening to it, I just thought, you know, that album really sounds like what they sound like live. If you put that, that record on, you go, what a great band. I want to see this band live. and you could imagine them playing it, you know, from beginning to end, live and just going crazy. Like, wouldn't you just go crazy on the dance floor? You totally would.

It is a live record. And that's where I think you also see, like, as I said, Kim Deal, you know, she's powerful. She's a powerful, they are a powerful machine on that. You know what I mean? I don't know if that, listening to it now, if you would be like, oh. There's something about the energy of it, like, Alec Eiffle. in UMass those two songs

are like anchors for me of this album and I find myself like dancing around I think Bossanova's a more mellow album in many ways and this is a more frenetic album

and I like that part of the Pixies the most I think so even though I think I agree with you that like this starts to be a departure like we lose that marriage that we both talked

about how much we loved like this like feminine masculine marriage of sound and songwriting that's in the first couple of albums. But I don't know. I love Tramplomond. It just has this like electricity to it that I really connect with. Yeah, I think it is pure energy.

It is a very energetic album. I'm not saying it's a bad album by any way, but it's different, you know, from the previous four records. And it's really got a different agenda, I think. The first few albums there was like, you know, they were just excited to be a band and Charles is excited to do what he's been wanting to do do and have the people to do it with. And there's like an ease in a sense in the like putting it down and making the music. And then, you know, the tension start to happen. I think Kim, I don't know

what Kim was feeling except maybe annoyed and shut out. But it sounds like Charles was just growing increasingly uncomfortable with this dynamic and feeling maybe like his band was out of his hands. or not like he had such a vision and he didn't, who knows? I mean, he talks later about like he was just unhappy. And this to me sounds like the album of a person who's like been unhappy for a while and is just like you said, it's like this energy of like, you know, like the emancipation of Charles, you know? And it is the last album before he's like, I'm fucking done, babe.

You know, like I can't be uncomfortable in this situation anymore. Yeah, maybe. I mean, one way to describe some of the sort of fun moments on earlier records, is to say he sounds a lot of times like he's a baby having a tantrum. Do you know what I mean? Like you can see his face turn red and he screams. And this record is that from beginning to end. Totally.

It's going to be a fun tantrum and we're going to like it and all that stuff. You know, I'm not saying it's not like that. But it really takes away some of the dynamics that made the earlier records very dynamic. No, it's true. Well, to drive home that point, why don't we hear UMass, which is one of the angriest songs on this album. Not the angriest,

but maybe one of the angriest. This is UMass. That was UMass. I love that song. I love it so much. The original guitar riff for this song was written like a thousand years before this when Joey and Charles

were literally at UMass, where they met, which I think is kind of interesting. This album, Tate, has a couple songs that are old. Um, UMass was, fleshed out for it, obviously, and it's kind of updated. But subiculture was, like we mentioned earlier,

that was on that first demo. That's a great song. It's probably one of the better songs on this record. And there's a cover head on. By Jesus and Mary Chain. Or, as I always call them, Jesus and Mary Chain. That's how we say it here in California. But yeah, so, I mean, putting a cover on a Pixie's record is kind of an interesting and certainly unprecedented for them. to do that. Yeah, I think Ivo asked them to, if I had to guess. It feels like an Ivo asks, especially considering it's chooses and Mary Chain. It's a great cover. It's like very straightforward, but like because it's very pixies, whereas like that's a song that's easy to cover badly, I think, and the pixies I, in my opinion, did a good job. Yeah, I like it and fits on the record,

but it was a funny sort of drawing your attention away from them for a minute that was kind of surprising to me at the time. I think. think it's really short. It's short, though. It's like 40 minutes or something. There's only one song, I think, that hits three minutes, which is, oh, two. UMass is three minutes, and then there's a weirdly long song called Motorway to Roswell, which is almost five minutes. But everything else is like a minute and a half. I love that. I love that. And I love that when you go see the Pixies, even now, the most recent time that I saw them, they played 40 songs. Four, zero. How many bands can you say that about, I mean, really nobody.

And it's because a lot of them are short, but it's still like, if you want to hear everything that you love about the pixies, go see the pixies because they'll play it all. Top to bottom. It's great. It is great. I love it. We'll get there. We'll get to the reunion, which is the first time I saw them, unfortunately, because I just

wasn't old enough to know about them in the first time, sadly, for me. But they're incredible. Again, I saw them with Kim. I can't speak for now without Kim. But this album was also marked by the... like, again, kind of like back to Charles like doing his own thing a little more. Like, he

recruited Eric Drew Feldman who had played with Piroubu and Captain Beefheart's magic band to do keyboards and synths, which I'm not sure he asked anybody. He just kind of did it and it's cool. Once again, Charles

wants to fire Kim, allegedly as purported by Gil Norton who produced this album. And it was right before they started to record this album. And they had to kind of talk him off the ledge and say you can't do this. Like, this is crazy. We're about to make an album. I guess Kim had maybe gotten drunk and done an interview where she said some like not so nice things about Charles and he didn't like that. Apparently Ivo talked to everyone and kind of like smoothed it out.

And Gil was like, you know, it's like any family. Like we calm down. And it does really sound like a family dynamic in the sense and kind of what we were talking about before. It's like, you just get sick of people. Yeah, it just doesn't sound any different than any other band. Yeah, exactly. I mean, I think it's most talked about with this band because people are just sad that it ended so soon. You know, like, so they want to blame someone for that because they're just like, but we wanted more Pixie's music, you know? And that's maybe why such a big deal is made out of it because they did have such a short original run career.

Yeah, I mean, they have a short run given how long bands stay together now. But I think, you know, the Beatles went from what, 60 to 67? That's seven years? That's not very long. Yeah, I think Led Zeppelin was like four years. It's really not. I mean, I actually think they put out a ton of music and had a really good run and that it was not even weird at all that they broke up on. That's just what I, that's how I see it.

