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Underground > Radio & Music >

The Pixies

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Graham the Happy Scum

14:41 / 22.07.01

Well, maybe Nirvana were a wee bit overhyped. But I'm eternally grateful that their rise virtually killed off hair metal, even if it was to usher in really bad grunge in its place.

We need a band to do that now to all this infantile rap-rock garbage. (which, after all, is nothing PWEI and Faith No More didn't do a lot better a decade ago.)

19:11 / 22.07.01

quote: We need a band to do that now to all this infantile rap-rock garbage. (which, after all, is nothing PWEI and Faith No More didn't do a lot better a decade ago.)

Well said. I would have simply name checked Public Enemy and left it at that, though.

Pixies rool. Anyone else looking for the real rain?

Kali, Queen of Kitteh

17:21 / 23.07.01

PWEI a rap-rock hybrid? You think??? Really????

17:39 / 23.07.01

Well I don't know if they're a rock-rap hybrid per se but I would say PWEI at least did white boy rap and nerd rock at least before the current crop. The only song they have that I think really rocks though is "Can U Dig It?" IMHO.

"Alan Moore knows the score"
>>cue kick-ass guitar riff..<<

Graham the Happy Scum

11:10 / 24.07.01

OK, PWEI is perhaps a stretch there. At least it's a bit more cerebral than the latest crop of music to throw up beer by.

Anyway, I don't let it keep me up at night, because I know that in a couple of years there'll be another annoying genre of brat music to shade out this current crop of me-toos. So it goes with pop music.

The good stuff, such as The Pixies, tends to be timeless, yes?

Regrettable Juvenilia

11:35 / 24.07.01

The Pixies are indeed timeless. Timeless POP music. Come on, don't tell me 'Here Comes Your Man' isn't a pop song, and a stunningly brilliant one at that...

13:58 / 24.07.01

quote:Originally posted by Tom Coates:
I can't believe I didn't know this thread was here! I mean DEAR GOD. The whole 4AD alt-rock stable were my lifeblood for most of the early to mid nineties - .

4AD was a guarantee of quirky quality... sigh... Heidi Berry and the fantastic band that was Lush (at least I got to see them Live before they split - tragic)... they were difting into a more pop vein anyway... still good though...

Throwing Muses *yay* wasn't sure what to think of them after all the shake ups and stuff and then I heard Bright Yellow Gun and was won back..... Kristen Hersh's 'Hips and Makers' is fantastic.. haven't heard the rest yet....

His Name is Alive, another fantastic oddity band... sheer brilliance...

.... I'm sure there's more but I haven't got my CD's at work with me arse.... but most 4AD bands/singers and stuff are definitely worth checking out... I can't remember hearing anything bad from them.... unless someone can correct me....

20:08 / 25.07.01

"Debaser" comes in at number 4 in the NME's most requested ringtones chart.

08:50 / 26.07.01

quote:Originally posted by Opalfruit:
.... I'm sure there's more but I haven't got my CD's at work with me arse.... but most 4AD bands/singers and stuff are definitely worth checking out... I can't remember hearing anything bad from them.... unless someone can correct me....

Just off hand: Bauhaus, The The, Dead Can Dance, Cocteau Twins and the Birthday Party were all on there.

And I was never a goth. Honest.

Pin

08:50 / 26.07.01

quote:Originally posted by ephemerat:
And I was never a goth. Honest.

Can we not lie in my threads, please?

And PWEI are shit. I've have arguments about this with about half the staff of my local HMVB, and they haven't changed my mind. You won't either.

And you can hold good bands responsoible for the dross they inspire. Think Korn. They're OK, but hardly worth all that pain and suffering...

14:54 / 26.07.01

I think Korn should be held resonsible for everything. In particular, the fall of the Roman Empire, the great fire of London, the increasing popularity of ludicrously oversized shorts, innumerable instances of criminally ugly facial hair and needless abuse of the letter 'K'.

uncle retrospective

06:04 / 27.07.01

quote:Originally posted by ephemerat:

Just off hand: Bauhaus, The The, Dead Can Dance, Cocteau Twins and the Birthday Party were all on there.

And I was never a goth. Honest.

So your joking? Right? The The are shit but the rest? Bauhaus shit? The Birthday Party?

mutter, mutter, youny people these, don't even realise why we all loved PWEI, it was about the bouncing up and down a lot.
Kinda like terrorvision.

Shit. Nothing I ever say about music will ever be listened to.

