Pixies – Death To The Pixies (1997)

What the actual?   No Surfa Rosa or  Doolittle??????

In fact, the former would have been ruled out as I didn’t own a copy until a few years after it came out, but the latter was very much up for consideration.  But it is impossible to ignore the merits of this, the first best-of compilation, released to commemorate the 10th anniversary of the debut EP, Come On Pilgrim.

The fact that I picked up a copy that came with a second disc, offering a high-quality live recording, taken from a 1990 show in Utrecht that had been broadcast on a radio station in the Netherlands, only adds to my love for Death To The Pixies.

It would have been very easy for 4AD records to fill the entire disc with music, but there was very much an element of quality control.  Seventeen songs all told, three of which were lifted from Come On Pilgrim, three from Surfer Rosa, six from Doolittle, two from Bossanova, and two from Trompe Le Monde, with a combined running time of under 48 minutes.   It really is the perfect introduction to the band and, should you ever be given the unlikely dilemma of being sent somewhere, say a desert island, where you can only have one Pixies artefact to your name, then this collection really is what you should take.

mp3: Pixies – Monkey Gone To Heaven

This was #16 in the 45 45s @ 45 rundown back in 2008.  It’s featured on the blog on quite a few occasions in the past.

It’s a new wave epic, groundbreaking in the way that the harsh, near industrial sounds of the traditional instruments deployed by this particular four-piece combo are enhanced in unimaginable ways by two cellos and two violins. It remains one of the few songs that have ever stopped me dead in my tracks on my first listen while I’ve been browsing in a record store.

JC

Some extracts from ICA 6.

BONE MACHINE

Let’s start at the beginning. The beginning for me, anyway – the first Pixies song I ever heard – the opening track on Surfer Rosa recorded onto a C90 tape with AR Kane’s 69 on the other side. Believe it or not, back in 1988 this really did sound like nothing else – to me anyway – nothing like the indie music that I’d grown to love and nothing that you could hear on the radio. And what a great introduction to a band – each instrument comes in at different times to create a glorious noise with Black Francis barking and howling over the top of it – to this day I’m not really sure what he says or what it all means, but to me that’s part of the joy of this band. And I think it was the song to which I bust my nose stage diving to at The Town and Country Club – but that’s another story.

HEY

Pixies were always a great band to jump around, scream and go nuts to – but I love their slow songs as much as their fast noisy ones – loudQUIETloud and all that. This is a live version from the tour they did where they played Doolittle in order plus assorted B-sides. Just listening to the audience in this version really brings home what a loved band they are. I was lucky enough to see them a fair few times before they originally split up and was young then so spent most of the gigs going bananas, as you do. I always looked back fondly on those days and as Pixies influence grew was happy I’d seen them. So when they reformed it was incredible going back and seeing songs live that I’d cherished over the years – there was a feeling of trepidation that they might just ruin things, but they were as good as they ever were – and I found there was still a bit of the mosh pit left in me.

CACTUS

My favourite song off my favourite album – it just about beats Gigantic. Impossible to articulate what it means to me, I’ve loved it for so long.

jimdoes

JC adds…….

Next week will see more strolls down ICA Memory Lane, but will instead involve the full versions of a few guest postings as editing them proved beyond my capabilities, and I felt they have to be read as intended.

There have been times during this occasional but well-established series when I’ve included an EP as the debut instead of a single.

This has given me a dilemma now that I’ve decided to feature Pixies.

Come On Pilgrim was the first commercial release, issued as an EP by 4AD Records in September 1987.  The EP contained seven songs, with a running time of a little over twenty minutes.  The problem is that the group never intended it as being released in that way, having made a 17-song cassette with the intention of getting it into the shops as a record, but these hopes were dashed when Ivo Watts-Russell decided that some of the songs, on what would later be called The Purple Tape, weren’t strong enough for a commercial release.

It was his decision to narrow things down to the seven tunes, and in doing so he also remixed things slightly to smooth out what he felt were some rough edges.

It did work in that the EP would go on to spend more than six months in the UK Indie Chart, helping to generate a great deal of positive press coverage while organically growing a fan base for the band.

So, for the purpose of this series, I’m going to make my way to August 1988, and the release of a debut 45, of a song that had been included on the debut album, Surfer Rosa, released five months previously

mp3: Pixies – Gigantic (single version)

It was a complete re-recording from the version included on the album. For one thing, it is some 40 seconds shorter. It also saw Gil Norton brought in to work with the band for the first time, with his more conventional approach to recording seen as more conducive to delivering a radio-friendly sound than had been delivered by Steve Albini:-

mp3: Pixies – Gigantic

The single, with its infectious and memorable bass line written by Mrs John Murphy (aka Kim Deal), was issued on 12″ vinyl and CD.  It didn’t break into the mainstream chart, but was again a success in the Indie Chart, and it paved the way for Norton to work with the band on the following year’s Doolittle, which took the band to new and possibly unimagined heights.