I wonder how much of people's obsession with the tension or the fighting is to do with that it was a man and a woman. I think that there was not just that they were one male, one female, but they were very, very different. And that that tension on stage was what people really liked about the pixies. You know, the pixies were really one of the, there weren't that many bands with women in them. And there weren't that many bands with people who weren't white in them. and the pixies fit both of those things. And that was at that time great. You know what I mean?

That was an amazing thing. And then you see the smashing pumpkins who look sort of similar to that. But that's later. At the time the pixies on stage visually, that's not what you saw. And everybody loved it. This album came out the same day as Nirvana's never mind. Same exact day. Nirvana was actually meant or not meant to is not the right word,

but was pitched to go on tour with the Pixies to open for them, and they said no. And I think I read something from either Joey or David who had said they had a sense that the Picks or that Nirvana was about to be like a huge deal because they weren't yet. And like, again, I don't need to tell you you were there. But I think people have a misconception that like the album came out one day and then it was like the craziest thing in the world. But it wasn't like so, so immediate. it, although I think it did pick up quite quickly.

But no one expected this album to come out on September 24th, 1991, and to, like, be the biggest thing in the world. Geffen printed what, like, I can't remember the exact number. It was like 300,000, 600,000 copies or something. Yeah. I mean, I think what people don't understand is that everybody who knew anything about music knew that that was a fantastic great record that everybody was going to love that was going to get great reviews.

What they didn't understand was that it was going to be, it was going to, you know, you know, burst that wall. I've seen some things where people talk about the Pixies having elements of metal, which I can kind of hear that, but like there's this like weightiness to the guitars, not on every song on Nevermind, but very much so the lead single, that I think that's what helped it break through in terms of like

they're having been this heavier album kind of getting radio play before it. Because the Pixies was still, I don't know, it's still more punky to me. I think the pixies are more punky for sure. And punk still never, not only never wasn't at that time of popular sound, but never really became hugely popular on the radio. Until like Green Day. Oh, yeah.

Which was pop punk. But yeah. But that's a little different. But the other thing is that, you know, Nirvana, this was essentially their second record. They were on that, you know, they were on that sort of heady upswing that bands are on, whereas the pixies were on their fifth record

and on their heady down swing. Exactly. And even if you didn't know that about them, I think I imagine it sort of comes through in some subconscious way when you listen to those kinds of records. Yeah. If Do Little come out September 24th, 1991,

we might be having a different conversation. Totally agree with that. The timing was just a little off. They were a little ahead. And not just ahead. I mean, they paved the way or as I think the drummer of Jane's Addiction says it in the book that they and Jane's addiction were like the fertile soil that bands like smashing pumpkins and Nirvana were able to grow out of, which I think is kind of true.

Oh, I absolutely agree with that. Yeah, for sure. So this album does not do well in terms, like I think it doesn't just doesn't perform very well. The singles don't break through. The singles were Alec Eiffle, which I love and Planet of Sound. There's an really good interview in the LA Times with Charles from 1991. I like this interview because I finally learned that Charles spent his adolescence in my hometown of Torrance, California, which makes sense why I feel so spiritually connected to these albums. Suburban enwee that I too experienced did mold and form Charles. So they kind of ask him, I don't know, you know, it's not a Q&A so he doesn't print what his question, was, but the writer writes, Thompson has no regrets that didn't get bigger. And then this is Charles

being quoted. I still make a good living. You can't make people buy your record unless you've got a lot of money. So you get what you get. I try to make good songs and have a good band and put on good shows. I did my best, so to speak, and it came out sounding like this. He also talks a little bit about something that I wanted to ask you about where he's like, I feel like I'm just learning how to play the guitar now. I'm just understanding how to make records and stuff. So like, but I don't see the Pixies making records for 12 years or something. It's become a cliche where I like their earlier stuff, you know? Like specifically about rock bands.

But I do think that there's a magic in bands earlier stuff because they don't know what they're doing. And there's something so gorgeous about just, it's like the same thing I was kind of saying earlier about overthinking things. It just crystallizes. It just comes out and it's not so handwrung over. and it has this energy of beginning. And I think that's why people like these first albums.

What do you think? Oh, yeah. I mean, that's totally true, not just in music, but in all kinds of art forms. I mean, many, many novels, people write great novels and then they can't repeat it. Physics, I've heard that physicists are best in their early years. They come up with really unique and breakthrough theories. You know, some of the geniuses in math, same thing. And they just can't sustain it.

I don't know what it is. It's something to do with humanity and the way that our brains work, unfortunately. I think it would be crazy. He's so right when he says, you know, for 12 years or something, I don't want to hear, especially since this is a band that could spit out records every year. 12 pixie records in 12 years, it's a lot. It's a lot to imagine. I want to read a little bit from the New York Times Review of Trump LeMont, which is interesting, right?

It's like the New York Times didn't review any of their other albums, but they're important enough now to get a coverage that they didn't get before, but it's not going to be good. Yeah, isn't that sad? Yeah. Okay, so he says, the problem is not that the pixies have run out of things to say. Content was never their forte anyway,

but that they're running out of new ways to reiterate that nothing to say. Trampleman doesn't have enough new twists and turns to provoke anything with the inconclusive verdict, another pretty good Pixies record. And it's like, how dare? Yeah, you know, I guess it is a super unfortunate circumstance that that writer wrote his truth, which was probably true, but again, in the ecosystem of music and its kind of conjunction with the media, to come in at the end of the Pixie story with that review, it's a cruel faith. It's crazy because this was written by Simon Reynolds, who is a British journalist, who

wrote about many other picks from the beginning, wrote about the pixies. And it just shows you that it's like that the contextual fatigue, right, of the critic or the criticism. I like Simon. I like his writing. And I think that he probably wrote exactly what he thought about that record, which everyone should do. Strategically, it depends. Are you trying to help the band? Are you trying to help a movement? Are you trying to help a record label. You know, it's complex. There's a lot of complexity to that. Totally.

