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The Pixies were a late 1980s band whose music influenced almost every alternative rock band of the 1990s. It consisted of Black Francis (vocals, guitar), Kim Deal (bass, vocals), Joey Santiago (lead guitar), and Dave Lovering (drums).
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2 Future Developments 3 Samples 4 Members 5 Discography 6 External Links |
The band hailed from Boston, Massachusetts, where it was formed in 1986 by Joey Santiago and Black Francis (born Charles Thompson III). They hooked up with Deal and Lovering after placing this famous classified ad:
History
Band seeks bass player into
Hüsker Dü and Peter, Paul & Mary,
phone: (UK) 0890 900 1003
They flipped through the dictionary for a band name (and selected "Pixies" as opposed to "The Pixies"), then began playing around Boston. During a concert in which the Pixies played with another Boston band, Throwing Muses, they were noticed by Gary Smith, a producer at Fort Apache studios. Smith took on the Pixies as their manager, and had them produce a demo tape (known as the "Purple Tapes", publicly released in 2002). The demo fell into the hands of Ivo Watts-Russell, owner of 4AD, who signed the band. Some of the songs on the tape were then released directly as an EP, Come on Pilgrim. Their first full-length album, Surfer Rosa was released in the first part of 1988.
4AD was a British label, and the notoriously rabid British music press immediately clutched the Pixies to their collective bosoms and refused to let go. The band remained unsigned in the US for a while, but after a foray up the UK pop charts and some inroads into American college rock stations, they were picked up by Elektra Records. For the remainder of their career, the Pixies remained large-scale stars in Britain and minor figures in the US.
Their next album was Doolittle, and featured three prominent singles: "Debaser," "Here Comes Your Man," and "Monkey Gone to Heaven." It was a top 10 hit in the UK and reached the top 100 in North America.
After that album, Black Francis went solo for a little while, while Kim Deal formed The Breeders with fellow Bostonian Tanya Donelly of Throwing Muses and Deal's sister, Kelly. During this time Black Francis appears to have decided to cut Deal's contributions to the band—the first two albums had been partly written by Deal, but when Bossanova was released in 1990, all the songs were by him. Deal was not pleased, and announced an apparently unilateral break-up of the band on-stage during the following tour. The Pixies were at the height of their popularity, however, and a highly enthusiastic version of "Debaser" played while headlining at the Reading Festival in 1991 (and the matching highly enthusiastic audience response) has become legendary.
Break-up announcements notwithstanding, one more album was to follow. Trompe le Monde featured little input from Deal, though, and after opening for U2 on the North American portion of their Zoo TV tour the group essentially fell apart. A year later, Black Francis charmingly faxed an official notice of the end to the other members of the band. However, recent news says there will be a Pixies reunion tour in 2004.
He renamed himself Frank Black, and has since released a series of solo albums to steadily diminishing returns. Deal returned to the Breeders, and scored a hit with "Cannonball" from that group's Last Splash in 1993. For several years thereafter they struggled, like the Stone Roses and Elastica, to produce another album, mainly due to Kelley Deal's struggles with heroin. The album, Title TK, finally appeared in 2002, with only Kim and Kelley remaining from the previous Breeders lineup. Kim Deal has also recorded with "The Amps." Lovering has dropped back into obscurity, making occasional appearances as a "scientific phenomenalist", performing experiments on stage; he also drummed on one of Tanya Donnelly's solo albums. Santiago has appeared on Frank Black's solo albums, writes music for FOX television, and has a band called "the Martinis" with his wife.
Musically, the Pixies were just slightly ahead of their time. Right at the moment they were imploding, Nirvana was recording Nevermind, the album that would break alternative rock into the big time. There are substantial parallels between the two groups' sounds and Kurt Cobain was known to have been a fan—in fact, an admission by him in a Rolling Stone interview that "Smells Like Teen Spirit" was his attempt to write a Pixies song sparked a small burst of re-interest in the band after they were gone.
The Pixies are holding a reunion tour of the United States and Europe in mid-2004, more than ten years after their 1992 Zoo TV tour. Currently, the band plans to tour eleven cities in Canada and the western U.S. before headlining the Coachella Valley Music & Arts Festival in Indio, California and then embarking on a one and a half month tour of Europe. See tentative tour dates for detailed information.
4AD has plans to release two additional Pixies compilations in spring of 2004. A 1988 concert as well as eight music videos, commentary and interviews is being compiled for DVD release, and a "new retrospective compilation CD" is also set for the shelves.
Future Developments
Samples
Members
Discography
The following albums were released after the band ceased recording:
External Links