There were three other tracks on the single:-

mp3: Pixies – River Euphrates
mp3: Pixies – Vamos (live)
mp3: Pixies – In Heaven (Lady In The Radiator Song) (live)

River Euphrates, like Gigantic, was a Norton-produced version of a song from the debut album, and again is quite different from its Albini-produced counterpart.

The other two tracks are taken from a gig at the Town & Country Club, London on 1 May 1988.

Pixies would, in due course, enjoy chart success with later singles, but there is little doubt, among fans anyway, that Gigantic is up there as one of their very best recordings, and remained the most loudly received in the live sets all the time the original line-up played, much to the annoyance of Black Francis who never really understood why his lead vocals weren’t greeted with the same enthusiasm as that of the big song by Kim.

JC

It’s featured before on the blog, with a backstory about how hearing it for the first time in a record shop was a big step in me changing a lot about my life……but that’s not for today.

Playing this 12″ piece of vinyl for the first time in lord knows how long, and certainly for the first time since I got the upgraded turntable and amp just over a year ago, was a real treat as Kim Deal‘s bass, Joey Santiago‘s guitar, David Lovering‘s drums and Black Francis‘ screams combined to make a sound that is beyond my vocabulary to properly do it justice.

It’s a new wave epic, groundbreaking in the way that the harsh, near industrial sounds of the traditional instruments deployed by this particular four-piece combo are enhanced in unimaginable ways by two cellos and two violins.   It still remains one of the few songs that have ever stopped me dead in my tracks on my first listen while I’ve been browsing in a record store, and hearing it played so loudly again today, thanks to Villain Towers, temporarily, having no neighbours, took me back to 1989.

It also has a couple of top-notch b-sides and another which is above average. So here they are, ripped direct and at as high a quality for an mp3 as my equipment will allow:-

mp3: Pixies – Monkey Gone To Heaven
mp3: Pixies – Manta Ray
mp3: Pixies – Weird At My School
mp3: Pixies – Dancing The Manta Ray

Melody Maker, here in the UK, made Monkey Gone To Heaven its #1 single come the end of the year rundown. Rolling Stone, over in the USA, had it at #5, the same position it reached in the John Peel Festive 50, one of five entries from Pixies in that particular rundown. The record buying public weren’t so enamoured, as it only reached #60 in the singles chart

JC

A GUEST SERIES

13 – Gigantic – Pixies (1998, 4AD Records)

Released as a single in August 1988 (Reached Number 93)

It is midnight and I have just jumped into a car belonging to a guy called Nikolai. I am sitting next to a Swedish guy called Christer who is ridiculously good looking. He looks like Daniel Craig and I am drawn instantly to him, largely because he is wearing a Ramones T Shirt and when I met him in arrivals area of Tbilisi Airport he hands me a bottle of Swedish Vodka as a present.

Nikolai has been tasked to look after Christer and I all week, we are in Tbilisi at the request of the Georgian government to deliver some training and teaching to a bunch of students. He tells us in good English with a strong Russian accent that “he has a fun packed week mapped out for us”. Frankly at that particular moment I couldn’t care what he has planned for me, I’m shattered. I’ve just spent four hours on a plane from Istanbul next to a couple who spent the entire flight shouting at their two children. I now know the Turkish words for ‘Shut Up You Little Brat’ (kapa çeneni küçük velet) and ‘Do Your Crossword and Be Quiet’ (bulmaca yap ve sessiz ol) and all I want to do is sleep.

I can’t do that though because all the way to the hotel Nikolai plays Georgian Folk Music. Now its very pleasant, but the same songs appear to be played everywhere – might be my ignorance, but that’s what it sounds like. We get to the hotel, where the woman in reception flirts outrageously with Christer whilst giving him his key as yet more folk music twinkles away in the background.

At the end of Day one, Nikolai tells us that we are being taken to a banquet. The Guest of Honour is the Georgian equivalent of the Home Secretary, everyone stands when he comes in the room and Christer and I feel massively out of place. Nikolai tells me that it is ‘A Russian’ thing. We then eat roughly fifteen courses, each one starting with a toast and shot of something called Chacha. A stupidly strong fruit brandy. I get laughed at for not eating meat and two different women move seats so that they could sit either side of Christer. A folk band turns up and serenades us as the plates are taken away from each course. They play the same song at least three times.

Between course six and seven Christer and I go outside for some fresh air we take some photos of the sun setting across the Kura River – Christer leans across to me and says “Right now all I want to do is go back to my room, phone my wife and children and then fall asleep whilst listening to Crass”. I look at him and nod, I know exactly what he means, although you can’t fall asleep listening to Crass. He then tells me with a sigh that the next course is ‘water rat’. I, being the vegetarian, am eating a mushroom and grape pie.