He also says, this is something I wanted to ask you about, he says that on songs like Alec Eiffel and distance equals rate times time, the pixies are once again smothering their gorgeous harmonies and melodies under a barrage of grunge. Do you think that they're smothering their music under a barrage of grunge? I think they're smothering something, but I don't know if it's a, grunge or gorgeous harmonies on those songs. I don't know. I think I take umbrage, sir, with the idea that they're smothering them in grunge, because to me grunge is such a specific term of this like whole aesthetic and movement where as we've talked about a bunch, like,

I don't think the pixies were paying attention. I don't think they were like, mm-hmm, grunge, incredible, let us incorporate this into our music. But if that, if that review came out in 91, the word grunge was almost, you know, it was brand new, shiny new. It described nothing at the time that the readers would have been cognizant. Sure, that makes sense. It's in hindsight. Okay, well, we'll move on from Simon Reynolds. Shout out to the God.

This is the review that I wanted to ask you about. According to Q Magazine, they talk about how this fifth album had long been rumored to be a heavy metal album. Did you ever hear anything about this before Tram Blamon came out? You know, I definitely didn't hear that. And I wonder who they are talking about when they say long been rumored. Amongst whom? Who would have said those things? The music critic water cooler vibe?

I don't know. Yeah. I don't know. Who amongst the world of, the very small world at that time was saying that. That sounds like kind of a throwaway thing. And it's also funny because heavy metal meant something different in those days, too. It meant a really specific. kind of thing like motorhead.

Right. And I just can't imagine anybody using the word heavy metal to describe anything that the pixies ever did. Yeah. That's an interesting point. Well, Metallica had come out by then and I definitely had thrash metal.

Which thrash metal is closer to punk than anything else because it's fast. Who knows? Who knows what Q Magazine was getting at? They did say this other thing. And it was that several of the songs here managed to combine furious garage

riffing with sudden flashes of pop melody that make pixies sound like the missing link between the kinks and glam. Do you think the pixies sound like the missing link between the kinks and glam? No, but I think that's a very attractive sentence. It's a sentence that would make anybody want to listen to them. Sure. So in a way, it's the opposite of the Simon Reynolds piece. It's like saying, listen to this band.

You'll love it. I actually don't think they have anything in common with either of those things. Certainly not the kinks. They're about as far from the kinks as I can picture. I mean, think about the kinks's little sort of exquisite little lyrical slices of English life set amongst almost, almost sort of music hall. Lazing on a sunny afternoon.

So this is, it's completely the opposite of the pixies. Totally. This isn't it, but that's okay. I like the sentence. Yeah, it's a good thing. sentence. Let's play another song and then I want to talk about the cursed U-2 tour. Okay. What other song would you want to hear off Tromplomond? Me, I'm a little biased and what I'd like to hear Alec Eiffle, but if you have a strong attraction to another song, you're in charge, babe. I would like to hear subiculture. That's do it. Yeah, subiculture is also really good. Okay. This is subaculture. That was subiculture.

Man, what's better than looking like an erotic vulture? I hope I look like an erotic vulture, personally. I know, an erotic vulture. You know, but does that remind you of the kinks? No. No. No. No, no kinks there. No.

And also, I sort of, that song sort of self-quotes, right? This is a song about not a superhero, but about something else, right? It quotes itself twice before it even gets to the erotic vulture, which is fine. I'm totally into the recursive thing. That song reminds me of B-502s, honestly. Like, maybe more than that. anything, that song totally does. I totally get that B-52s.

I'm surprised other people haven't sort of made that connection. Yeah, they're like a dark and twisted B-52s. Who are arguably also a little bit dark and twisted. We mentioned earlier that David Bowie was a big fan. Another pair of big fans of the Pixies were two Irish gentlemen by the name of Bono and the Edge. Huge Pixies fans. Here's Bono on the Pixies. I just saw the Pixies again recently.

They have a fanatical following here in Ireland. It's really beyond comprehension. They had to do an hour-long encore, but they always bring me to tears. When Kim Deal sings that one song about heaven, unclear what he's talking about, I just want to scream. It goes right through me.

The pixies are really an original species. They invented something. You have to put groups in certain categories, and they are in the category of having actually invented something that didn't exist before they came along. And it's not just the hard cut, you know, the cut from savage, to sobbing in a split second, but also their subject matter.

As a lyricist, Charles can find playfulness on the way to big questions. He's like Damien Hearst, but there's also something oddly touching. It's subject matter, its structure, and it's the craft of those chord progressions. And then weirdly, he was like, oh, no, those, trace Cotorset. Just kidding. He didn't say that in this quote. So Bono loves the Pixies. They tap the Pixies to come on the Zoo TV tour in 1991, which was their tour in

support of their gorgeous awesome album Octune Baby. I love Octune Baby. Do you know what happened on this tour? Did you go to this tour? I did. I went to at least one time and they were playing the Oakland Coliseum and I had backstage passes and I had to walk through a tunnel to get to

the room the pixies were in that and that they'd made this tunnel like in which they'd like blocked off everything so that you couldn't like look down a hall and maybe see you too. No eye contact with Bono. No eye contact. You are you you may go to this one room and this one room only.

Achtung. And we were all sitting backstage, really laughing about that. Like, it was very, it was funny. There was always this, this is another sort of funny thing, like right before that, when they were playing with, they were opening for David Bowie. And David Bowie was backstage. And he was talking to them super excitedly about their music. He was talking to Charles.

I love your music. It's fantastic. And he was saying things along the lines of what Bono says in that, you know, sort of going on and on about it. And Charles is just kind of sitting there nodding, huh? Yeah, thanks. You know, because what do you say when somebody who's basically larger than life and this huge superstar is, you know, complimenting you on all these things. And I also, I mean, I don't want to put words in Charles's mouth, although David Bowie did leave a tape of the tin machine record backstage. And we put it on and everybody was sitting around listening to it and like all kind of

having a single thought, two minds with a single, many minds with a single thought was just like, I don't really like it. But nobody want to say it. I mean, he wasn't in the room, but, you know, like, hmm. But I think the same thing was true with you too. Like, it really was not the Pixie's world or anything they were interested in. It just seemed kind of laughably weird. You know, like, here we are our opening for this band that we have nothing in common with whose audience hates us. Yeah. Wow. Here's a thing. And it wasn't even that the audience hated them. that they were playing this cavernous, when I saw them, and I assume this is kind of what the other shows were like, you know, very cavernous place in which no one has gotten in yet. They haven't sat down.