08:07 / 27.07.01

quote:Originally posted by Kali:
Sadly, I am the only one who thinks the Breeders' Pod was better than Last Splash. I suppose that's because Tanya Donnelley can write better emotional songs than Kim Deal.

Yup I agree pod was a better album. Tanya Donnelley writes better songs, but Kristin Hersh is better than Tanya Donnelley.

08:29 / 27.07.01

quote:Originally posted by Dogstar:

Yup I agree pod was a better album. Tanya Donnelley writes better songs, but Kristin Hersh is better than Tanya Donnelley.

Ooh, this one could start a fight in some quarters.

I like both Kristen Hersh and Tanya Donnely. Kristen Hersh tends to be angrier, and darker in tone - more obvious in her songs. Whilst Tanya Donnely tends to hang lots of sparkly decorations around her songs, but once you start taking them apart they start getting dark and depressing.... oh and her lyrics can be a bit cloud cuckoo land but that's not a band thing....

Terrorvision. Yay. Shame their spliiting this Autumn... according to them anyway.

Oh and Rizla... about the shorts.... the Neds are back.... The Longest Day Nottingham,

Wonderstuff, Terrorvision, Neds Atomic Dustbin, The Chameleons... arse still got to buy a ticket.... WOO HOO. Must buy ticket... must buy ticket....

[ 27-07-2001: Message edited by: Opalfruit ]

08:29 / 27.07.01

quote:Belly again - first album GENIUS beyond measure - second album, too much alleged swagger to match with Tanya Donnelly's waifness. Bif of a pity. The b-sides of the first single from King though, are great.

Haven't got her solo album, although will now consider it.

I'm really surprised that no one has talked about the Throwing Muses and Kristen Hersh in this context. Some of the mid to later TM albums are just stunning, and include some of Tanya Donnely's best songs. You just can't go wrong with 'The Real Ramona' - it's fucking great and sounds kind of pixies/belly fusiony, only with a more 'I'm barking mad' edge to it. "Not Too Soon" is a GENIUS pop-song.[/QB]

I think I'm in love. Ditto to everything Tom said above.

I just saw the Breeders in Chicago a couple weeks ago... the show was great, would have been even better if beer wasn't 5 fucking dollars a cup. Being the beer-guzzler she is, I'm sure Kim Deal, if she had known, would have provided the entire audience with as much free alcohol as they could hold. The best part was when her mom and dad came out at the beginning of the show and said hi, proclaiming themselves "the breeders of The Breeders".

I think Pod is better than Last Splash, but I love both of them, they are so different in tone but both excellent. The best time to listen to Pod is a rainy Saturday afternoon, mmm.

On another related side note: What is the deal with Steve Albini produced records? Why the huge fucking dynamic ranges in the songs?... they are too fucking quiet and then after you crank up the volume to hear the beginning of the song, your speakers explode. Especially 'Rid of Me'. Aaargh!

This doesn't apply to all Albini stuff, but it's something i've noticed that gets on my nerves.

uncle retrospective

10:00 / 27.07.01

quote:Originally posted by TAJ:

I just saw the Breeders in Chicago a couple weeks ago...

You gig! I'm jelous. Git.

On another related side note: What is the deal with Steve Albini produced records? Why the huge fucking dynamic ranges in the songs?...

Cause it's ART I like his work, the edge it gives albums can make all the diference. Albini is the reason In Uturo was so much better that Nevermind.

And yuo've just reminded me I have to by a copy of rid of me.

16:01 / 27.07.01

quote:Originally posted by Opalfruit:

Terrorvision. Yay. Shame their spliiting this Autumn... according to them anyway.

Terrorvision up to 1998: Great pop tunes, lots of noise, fun without being too 'quirky' and - believe it or not - some songs which were actually really good. Ans some good lyrics too.

Terrorvision 1998 onwards: Two abysmal albums of abject shit and far too much self parody and dumb gooning.

I'm very glad they split, I think somebody shot a devolving ray at them after 'Regular Urban Survivors'..

20:55 / 27.07.01

quote:Originally posted by uncle retrospective:

Cause it's ART I like his work, the edge it gives albums can make all the diference. Albini is the reason In Uturo was so much better that Nevermind.

And yuo've just reminded me I have to by a copy of rid of me.

I started to write a long response to this when I thought about it and realized it's kind of nit-picky. I like most of his work, and I like the mood he can create; a lot of my favorite records are done by him. But aside from that, I still maintain that the dynamic thing is annoying, and NOT art. 2 perfect examples of this are 'Rid of Me' (the song) and 'Metal Man'.