The Rat – The Walkmen (2004, Record Collection Records, Number 45)

We talk a bit more about music. He tells me of his love for American Rock music bands like Pixies, Nirvana, and Pearl Jam have been his life for the last twenty years. He tells me that his favourite album of recent years is ‘…Like Clockwork’ by Queens of the Stone Age and then he tells me that he is coming to the UK in about six weeks to see them at a festival. We make a plan to meet up. He tells me that he is hiring a motorbike from Edinburgh Airport and riding all the way to this festival near London – I realise he is going to the Reading Festival. I also realise that he is probably the coolest person I have ever met. Minutes later one of the two women grab him by the arm and drag him back to the dinner table. I think about making a run for it but International Diplomacy drags me back to the table.

I Sat By The Ocean – Queens of The Stone Age (2013, Matador Records, Did Not Chart)

I should say by the way that Georgian food and wine is excellent. It really is.

On Day Three, we have been joined by a German guy called Bernhard and Nikolai tells us that he has a real treat for us. I’m hoping that it is a night off and I can catch up on some sleep but no. We are going to a football match. Dinamo Tbilisi versus Dinamo Batumi. Dinamo Tbilisi are a bit like Barcelona in Georgia, they win everything and are adored by everyone. Every shop bears their flags and pennants and according to Nikolai, his own father claims that the night Dinamo Tbilisi won the old European Cup Winners Cup was the greatest night of his life (this was in 1981).
As we drive there Nikolai puts on more bloody folk music.

We turn up at this stadium, it is kind of cool in a seventies Russian architecture sort of way. We are given more Chacha and handed something which looks like a candle. It is not a candle it is something called Churchkhela, basically almonds, walnuts, hazelnuts and chocolate dipped in grape juice and shaped like a candle. It is also wonderfully tasty. We sit back and wait for the match to start. Piped folk music fills the stadium.

The stadium announcer suddenly starts jabbering very quickly, it must be close to the start and suddenly out of now we hear something very familiar. Christer stops eating his Churchkhela and I put down my tumbler of Chacha. Its ‘Gigantic’ by Pixies. Dinamo Tbilisi are for some reason walking on to the pitch to the debut single from Pixies.

Christer looks at me and says “that‘s Gigantic” and I nod. It is one of the weirdest things I’ve heard in this increasingly wonderful country. I have heard nothing but folk music for three days and then from out of nowhere I’m hearing ‘Gigantic’ played to about 10000 people on a balmy Wednesday night in Tbilisi through a crackly PA system. It still sounds marvellous.

The football is awful Dinamo Tbilisi win the game 3 Nil thanks to the efforts of a Brazillan veteran and a youngster who Nikolai calls ‘the Georgian Messi’.

Oh and at half time, Dinamo Tbilisi come out to this

I Wanna Be Your Dog – Iggy Pop and The Stooges (1969, Elektra Records)

SWC

A GUEST POSTING by JONNY THE FRIENDLY LAWYER

JC recently re-posted a brilliant story by Tim Badger about ‘Bob’, his beloved “old, battered, baggy and black” sweater (jumper?) which he named after the Cure‘s frontman. Badger loved it, danced to the Pixies in it, tried to impress girls with it. He recounted the rowdy night when he lost Bob, panicked and joyfully reunited with him the next day. The beloved jumper and the mention of the Pixies reminded me of a somewhat similar story of my own, which I offer up in fond tribute to Mr. Badger.

THE PIXIES SHIRT

When Sam the friendly artist was a kid our favorite father-son pastime was going to see shows. One of the most memorable of the 100+ shows we saw was The Pixies at the Greek Theater in LA on [*checks master list*] 22 September 2004. It wasn’t the greatest show, to be honest, but they did play a great new song: “Bam Thwok” sung by the unsinkable Kim Deal. But the night was noteworthy for two particular reasons: First, unbeknownst to us, a writer for the LA Weekly noticed STFA and me buying a t-shirt and made it the basis of his review of the show. Came out like this:

I still get some smirks in the house for having been described as “visibly hip,” but I didn’t care at the time because I was chuffed to be seen as “late 30’s” when in fact I was 41. The second and more important reason was the shirt STFA went home with:

Sam wore that shirt EVERYWHERE. And he was wearing it 10 months later when we drove down to San Diego for a giant festival called Street Scene 2005. Headliners were The White Stripes, The Killers, Black Eyed Peas and Garbage, featuring my old dinner date Shirley Manson. Sam had a great time–sunny day, fab music, and there were loads of radio stations giving away free merch. Sam won a t-shirt from Indie 103.1 FM, the first station to host Jonesy’s Jukebox with the Sex Pistols’ Steve Jones. He cranked the Pixies shirt through a belt loop and secured it with a handful of key chains also given away as freebies.

By this time 11-year-old STFA was a concert veteran, having seen [*checks master list again*] 35 shows. He liked to see the big names but what he’d really been looking forward to was crowd surfing. I figured of all the acts that day the most rambunctious was likely to be Flogging Molly. I promised Sam that if it looked like a tight enough crowd he could give it a go. I was a bit alarmed to note that, just 2 songs in, the mosh pit in front of the Celtic punks was already head deep and swirling like a hurricane. But a promise is a promise and, after making Sam swear to never tell his mom, my buddy Mark and I hoisted him up and threw him on top of the mob. I watched him surf over the top for a good 10 seconds or so, and then down he went into the thrashing horde.