You're playing to a world of empty seats. Yeah. You know, I saw the replacements opening for Tom Petty, I think. Sure. Yeah. Nobody's there. It's not like anybody sat around going, I hate this band. They weren't booed. Just nobody was paying attention. You're just playing in a giant, you know, cow palace where there's nobody listening to you. Totally. And so that's what happened to the pixies. Yeah. And I think you kind of called it. It's like it's not that the YouTube fans hated the pixies.

I mean, they might have. Who knows? They weren't there. They didn't even, there was a disinterest that didn't, the pixies were not interesting enough to them to show up, to see them even. And I think this happens time and time again where huge bands want a cool band to open for them on tour and the same thing happens over and over again where it's like no one cares and no one comes. But in this sense, I mean, we have a band on the verge of destruction, like, who is just like, I'm tired of all this. And then you put this as like the straw that broke the camel's back, right? Like they're traveling differently. I think at this point, there's a bus. You two travels by plane.

Kim and Charles didn't even go on the bus. They both drove separately with their like, I think, partners or spouses. Maybe Kim with Kelly and Charles with his girlfriend or wife. And it's just like, it just the morale was low, babe. You know, like, and so Vancouver, that was the last date of, also something else happened, I think, where Kim was dating a journalist for Spin. Did you ever hear about this? And he wrote a tour diary about this tour.

Did you read this? I didn't read the tour diary, but I know who she was dating. Jim Greer, yeah. So apparently he wrote this tour diary sort of from the perspective, obviously because he was spending more time with the pixies because his girlfriend was in it. And he really talked about, like, they were buried in the bunker of, you know, there was like a million dressing rooms and they didn't even get one. They had to like be underground.

I think actually someone said in the memoir that at one point they had to ask for a dressing room because they were on their bus because every single member of you two and everyone had their own. Anyways, that kind of caused more attention. By the last date of this tour, the Vancouver date, Charles basically gathered the band and was like, I want a full year off from the Pixies. And that's kind of how they left it. And that ended up being their last show ever until they reunited 12 years later.

Yeah, I'm not surprised. I mean, that whole opening thing did happen to a lot of bands. And looking back, I think, wow, people were naive. Hadn't they ever been to a rock show? Did they know that's what it looks like when an opening band opens for a big band? But in retrospect, I think maybe they didn't. I knew lots of bands who never went to big shows.

They only went to their friends' gigs, you know, and stood on the stage. Right. So maybe they didn't know. But yeah, not a good fit. Yeah, just not a good fit, totally. Well, famously in 1992, Charles did send a fax. This is 1999 people, okay,

to the manager, Ken Goes, saying, actually a year off is not what I meant. What I meant was we are not a band anymore, and this hiatus is permanent. And in 1993 in January, he confirmed it in a radio interview on the BBC 5. This is the quote I referred to earlier. Gina from Charles in the Fool the World memoir. So he says, but every band breaks up. There's two kinds of bands in the world, bands that break up and bands that don't break up.

You know what I mean? Everyone breaks up or they don't. People made such a big deal about cold-hearted black. Francis sending a fax. I realize people may be mad at me because I kind of broke up the band ungraciously. I don't know if that's the right word, but I just wrote a fax and sent it and just skipped out without so much as an explanation, as I recall. And so I think people, maybe rightly so, were insulted by that. But hey, what can I say? That was years ago. I was in a different place, emotionally and psychologically and whatever. And I didn't want to have any kind of confrontation

with the rest of the band. I didn't want to have a band meeting and discuss it. I wasn't happy, and I left. And there's this really funny thing that Jay Maskas said where he goes, I guess you could stay together forever like the Ramones and then I'll die of cancer.

That's very sad. But yeah, but I mean he's absolutely right, right? Like you're either together or you're not. Bands break up. Every band breaks up. A few bands didn't break up. Who hasn't broken up? Soundgarden, Pearl Jam, maybe.

You too? You two, that's right. The Rolling Stones. You know, so yeah, you either break up or you don't break up. And I don't, like you were saying earlier, you know, a lot of times the early whoosh of success, the whoosh of creativity that brings you together when you don't know what you're doing and you're inventing a new language, new sounds like Bono said that the Pixies did is so exciting. But, you know, after it stops being that, I just don't think it benefits anybody for them to stay together until dot, dot, dot, dot, a long time has passed. They reunite.

and there's a whole new audience waiting to see them who never saw them. Yeah. So there's this quote from Charles, like, that I think kind of gets to a little bit of the heart of the breakup. This is him being interviewed again for a fantastic, gorgeous book, Fool the World. Josh Frank and Karen Gans, please pick it up. So he's told them, but it's just you're doing it all the time and you're spending more and more money to get it done. And the record company keeps trying to get to the next level of success or whatever. And you're starting to get grouchy and burned out and tired.

And you just don't have a good perspective. So that's my biggest regret about Pixie's records. We made five records. And had we been given some really good creative advice, and maybe I got it, but I wasn't in the place where I could hear at the time. But if I had been open to the right advice and the right person at the right time, and those five records could have been shrunken down to three records, paste a little further apart, that could have been a good thing.

We would have had three killer records. It's kind of like an experiment. We do one in a time. It's like that. I don't know. To make a cool rock tune as our goal. But then again, that's not really what the Pixies are about. The Pixies are way more about, here's a song that a lot of people like, here's a song that only a few of you like.

Here's something a lot of you hate. It's more schizophrenic and all over the place. Every single Pixies record is like that. It's like, here's a slow one. Here's a sort of country cowpoke one. Here's a moody one. Here's one where they're screaming. here's one where they're singing like a couple of little elves.