Yeah, In Utero sounds great compared to Nevermind, but that's because Butch Vig is, well, Butch Vig. Ugh. And Shirley Manson is a twit. And quite unattractive without all her makeup, I might add.

01:19 / 28.07.01

Kristen Hersh has bi polar so she is mad, she uses her writing as an outlet for her voices. If you have ever listened to delicate cutters by the Throwing Muses. The Real Ramona is such a good album, some of the best pop tunes I've ever heard.

06:57 / 01.05.02

From an article in this Billboard article

The Pixies will be the subject of a nine-track collection of rarities due July 9 from spinART. Consisting of the remnants of the same 1987 recording session that yielded the band's seminal debut, "Come On Pilgrim," the self-titled disc will feature songs extracted from "Purple Tape," a demo recorded with Gary Smith at Fort Apache Studios in Boston.

Well known to loyalists as the demo that landed the Massachusetts four-piece its recording deal with 4AD, "Purple Tape" extracts the previously unreleased "Roc a My Soul," the B-side "Build High," and the original recording of "Here Comes Your Man."

Suitably packaged in purple, the project also features a primitive take on "Subbacultcha," which later surfaced on the Pixies 1991 swansong, "Trompe Le Monde." Further titles include "Broken Face," "Down To the Well," "Break My Body," "I'm Amazed," and "In Heaven (The Lady in the Radiator Song.)

Pretty sweet pic to go along with it, too.

07:25 / 01.05.02

I'd rather have hair metal than that crap grunge (save for Nirvana and STP who both fucking rule, I don't care what you fuckers say). Creed sucks in ways that Cinderella can only dream of. One thing to be said for Nirvana, however, is that their true accomplishment is not in changing the music scene, but getting so many more kids into bands like the Pixies and the Jesus Lizard and Sonic Youth and the Melvins, but not the Vaselines, because they fucking blow.

Matthew Fluxington

11:31 / 01.05.02

I think that it's really unfair to call Creed a 'grunge' band since they didn't exist in the early 90s, or were from Seattle.

Matthew Fluxington

11:32 / 01.05.02

Let me clarify that - unfair to the grunge bands, not to Creed. Creed are horrible, and have as much to do with the genre that they imitate as any other christian rock band who decide to ape ska, punk, etc.

14:40 / 01.05.02

With the exception of The Cult of Ray (what happened with that?), I think Frank Black has written some great songs since he killed the Pixies. And I can't help but like his solo stuff more than I like the Pixies now, but I think I just overplayed them.

..and Calistan is the best song. Ever.

16:23 / 01.05.02

the vaselines are bad. i think that's the joke. it was like, "well zappa made bad music, and was a great musician...what if we, as terrible musicians, make terrible music," or so i imagine.

i saw frank play last year, and he is a bit rude. no encore, really not into the crowd. he's finally started playing pixies songs again, and OH MY GOD does it rock to hear this shit live! i just wish kim deal was there to fix it up a bit. missed tanya donnely two weeks ago though. shazbot.

and responding to the old posts:
cobain said nevermind sounded like a pixies album
kurt cobain loved to talk out of his ass. he just didn't do it well enough for people to realize he was doing it.
pavement and kim deal have both ripped stp a new one
so did sonic youth's kim gordon on free kitten's album "nice ass" (something like "i don't need this stone temple pilots jizz"). a wonderful wonderful album. fills me wif joy, it does.

16:37 / 01.05.02

the vaselines are bad. i think that's the joke. it was like, "well zappa made bad music, and was a great musician...what if we, as terrible musicians, make terrible music," or so i imagine.

What the hell are you talking about?

Are you saying the Vaselines were joking? or Kurt was joking when he covered three of their songs? Not that it matters.

Their version of You Think You're A Man shits on everything thats on the radio right now.

Matthew Fluxington

16:53 / 01.05.02

I saw Frank last year, and he played for over two hours, and played a six-song encore. He improvises his sets live, and I imagine the reaction of the crowd has a lot to do with how he treats them. He played several Pixies songs - Gouge Away, Holiday Song, Nimrod's Son, Mr. Grieves, Where Is My Mind?, Monkey Gone To Heaven, Debaser, but he played a LOT of wonderful solo songs too. My only disappointment with the night was that he didn't play some solo songs that I love - Thallosacracy, Ten Percenter, Blast Off, If It Takes All Night, Czar.

Kurt Cobain was sincere in saying that he thought "Smells Like Teen Spirit" was a Pixies knock off, specifically lifting the dynamics/mood of "Gouge Away". I hear it. Most people do. Kurt lifted the Pixies' style of soft verses/heavy chorus, and made it huge.