I knew I’d never be able find a 4-foot-tall kid in the crowd so we had prearranged to meet at the base of the nearest light tower. Sam dutifully turned up and I was overjoyed to see that he was all in one piece. I thought he’d be jubilant but he was disconsolate. “Dad,” he sniffed, “the Pixies shirt!” It and the belt loop were torn off in the pit. Mark and I looked over at the frantic army that was now positively boiling in front of the stage. I looked at Sam and sighed. Mark looked at me and said, “No fucking way.” But I’m a dedicated and visibly hip dad. I took a deep breath and went in.

I immediately gave up any chance of finding the Pixies shirt by seeing it–it was all I could do to remain upright. I crouched in low with my fists up around my head boxer-style, trying to make a way through the mix. Flogging Molly draws a good crowd at clubs, but this was an outdoor festival in the parking surrounds of Qualcomm Stadium, where the Padres and Chargers played. The mosh pit had hundreds of people in it and I think I took an elbow from every one of them. I couldn’t see anything. I was getting fairly well beaten up. The pit was unusually rough–we were 6 hours into an all-day event and the crowd had been drinking in the hot California sun since the gates opened. I was thinking about an exit strategy when I stepped on something soft. I moved it around with my foot and felt…what? a bottle cap? No! it had to be one of the key rings Sam had tried to secure the shirt with! I swooped down and grabbed it, sodden and stomped flat, still attached to the torn off belt loop by the key ring. I bowled my way back out, knocking over a few people in the process. That seemed fair in light of the beat-down I’d just taken.

Sam was delighted, Mark was incredulous, I was old, battered, baggy and bruised.

When Sam grew out of it the Pixies shirt went up on the wall of our music room. If I remember correctly the next beloved shirt featured the Meat Puppets.

The Pixies: Bam Thwok
Flogging Molly: Devil’s Dance Floor

JTFL

JC adds….I awoke last Saturday morning to find this in my inbox.  About an hour later, I got a further e-mail fully confirming the date and time for tickets for a football match next month over in Barcelona, a match that will be part of a weekend in the city where myself and Rachel (Mrs Villain) will be hooking up Jonny and Goldie the friendly therapist (Mrs JTFL and mother of STFA) as they embark on a short holiday in Spain.  It felt like instant karma.

July 1990.

A band from Boston, Massachusetts, USA is really beginning to make big waves in the UK.

The previous year, Pixies had released a Top 10 album in Doolittle, one which rode high in all the end-of-year charts so loved in those days by newspapers and magazines. The band’s stock was very much at its peak thanks in part to what were always incendiary live shows and in part to the fact that they sounded quite unlike any other indie act from that particular decade.

The band had been announced as the headliner on the main stage of the final day at the 1990 Reading Festival, and the fact that they would close the 3-day event had led to a surge in ticket sales. There was a huge amount of anticipation about the new material that would be played on the day (worth mentioning, in passing, that the Reading show did extend to 32 songs on the day).

July 1990.

The new single is released:-

mp3 : Pixies – Velouria

It doesn’t disappoint the legion of fans, with its loud-quiet-loud progression, its screaming vocal and its perfectly place guitar solo delivered, effortlessly (as usual) by Joey Santiago.

It is being bought in decent numbers, enough to most likely give Pixies their first ever hit single, with a position that would most likely lead to an invitation to appear on Top of The Pops. The only problem is that there is a rule in place that invites will only be given to singers or bands who have a promo video in place, something the band aren’t keen to make.

The thing is, time and effort had gone into promos for the singles from Doolittle but these has subsequently seen very little in the way of airtime. Pressure was applied on the band and in the end they agreed on something which would involve minimal input on their part but which meet the criteria-

It really must be just about the worst promo ever made. So bad that some folk think it’s a fabulous artistic statement of protest. There’s a near frame-by frame description of it on a fan website devoted to the band:-

“We had to think about something because everybody was giving all this shit because we didn’t have a video to go with the single. So we just gave them something.” (Kim Deal, Rock A My Soul fanzine, 1990) In a Manchester quarry, the 4 Pixies stand on rocks. As the song begins, they start running in direction of the camera. But the song is long and the distance is short (about 10 seconds are needed to reach the camera), so they are running in slow motion. Very slow motion. One frame after another. The Pixies are running, running, running. Black Francis is the first to pass by the camera, David is very close. But where is Joey? Oh yes, he was out of the picture, but now he is jumping (nearly) on the camera. Come on Kim! Well, there are only the rocks now. The end.”

It did the job in terms of meeting the rule. It didn’t impress the BBC enough to show it, despite the fact that Velouria entered the charts at #28 on the first week of its release Oh, and it was a shockingly bad chart that week – https://www.officialcharts.com/charts/singles-chart/19900722/7501/ – and an appearance by Pixies would have saved what surely must have been one of the worst ever editions of Top of The Pops.