I really liked that. I guess I wanted to ask you two questions, Gina. One, do you agree with the first thing Charles said before he contradicted himself and said it couldn't have ever been that way about if they had made those, instead of making five records in rapid succession, they had taken more time to call songs into three records? No, basically, I don't agree with a word he said there, although I love the last part where he said about the little elves and things like that.

That's great. And I also obviously believe that all artists can say whatever they want about their own input. I just mean, in your opinion. Right. So what I disagree with is that three Pixies, three carefully thought out Pixies records that had sort of taken more care in the recording would be better than the five records that they did put out. So that's where I disagree. I think what the Pixies were about was spitting out their works.

I like that he's reflective now and he says, oh, maybe I wasn't in a place to hear that or, you know, maybe I could have taken some creative advice. What's great about the Pixies is that it was his vision. And knowing what the kind of advice that he probably would have gotten from producers at the time, I'm not sure how helpful that would have been to their vision. Yeah. I mean, all that schizophrenia, you know, the screaming little elves and the,

here's a quiet one and the nuttiness. Those of us who love Pixies records, that's what we like. You know, I like a record with, you know, 17 or 18 tracks that are all two minutes long. And what I envision him as saying is, oh, maybe if we'd taken more time, we would have had longer songs or longer album. I don't know. It doesn't work for me, but I like that he said it. Totally. Okay.

And the second question I wanted to ask you, which we've, like, danced around a bit. but like, do you think if they had broken up even, you know, a year later, like in 93, and they had put out one more album post, nevermind, that things might have been different, like, with in terms of like their success in real time? Oh, that's a good question. You know, obviously you can't predict those kinds of things because radio at that time and, you know, the music industry even now, but then in particular was subject to incredible whims and passions and bouts of luck and all kinds of strange things.

It's just very hard to predict what would have happened. But my feeling is no. I think that they had done the best that they were going to do. They weren't going to put out a better record. And therefore, and also, as I said, I never really thought about this until you started talking about it with me. But all of those records coming out in a row just made it really, it just did not fit the journalistic model.

of how to cover things, and that that could have played a very bad role in it for them. I find that's so interesting because it seems like that was the standard for record labels for a long time, at least in the 80s, where they would sort of like expect their groups to like sign a five record deal and put out one every year and then tour it every year. Yeah. So it's so funny that they wouldn't have like gotten hip to the fact. that like, wait, it's not working for press. Yeah, I mean, I think more or less that was true.

The pixie seemed to be on a faster trail than many. I can think of a few. I guess Husker Do was constantly putting out. The first five Husker Doe records was like in 18 months or something. I'm exaggerating. I can't remember. Sure. But very rapid succession.

Yeah, just I can remember a flood of them. And also just mentally being, was that on candy apple gray? Or was it on, you know, like not being able to remember what was on what? So you're probably right. There was more of it. And I think there was more of a sort of burst of creativity on all those band's parts that they were just eager to just pour out all of this material. And nowadays, I guess there's probably people doing that.

But it definitely doesn't work in the same way. I don't know. Yeah, totally. I mean, now we live in the time of our patron Saint Rihanna where she's like, another album, maybe in 10 years, babe, hold your breath whenever I want. Which makes sense. I mean, why not do that if you, you know, and also, honestly, it's better artistically. Totally.

Well, they do break up all of our imaginings and hypothesizings of what might have happened if don't matter because they did break up. David became a magician at the magic castle and other places. Got really into a professional magician. Kim obviously continued along with the breeders. Last Splash. came out in 1993 and was, you know, a huge hit, tons of radio play, the whole kitten, caboodle, if you will. Great album. Joey started scoring film and television. He did the television show Undeclared by Judd Apatow, which was the follow-up to freaks and geeks because he was a huge

huge Pixies fan, so that's very cool. And Charles, as we know, did exactly what he wanted to do, which was, well, again, I'm speculating, but I think what he wanted to do, which was, putting out solo music right away. Like he recorded his first soul album, Frank Black, in 1992, and put it out in 1993 and put out Teenager of the Year in 1994. He's put out so many solo albums. I think I didn't realize. Because I was really into Frank Black and Teenager of the Year,

but I kind of stopped paying attention. He's put out 18 albums. Did you know this? No, but I'm not surprised because this is what I'm saying. Like, you know, it's great when people are, allowed to put out or have the money to put out all of this stuff. It's awesome. Or, you know, are like guided by voices and they've, you know, it's like, love to put out a million albums. But I can't, I can't process it. You know, the human brain at some point is just going to move

away from that. We get requests all the time to do guided by voices. And I'm not saying one one way or the other people, okay, listening, don't quote me either way. But I'm just saying it would be a Herculian undertaking. It would. It would. It would. That's like a mini-series. Yeah. You know how in England they have that word train, spotter. He's a train spotter, meaning somebody, there's a certain kind of person who goes around and counts trains or watches them go by, keeps little lists and stuff like that. And yeah, I mean, there's a type of record listener, a music fan for whom that's sort of their approach. And I think guided by voices is very helpful. But others of us just don't have the capacity to listen to one million

songs, you know, by one artist. Totally. And it fit within the paradigm that I have the theory that I have. But I just think the first few albums are always the best, and it's something to do with being new at something and having that newness. And this was only the second Breeders album. So like it hit. You know, it was that good. I really like Title TK also, which is that the third Breeders album. I think so. I love that album. I saw that tour before I got to see the Pixies for the first time. Pat Smear was touring with them. And Kelly Diels smoked a cigarette. the entire set. It was incredible. I was like, how? Are you playing the guitar? Or the bass, rather, and smoking the entire. It was truly phenomenal.

