Return of the Pixies

"according to a spokesperson for the band."

The Potential Return of the Pixies

(i prefer frank black solo to the pixies, but keep it under yr hat)

I don't expect the same show. But if I can get tickets, I'm certainly going again.

However, I feel, the Pixies as a band are too smart, cynical, etc., etc., to fuck this up Eagles-reunion style, which is definitely not to say that the Eagles ever did not suck.

I think all of the things we're criticizing them for now, they must have already thought of.

Maybe like the Velvets, they'll just do a few Euro-dates and us here in NorAm can pretend it never happened.

...then about a year later i saw them in a large dull and acoustically horrible shed type thing - about two songs into their set (and after watching support from cud(!!) and teenage fanclub) part of the stage and barrier in front of it collapsed and the gig was halted and 4000 Glaswegian pixies fans filed out with their heads in their hands.

Ah well, knowing me I probably wouldnt have even gone to see them anyhow!

There is a connection -- 4AD was originally a spin-off from and now is part of the label umbrella of Beggars.

x-post

One thing I like about Frank Black is that he doesn't have his head up his ass. In the Pixies days, their success may have made him a little arrogant, but for most of his solo/Catholics days he's been very modest about it all. He doesn't blow his own horn or take himself too seriously.

So, for now, I have trust in him that this will be good.

Are they or aren't they? I wish we'd get a definitive answer from somebody.

NEW YORK (Billboard) - A decade after a bitter breakup, seminal alternative
rock act the Pixies may reunite next year.

Asked about rumors of a tour and a potential new studio album, the group's manager told Billboard.com:
"I have received an offer for the Pixies to perform in April. That said, over the past 10 years, I have
received dozens of offers for the Pixies."

A spokesperson for the group's former label, 4AD, had no comment on potential reunion plans.

The group's last major tour came while supporting U2 on a number of U.S. dates on the 1992 "Zoo TV"
trek.

Goldenvoice Promotions head Paul Tollett tells Billboard.com he has tried to book the Pixies "every year"
for the Coachella Valley Music & Arts Festival in Indio, Calif. "I still haven't made any movement," he
reports. " not sure if they are speaking to each other."

The Pixies -- vocalist/guitarist Black Francis, vocalist/bassist Kim Deal, lead guitarist Joey Santiago and
drummer David Lovering -- released four albums and an EP over the course of five years in the late 1980s
and early '90s, providing a blueprint for the alternative rock boom that dominated the latter decade.

In 1993, two years after the release of the group's final album, "Trompe Le Monde" (4AD/Elektra), Francis
(real name: Charles Thompson) sent a press release to the media announcing the breakup of the Pixies.

He went on to forge a solo career, now nine albums strong, as Frank Black. Deal found post-Pixies
success with the Breeders, whose 1994 album "Last Splash" (4AD/Elektra) peaked at No. 33 on The
Billboard 200 in 1994 and has sold 978,000 copies in the U.S., according to Nielsen SoundScan.

Black has been incorporating Pixies songs into live performances with his band the Catholics with
increasing regularity over the past few years.

Songs like "Where Is My Mind?," "Mr. Grieves," "Crackity Jones," "Nimrod's Son," "Holiday Song" and
"Gouge Away" have all surfaced in recent setlists, and a version of the latter recorded in April in Regina,
Saskatchewan, appears on a new Frank Black & the Catholics EP, "Nadine," licensed this week by
spinART exclusively to a number of independent U.S. retailers.

In July, Black told London radio station XFM that he still fantasized about reuniting his old band.

"I do dream about the Pixies reunion, I do have to say," he said. "It's like those schoolboy dreams when
you don't do your homework and you don't study for the test, but I'm at the gig and we're hanging out,
but it's an utter failure and I don't know the songs, and hardly anyone turns up for the gig and people walk
out. That's what I'm afraid of, that it'd be a big, big failure."

He added: "We might. We do get together and have private jams together, but not for public consumption."

During the Pixies' career, the group never made a huge commercial dent (their top-selling album is 1989's "Doolitte" at 552,000
copies).

But its impact on critics and fans was far-reaching. A handful of collections of Pixies material has surfaced during the band's
hiatus, including the 1997 Elektra double-CD set "Death to the Pixies," which featured favorites and live compilation discs. Last
year, spinART Records released "Pixies," a collection of unreleased songs from the band's original 1987 demo tape.

also, i should say Charles doesn't seem like a *total* egomaniac, and - again, speculating - i'd guess that has gotten better as he's gotten older. but he still says things here and there that let you know he's in charge, the others are not, etc.

being a rock band is (among the other things it is) a JOB and you can have a job that you don't feel any particular passion for but which you're good at and which is worth doing and which pays you and so you do it

this is not untrue, but i think it's a sad thing and not something to be celebrated. if you told me ahead of time that performer X was miserable and didn't enjoy putting on the shows, i think i definitely wouldn't go. how can you enjoy something like that ?

I'm sure the money was good, but life's too short. I couldn't somehow compartmentalize my contempt enough to get out there every other night, much less with band mates I didn't like

otm

she brings Kelley on tour and they seem to basically exist in a separate space from the others

this was def weird but also just pure gold. kelley clearly has this preternatural cinematic sensibility; she was able to seamlessly slip in and out of the role of "interviewer" and the way she was able to shape the narrative while in the shot was magnetic imo. like how she just spontaneously started interviewing the crowd lined up for the show e.g. or even in her ability to coax stuff out of kim.

the other members of the band i found to be interesting precisely for their lack of self-awareness and their inability to really say anything interesting; it was just so honest the way they just sort of threw around platitudes and, as personalities, maybe even as musical thinkers, couldn't reconcile their outsized roles as idk indie legends (?) with their basically normal everyday lives.