About the Stone Temple Pilots - they don't suck nearly as hard as you are all saying, they've got some nice catchy tunes. "Vasoline", "Big Empty", "Days of the Week", "Big Bang Baby", "Tumble In The Rough" - those are good rock radio singles. They aren't special, but they certainly don't suck nearly as much as a lot of other things.

The Vaselines were pretty nice too.

17:28 / 01.05.02

i'm not bashing the vaselines. i really enjoy the "way of the vaselines" comp that seems to be the only thing around these parts by them. but c'mon, do you think that they didn't once, just once, laugh and say, "y'know, this...is really bad." and by imagining some zappa-referencing quote, i was trying to connect them to some very good music, therefore showing my appreciation for the band. and no, i'm sure the 'lines weren't wanking off to zappa. it was just a bs quote that didn't get my point accross as well as i hoped it would. too bad tone of voice/expression can't be translated in a post. also, quoted from the inner sleeve: "we hoped someone would get the joke. they did and we live on." and in my book, a sense of humor is the best attribute an artist can have, so in a roundabout way, it was a compliment.

and no, kurt cobain wasn't joking when he covered their songs, nor was he joking when he compared nevermind to the pixies (the song structures are amazingly identical), but i assume he "got the joke," just like all of the other fans, and besides: some of the stupid statements/lies he offered to the press were his "joke."

flux: yep, those were the exact songs he played here in philly. though i did have to convince my friends that requesting "gigantic" wasn't a good idea.

07:47 / 02.05.02

i wanna thank Riz, and the few other folk that seemed to make a point of it cuz it's PIXIES! not THE PIXIES! just PIXIES! check yr CDS!.. sigh... Tromp le Mond was played everyday to school each morning (home was Soul Coughin, Ruby Vroom) by my lil bro and i... the first thing i ever heard was Here Comes Your Man, bought the CD and almost immediatly went off it... 2 months later i listened to it again and fell in totally love... Tromp le Mond was also made quite separate from each other, and the band was hardly all in studio at the same time... Joey and David had a band called the Martinis, and i think they did some soundtrack work and not much else... Frank has all of his solo and Catholics b-sides work up at e-music.com somewhere... the only other 4AD band i ever got into was the Pale Saints...

11:53 / 02.05.02

I think I posted this before, but Joey Santiago wrote the theme song & was doing the music for "Undeclared".

Matthew Fluxington

12:11 / 02.05.02

I love how Radjose insists on dropping "The" from "Pixies" (even when proper grammar begs that you add the "The") to stay true to the album sleeves, but then goes on to consistently mis-spell Trompe Le Monde...

12:14 / 02.05.02

i wanna thank Riz, and the few other folk that seemed to make a point of it cuz it's PIXIES! not THE PIXIES! just PIXIES! check yr CDS!.. sigh...

True, but you know - the english language doesn't take well to having a pluralized noun without a definite article in front of it. I'm sure Melvins would agree.
[/geek]

12:15 / 02.05.02

You owe me a Coke, Flux.

06:38 / 03.05.02

"I love how Radjose insists on dropping "The" from "Pixies" (even when proper grammar begs that you add the "The") to stay true to the album sleeves"

i think it only bothers me when the grammer doesn't beg for the "the" like in the title of this tread and fight club credits, but i still say it grammtically incorrect, cuz for some reason i think it was intended to make the huge ass fans seem even odder

"but then goes on to consistently mis-spell Trompe Le Monde..."

yeah, heh heh, just cuz i'm astute doesn't mean i can spell... so dammit you caught me... what can i do to win back yr love Flux?

23:39 / 04.05.02

I have enjoyed the Breeders for a number of years now. Their blend of pop rock with its punky undertones really wets my whistle. Ever since "Saints" was being played on the radio back in the early nineties, I was hooked. I remember getting into a friend's car to go for a drive to his home in a small town outside the city I lived in. He started up his car and the radio was playing some annoying ad. I pounded my fist into the dash and demanded:

"Shut the hell up and play the Breeders."

A moment later, the commercial ends, and what starts playing?

The opening riff of "Saints."

I am always ready for summer.

Frank Black's solo work really stinks. I've tried to like it, but it was to no avail. But I have never really listened much to the Pixies, until recently.

In the last few weeks I have had the opportunity to hear a couple of their albums, and man, does it ever kick ass. It's is sugar coated yumminess for my ears. Damn fine stuff, and it makes me wonder why Mr. Black's solo work stinks so much.

Anyway, how many albums do the Pixies have, and what are some of your favorites?

m3

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