Speaking of the reunion, early 2000s, many things became fashionable, wearing dresses over jeans, low-slung weird belts that didn't actually hold up your pants. Like sort of those weird golf hats, I don't want to talk about it. Pointy shoes with the flared pants. abominable, but also reuniting bands. So, like, that was when, like, Gang of Four reunited, Bowhouse, Dinosaur Jr.,

our pals Molly crew, and, of course, these offers started to come in for the pixies. My first question for you is, why do you think, I have my own theories, but I really want to hear from you as you lived through both rounds of it, why do you think that timeframe

made it so manufactured such a demand for the reunion of these old bands. Streaming. Because MP3s came in it in 2000. Napster was 2000. So by like, so by about 2003, 2004, when that sort of had become the norm

of how people listen to music by, you know, grabbing music off, you know, anything they wanted, then I think, listening habits started to really warp. Totally. I mean, in a good way. But what I mean is that prior to MP3s being the norm, people were still like wedded to

go to the record store and buying CDs and listening to the radio and, oh, do I like this? I don't know. Have I ever heard the pixies? I have a friend who told me the pixies were good or whatever. But then we came to a world where it was like, hmm, I heard the word pixies. I'll listen to 30 seconds of it. Oh, my God. Those were the best 30 seconds of my life.

since as we know we spoke about how the pixies are very quick in to their quickly in to that for them and for many many many other bands they became viable in a way that they weren't before because people could listen to them on their own without paying monies it's true stand up i guess this was technically digital music um since i think streaming is probably later yeah yeah 2012 or something but yes stand up lime wire hive stand up um Soul Seek. I can't remember the rest of them. You're so right. I think that was totally true. I also think that going kind of hand in hand with the digital music thing was the collapse. Collapse is like too strong of a word. The decline of the music industry as we knew it. We talk about it a bunch on the show, but like rock music in general was in decline in the early 2000s. like we're just coming out of rap rock and stuff, I guess. And that was sort of the last maybe big thing.

I'm spitballing here, but I feel like I'm right. And, you know, I think people were hungry for a huge rock band. And there just weren't huge rock bands as much anymore. Right, producer Dylan? I feel like I'm right. I feel like we had corn, limb biscuit, you know, what's the one I got so far? And I've... Lincoln Park.

You know, those were massive bands, but then indie, yeah, peak indie, producer Dillon's right. But, you know, literally by definition, indie was not massive. It wasn't like the way Nirvana gripped the soul of the nation or even later, even like smashing pumpkins, stone double pilots. These bands were huge, you know, on a scale where like alt rock radio was probably in decline. Like it was just like, you know, and I think there was a vacuum for big rock bands. This is when Coachella started, 2001, I can't remember. And they, you know, they're looking for big acts to reunite, and they did reunite the Pixies.

I mean, they didn't, but the Pixies accepted the offer to reunite, which was a gorgeous thing for young Yasi Salik, 21 years old, packing up her car and going down to the Coachella Valley and getting her entire life by getting to see the Pixies finally. It was the best. And it was wonderful. Did you see them on that leg of? I did not. Was that like 2002, 2004 or something like that? I want to say it was 2003. Oh yeah. I had a toddler. I was doing nothing at that time. But mom life. Yeah, I had mom life. But yeah, I mean, it was genius on the part of Coachella, you know, to tap into that. And I actually, oh, it was 2004. Excuse me. Sorry. I completely buy your. your whole thing, that they needed a rock band and what better to find than an already, you know, the world needed rock bands and they had all these bands that had never been given their due that were just sitting around waiting to be given their due. And they were probably a lot better than whatever band, you know, could have maybe been promoted into that place. Sure. But it was like the first wave of like, boy bands are back. Brittany Spears has entered the chat. Spice Girls have entered

the chat. Like things are, things shifted into like peak pop music, TLC, etc. Et cetera. Yeah. I just want to say that Coachella was so wonderful. First of all, back then, it was $80 or something. It was only two days. It was so chill. Radiohead played. Pixies played The Cure played. Basement Jacks. That's right. I did get my whole life in the dance tent to basement jacks. It was a different time. But it was great. But yes, they were wonderful. Apparently, Steve Albini and Ian Mackay were at this Coachella, which is unexpected. And Albini said, I was at that Coachella performance, and it was amazing to see 50,000 people who'd never seen this band before, but for whom this band was really important having that experience.

And then I think he said something Cunty right after, like, but I don't know why, but whatever, he can have that. And then Ian McKay said he saw them play at Coachella, and it sounded so. good. What was interesting to me was that, I mean, they played for 50,000 people. I was really struck by the songs. I don't even own a Pixie's record and I knew all the songs. Which is like a testament to you. And I think, again, like another thing that doesn't explain this digital music-wise, but does radio, alt radio had a huge, you know, rise, right? In the early 90s as the Pixies broke up, but they still had the Pixies catalog. to play all the time. And they did. They played the Pixies catalog for five years, like in rotation,

even though the Pixies were no longer playing. Right, because they had a million songs to pick from. And I think that was helpful too. Yeah. I actually heard the Pixies this morning in a cafe. And I was like, oh my God, that's so great. You'll go into like CVS and hear where is my mind. Yeah. You know, like it's pretty soaked into the culture. Yeah. It was kind of interesting because Kim had not spoken to Charles. since, it was 12 years. They hadn't spoken since that Vancouver show. They were like, okay, bye, and that was it. Until they reunited.

If you think about coworkers you had that you hoped to never speak to again, and then you see them after a while, and you speak to them, and you're like, whatever, I can't even remember what I hated about them. You know what I mean? I've had that situation with people. I mean, not as intense as obviously being in a band, but I have had that situation with people.

there's people I loathed. Like actually, Facebook brought that to my attention when, you know, people friendly and you're like, I know I hate that person, but honestly, I can't remember why. Honestly. This is literally in 10 years when producer Dylan and I reunite because there's such a demand for the band's plan reunion and we're like, we haven't spoken in 10 years. I don't remember why I hate you. That's hard saying it to me and being like, thank God, producer Dylan's back.

I've missed you so much. I don't love to think of bandmates as coworkers, but I agree with your metaphor. This reunion lasted seven years. So it wasn't, I mean, they toured for seven years after that. I think the Doolittle tour, which I also went to, which was awesome, where they played the Doolittle record from front to back, was supposed to be one year and was three years long because it was so popular. They just kept doing it.

It was really good. Shout out Rick Rodney, my friend, who took me to that show. In 2013, we're almost at the end, the real end of the Pixies. Kim Deal once again leaves the band. Unclear why. She just left. She was like, bye, I'm done. And then something else happens, Gina.