Here’s the three other tracks on the CD single:-

mp3 : Pixies – Make Believe
mp3 : Pixies – I’ve Been Waiting for You
mp3 : Pixies – The Thing

Lead lyric on the first of these is taken by drummer David Lovering, while bassist Kim Deal provides a take on a cover of a Neil Young song. The last of the tracks is a sub-two minutes effort described elsewhere as just a regurgitated reading of Bossanova’s “The Happening.” and nothing but straightforward pop that results in one of the group’s most boring statements.

It’s hard to disagree.

JC

A VERY SHOUTY SHOUTY RECORD

Mrs Villain and myself have some common tastes in music but far more differences that most would imagine.

Santa Claus brought her a digital radio with the intended use really being in the summer when she’s out in the garden or over at her allotment where she grows vegetables.

She has been road-testing it this past few days and mostly it has been tuned into Kerrang Radio. It’s not been as bad as I thought – there’s been a few half-decent bands appeared now and again but even then it’s been the better-know Hard Cafe establishment-types rather than any obscure indie-rock bands.

Mrs V has a penchant for what I call shouty-shouty music….the sort where either the vocalist’s very loud delivery is meant to signify his angst or anger. Not exactly my cup of tea….but as Mrs V has pointed out, I do have an an occasional shouty lyric that gets me dancing. Here’s the evidence:-

mp3 : Pixies – Tame

The second track on the outstanding 1989 LP Doolittle. Just about every fan of Pixies will have this in their all-time Top 10 songs by the band. Here’s a live version:-

mp3 : Pixies – Tame (live)

It’s also a song that was given an unofficial remix a few years ago – one that I think is a bit on the cracking side:-

mp3 : Pixies – Tame (McSleaszy remix)
mp3 : Pixies – Tame (McSleazy extended remix)

McSleazy is regraded by many as the best-ever in the mash-ups/bootleg genre which was incredibly popular around the turn of the century. His real name is Grant J Robson and he’s from the town of Paisley which is just down the road from my home city of Glasgow. I’ve taken this from his own site:-

McSleazy started in 1999 as an outlet for some electro tunes GrantJRobson had made. BBC Scotland had an amazing show called ‘Electronica’ which aired these experiments, and McSleazy was go. Shortly after inception, Electronic Arts commissioned 8 tracks from McSleazy for their racing game ‘Superbike 2000’. McSleazy, as a live band, played at many places including legendary club night Optimo, T in the Park and supporting Jimi Tenor.

As a DJ tool, McSleazy mixed up some tunes together “just to see the reactions on peoples faces”, and he was on the mash-up path. “The Best Bootlegs In The World Ever” featured McSleazy’s Song 2 v Don’t Call Me Baby bootleg in ’99, Radio 1 jumped on the bandwagon and the internet took care of the rest. A short while later, McSleazy founded Get Your Bootleg On (now GYBO5) which became – and remains – the online home of the mash-up.

MTV Mash followed, which featured dozens of McSleazy creations across it’s three series and led to DJing trips across Europe, and to Bootie in San Francisco. The Franzie Boys ep, featuring four Franz Ferdinand v Beastie Boys tracks, immediately sold out it’s initial run through HMV orders alone and received a thumbs up from both bands as well as a nod in Q magazine’s top tracks of the year.

DJing stints included becoming a ten year resident of the NME Stage at T in the Park and touring with The Charlatans and Embrace as support. Mixing duties continued with the Popjustice album 100% Solid Pop, and an official remix of The Charlatans ‘You Cross My Path’. McSleazy was given his own show on XFM and then went on to provide music for New Line Cinema’s Antonio Banderas film Take the Lead. Mashups continued to dominate the landscape, and McSleazy worked on Activision / Freestyle Games’ award winning DJ Hero, contributing music which formed part of the final product.

In 2010, Grant’s musical output stretched beyond McSleazy. The first pieces of work credited to GrantJRobson began to emerge, in a very different vein to the earlier electro work. Early pieces such as Wilbur’s Lullaby were warmly received, and had a more orchestal / soundtrack feel to them. This led to Grant being asked to provide the soundtrack to a promo film for fashion chain White Stuff.

After a trail through the hard drive, a seven track EP of instrumental McSleazy experiments called Pop Round My House was put online by McSleazy in April 2011. The intention was to air some unreleased material, and give bootleggers and pop-song writers something to play with. The future aims to consist of writing more under the GrantJRobson banner, but that doesn’t mean that McSleazy won’t, at some point, generate a little bit more music.

And that dear readers brought an end to the posts across 2012, a year in which I hadn’t been as prolific as before,  but as I said, I was happy enough to have kept things going especially as there were a couple of times I did feel like calling it a day, but that I was intending being here for a wee while yet….certainly up to and beyond the impending 50th birthday. (and I certainly will do all i can to gry beyond the now impending 56th birthday in six months time).

Happy New Year when it comes to your timezone.