That opening footage of them playing Where Is My Mind is just unbearably depressing to me. I am sure I'm projecting, but the thought of servicing a few thousand millennial randos who saw fight club -- I'm sure the money was good, but life's too short. I couldn't somehow compartmentalize my contempt enough to get out there every other night, much less with band mates I didn't like

I saw them on that reunion tour and it was bad. Zero energy, though I don't know that they were ever a great live act.

(The Breeders OTOH have been great every time I've seen them.)

I love Kim, but the three or four or five times I've seen the Breeders they've been ... just OK. But Kim is such a positive presence - does she ever not smile? - and they always seemed to be having a good time.

I don't know that they were ever a great live act

They were great the first time I saw them! Probably not quite on the treadmill by that point I suppose.

They were great the first time I saw them - which was the 11th show of the reunion in 2004 (Boise).

Admittedly, my anticipation of finally seeing those songs live likely influenced by opinion of the show. There was hardly any talking in between songs.

They headlined Coachella a week later and I went, but skipped the set to see Moving Units.

I saw them in 2007 and it was really lovely - it was their first ever trip to Australia so maybe there was some kind of novelty in playing to adoring crowds for the first time

The opening was amazing - In Heaven, then Wave of Mutilation (UK Surf) then Bone Machine - such a graceful arc into delivering the crowd-pleasing goods

Comparisons to The Who upthread OTM, possibly re personality but also re unique musical contributions - like they are a real "only these 4 people can make this exact sound" band, and anything else is a facsimile

the 3 shows I went to were all at least decent, I was never disappointed, although I did know not to expect a great live act going in.

2004 was at a festival, it wasn't the best time or place to see them, my wife had sunstroke and my friends were pretty drunk (as was I tbf) and shouted a lot and I just wanted to watch the band, but my hazy memory is that it was good

2005 was a lot better, I was really excited to see them which helped, they seemed to be happy to be on stage then tbh, Kim & Charles didn't talk a lot but when they did they were charming, Joey did some guitar theatrics, good gig

2019 was a warm up gig so the smallest place I've seen them, again they didn't do much on stage but I guess having a new album might've got them more interested in playing, the new album isn't going to blow anyone's minds but some of the songs sounded fine mixed in with the old stuff

I think if you know what to expect, they will play the songs well but not v passionately, but they weren't known much for being a live act, hell I've been to a v boring Frank Black solo gig before and they were always better than that. Maybe I missed the worst of the by the numbers we hating being here years because I skipped 14 years?

Yeah, tbh, I've seen Frank Black live a few times, and he and his band killed it.

Ha, Emsworth, sounds like you were at the same Sydney show I was at! I thought it was pretty good, stunned at Charles’ ability to summon the screams 20 years down the track.

and yes Kim Deal is a god on par with a fundamental law of nature

Hey Matthew K! Yeh Sydney at Luna Park - I thought the show had a nice vibe, certainly relative to any dour, dialing-it-in reports above - Kim in particular I remember beaming through the whole thing

experience definitely given a sentimental boost by my high school self being v.pleased to finally see The Pixies - haven't had the slightest urge to go to any subsequent tours though - if they had made a new album with Kim then maybe, ISTR it was in the air for a while and maybe Bluefinger was the slightly disappointing result?

Colonel Poo - we might have seen them at the same gigs. I saw them at a festival in 2004 (think it was V - in the park near Chelmsford, anyway) and then at Alexandra Palace in 2005.

Exactly the same experience for me Emsworth, I was about 20 feet in front of Kim and she lit the room. I was excited for new music after I heard Bam Thwok but I was completely unsurprised when she bailed from the album sessions. I was disappointed she’d agreed to it actually.

jealous of you two, I went to V and had to bail halfway through the Pet Shop Boys making 6,000 shirtless homosexuals dance and laugh and spin, to catch an hour and a bit of 8,000 thirtysomethings standing nearly completely still watching four fiftysomethings standing completely still, one of them smiling

absolutely idiotic scheduling decision, Pixies should have been on at 6:30 pm so they and the Pixies-specific part of the audience could be in bed by dark.

and then had Soulwax close. after the PSB, not overlapping.

This band is such a bummer. In the sense that, when they were largely mysterious and faceless in the late 80s, their music sounded like it was coming from outer space or something. Everything over the last 20 years has just been depressing. I know they need money, but just.... do something else.

otm alas

I'm very much at peace with it. I think of them as two different bands.

I think they were the catalyst of literally every band who had a 80s/90s semi-hit getting back together

Hmm. I'm trying to think of other '80s and '90s bands that broke up but got back together after the Pixies. They always seemed kind of like a big fish that followed all the other reunions. Television, Gang of Four, Mission of Burma, Wire and so on.

Pixies inspired Slowdive, Ride, that generation

eh, I think the return of mbv did that.

Touche

My brain won't let me access American indie bands who may have reformed in the sights but there are a bunch

aughts

I'm very much at peace with it. I think of them as two different bands.

― Josh in Chicago, Wednesday, June 3, 2020 6:09 AM (four hours ago)

this exact feeling clicked for me several years ago. i don't really think of post-reunion activities as damaging their legacy, because as far as i'm concerned the legacy of the original Pixies is set in stone. (maybe that's not fair / doesn't make sense, but that's where i'm at.)

and what they do now doesn't bum me out! i mean, those guys built a band lots of ppl will pay to see and they have bills to pay. who am i to stop them from working? it's fine ... there are a million other (newer) bands to be excited about.

Happy birthday, Kim and Kelley

wow, what are the chances of them sharing the same birthday

lol