Something called Indy Cindy, April of 2014. They decided to record a new album, like, right two seconds after Kim Deal leaves the band, which is an interesting psychological reaction to that. And I'm not going to read too much into it, but you must admit it's interesting. Because they had that whole seven years where they were touring where they could have made a record and they didn't.

I mean, I was just going to say, you know, it's not surprising that they toured for seven years at that particular time because that's, you know, it was a very strange time in the music industry and that's where the money was. Like if you could be making crapp loads of money doing something that you essentially love, which I would say all of them love playing live, they just do. Totally. Why wouldn't you do that? And then why would Kim quit? Well, because she was bored with it. She didn't need the money anymore. she needed to go home and take care of her family, all that stuff.

You know, all of that is completely makes sense to me. Totally. Oh, and then he makes another record. Of course he did. He loves making records. This is a man who made 18 solo records. So, of course, I mean, nothing that you're saying is really that surprising in that sense. Yeah.

There was actually something, a nice little tidbit in the book where I don't think Kim, I'm not going to say she didn't care about the money, but I don't think the money motivated her to reunite because I think she still didn't really want. too. But I guess Joey and David kind of were like, because Kim, I think Kim financially was okay. You know, the breeders were very popular. And obviously, Charles was financially doing fine. But Joey was like, this literally would change my child's school district. Like, this is like a huge deal. Please consider it. And she was like, okay, yeah, definitely. And you're right. They did. I think it made them millioners, all of them, which is fantastic. They deserve it. They deserve to be millionaires. Tell me about Indy Cindy.

How did you feel when you found out there was a new Pixie's record? How did you experience it? I stopped writing music about music in 2000. So we're talking, what, 14 years later. But your heart still cared about music. Well, it did, but it didn't care about new music, which is a terrible thing. You know what I mean? I had been spent the last 10 years listening to Radio Disney.

And frankly, frankly, you know, I kind of enjoyed listening to Radio Disney. because the way my mind works, I have a lot to say in my head. I didn't say it to my five-year-old, but, you know, like, do I have an opinion about those songs? Why, yes. Yes, I do. You know what I mean? Like, I'm interested in that kind of stuff. But in terms of indie rock, you know, it's like, oh, the pixies have a new record out. I probably listened to it and was like, well, it doesn't really do anything for me, but I don't, you know, I just was not in that harsh mode. I know, I moved far, far away from the me who had harsh opinions about anything. And it was, that, that woman is dead and she will never come back. You know, I just have nothing bad to say about music. Did you have anything

good to say about this album? Did you like it? Were you into it? I honestly probably only listened to it once. And, you know, there's a track I like. I think I keyed it up for you. We should hear it. It's called Greens and Blues. Oh yeah, Greens and Blues. That song is good. Yeah, it's fine. It's fine. It's all fine. Why don't we hear greens and blues? And then we'll wrap up this gorgeous pixies conversation that we've been having.

That was greens and blues. I mean, it's, I don't mean this in a negative way. I just like as a comparison, it's definitely toothless compared to old pixies. But I don't dislike that. It's a nice song. It's like a very, very enjoyable song. And, you know, of course, when. you know, 15 years later, you're going to write different music. You're a different person. You were

listening, you know, you were a mom who had listened to Radio Disney for 10 years. Had you written music, I'm sure you would have written a different kind of song than you wrote, read before. It's really interesting to me. This album was actually initially three EPs that they put out, and then they combined them into an album. It was both the highest charting Pixies release of all time at 23 on the Billboard chart, which I think, really just speaks to like the legend of the pixies was fully backing them and also the most harshly reviewed. That's so interesting. I mean, that just says so much about time and legends and rock journalism and what they're looking for and what they want and just it's just interesting how

writing about music, you know, you're not allowed to include any of that sort of fabric of life or context. Contacts. Yeah, I don't know. And I also went to see the pixies a couple of years ago. I think I told not with Kim, but with what's heard of Paz. Lenton. Yeah, and I didn't know what to expect. It was at a club called The Catalyst in Santa Cruz. Oh, I've been there. Yeah, it's a great club.

I've seen a lot of great shows there, and I just had no expectations whatsoever. And I had certainly read many harsh reviews of the Pixies without Kim Deal being some kind of lesser thing. And that was not what I experienced at all. A, I thought they were great. They were still great. I was incredibly happy to hear every single song.

And there were some songs I didn't know. And I went, this must be their new stuff. It sounds great live. Great. Totally. It sounded great live. I mean, let's be really honest. After a certain amount of time, 20 years, every band just becomes a cover act of their own music.

You know, that's just kind of what it is. I saw Guns and Roses recently. It was awesome. It still felt like a cover band. They were like the best possible cover band of their music, but it's just there's so much distance between like music is so temporal. You know, it's so of its time. But yeah, I mean, I'm going to see the Rolling Stones.

And I mean, everybody, there's all this like stuff about, oh, Charlie's not with them. This was even before Charlie died. Charlie wasn't going to be with them. Why go see them? And I was like, wow, get over it. Brian Jones isn't with them either. You know, I mean, it's just a crazy, crazy thing.

Like he said, it's a cover band of the Rolling Stones. But not really. I mean, if you care about Mick Jagger, then it's not a cover band of the Rolling Stones. You know, The Guardian for this record, said the best thing I think I read about this. The Guardian gave it three stars and so did Rolling Stone. But we all know. I want to read the whole thing because it's kind of very British and funny. He's talking about a song or the lyrics.

He was like, the lyrics often sound like an afterthought. I needed something to eat. Black Francis sings on the music. rather lovely Magdalena 318. I took a walk down the street. Well, mate, chicken cottage stays open late and they've got an offer on fillet burgers at the moment. Then again, what's he meant to do?