JC

No apologies today even though this is a repeat posting from January 2017 in terms of the songs. In my defence I’m coming at the lead song from a different angle as last time round it was one of the b-sides which prompted the piece.

Pixies never really wanted to be bona-fide pop stars whose songs hung around the higher echelons of the charts – for evidence, you only need to look at the way they handled the eventual release of Here Comes Your Man as a stand-alone single.

The track is very unusual in comparison to much of the rest of the band’s late 80s/early 90s material. As has been written elsewhere on t’internet:-

“In contrast with the fractured compositional style the band became known for, Here Comes Your Man follows a straightforward verse/pre-chorus/chorus structure, with a short instrumental break in the middle – the very definition of a perfect three-and-a-half-minute pop single.”

It’s also a song which, by the time of its release in 1989 was almost ten years old as Black Francis had composed it when he was just 15 years of age. A version had been included in the demo tape which got them the deal with 4AD Records but the composer vetoed its inclusion firstly on Come On Pilgrim and again on Surfer Rosa. Indeed, it was only sleight of hand by producer Gil Norton that led to it being recorded for inclusion on Doolittle – the band, and in particular the front man condescendingly referred to it as ‘the Tom Petty song’ and way too commercial sounding. Norton waited until Francis was out of the studio and had the other three members record a fresh take on the tune, including Joey Santiago adding a new riff to beef things up, with the results being different enough to warrant a new vocal.

The label bosses worked hard to have it scheduled as a single, only getting their way by agreeing it wouldn’t be used as a precursor for the album. A promo video was made but sort of sabotaged by Francis and Kim Deal who made no attempt to mime the words thus causing severe bafflement to the MTV bosses. The band also turned down requests to play the song on the national chat shows which dominated US television in those days and indeed hardly ever included it in any live shows.

Despite all this, the single got a fair bit of play on college radio in the States and on evening shows in the UK and Europe. It reached #54 in the UK singles charts in July 1989, #1 in the UK Indie Charts and #3 on the Billboard Modern Rock Tracks chart.

Here’s all four tracks from the 12”

mp3 : Pixies – Here Comes Your Man
mp3 : Pixies – Wave of Mutilation (UK Surf)
mp3 : Pixies – Into the White
mp3 : Pixies – Bailey’s Walk

The question is……given that this alternative, wonderfully slowed-down version of Wave of Mutilation was recorded at Palladium Studios in Edinburgh, does it qualify enough to be aired at Simply Thrilled, the upcoming club night celebrating the best of Scotland’s alternative music??

JC

Debaser, the opener on the 1989 LP Doolittle, is one of the most enduring and popular songs ever recorded by Pixies.

One well-known critic loves it so much that he described it as the best single of the decade that was the 80s although it was never ever released in that format until 1997 when it was used to promote a new best-of compilation by the band.

The seemingly nonsensical lyrics are in fact based on based on what is a famous surrealist silent film from 1929. Un Chien Andalou was a collaboration between director Luis Buñuel and artist Salvador Dalí. It was Buñuel’s first film, originally intended for a limited showing at Studio des Ursulines in Paris, but which became so popular that it ran for eight months.

The film includes a scene in which a woman’s eye is slit by a razor, which is referenced in the lyric “Slicin’ up eyeballs/I want you to know” that is screamed by Black Francis during Debaser.

mp3 : Pixies – Debaser

While reading about things on wiki, I learned that a version of Debaser was also used in some game called DJ Hero 2 ( me neither!!);  but in a form that sees it remixed with Invaders Must Die by The Prodigy. It might sound interesting and fascinating but it is in fact shit…

mp3 : Pixies/The Prodigy – Debaser/Invaders Must Die

JC

Pixies at Glasgow Barrowlands some six weeks ago was a real highlight in terms of live performances in 2016. Ok, there was no Kim Deal and I’d be lying if I said things were just the same without her, but Paz Lenchantin is a very capable replacement on bass and occasional vocals and to be fair, she’d never dream of taking a turn on Gigantic.

But she did play her part in a great rendition of another of Kim’s lead vocals, one that was originally released as the b-side to one of their best known singles:-

mp3 : Pixies – Here Comes Your Man
mp3 : Pixies – Into The White

The 12″ release, which incidentally is easier to track down than the 7″, had two additional tracks:-

mp3 : Pixies – Wave Of Mutlilation (UK Surf)
mp3 : Pixies – Bailey’s Walk

The former, a new version of a track from the then parent LP Doolittle, was recorded at the Palladium Studios in Edinburgh, a favourite of 4AD boss, Ivo Watts-Russell.  It was where he did much of his work with This Mortal Coil.

Enjoy.

ORIGINALLY POSTED ON FRIDAY 2 MAY 2008

This is a record that having been cited by so many as an influence that it’s hard to reconcile it with its flop status here in the UK.

