Like a supernova they exploded into the indie consciousness, and just as surely they burned out.?? For 10 long years, Pixies fans heaped dream upon dream of a reunion, with but a faint flicker of real hope in their hearts.
Recently, however, talk of a supposed reunion of the seminal, post-punk band The Pixies has drawn a great deal of attention.??Many observers in the music industry were initially skeptical, and with good reason; the rancor between the former bandmates is a well-documented drama spanning 10 years.?? Nevertheless, what was once merely a rumor is now reality.?? The Pixies are reuniting!??
For the uninitiated, here is a bit of Pixies lore. The band was formed in Boston, Massachusetts in 1986.?? The story goes that roommates Charles Thompson (Black Francis) and Joey Santiago, hypnotized by the music of David Bowie, Iggy Pop, the Talking Heads and The
Buzzcocks, placed an ad in a newspaper in the hopes of starting a band. Local musicians Kim Deal and David Lovering replied, and thus the Pixies were formed.??The U.K. label 4AD signed the band on the strength of their \Purple Tape"" demo and quickly released , which established the Pixies characteristic stop-start guitar dynamics. The following year, the Pixies released Surfer Rosa, a landmark indie LP filled with jagged, infectious riffs and cryptic lyrics.??In 1989, the Pixies released to resounding critical praise.?? It was a more polished affair and generally considered their best work.?? and followed, but by 1993 the magic was gone and the Pixies imploded.??
What makes this reunion particularly intriguing is the fact that Black Francis, who now records under the name Frank Black, was so reticent to talk about or even play Pixies songs throughout the last decade.??He and the other band members preferred to forge their own musical identities.?? Over the last few years, however, Frank Black has been slowly reintroducing Pixies classics into his set list, fueling suspicion of an eventual reunion.??But no one was prepared for what Frank Black told London ratio station XFM in July of 2003.
""I do dream about the Pixies reunion, I do have to say. 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.""
If that has been the worry, it is clearly unfounded.?? The Pixies cult following has grown exponentially over the last few years, with most new converts being kids born in the '80's. This generation has never seen the Pixies perform live, ensuring an enthusiastic audience at every concert.?? Beyond that, bands like The Stroke and The Vines are all the rage, popularizing a number of the Pixies' trademark sounds.?? Many fans might cross over and listening to the Pixies will become just as fashionable??as their contemporaries. Even so, fans of new garage rock bands will find a sense of familiarity in the Pixies' music.??Joey Santiago and Black Francis together defined the Pixies' guitar sound with fluid, surf-style reverb, generous use of droning distortion and atonal melodies absorbed into classical pop structure. Yet, at their core, Kim Deal's bass playing and the drum work of David Lovering served to underscore a fundamental punk energy. Indeed, the Pixies' influence is pervasive,in the swagger of The Strokes and the loops of The Vines.
The Pixies will headline the Coachella Festival with Radiohead and Kraftwerk at the Empire Polo Field in Indio, California.?? No other dates are currently set, but many are assumed.?? If all goes well, a studio album will be released late in the year.
Short of the resurrection of Ian Curtis to reform of Joy Division, this could quite be one of the most memorable reunions in music history.