Carry on writing about incest, even in middle age, trying to cling on to youth like Simon Pegg and World's End. And it's like, yes, musicians shouldn't have to replicate the person they were when you liked them. You know, like that's worse than just making an authentic to who you are now, record, which I think that's what Indy Cindy is. It's, it's tamer, it's more ballads. It's a really

lovely record. I agree. I agree with that statement. I wouldn't look to the rock press to tell me anything about a new record by, even guided by voices or somebody old. You know what I mean? I'd have to listen to it. Yeah, and I think the fans did. I think the fans, judging by the charting, the fans didn't go to pitchfork, who, by the way, gave the EPs a one and a two. They just were like, I love the Pixies, I'll go get the record. Speaking of, that's right, producer Dylan, speaking of the fans supporting their beloved favorite band, we have gathered some Pixies mega fans to hear what they had to say about what they love about the Pixies. Where did you find them? The internet. Would you like to hear what they had to say? Sure. I'm a Pixies mega fan,

but yeah. You are. This is your people. It's our people, if you will. I was kind of hoping that there would be a Blansplayed episode on this. But since man is five, the devil is six, and God is seven, anything could happen. Dreams can come true. I got into him as to everybody else my age, I think probably did via Fight Club. As we watched the world burn through those windows to where is my mind? I needed to get whatever album that track was on. When I was in high school, I spray painted my bedroom wall.

and huge letters where is my mind? Because I thought that was like really like angsty and prolific. And I got grounded for two months for doing it. I love their liberal use of nonsensical Spanish. I love their lyricism. Black Francis is just disgusting and hilarious and violent. You know, when you listen to those first three albums, come on Pilgrim, Surfer Rosa, and do little back-to-back.

I mean, the best three-album run ever. Specifically, Surfer Rosa, opened my life up to just being the music nerd and music obsessive that I remain to this day. I think without Kim Deal, the pixies wouldn't exist and they wouldn't be anything. I know she's not in the band anymore, but they just originally wouldn't have been so good without her baselines. I love everything about Kim Deal, her bass playing, her harmonies, her voice is so underrated. Oh, glorious harmonically perfect, Kim, anchoring all those songs that Frank gave her the space to read life into. She could sing the nutritional facts on a box of rice pilaf, and I'm into it. If aliens came down from outer space and asked me to give them the 10 best band,

Pixies would be 100% for sure in the top 10. You don't get an invite to Bowie's birthday bash and have them cover your shit on one of his albums if you guys are garbage. Long live the Pixies and long live bandspline. Wow. Just for the record, we did not coach these people at all. And I just find it so interesting that decades later,

people are interpreting the Pixies largely in the same way. I mean, I don't think you and I hold some of the opinions put forth there, but like... Oh, I do. I was like, I'm 100% with every single one of those things. That was a pleasure to hear. It brought tears to my eyes.

Aw. I mean, they're so great. I really hope Black Francis does not listen to this episode to once again have to hear 10 people just talk about Kim Diel and how amazing she is. But if you do, Charles, we absolutely stand you a thousand percent as well. There's there's no pixies without the king of the pixies. I love them all.

And also, they make me happy because I really feel like when they split up, they split up at the right time. And they went on to have lovely careers. It's a happy story. You know, there's no. It's a happy story. No one's upset. No one got hurt. No one, you know what I mean?

Obviously, I'm sure. No one was hurt in the making of this. They probably feel hurt and could tell us all kinds of woeful things. But you know what I mean? In the legend, in the sort of in the world. world of my mind, you know, the pixies, everybody got their due. And that's a beautiful thing. Yeah. Nobody OD'd. No one violently embarrassed themselves in the public eye, you know, all told, 10 out of 10. Yeah. This is like Ted Lasso happy. It's like, nope, she went off and had a huge hit.

Nope, he went off, had his own career that he liked, and it was all beautiful. And they got back together and everybody, 50,000 people cheered on the, I mean, it's just, it's just a great feel-good kind of story. Okay, I can't think of a better way to end this fantastic, wonderful watershed episode for me personally, who I must once again state that I am your biggest fan, and I know that a restraining order is probably coming to my mailbox soon. But that's okay, it was all worth it, Gina. Thank you so much for coming on the show. You are so welcome. It was my pleasure.

To close out the show, would you like to pick one last pixie song to leave our friends. and foes with. Friend or foe. Friend or foe. Oh, gosh. That's so hard. Can we do hey? Hey.

Oh, my God. Yes, let's do hey. I have been dying to meet you. Oh, my God, it's the song about our friendship. That's right. Hey. And also, just you guys, before we close out, you must know, David sings this song because Charles wanted someone else besides himself with a beautiful,

gorgeous voice. David sings this song. Thank you, Gina. Thank you, everyone for listening. come back next week for a new episode of Vansplaine. And here to the horrors in my head is Hey by the Pixies. If you liked what you heard today, subscribe for more episodes of Bansplaine only on Spotify. Our wonderful, gorgeous, fantastic guest today was Gina Arnold.

Follow her on Twitter at G-I-N-A-N-R-C-H-Y. And check out her books. Kiss this, Punk in the Present Tense. The 33 and a third book on Liz Fares, Exile and Guyfiel, the Oxford Handbook of Punk Rock, and of course, Route 666 on the Road to Nirvana. Huge, huge thanks to the Pixies megafans you heard on this episode. Carl Smith, Colin McCuven, Andrew Shields, Alex Miller, and James Doolittle.

Fansplain is a Spotify original show. This episode was produced by Unchienne Andalusia, producer Dylan, aka Dylan Tupper Rupert, and edited by Nico Paolela, with help from Casey Simonson and Tari Miller. Executive producers for Bansblain are Gina Delback and me, Yossi Solic. Our gorgeous and catchy theme song was composed and performed by Bethany Cozentino and Jennifer Claven, and graciously recorded by Carlos Dela Garza in Los Angeles, California. Special thanks to Felipe Ghiherm. Meno, Robert Adler, Leah Edwards, David McDunna, Dana Mearsson, Jessica Hopper, and that glass-blowing TV show on Netflix. I think it's called Blown Away. Come back every Thursday for a new episode of Bansplain, only on Spotify. We did it, Joe's. It only took three records. It only took three records.