Monkey Gone To Heaven by The Pixies only reached #60 in the UK charts in March 1989, so it was very much an acquired taste. It was my ownership of the 12” single which helped cement my friendship with new work colleague Jacques the Kipper – I happened to mention in the pub one evening not long after he started in the office that it was one of my favourite bits of vinyl, and that’s when we started talking about bands and music. And we haven’t stopped all these years later…

The late 80s weren’t great for me in terms of keeping up with music. No. let me rephrase that – the late 80s weren’t great for me in terms of keeping up with anything.

The student years from 81-85 and the first few years of paid employment were a period of hedonism and a slightly unorthodox lifestyle. Particularly the first two years of employment where I had some money in my pocket. To coin a phrase from Paul Weller, I found myself in a strange town. It was called Edinburgh.

For three years I lived in a series of rented flats (one of which involved a moonlit flit and the loss of some 500 7” singles as recounted elsewhere in this rundown), with a great crowd of friends centred around unemployed actors and performers. Oh a psycho air-stewardess from Canada as a flatmate who once threatened to cut the throat of my wee brother – but that’s another story.

But I got bored with all of this – especially as I seemed to be the only one in the crowd with any money, and the late nights and long drinking sessions were taking a toll on me. That and the boss beginning to run out of patience. So I settled myself down with a steady girlfriend who I married in the Summer of 1988 after a whirlwind romance. Someone whose interest in music was virtually non-existent…..but I felt the change was what I wanted. It was time to put the toys of my youth away forever.

Within a matter of weeks, I was bored rigid. I missed my old mates and my old lifestyle. I missed going to gigs and listening to Radio 1 after 8pm of an evening. It was all soap operas and detective shows in my household. I was in danger of growing old before my time.

I wasn’t reading music papers, and I wasn’t buying anything. I put the turntable and amp under the stairs.

One day, instead of waiting at the stop for 20 minutes for the next bus home, I popped into a well known city centre record shop. Within minutes, a sound was blaring from the speakers which was unlike anything I had ever heard before. A great guitar riff, big powerful drumming and a whiny vocal that was part-spoken, part-sung and part-screamed. And was that some cellos there at the end? Surely not…

The song needed to be bought. So, it was up to the counter to ask the bloke behind the counter who and what was that? The answer, of course, was Monkey Gone To Heaven by The Pixies.

I had no idea who he was talking about. But I bought the single. The first bit of vinyl in at least 9 months since my wedding day. And then went home and pulled out the turntable and amp from under the stairs…

Within a year, I had moved out of the marital home. A few months later I was living with a woman called Rachel, who became my second wife – you may have seen her referred to here and there as Mrs Villain. Crucially, Rachel liked a lot of the music that I loved and was all for going out to gigs rather than get hooked on Eastenders and Taggart. She’s still like that all these years later.

This record is astonishing in its ambition. A long long time before it became fashionable to do so, it was giving warnings about global warming and the destruction of the environment. It had an orchestral part at a time when most bands were beginning again to strip things back to basics. It was a song which sounded indie, but was as far away from the fey and whimsy sound normally associated with the genre as you could imagine. It was a song that could even find favour with the rock fans who got hooked entirely on the solos and performances. It had a vocal that so screamed at you from the speakers, that you feared for the damage being done to the throat of the lead singer.

In short, The Pixies had more or less invented grunge…

mp3 : The Pixies – Monkey Gone To Heaven
mp3 : The Pixies – Manta Ray
mp3 : The Pixies – Weird At My School
mp3 : The Pixies – Dancing The Manta Ray

As I mentioned at the outset, it was a flop, reaching only #60 in the singles chart. But it was #1 single of 1989 in Melody Maker, #5 in Rolling Stone, #22 in NME and #24 in Village Voice.

It was also the record that helped put my life back on the track I should never have left.

An enlightening e-mail popped into the inbox recently from an reader who has been known to leave behind some nice comments:-

Hey JC

Somewhat surprisingly (to me!), you’ve never featured Pixies on your blog and to me they are the greatest band there’s ever been, one I’ve seen more than most others and have listened to for over a quarter of a century. So if you don’t mind, here’s an “Imaginary Compilation Album” for your series thats if you actually like them! I’m sure you and your readers are familiar with them or at least their more famous songs, so this is just a collection of my favourites that’s representative of their whole career but misses out the ones that everyone might know. I’ve also tried to include alternate versions ‘rarities’ where possible. Apologies if I ramble in places – it makes me appreciate what you do all the more, it’s not easy writing coherently about your favourite music! And I own everything on vinyl – no cheating!

xxxjim
(JIMDOES)

It was also somewhat surprising to me that, after more than 500 postings on this particular blog that I hadn’t once featured any songs by Pixies when they had been a bit of a staple over at the old place. It’s also great that someone goes to the trouble of putting the imaginary compilation LP together as they are time-consuming pieces, not just in terms of the words for the piece but listening to the back catalogue in some depth to get down to the final selection. Anyway, here’s Jimdoes’ very fine take on the finest band to ever emerge from Boston U.S.A.:-

1. BONE MACHINE

Let’s start at the beginning. The beginning for me, anyway – the first Pixies song I ever heard – the opening track on Surfer Rosa recorded onto a C90 tape with AR Kane’s 69 on the other side. Believe it or not, back in 1988 this really did sound like nothing else – to me anyway – nothing like the indie music that I’d grown to love and nothing that you could hear on the radio. And what a great introduction to a band – each instrument comes in at different times to create a glorious noise with Black Francis barking and howling over the top of it – to this day I’m not really sure what he says or what it all means, but to me that’s part of the joy of this band. And I think it was the song to which I bust my nose stage diving to at The Town and Country Club – but that’s another story.

2. BLUE EYED HEXE

And just to show they’ve still got it – from their recent, underrated LP. It rocks in a way that only the Pixies can. I know it’s ‘Pixies’, not ‘The Pixies’ but sometimes it just sounds funny without the ‘The’. Anyway this is one of my most listened to songs from 2014 – I wasn’t expecting much from the album (and with an embarrassing title like ‘Indie Cindy’, who can blame me) but it goes to show that Deal or No Deal, they can still produce a quite wonderful noise.

3. DOWN TO THE WELL

I got hold of this song as a track on a free EP with Sounds, released just after Surfer Rosa, although this version is from a session they did at Maida Vale. Originally recorded as a demo before Surfer Rosa, I fully expected this to appear on the follow-up, Doolittle but I’m guessing that they had so many great songs recorded that they just held it back till Bossanova. My favourite line is “What matter does it make if there are favourite songs playing in my head” which could well be a mantra for my life! Anyway, it’s about sex and alien abduction – what could be more Pixies than that?

4.  HEY

Pixies were always a great band to jump around, scream and go nuts to – but I love their slow songs as much as their fast noisy ones – loudQUIETloud and all that. This is a live version from the tour they did where they played Doolittle in order plus assorted B-sides. Just listening to the audience in this version really brings home what a loved band they are. I was lucky enough to see them a fair few times before they originally split up and was young then so spent most of the gigs going bananas, as you do. I always looked back fondly on those days and as Pixies influence grew was happy I’d seen them. So when they reformed it was incredible going back and seeing songs live that I’d cherished over the years – there was a feeling of trepidation that they might just ruin things but they were as good as they ever were – and I found there was still a bit of the mosh pit left me.

5.  INTO THE WHITE

Recorded at the time when Pixies really could do no wrong – every song was so amazing that they’d put tracks like this as B-sides. And one of only a couple of songs that features Kim Deal on lead vocals. I can remember buying the 12” of Here Comes Your Man just to get this song which they’d been playing live for a while. Best sleeve for a Pixies record too – I used to have a massive poster of it on my student bedroom wall.

6. VAMOS

Always my favourite song live – for Joey Santiago’s amazing guitar work – the way it just goes nuts in the middle loads of feedback and echo – he plays that bit with a drumstick or whatever else is at hand. But also for the way that Black Francis’ rhythm guitar holds everything together and stops the song descending into chaos. I’ve included an epic version which was their closing song when they played at Brixton Academy on their original comeback tour on June 5 2004 – a gig I was lucky enough to attend. And for some strange reason it features on both Come on Pilgrim and Surfer Rosa although I’ve never been able to notice much difference between the two of them. Vamos a jugar por la playa, indeed.

7. MOTORWAY TO ROSWELL

People often say that the last two Pixies albums aren’t as good as the first two. I think they are just different but equally good. They couldn’t really have made another Doolittle without sounding a little tired. And it’s great when bands evolve – it’s not a complete reinvention. Anyway I think of this album as the shiny album – everything seems to have a sheen to it if that doesn’t sound too weird. Especially the sounds at the beginning of this song – probably the most ‘space’ and ‘sci-fi’ song they recorded.

8. NIMROD’S SON

I can’t think about most Pixies songs without thinking about them being performed live – and that means thousands of people shouting “You are the son of a mother fucker”. An absolute joy.

9. CACTUS

My favourite song off my favourite album – it just about beats Gigantic. Impossible to articulate what it means to me, I’ve loved it for so long.

10. HEAD ON

Pixies made some great cover versions – and this rendition of The Jesus and Mary Chain classic is my favourite. I’m biased but much as I like the original, I think this version is better!

So there’s ten songs – it’s been incredibly hard to choose just ten. I could easily have picked another ten. And I’ve resisted the urge to put them in alphabetical order like they did with their set lists back in the day!

Side A

mp3 : Pixies – Bone Machine
mp3 : Pixies – Blue Eyed Hexe
mp3 : Pixies – Down To The Well (session)
mp3 : Pixies – Hey (live)
mp3 : Pixies – Into The White

Side B

mp3 : Pixies – Vamos (live)
mp3 : Pixies – Motorway To Rosewell
mp3 : Pixies – Nimrod’s Son
mp3 : Pixies – Cactus
mp3 : Pixies – Head On

Hidden Bonus Track

mp3 : Pixies – There Goes My Gun (live)